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ETHNOGENESIS AND THE CHUVASH LANGUAGE AS PER N. YA. MARR // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2021. Issue 2 (32). P. 151-160

In the 19th century, the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) continued the traditions of the study of the history, ethnography, and languages of the peoples living in the country. Ernst-Eduard Kunik, V. V. Radlov, N. Ya. Bichurin, N. I. Ilminsky, and August Ahlqvist were among the RAS members who took active part in this honorable initiative. In the 19th–20th centuries, a person standing out from the rest of them is N. Ya. Marr who was ambiguously assessed in science, from raising to incredible height to bringing down to zero. Marr managed to become one of the scientific leaders of St. Petersburg: V. V. Radlov, V. A. Zhukovsky, S. F. Oldenburg, V. V. Bartold, I. Yu. Krachkovsky and others were his intimate friends and relatives. An attempt to make an objective assessment of the works and identity of Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr. Marr’s works on the ethnogenesis and language of the Chuvash people are specified as the main subjects. Always focused on enrolment of the audience, Marr found a welcome audience among the young people and the government of Chuvashia. He started to work with post-graduates in the philological discipline, he and his employees were invited to take part in expeditions, deliver lectures, and study the museums. His works were published willingly in Cheboksary. Marr quickly managed to assure that the Chuvash were Japhetides which came from Mesopotamia. And his contemporaries promoted the assurance of the master’s ideas and even “extended” the thrown vision. However it is worth emphasizing that Marr never followed out the ethnogenesis ideas. He only dealt with ethnoglottochronology. Nevertheless, his vision is sometimes suggestive. For example, an explanation of the Chuvash ethnonym, the indirect indication of the fact that the historical ancestors came from the Caucasus, and the theory of dialects where unstressed “u” and “o” are pronounced. The negative thing in his works and speeches is the denial of ethnicity, and the illfated theory of four elements in the word semantics search. In many cases one has to agree with those who criticize Marr that he surrounded himself with great numbers of disciples, for the most of whom the Jathetide theory was above all else. Marr’s followers did severe damage to science. They used their positions to strike a blow against their personal enemies: at first they said that the “ethnos” term was difficult to prove and then gave preference to the same. However, this is familiar picture also in today's life.

Keywords: N. Ya. Marr, Chuvash, ethnogenesis, language, disciples