ARCHAIC “MONETARY SYSTEMS” OF PERMIAN AND VOLGA-FINNISH PEOPLES IN WRITTEN SOURCES OF THE LATE XIX — EARLY XX CENTURIES
DOI: 10.23951/2307-6119-2022-1-172-186
In written sources of the late XIX — early XX centuries of the Finno-Ugric peoples of the Permian and Volga groups fragments of an old monetary settlements using monetary terms dating back to the name of a fur-bearing animal (squirrels): Komi ур “copeck”, Udm. коньы “copeck”, “money”, Mar. ыр, уp “сopeck”, “small coin”, Mord. oral ур “copeck”, “penny” have been preserved. This count differs significantly from the modern one, however, it is consistently identified as common to ethnically and geographically different groups of the non-Russian population of the Volga region and the Urals, for example, 7 ур, ыр, коньы — 2 сopecks; 17 ур, ыр, коньы — 5 сopecks; 77 ур, ыр — 22 сopecks; 105 ур, ыр, коньы — 30 сopecks; 140 ур, ыр — 40 сopecks; 350 ур, коньы — 100 сopecks, etc. In the 1950s of the last century, attempts were made to reconstruct the national accounting and monetary systems based on these fragments, to determine the time of their appearance and mathematical methods of converting Russian monetary units into the national currency, but the problem remained at the level of discussions. In order to further verify the existing narratives, as well as to clarify the origin and historical essence of these cultural and linguistic artifacts, the author carried out a comprehensive analysis of all monetary archaisms of the Komi, Udmurt and Mari languages as elements of a single system. The presented research results allow us to draw fairly definite conclusions of both a specific and more general nature. They are as follows: 1) the origin of the “squirrel” monetary terms, obviously, should be referred to the early period of monetary exchange trade, with fur being an important element; however, in the foreseeable historical retrospect, there was no “squirrel currency”, the nominal values of уров, ыров and коньы were not related to the cost of squirrel skin; 2) in a multinational state with a single financial and monetary system, national monetary terms could only be the names of Russian monetary units, as a rule, of small change denominations required for retail turnover; 3) at different times, depending on the state of the national monetary system, national names of money were applied to different monetary units that were in circulation, and, accordingly, had nominal values of these units; 4) fragments of the Komi, Udmurt and Mari monetary settlements preserved in written sources, folklore and folk memory are almost identical, which indicates their common origin; they are a relic reflection of the state of the Russian monetary system during the reform period of 1839–1846, when different paper and metal money were in simultaneous circulation, and were exchanged at the rate of 1:3.5; 5) attempts to reconstruct national monetary systems in which уры, ыры and коньы were in “equivalent relations with the Russian copeck” have no prospects, since Russian (old and new) copper copecks were in equivalent relations at that time, and national terms at different times acted only as the names of both; 6) the national monetary terminology, which is also available in other languages of Russia, is of interest for ethnohistorical research, since it can be used in the reconstruction of the all-Russian monetary settlements in one or another period of its history.
Keywords: the Russian financial system, monetary reform, names of money, the Komi, the Udmurts, the Mari, XIX century
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Issue: 1, 2022
Series of issue: Issue 1
Rubric: ANTHROPOLOGY
Pages: 172 — 186
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