The average Russian knows little about the Mansi people. The exception is perhaps those who love adventures and unsolved mysteries. One of the most mysterious tragedies of the 20th century - the death of the Dyatlov group - took place in the land of the Mansi. One of the many versions of the reasons for the mystical story says that the Ekaterinburg students were “punished” by the spirits of the Mansi ancestors for the fact that the tourists dared to disturb the Mountain of the Dead - Kholat Syakhyl, where the ill-fated pass is located..
The Mansi (Mendsi, Moans; obsolete - Voguls, Vogulichi) are an indigenous small-numbered people of the North and Siberia. Their native language is Mansi, now about 60% use Russian as their main language. The total number of people according to the census of 2021 - 12 228 people. The ethnonym “Mansi”, which means “man” in Mansi, is the self-name of the people. When naming themselves, Mansi usually add the name of the area where the group originates from: for example, Sakv Mansit - Sagvin Mansi.
The writer, Alexei Ivanov, also glorified the Mansi, describing in his novel "The Heart of Parma” the raids of Voguls on the Zyryan lands.
As an ethnos, the Mansi were formed as a result of the merger of local tribes of the Ural Neolithic culture and Ugrian tribes moving from the south through the steppes and forest-steppes of Western Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan. The two-component (a combination of the cultures of taiga hunters and fishermen and steppe nomadic herders) in the culture of the people has been preserved to this day.
The Mansi once lived in the Urals and its western slopes, but Slavic and Zyrian tribes displaced them to the Trans-Urals region in the XI-XIV centuries. The earliest contacts with Russians, first of all with the enterprising and perky Novgorodians, date back to the 11th century. With annexation of Siberia to the Russian state at the end of the XVI century Russians became more and more numerous and at the end of the XVII century their number in the native lands of Mansi exceeded the number of aborigines. Mansi gradually moved to the north and east, partially assimilated, and in the XVIII century massively adopted Christianity.
The earliest contacts with Russians, primarily with the Novgorodians, date back to the 11th century. With the annexation of Siberia to the Russian state in the late 16th century, Russian colonization intensified, and already at the end of the 17th century the number of Russians exceeded the indigenous population. Mansi were gradually pushed to the north and east, partially assimilated, and in the XVIII century were converted to Christianity. The ethnic formation of Mansi was influenced by various peoples.
Traces of Vogul habitation were discovered in the Chanvenskaya (Vogul) cave located near the Vsevolodo-Vilva settlement in Perm Region. According to local historians, the cave was a Mansi kapit (pagan sanctuary) where ritual rites were performed. Bear skulls with traces of blows from stone axes and spears, shards of ceramic vessels, bone and iron arrowheads, bronze plaques of the Perm animal style depicting a moose man standing on a lizard, silver and bronze jewelry were found in the cave.
The number of Mansi in Russia:
Today Mansi together with their closest relatives - Khanty - live on the territory of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Yugra.
The Mansi language belongs to the Obsko-Ugric group of the Uralic language family and has several dialects: Sosvinsky, Upper-Lozvinsky, Tavda, Odnakondinsky, Pelymsky, Vagilsky, Middle-Lozvinsky, Lower-Lozvinsky.
Mansi writing appeared rather late - in 1931 - and at first it was based on the Latin alphabet, but since 1937 it was switched to the Cyrillic alphabet.
