Formation of modern ethnographic map of Orenburg region (‘Orenburgie’)

Ethnographic map of Orenburg region had been forming for a sustained period of time under the influence of variable order factors. The most essential ones are geographical situation at the confluence of landscapes, cultures and civilizations, ethnocultural history, and Russian politics. Steppe landscapes became a nomads’ cradle of civilization. Later other peoples became adjusted to life on steppe. The distance from the center and minimal control from the authorities turned out to be attractive for marginal groups – escaped esnes, dissents, secteries. The lands, prolific and uninhabited by settled population, attracted peasants to place the lands under cultivation, rich by mineral resources, had a beneficial effect on industrial development in the years of socialism. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, state bounders became the most crucial factor influenced on changing ethnocultural space.

In the ethnocultural formation of the region, some stages are observed, each of which is characterized by adaptation models.

1. Early stage (before IX-X centuries). In that period, the ethnoses were changing each other as a consequence of migration from East to West. And they have not survived until the present time. This territory lived through several waves of settlement, from gatherers, fishermen and hunters of the primitive period as ancient Yam culture presenters who found habitation and food, vital for life on the steppe. The cultural layer included settled peoples having lived there before nomads came was saved in the landscape as burial sites, archeological remains of ancient hillforts, and in toponymy.

At the end of the period (IX-X cent.), in the territory, the Baskirs appeared there having been living in the region till the present time. They led a nomand existence based on hunting and cattle breading, trading with neighbours. Since the beginning of the 10th century, Moslemism started to be expatiated among them.

2. Nomadic stage (IX-X cent. – the 30s of the XVIII century). Nomadic assimilation model is being accompanied by the complete or fractional substitution of sedentary cultures in consequence of its absorption, assimilation, destruction, and expulsion. Moreover, on the one hand, the authentic culture is marginalizing there. On the other hand, it is fertilizing the invaders’ culture. The descendants of nomads (the Baskirs and the Kozaks) have been living in the region by the present time, therefore, the others budged from the territory. In the XIII cent., the region was invaded by the Mongol-Tatars assimilated in the Polovets ambiance. Since the mid- XIII cent. before the mid- XV cent., in the Golden Horde period, Islamic teaching has become an ideological framework for the Turkic peoples inhabited the region. 

Map

“Resettlement of the largest peoples of the Orenburg region (plea to the census materials dated by 2002)”

Signs

Indo-European family

Slavic group: Russians, Ukrainians

Germanic group: Germans

Indo-Aryan group: Romani

Altaian family

Turkic group: Tartars, Baskirs, Kozaks, Chuvashes, Turks

Uralian family

Finnish group: Mordva

Territories with mixed-ethnicity population

Persons of other ethnicities

Topographical names on the map

Abdulino, Buguruslan, Buzuluk, Gay, Kuvandyk, Mednogorsk, Novotroitsk, Orenburg, Sorochinsk, Yasny