What if the Uralic people managed to repel the slavic migrations and managed to make their own states?

Metsavana

Before the Russians came, modern day north-west Russia was inhabited by multiple Uralic people. Some were nomadic, some were farmers. They're still around nowadays, but slowly dying out.
The question that the title asks is simple, what if they managed to survive and have their own states? How different would world history be if OTL Russia was covered in multiple smaller countries?
 

prani

Metsavana said:
Before the Russians came, modern day north-west Russia was inhabited by multiple Uralic people. Some were nomadic, some were farmers. They're still around nowadays, but slowly dying out.
The question that the title asks is simple, what if they managed to survive and have their own states? How different would world history be if OTL Russia was covered in multiple smaller countries?
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Before the slavs they were under the heels, sometimes literally of Iranic scythians, sarmatians and if not for the slavs, turkic tribes might just absorb them, like if you go back far enough they were under the influence of indo Europeans and Iranic languages probably emerged from the interaction between the indo Europeans and the proto uralic people.
Point here is people of the forest were always at the mercy of people of the steppe although they people of the steppe were not able to fully absorb them, they usually dominated over them because of horses and by sheer numbers, unless you get a large enough number of uralic speaking nomads on the scale and the skill of the scythians.
You have to butterfly away the scythians to get a uralic tribe to dominate the steppe, maybe all of the scythians go to Europe or south Asia? For some reason?
 
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Metsavana

I actually don't know much about these other cultures dominating the indigenous people. Main goal is to have the Uralic people keep their land from being ruled by foreign rulers
 

Arkenfolm

Mordvins and Permians came the closest IOTL. Permians had their own alphabet and two of their own states . But IIRC Great Perm by that era was already fairly assimilated into Russian culture because it emerged as a vassal state of Novgorod and maintained a sort of independence by being at the edge of Novgorod's sphere of influence.

The Mordvins seemed like they were on the cusp of it in the early 13th century under their strong prince Purgaz, but they fell afoul of the Mongols. Purgaz was murdered by another leader, Puresh, who allied with the Mongols but then tried betraying them yet his plot was discovered and he and thousands of Mordvins were killed. There was an autonomous Mordvin portion of the Jochid state that became the Kasimov Khanate, but its rulers were Tatars IIRC and its people either converted to Islam and were assimilated into the Tatar ethnicity or converted to Christianity and became Russians.

Given these facts, the Mordvins (specifically the Erzya) seem like a better candidate than the Permians since they are at the borderland between Russian states and Volga Bulgaria (which later became the heartland of the Tatars) and could theoretically convert to Islam or Christianity (ideally something separate like Shia Islam or Nestorianism) and adopt an alphabet suitable for their language (like the St. Stephen of Perm's alphabet). They could emerge as a buffer state, conquer nearby Volga Finns like the Mari/Cheremis and play the Russians and Tatars off each other. Unfortunately, I think their lifespan is fairly limited unless the Jochids reform into a gunpowder empire and take the place of the Russians in Siberia. And that in turn leads to problems if Russia collapses but another power like Poland-Lithuania isn't able to take over.

As a side note, Medieval Russian sources also describe various Khanty and Mansi "principalities" but it seems like these were closer to tribal confederations than anything else and the Russians were describing them in a context they would understand (much as 16th/17th century Europeans described tribal confederations in North America as "kingdoms" and powerful native leaders as "kings").
 

kholieken

Thule packages for Uralic people for POD ?

Answering question about Russia: most smaller states would be vassal and protectorates of first group who succeed in unifying Volga. If however Volga can be held by multiple states like Danube, then entirety of region between Ural and Polish border would be like Balkans, hostile states that dislike each other and can be pressured by foreign power.
 
Petike

Petike

Metsavana said:
Before the Russians came, modern day north-west Russia was inhabited by multiple Uralic people. Some were nomadic, some were farmers. They're still around nowadays, but slowly dying out.
The question that the title asks is simple, what if they managed to survive and have their own states? How different would world history be if OTL Russia was covered in multiple smaller countries?
Click to expand...
Russia started invading the homelands of these Uralic-speaking peoples since the 16th century and especially the 17th century.

One major factor in the warfare advantages was the fact the Russian Tsardom had gunpowder and already fairly formiddable armies even before power was centralized by the Russian tsars. That's hard to counter with things the Uralic people could use for their defence. They also don't have the same feudal or early standing armies of the early modern Russian tsardom, or all that easy access to metal tools, weapons and armour, aside from trade.

Personally, I think you'd first need some sort of a "Uralic Temüjin" or something in that vein (not necessarily a male, even some noblewoman could maybe achieve it). Unite the peoples and tribes, at least those willing to work with each other and form a defensive alliance, and work on creating fortifications in Russian-threatened areas, and on introducing or expanding metallurgy, weapon-making and other crafts and economic activities that could help create better defences against Russian encroachment. This will also influence Uralic society and bring about certain social changes and tensions, among the more "rural" and wilderness Uralic people and families, and the newly-forming, newly-expanded proto-townsmen or even townsmen class. The various Uralic aristocracies are also bound to develop and diversify in the midst of all these pro-defensive changes.

Arkenfolm said:
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Great post !
 
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Arkenfolm

Petike said:
Russia started invading the homelands of these Uralic-speaking peoples since the 16th century and especially the 17th century.

One major factor in the warfare advantages was the fact the Russian Tsardom had gunpowder and already fairly formiddable armies even before power was centralized by the Russian tsars. That's hard to counter with things the Uralic people could use for their defence. They also don't have the same feudal or early standing armies of the early modern Russian tsardom, or all that easy access to metal tools, weapons and armour, aside from trade.
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Volga Finns already had hillforts and metalworking by the time the Russian principalities started making serious incursions on their lands. I believe the main distinction was economic/social, and probably not that much since some of their tribes were absorbed into the Russian nation.
 

Gloss

Petike said:
They did, but it was hardly some large-scale conquest into a Slavic-speakers-dominant empire. The earlier settlers largelly lived next to locals.
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It seems reasonable to think that Slavs outnumbered Uralic people in the regions they settled in a few centuries at most.
 
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