Chuvash Republic - Chuvashia
(Chuvash. Chăvash Republic; briefly
Chuvashia
(Chuvash. Chăvash En) is a subject of the Russian Federation, a republic within it. The capital is the city of Cheboksary.
It borders with the Nizhny Novgorod region in the west, with the Mari El Republic in the north, with Tatarstan in the east and with Mordovia and the Ulyanovsk region in the south.
It is part of the Volga Federal District and is part of the Volga-Vyatka economic region.
Formed on the basis of the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of June 24, 1920 as the Chuvash Autonomous Region on June 24, 1920. On April 21, 1925, it was transformed into the Chuvash Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic. Since July 15, 1929, as part of the Nizhny Novgorod Territory, since December 5, 1936 - the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. On October 24, 1990, the Supreme Council of the Republic adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty, since February 13, 1992, the Chuvash Republic.
Ethnonym: Chuvash, Chuvashka, Chuvash
Etymology
The name Chuvashia is derived from the ethnonym Chuvash. The appearance of the word “Chuvash” was recorded on the territory of the Kazan Khanate. Modern ethnonym Chuvash
was originally an exoethnonym for the ancestors of the Chuvash, used by the Kazan Tatars and Russians.
The exoethnonym is associated with the socionyme of the 16th-17th centuries, which indicated the class affiliation of people who paid yasak and were engaged in agriculture. The possibility of the origin of the ethnonym Chuvash
from the way of life of the people, that is, from the primary social content of the word, was first expressed by the publicist G. I. Komissarov.
Story
Taking into account the will of the people, on June 24, 1920, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR adopted a resolution, signed by V.I. Lenin and M.I. Kalinin, on the formation of the Chuvash Autonomous Region as part of the RSFSR. And at the end of 1924, the governing bodies of Chuvashia presented a project for transformation into the Czech Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. On April 21, 1925, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to transform the Chuvash Autonomous Region into the Chuvash Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic. Then, by a resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of June 20, the following volosts of the Alatyr district of the Simbirsk province were annexed to the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic: Alatyrskaya with the city of Alatyr, Poretskaya and Kuvakinskaya, with a population of 121,464 people.
In the 1920s, the idea of changing the name of the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic into the Bulgarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and renaming the Chuvash into Bulgarians, following the renaming of the Cheremis into Mari, was discussed. The proposal of local historians did not receive the support of the leadership and population of the republic.
“... Chuvash bourgeois nationalists who sought to use the Bulgar theory of the origin of the Chuvash people for their own hostile political purposes. In a number of works published by them in the 1920s, they propagated the assertion that the Chuvash are the only, direct and pure descendants of the Volga-Kama Bulgars, and allowed for a bourgeois-nationalist idealization of the era of the Volga Bulgaria state.
In the works of D. P. Petrov (Yuman), M. P. Petrov, A. P. Prokopyev-Milli and other local historians, the Bulgarian period was depicted as a “golden age” in the history of the Chuvash people, social-class contradictions and the presence of oppression of exploiters in this state. During these same years, bourgeois nationalists launched a campaign to rename the Chuvash people into Bulgars, and they proposed calling the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic “Bulgar.”
- Denisov P.V. Ethnocultural parallels of the Danube Bulgarians and Chuvashs. - Cheboksary, 1969. - P. 10
On October 24, 1990, the Supreme Council of Chuvashia adopted a declaration of the sovereignty of the republic and approved its new name - Chuvash SSR
. On May 24, 1991, the Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR approved this name by amending Art. 71 of the 1978 Constitution of the RSFSR. On February 13, 1992, with the adoption of the Law “On Changing the Name of the Chuvash SSR,” the Chuvash SSR became known as the Chuvash Republic.
Until 2001, the transliteration into Russian writing of the Chuvash name of the republic “Chӑvash Republic” was included in the full official name of the subject of the federation in Russian in the Constitution of the Russian Federation (Article 65). In accordance with Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated June 9, 2001 N 679, the name of the subject of the Russian Federation was changed to “Chuvash Republic - Chuvashia”.
In 2007, lawyer V.L. Bolgarsky-Vasiliev and writer Yukhma Mishshi proposed renaming Chuvashia to Volga Bulgaria:
Chuvashia should be renamed, called the “Republic of Volga Bulgaria”. This name is historical capital. They will look at our republic differently.
— Chuvashia should be called “Volga Bulgaria”
...to consider this option now, I think, is quite appropriate and legal. We have every right to be called the Republic of Volga Bulgaria.
— M. Yukhma: Knowledge of history is necessary
Historians V.D. Dimitriev and G.I. Tafaev, writers M.N. Yukhma and Yu.V. Dadyukov, lawyer V.L. Bolgarsky-Vasiliev in October 2012 in Cheboksary during a round table with the heads of delegations Chuvash national-cultural associations of Russia and foreign countries, held as part of the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the formation of the Chuvash National Congress, distributed an appeal to the Head of the Chuvash Republic M.V. Ignatiev, to the deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation A.G. Aksakov, V.S. Shurchanov, A.I. Arshinova, to the deputies of the State Council of the Chechen Republic with a proposal to restore the historical name of the Chuvash Republic “Republic of Chuvashia - Volga Bulgaria”.
On January 16, 2013, the State Council of the Chuvash Republic received a collective appeal with a request to initiate a change in the name of the Chuvash Republic to the historical name “Republic of Chuvashia - Volga Bulgaria” in Chuvash - “Chăvash - Atălçi Pălkhar Republic”, signed by G. I. Tafaev, M N. Yukhma, V. L. Bolgarsky-Vasiliev, Yu. V. Dadyukov, R. I. Shevlebi, N. I. Zavodskova, A. V. Pavlov.
Republic of Chuvashia, Volga Federal District, Chuvashia (Russia)
Region: Republic of Chuvashia
District:
Volga Federal District
Regional center:
Novocheboksarsk
International name:
Chuvashia
ISO code:
RU-CU
