News

The winner of the 2024 Kindred Peoples' Programme's World Tree Award is the Hungarian Finno-Ugric and kindred people activist Szilárd Tibor Tóth.

The title was announced on 29 June 2024 in Kuhmo, Finland. Narva is the 11th Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture.

In the Republic of Mari El, Mari is the mother tongue of 7,400 pupils, which is nearly 9% of the total number of schoolchildren: of the 248 general education schools in the Republic of Mari El, Mari is taught as a mother tongue in 81 schools.

Tatyana Vladykina, Professor, Doctor of Udmurt Philology, Head of the Udmurt Institute of Language, Literature and History, has passed away.

In the spring of 2024, the source publication «Улон - питыран, сюлэм - пияла...»: 'одӥг Удмурт кышномуртлэн дауръем улон сюресэз' ('An Udmurt woman's century-long journey') appeared in the 25th issue of the Estonian Literary Museum's yearbook SATOR.

The director and actor Jaan Tooming, who considered Finno-Ugric ways of thinking important to Estonians, has passed away. Inspired by the work of Uku Masing, he reflected these thoughts in his theatre productions.

On 23 March, the general meeting of the Mari Republic regional social organisation Mari Ushem was held in Yoshkar-Ola, this time in a commercial venue. The republican, state-funded central institution for national organisations, the 'Friendship of Nations' (Дружба народов), did not provide a venue for the meeting.

URALIC Centre together with Sukukansojen Ystävät ry and the Finnish-Hungarian Society announced the beginning of the competition on 4 March 2024.

On 23 January, the Mari director of the Mari National Theatre turned 70 years. A festival of his plays will begin in February in honour of the significant date.

At the end of last year, sad news came out of Udmurtia of the passing of the eminent Udmurt linguist and Finnougrist Valei Kelmakov (14 January 1942–28 December 2023).

The Mari holiday begins on a Friday after the new moon after the Winter Solstice. Shorykyol lasts for a week, this year from 5 January to 12 January.

Mari Literary Language Day, celebrated on 10 December, has been a national holiday of the Republic of Mari El since 1998.