Erzya national activists convicted and given suspended sentences
On 10 April, a court in the Oktyabr district of the city of Saransk handed down a two-year suspended sentence to the national activists Yevgeny Chetvergov, 91, known in Erzya as Nujan Vidyaz, and his relative Mikhail Chetvergov, 76, known in Erzya as Iyogan Minke, accused of ‘participation in an extremist organisation’. The first hearing took place on 17 February.
The criminal case was opened on the basis of evidence found during searches in October 2023, when 16 people were detained and interrogated. The FSB confiscated computers, communications equipment, literature and symbols. According to the indictment, Chetvergov sent a greeting to the Erzya National Congress in Otepää in 2022, which adopted a decision to form an independent Erzya republic.
Yevgeny Chetvergov, who is of a respectable age, is one of the founders of the Mordvin (Erzya and Moksha) national organisation Mastorava in 1989. In 1993, he argued that the Erzya needed to organise separately. He is one of the founders of the Erzya Language Foundation (1993-2019), and editor-in-chief of Erzyan Mastor, a newspaper published by the foundation from 1994 to 2017.
The aim of the judgement is, of course, to exacerbate the already existing climate of fear, to warn off nationalist activists, not only of the Erzya but also of other Finno-Ugric peoples, to suppress national consciousness and to deepen assimilation.
