From the Permyaks and the Komi to Komi-Permyaks: The Formation of the Ethnonym

The article observes the specificity of the existence of Komi-Permyak ethnonyms, the construction of a new official ethnonym for this ethnic group during the first years of the Soviet power as well as ethno-cultural processes that reflect the peculiarity of Komi-Permyaks’ development and the use of the ethnonyms in the 19th – at the beginning of the 20th century on the basis of ethnographic published sources of the 18th – the beginning of the 20th century, documentary sources of the 1920-1930s from archival collections of central and regional archives and expeditionary materials of the end of the 20th – the beginning of the 21st century. It notes that in the 18th – at the beginning of the 20th century there were two ethnonyms to name this ethnic group. One of them – the Permyaks – was an official name and was used in social discourse. It was the only name mentioned in publications in Russian and in dictionaries and first Komi-Permyak alphabet books. The second ethnonym – the Komi – was fixed by researchers but it was an endoethnonym, in social sphere its use was mostly limited by scientific and scientific-popular literature. This peculiarity in the use of these two ethnonyms was typical of many people of the Volga region and Ural at that period. The ethnonym “Permyak” was also used as the name of the ethnic group and in this form it was preserved by peripheral Komi-Permyak groups till the beginning of the 21st century. The turning point in the establishment of the ethnonym “Komi-Permyak” was the period of the 1920s when its formation and later dissemination and acceptance started. The formation of the ethnonym occurs together with the processes of national and state formation of the “Permyaks” of Perm Governorate and the creation of Komi-Permyak State Okrug of the Ural region. In the 1990s the most active discussions and the wide spread of new ethnonyms were typical of peripheral groups of Komi-Permyaks which were locally called “the Komi of Yazva” and “the Komi of Zuzdino” but in each of these groups the ethnic processes had different vectors and led to different results. Nowadays although the use of the ethnonym has a long-standing tradition still there are certain discussions on the status and the name of this ethnic group. All the studied phenomena of the formation and the existence of ethnonyms reflect complex and dynamic ethnic processes.