Principality of Great Perm | ||||||||||
Ыджыт Перем öксуму | ||||||||||
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Capital | Cherdyn, Pokcha | |||||||||
Languages | Komi-Permyak | |||||||||
Religion | Komi polytheism, Russian Orthodox | |||||||||
Government | Monarchy | |||||||||
• | 1481–1505 | Matvey Mikhaylovich | ||||||||
History | ||||||||||
• | first mention | 1323 | ||||||||
• | Annexed by Grand Duchy of Moscow | 1505 | ||||||||
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Great Perm (Russian: Пермь Великая) or simply , Latinized Permia, was a medieval Komi state in what is now the Perm Krai of the Russian Federation. Cherdyn is said to have been its capital.
The origin of the name Perm is unknown. While the city of Perm is a modern foundation named for Permia, the town of Cherdyn was reportedly itself known as "Great Perm" in the past. Cherdyn acted as a central market town, and it is sometime suggested that perm was simply a term for "merchants" or "market" in a local language, but there have been other suggestions. The same name is likely reflected in the toponym Bjarmaland in Norse sagas. The general region of Great Perm was known as wisu (وِيسُو wīsū) in medieval Arab ethnography, so referred to in the works of Ahmad ibn Fadlan, Al-Gharnati, Zakariya al-Qazwini and Yaqut al-Hamawi (in his Dictionary of Countries). The term is perhaps derived from the name of the Ves' people who settled around Lake Ladoga and the upper Sukhona River.