Udmurt Vos

Udmurt Vos (Udmurt: Удмурт Вӧсь, literally "Udmurt Faith") is the ethnic religious revival of the Udmurts, a Finno-Ugric ethnic group inhabiting the republic of Udmurtia in Russia. Among the Udmurts, as in other Finno-Ugric republics in the Volga region, the revival of Paganism is inextricably intertwined with the revival of national-ethnic culture and awareness.

The Udmurtian Pagan revival circles sprang out of the Demen (Udmurt for "Society") movement which was established in December 1989 for the protection and restoration of the Udmurt ethnic culture. Udmurt Vos as an institution was founded in 1994.

According to 2012 statistics, 2% of the population of Udmurtia adheres to forms of Paganism. Victor Schnirelmann reported an adherence of 4% for the Udmurts alone.

The Udmurt word vös’ means "prayer", "sacrifice", "religion", "faith" and as a root derives many other words in the Udmurt language, among which vös’as’kon meaning "prayer", "sacrifice", vös’as’ meaning "priest", and the verbs vös’any meaning "to pray", "to sacrifice", "to hallow", vös’as’kyny that means "to pray", "to beg", and vös’atyny meaning "to sacrifice".

The first date in the history of Christianisation of the Udmurts is 1557, when Ivan the Terrible conferred privileges on baptised Udmurt families by an imperial deed. However, tough attempts to convert all the Udmurts were undertaken only in the middle of the 18th century, when the government began to implement measures to Christianise the population, sending missionaries who built churches and schools. Pagans were repressed, and sacred groves, prayer sites and pagan burial grounds were destroyed.

Various attempts to restore the Udmurt native religion emerged, for example the movement of the "Lime-Tree Worshippers" in 1849. However, in contrast to the Mari, the Udmurt Pagans did not display any tendency to centralise or formalise their religion.

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Wikipedia