The Seventeenth-Century Uralic Peoples and Language Processes

Abstract

Customarily, studies of Early Modern Russia stress agency emanating from below or from policy-makers at the top. This investigation chooses a middle path by examining the contributions of low-ranking administrative workers to homogenizing records-keeping through the creation of surnames. This was no easy task as these government personnel, with or without central direction, had to contrive criteria to formulate surname-creation. Surnames derived from occupations, physical characteristics, and perceived personality traits were one solution but so was topography and ethnicity. This study, using anthroponymy (the study of names) and hydronymy (the study of naming bodies of water) will portray how government workers in the field were able to organize local populations for the fisc through formulating surnames. This inquiry selects the Uralic-speaking populations of Northern Russia and Northwestern Siberia as its focus. The activities described unveil how local officials, whose identities remain unknown in larger thematic and national studies, were significant contributors to realm- and state-building through their unobtrusive policy-making via surname creation.