Mikhail Vasilyevich Zhukov (1913, Bolshoye Teryushevo — January 17, 1997, ibid.) — a rural schoolteacher and school principal, local historian, and collector of Teryukhan folklore. He spent his entire life in the former "capital" of the Teryukhan Mordva, led pupils to sites associated with Kuzka-bog — Alekseyev Kuzma, wrote notes for district newspapers, and donated his collected materials to the district museum and library.[1] Material about him was gathered by a folklore and ethnographic expedition of the Nizhny Novgorod Museum-Reserve, which worked in Dalnekonstantinovsky District from July 29 to August 2, 2019.[1]
Teryushevsky
Zhukov was born in 1913 in Bolshoye Teryushevo — the former administrative center of Teryushevskaya volost, inhabited by the Mordva-Teryukhans — the northernmost group of the Mordva.[1][2] The Zhukov surname appears on the list of native village residents alongside family nicknames — Olyoshiny, Bandeyevy, Zaplatiny, Serganiny: this was how people in Teryukhan villages told those sharing the same surname apart, and a record from 1978–1980 still captured these nicknames.[3]
As a teenager he witnessed the work of the ethnographic expedition of M. T. Markelov and S. P. Tolstov — and the museum's account connects that experience to his subsequent path in life.[1] He graduated from the Arzamas Pedagogical College, taught in the selo of Tamozhnikovo and the village of Gorodishchi, completed the history and geography faculty of the Gorky Pedagogical Institute by correspondence, and while studying began working at the seven-year school in his home village; he later became its principal.[1]
Teacher
«He always tried to get his pupils interested in the history of their home region» — so runs the museum's account of his work.[1] He took schoolchildren on hikes through the Dalnekonstantinovsky District and to the Pustynskie Lakes, and separately to sites associated with Alekseyev Kuzma of Bolshoe Seskino, the leader of an eschatological movement among the Teryukhans in the early nineteenth century.[1]
According to the recollections of his son Aleksandr Mikhaylovich, he could play anything: «a Russian accordion, a chromatic accordion — he played both kinds, and they're different, and the guitar, and the balalaika. Always at the club with his accordion, playing chastushkas and whatever else was called for.» His daughter-in-law adds that he knew poems by heart and more than once won prizes at district recitation competitions.[1]
Zhukov considered himself an atheist, but according to his son, «he observed all the church holidays, he knew all the customs very well, down to the finest detail — we celebrated Easter, we celebrated all the holidays.»[1]
9 May 1945
Zhukov was not taken to the front on medical grounds and remained the only man of conscript age in the village; the family took in two families from Belorussia.[1] He followed news from the front constantly — and was the first in the village to announce the victory.[1]
The morning of that day was remembered by his pupil Mariya Mikhaylovna Kazikina, born in 1937. The village had neither a radio receiver in every yard nor a siren: hanging from a willow by a neighbour's house was a cast-iron plate that was struck with a mallet whenever there was a fire or it was time to go out to work.[1]
In the afternoon there was a meeting at the club, and after it — a prayer service, the first in many years; it was authorised by the village council.[1]
We open the window, and there, by the willow, is Mikhail Vasilyevich, our school principal, beating the plate and shouting: «The war is over! Victory!» and he's crying, tears streaming down his face… some people are crying from grief, some from joy
The fire in Bogoyavleniye
In 1985, when Zhukov was already past seventy, he was travelling by scheduled bus to Gorky when he saw smoke rising over the village of Bogoyavleniye. He got off at the stop and rushed to help fight the fire at the church; a group of soldiers also got off the bus and took part in extinguishing it.[1]
For the heroism he displayed during the firefighting, the Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas Diocese awarded him an engraved watch — though he was only found five years later, when the restoration of churches began. He befriended those soldiers and corresponded with them until his death, and on Victory Day they would meet.[1]
The selo of Bogoyavleniye held considerable importance in those parts: before the revolution, it was there that the zemstvo chief, the district police officer, the zemstvo station, and the postal-telegraph office were all located, while Dalnee Konstantinovo itself had, in essence, nothing but a church.[4]
Collection
Zhukov gathered everything relating to his native selo and the surrounding area: ethnographic objects, folklore, memoirs, documents. Part of the collection of the Dalnekonstantinovsky District Local History Museum consists of items he found and donated to the museum free of charge.[1]
His book collection went to the library of Bolshoye Teryushevo, and from there to the Malopitskaya library. His handwritten archive of notes, memoirs, and folklore findings he entrusted to the writer and historian Yury Vasilyevich Makhalov for use and publication.[1]
The collection also contained a bibliographic rarity — the novella by P. M. Krasovsky, "Kuzka — the Mordovian God, a Tale from the History of the Mordovian People," published in 1898; another copy is held in the research library of the Nizhny Novgorod Museum-Reserve.[1][5]
Zhukov died on 17 January 1997 and was buried in the cemetery of Bolshoye Teryushevo.[1] What he collected is part of the raw material from which the history of a nearly vanished group is being reconstructed today: Teryukhan antiquities are displayed at museum exhibitions, and their villages are surveyed by archaeologists.[6] Zhukov's place in this tradition lies in the collection on the Erza and Mordva of the region, which brings together both the Teryukhan villages themselves and the people who documented them.[1]
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1913 | born in the selo of Bolshoye Teryushevo |
| 1920s | as a teenager, witnessed the ethnographic expedition of M. T. Markelov and S. P. Tolstov |
| 1930s | graduated from the Arzamas Pedagogical College; taught in Tamozhnikovo and Gorodishcha |
| 1940s | completed a correspondence degree at the Gorky Pedagogical Institute; taught at the school in his home selo, later becoming its principal |
| 1945 | was the first in the selo to announce the end of the war |
| 1985 | participated in extinguishing a fire at the church in the selo of Bogoyavleniye; received a personalized watch from the diocese |
| 1997 | died on January 17; buried in Bolshoye Teryushevo |
| 2019 | an expedition from the museum-reserve collected materials about him in the Dalnekonstantinovsky District |
Sources
- ngiamz.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Museum-Reserve — A. V. Sorokina. "His position was — doing good deeds." Mikhail Vasilyevich Zhukov (archive)
- dangralas.ru — Lapshikha: a collection of materials on the Teryushevskaya volost (archive)
- opentextnn.ru — Open Text — I. L. Mininzon. Onomastics of the Teryukhans (field collections of 1978–1980) (archive)
- nn-tourist.ru — Tourism portal of Nizhny Novgorod Region — Dalnee Konstantinovo (archive)
- P. M. Krasovskiy — Kuzka — a Mordovian deity, a tale from the history of the Mordovian people. 1898
- museum.unn.ru — Museum of Lobachevsky University — Exhibition "Mordva-Teryukhane: evidence of the past", 30 June 2017 (archive)