Volga Finns in the context of "Mokshas"

The Finnic peoples, or simply Finns, are the nations who speak languages traditionally classified in the Finnic language family, and which are thought to have originated in the region of the Volga River. Currently, the largest Finnic peoples by population are the Finns (6 million), the Estonians (1 million), the Mordvins (800,000), the Mari (570,000), the Udmurts (550,000), the Komis (330,000) and the Sámi (100,000).

The scope of the term "Finnic peoples" (or "Finns") varies by context. It can be as narrow as the Baltic Finns of Finland, Scandinavia, Estonia, and Northwest Russia. In Russian academic literature, the term typically comprises the Baltic Finns and the Volga Finns, the indigenous peoples living near the Volga and Kama Rivers; the Perm Finns are sometimes distinguished as a third group. These eastern groups include the Finnic peoples of the Komi-Permyak Okrug and the four Russian republics of Komi, Mari El, Mordovia and Udmurtia. The broadest sense in the contemporary usage includes the Sámi of northern Fennoscandia as well. In older literature, the term sometimes includes the Ugrian Finns (the Khanty, Mansi and Hungarians), and thus all speakers of Finno-Ugric languages.Based on linguistic connections, the Finnic peoples are sometimes subsumed under Uralic-speaking peoples, uniting them also with the Samoyeds. The linguistic connections to the Hungarians and Samoyeds were discovered between the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.

Golyad (Russian: голя́дский язык) or East Galindian (Latvian: austrumgalindu valoda, Lithuanian: rytų galindų kalba) is a poorly attested extinct Baltic language of the Dnieper Balts living in the Protva basin in present-day Russia. The Golyad people are believed to have descended from the Moshchiny culture and is the only known ethnonym for the Dnieper-Oka language. Due to there being no known written documents of the Golyad language, the language is poorly known. The language went extinct in the 12th century due to Early Slavic migration and assimilation. It is believed the vernaculars of the Finno-Ugrians and Volga Finns adopted loanwords from East Galindian.

The Krivichs or Kryvichs (Russian: кри́вичи, romanized: krivichi, IPA: [ˈkrʲivʲɪtɕɪ]; Belarusian: крывічы́, romanized: Kryvichý, IPA: [krɨvʲiˈt͡ʂɨ]) were a tribal union of Early East Slavs between the 6th and the 12th centuries. It is suggested that originally the Krivichi were native to the area around Pskov. They migrated to the mostly Finnic areas in the upper reaches of the Volga, Dnieper, Dvina, areas south of the lower reaches of river Velikaya and parts of the Neman basin.

Jumala (Finnish: [ˈjumɑlɑ]), Jumal (Estonian: [ˈjumɑl]) or Jumo (Mari) means 'god' in the Finnic languages and those of the Volga Finns (Mari, Erzya and Moksha languages), both the Christian God and any other deity of any religion. The word is thought to have been the name of a sky god of the ancient Finnic-speaking peoples. Jumala as a god of the sky is associated with the related Estonian Jumal, Mari Jumo and is thought to stem from an ancient tradition of the Finno-Ugric peoples.

The Permians are the peoples who speak the Permic languages, a branch of the Uralic language family, which includes Komis, Udmurts, and Besermyans.

The Dnieper Balts were a subgroup of the Balts that lived in the Dnieper river basin for millennia until the Late Middle Ages, when they were partly destroyed and partly assimilated by the Slavs by the 13th century. To the north and northeast of the Dnieper Balts were the Volga Finns, and to the southeast and south were the ancient Iranians, the Scythians.

The Dnieper Balts have been studied by many researchers, such as the Lithuanian linguist Kazimieras Būga, the German linguist Max Vasmer, and the Russian linguists Vladimir Toporov and Oleg Trubachyov.