The Nenets. General information (endonyms, ethnographic groups, population according to the latest census, settlement)

The total number of Nenets, according to the 2020 All-Russian Population Census, is 49,787 people (23,521 men and 26,266 women).

Territorially, the Nenets are divided into European and Asian (Siberian) Nenets. The European Nenets live in the Nenets autonomous area (7.504 persons), the Mezen, Leshukonskoye, and Primorsky districts of the Arkhangelsk region (8.020 persons), a small part of them live in the northern areas of the Komi Republic (503 persons), the Lovozero district of the Murmansk region (149 persons)  and in St. Petersburg (109 persons). The Siberian Nenets live mostly in the Yamal Nenets autonomous area (29.772 person), in the Taymyr Dolgan Nenets municipal district of the Krasnoyarsk territory (3.633 persons). The Forest Nenets (about 1.500 persons) live on the border of the Yamal-Nenets autonomous areas (the Pur and Nadym districts) and the Khanty Mansi autonomous area (the Beloyarsky and Surgut districts).

The Nenets are an indigenous small-numbered people of the Russian North. Culture- and language-wise, the Nenets form two independent communities: the Tundra Nenets and the Forest Nenets. The Tundra Nenets live in the vast space of the Eurasian north from the Kola Peninsula in the west to the Taymyr Peninsula in the east. The Forest Nenets populate the northern tundra in the catchment area of the river Pur and the Numto mesa, from the upper reaches of the rivers Kazym, Nadym, and Pim to the upper reaches of the Agan. 

The Nenets belong to the Samoyed peoples of the Uralic language family that also includes the Enets (the lower reaches of the Yenisei), Nganasans (the Taymyr Peninsula), and Selkups (the catchment areas of the rivers Taz, Turukhan, and Narym area along the Ob). The Nenets language has Tundra and Forest dialects (sometimes considered to be separate languages). The tundra dialect is divided into the western group (spanning the Kolguev, Kanin, Timan, Malozemelsky, and Bolshezemelsky sub-dialects) and the eastern group (it has the Ural, Yamal, Nadym, Taz, and Taymyr sub-dialects). The forest dialect has Pur, Lyamino, and Naylinskoe sub-dialects The Nenets language spans about one million square kilometers from the estuary of the Severnaya Dvina along the coasts of the Arctic Ocean extending to the Kanin Peninsula, Malozemelskaya, and Bolshezemelskaya tundra, the Polar Urals, the Yamal Peninsula, the tundra in the Gulf of Ob, northern taiga of the Numto mesa and the catchment area of the Pur, the Gydan Peninsula, and the tundra in the Yenisei’s estuary. With the exception of the forest dialect, the Nenets language manifests such insignificant differentiations that a Nenets person from the Taymyr Peninsula easily understands a Nenets person from the Kanin Peninsula. The dialect of the forest Nenets spans about 50.000 square kilometers and is very different from the tundra dialect, for in some ways, it is closer to the Enets language.

The origins of Northern Samoyedic peoples are still being hotly debated. The Fischer-Castrén hypothesis claims that Northern Samoyeds emerged when Samoyedic tribes moved from Southern Siberia (the foothills of the Altai Mountains and of the Sayan Mountains) northward to the taiga and tundra areas of the Polar region. Georgy N. Prokofiev, Boris O. Dolgikh, Lydmila V. Khomich, Vladimir I. Vasiliev supplemented this theory by demonstrating that the mingling of Southern Samoyedic migrants and the small-numbered original population of the Polar region produced the two-component ethnic makeup of the Nenets and related peoples. Philip von Strahlenberg proposed another theory defining Northern Samoyeds as the indigenous population of the Urals and claiming that ancient Samoyed peoples came from the west and moved eastward, beyond the Urals, and from the north to the southeast up to the Altai mountains and the Sayan Mountains. Andrey V. Golovnyov suggested that the Nenets and other Samoyedic peoples originally appeared around the Northern Ural mountains, which is confirmed by the latest archeological discoveries. 

The Nenets use the endonyms nenets’, hasava (the tundra dialect) and neshchang (the forest dialect) meaning “person, man.” The nenets ’ ethnonym is used together with the adjectives nenei or nenei nenets’ , “a real person.” The Tundra Nenets call their forest relatives pyan-hasava (forest people) or Pyakami (after the name of the largest clan). Russian chronicles and documents call the Tundra Nenets “Samoyad,” “Samoyed,” and “Yuraks” and the Forest Nenets “Kunnaya” (Kazym) Samoyad. The word “Samoyed” as an ethnonym denoting a group of related peoples has its origins in the Russian language. Most likely, it comes from the Saami word “Same-Edne,” “the land of the Saami, the land of people.” As Russians moved deeper into Siberia, the name was extended to peoples related to the Nenets in their languages and culture. There was also a folk etymology of the word “Samoyed: “self-eaters,” “eating each other.” 

Today, the Nenets autonomous area (the area of 176.810 square meters, population density  0.25 person/square kilometer, Naryan-Mar is its administrative center), the Yamal Nenets autonomous area (the area of 769,250 square meters, population density 0.7 persons / square kilometer, Salekhard is its administrative center) and the Taymyr Dolgan Nenets district of the Krasnoyarsk territory (the area of 769.250 square meters, population density 0.7 persons per square kilometer, Dudinka is its administrative center) in the heart of the Eurasian Arctic hold key positions in the circumpolar communication. Among Russia’s indigenous small-numbered peoples, the Nenets are leaders in the use of their mother tongue (75 % of Nenets in the area of their traditional residence speak it) and in preserving the “per capita” potential of their ethnic culture (native religion, mythology, nomadic reindeer herding culture and economic complex).