No CrossRef data available.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
The Komi-Permiaks and Their Homeland
According to the Soviet 1989 census, there was a total of 496,600 Komis in the USSR. The nationality is composed of two main groups, closely related to each other ethnically, culturally and linguistically: the Komi-Zyrians and the Komi-Permiaks. The former are numerically larger, amounting to 344,500 in 1989, while the latter numbered 152,100. The status of the two as distinct ethnic groups is still debated, but in terms of territorial administration the two groups have been treated separately. The Komi-Zyrians have the Komi Republic as their titular unit, whereas the autonomy of the Komi-Permiaks is of lower rank, an autonomous okrug (area) within the Perm’ province. In line with the administrative separation, Soviet language planners classified the two groups’ languages as distinct ones.