The earliest written Veps folklore dates back to the 1800s. Some of this material is documented in the Finnish philologist Elias Lönnrot’s doctoral thesis, Om det nordtchudiska språket, from 1853.Lönnrot, 1853. The Austro-Hungarian ethnographic researcher and linguist Károly Újfalvy von Mezőkövesd published a French-language grammar of Veps in 1875.Újfalvy von Mezőkövesd, 1875.
Pavel Uspensky, a teacher at the Varloevo-Lessky Zemstvo School, published the earliest Vepsian-Russian dictionary in 1913.Uspensky, 1913. An official Veps orthography was first codified in the 1930s, with the first textbookBogdanov et al., 1932. published in 1932, a grammar in 1934Hämäläinen & Andrejev, 1934. and a Veps-Russian dictionary in 1936.Hämäläinen & Andrejev, 1936.
In 1937, the Veps alphabet was converted to Cyrillic script as part of the Soviet cyrillization campaign, and from 1938 Veps was aggressively and violently suppressed by the government. Veps schools were closed, their books burned, teachers were imprisoned and some Veps intellectuals killed. Until 1990 any publishing of Vepsian literature was forbidden.Kolga, 2001.
Modern developments
The Veps Cultural Society was formed in 1989 with a new orthography following in 1991.Zaiceva &, Mullonen, 1991. The Latin was used alongside the 1989 Cyrillic alphabetMaximova & Kottina, 1992. until 2007, when the Cyrillic was discontinued, leaving only the Latin Veps alphabet.
Kodima, a monthly bilingual newspaper, has been published in Veps and Russian since 1993.UNESCO, 2023.
Literature
Bogdanov, G., Hämälainen, Mikhijev, A. (1932). Ezmäne vepsiden azbuk i lugendknig. Leningrad. Retrieved 19 September 2026 from fennougrica.kansalliskirjasto.fi
Fenno-Ugria. (n.d.). Veps. Retrieved 19 September 2026 from fennougria.ee
Hämäläinen, M., Andrejev. F. (1934). Vepskijan kelen grammatik [Veps grammar]. Leningrad.
Hämäläinen, M., Andrejev. F. (1936). Vepsa-venähine vajehnik [Veps-Russian dictionary]. Moskva.
Jordanes. (ca. 551). De origine actibusque Getarum [The Origin and Deeds of the Getae].
Kolga, M. (2001). Veps. In The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire. Tallinn. Retrieved 19 September 2026 from arhiiv.eki.ee
Lönnrot, E. (1853). Om det nordtchudiska språket [About the North-Chudian language] [Dissertation]. Helsingfors.
Theil, R. (30 March 2022). Vepsisk [Vepsian]. In Store norske leksikon. Retrieved 19 September 2026 from snl.no
UNESCO. (2023). One Of The Unique Publications Of The Republic Of Karelia, The Newspaper In The Vepsian Language “Kodima” Celebrated Its 30th Anniversary. In 2022–2032: International Decade of Indigenous Languages. Retrieved 19 September 2026 from idil2022-2032.org
Uspensky, P. (1913). Русско-чудский словарь с некоторыми грамматическими указаниями [Russian-Chud dictionary with some grammar points]. Retrieved 19 September 2026 from fulr.karelia.ru
Újfalvy von Mezőkövesd, K. (1875). Essai de grammaire vêpse ou tchoude du nord [Essay on the grammar of the Veps or northern Chud]. Paris. Retrieved 19 September 2026 from babel.hathitrust.org
