YURTOV Avksentiy Filippovich

YURTOV Avksentiy Filippovich (8.2.1854– 20.4.1916), educator, teacher, folklorist, ethnographer. Yu. collected and studied folklore and ethnographic materials in the Mordovian villages of the Ufa, Simbirsk, and Samara guberniya provinces, which were published in the 2 issues of “Samples of Mordovian folk literature” (Kazan, 1882–83). He studied and published the rites and beliefs of the baptized Mordva of the Ufa guberniya province, legends, fairy tales, songs, proverbs of the Tatars and Chuvash. Author of the first “Primer of Erzi-Mordva with the addition of prayers and the Russian alphabet” (1884). Created the Erzi-Mordva alphabet based on the Cyrillic alphabet.