Die BESERMJANEN, beserman (Eigenbezeichnung) sind ein Volk im Nordwesten Udmurtiens, sowie in den angrenzenden Bereichen der Region Kirow.
In der Volkszählung von 1926 betrug ihre Zahl 10.034 (in späteren Zählungen wurden die Besermjanen nicht gesondert ausgewiesen und zu den Udmurten gezählt). Sie bilden in 41 Dörfern die Grundbevölkerung, wo sie zusammen mit Udmurten, Tataren und Russen leben. Zehn Dörfer sind rein besermjanisch. [...] Laut der Volkszählung aus dem Jahr 2002 leben in Russland 3.000 Besermjanen.
In no way are the Besermians "udmurtized Tatars" (p. 6): this old formula was based on the traces of former presence of Islam among them. However, the traits of Islam should not obligatorily originate from the Tatars and there are no other evidences (linguistic, ethnological, historical) of Tatar origin of the Besermians. Moreover, though the Besermians live and lived before among the Čeptsa Tatars, they always stayed explicitly aloof of them. On the other hand, some traits in their traditional culture, as well as information from written historical sources (they were still called Chuvash in the beginning of the 16th century) point to their old connection with the Chuvash.
Taking into account all the facts, the Besermians should be considered either the former Southern Udmurts living once in close contacts with the Muslims of Volga Bulgharia as a social group subordinated to the latter and thus adopted some prestigious traits of the Islamic Turkic culture, or originally a Turkicspeaking group (a part of Bulghars), which — as the forefathers of the Chuvash and may be of the Christian Tatars — was never fully muslimized and being a group of relatively low social position, looking for saving their non-Islamic identity later mixed with the Southern Udmurts and adopted their language (for more information see bibliographies in Напольских 1997 : 52—53; 1997a; Попова 1998).
