How did the Tatars appear? The mystery of the origin of the “Tatars”
Rafael Khakimov
History of the Tatars: a view from the 21st century
(Article from Ivolumes of History of the Tatars from ancient times. About the history of the Tatars and the concept of a seven-volume work entitled “History of the Tatars from ancient times”)
The Tatars are one of those few peoples about whom legends and outright lies are known to a much greater extent than the truth.
The official history of the Tatars, both before and after the 1917 revolution, was extremely ideological and biased. Even the most outstanding Russian historians presented the “Tatar question” with bias or, at best, avoided it. Mikhail Khudyakov in his famous work “Essays on the History of the Kazan Khanate” wrote: “Russian historians were interested in the history of the Kazan Khanate only as material for studying the advance of the Russian tribe to the east. It should be noted that they mainly paid attention to the last moment of the struggle - the conquest of the region, especially the victorious siege of Kazan, but left almost without attention the gradual stages that the process of absorption of one state by another took place" [At the junction of continents and civilizations, p. 536 ]. The outstanding Russian historian S.M. Solovyov, in the preface to his multi-volume “History of Russia since Ancient Times,” noted: “A historian has no right to half XIII century to interrupt the natural thread of events - namely the gradual transition of patrimonial princely relations into state ones - and insert the Tatar period, highlight the Tatars, Tatar relations, as a result of which the main phenomena, the main reasons for these phenomena are necessarily covered up" [Soloviev, p. 54]. Thus, a period of three centuries, the history of the Tatar states (Golden Horde, Kazan and other khanates), which influenced world processes, and not just the fate of the Russians, fell out of the chain of events in the formation of Russian statehood.
Another outstanding Russian historian V.O. Klyuchevsky divided the history of Russia into periods in accordance with the logic of colonization. “The history of Russia,” he wrote, “is the history of a country that is being colonized. The area of colonization in it expanded along with its state territory.” “...The colonization of the country was the main fact of our history, with which all its other facts stood in close or distant connection” [Klyuchevsky, p. 50]. The main subjects of V.O. Klyuchevsky’s research were, as he himself wrote, the state and the nation, while the state was Russian, and the people were Russian. There was no place left for the Tatars and their statehood.
The Soviet period in relation to Tatar history was not distinguished by any fundamentally new approaches. Moreover, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, with its resolution “On the state and measures to improve mass-political and ideological work in the Tatar party organization” of 1944, simply prohibited the study of the history of the Golden Horde (Ulus of Jochi), the Kazan Khanate, thus excluding the Tatar period from history of Russian statehood.
As a result of such approaches to the Tatars, an image of a terrible and savage tribe was formed that oppressed not only the Russians, but also almost half the world. There could be no talk of any positive Tatar history or Tatar civilization. Initially, it was believed that Tatars and civilization were incompatible things.
Today, each nation begins to write its own history independently. Scientific centers have become more independent ideologically, they are difficult to control and it is more difficult to put pressure on them.
The 21st century will inevitably make significant adjustments not only to the history of the peoples of Russia, but also to the history of the Russians themselves, as well as to the history of Russian statehood.
The positions of modern Russian historians are undergoing certain changes. For example, a three-volume history of Russia, published under the auspices of the Institute of Russian History Russian Academy Sciences and recommended as a textbook for university students, provides a lot of information about non-Russian peoples who lived on the territory of what is now Russia. It contains characteristics of the Turkic, Khazar Khaganates, Volga Bulgaria, and more calmly describes the era of the Tatar-Mongol invasion and the period of the Kazan Khanate, but it is nevertheless Russian history, which cannot replace or absorb the Tatar one.
Until recently, Tatar historians in their research were limited by a number of rather strict objective and subjective conditions. Before the revolution, being citizens of the Russian Empire, they worked based on the tasks of ethnic revival. After the revolution, the period of freedom turned out to be too short to have time to write a full history. The ideological struggle greatly influenced their position, but, perhaps, the repressions of 1937 had a greater impact. Control by the CPSU Central Committee over the work of historians undermined the very possibility of developing a scientific approach to history, subordinating everything to the tasks of the class struggle and the victory of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Democratization of the Soviet and Russian society allowed us to reconsider many pages of history, and most importantly, to rearrange all research work from ideological to scientific ones. It became possible to use the experience of foreign scientists, and access to new sources and museum reserves opened up.
Along with general democratization, a new political situation arose in Tatarstan, which declared sovereignty on behalf of the entire multi-ethnic people of the republic. At the same time, quite turbulent processes were taking place in the Tatar world. In 1992, the First World Congress of Tatars met, at which the problem of an objective study of the history of the Tatars was identified as a key political task. All this required a rethinking of the place of the republic and the Tatars in a renewing Russia. There was a need to take a fresh look at the methodological and theoretical foundations of the historical discipline associated with the study of the history of the Tatars.
“History of the Tatars” is a relatively independent discipline, since existing Russian history cannot replace or exhaust it.
Methodological problems in studying the history of the Tatars were posed by scientists who worked on generalizing works. Shigabutdin Marjani in his work “Mustafad al-akhbar fi ahvali Kazan va Bolgar” (“Information drawn for the history of Kazan and Bulgar”) wrote: “Historians of the Muslim world, wanting to fulfill the duty of providing complete information O different eras and explanations of meaning human society, collected a lot of information about capitals, caliphs, kings, scientists, Sufis, different social strata, ways and directions of thought of ancient sages, past nature and Everyday life, science and crafts, wars and uprisings." And further he noted that “historical science absorbs the destinies of all nations and tribes, tests scientific directions and discussions” [Marjani, p.42]. At the same time, he did not highlight the methodology for studying Tatar history itself, although in the context of his works it is visible quite clearly. He examined the ethnic roots of the Tatars, their statehood, the rule of the khans, the economy, culture, religion, as well as the position of the Tatar people within the Russian Empire.
IN Soviet time ideological clichés required the use of Marxist methodology. Gaziz Gubaidullin wrote the following: “If we consider the path traversed by the Tatars, we can see that it is made up of the replacement of some economic formations by others, from the interaction of classes born of economic conditions” [Gubaidullin, p.20]. This was a tribute to the requirements of the time. His presentation of history itself was much broader than his stated position.
All subsequent historians of the Soviet period were under strict ideological pressure and their methodology was reduced to the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism. Nevertheless, in many works of Gaziz Gubaidullin, Mikhail Khudyakov and others, a different, non-official approach to history broke through. The monograph of Magomet Safargaleev “The Collapse of the Golden Horde”, the works of German Fedorov-Davydov, despite the inevitable censorship restrictions, by the very fact of their appearance had a strong influence on subsequent research. The works of Mirkasim Usmanov, Alfred Khalikov, Yahya Abdullin, Azgar Mukhamadiev, Damir Iskhakov and many others introduced an element of alternative into the existing interpretation of history, forcing us to delve deeper into ethnic history.
Of the foreign historians who studied the Tatars, the most famous are Zaki Validi Togan and Akdes Nigmat Kurat. Zaki Validi was specially trained methodological problems history, however, he was more interested in the methods, goals and objectives of historical science in general, as opposed to other sciences, as well as approaches to writing common Turkic history. At the same time, in his books one can see specific methods for studying Tatar history. First of all, it should be noted that he described Turkic-Tatar history without isolating Tatar history from it. Moreover, this concerned not only the ancient common Turkic period, but also subsequent eras. He is in equally examines the personality of Genghis Khan, his children, Tamerlane, various khanates - Crimean, Kazan, Nogai and Astrakhan, naming all this Turkic world. Of course, there are reasons for this approach. The ethnonym “Tatars” was often understood very broadly and included almost not only the Turks, but even the Mongols. At the same time, the history of many Turkic peoples in the Middle Ages, primarily within the framework of the Ulus of Jochi, it was united. Therefore, the term “Turkic-Tatar history” in relation to the Turkic population of Dzhuchiev Ulus allows the historian to avoid many difficulties in presenting events.
Other foreign historians (Edward Keenan, Aisha Rohrlich, Yaroslav Pelensky, Yulai Shamiloglu, Nadir Devlet, Tamurbek Davletshin and others), although they did not set out to find common approaches to the history of the Tatars, nevertheless introduced very significant conceptual ideas into the study of various periods . They compensated for the gaps in the works of Tatar historians of the Soviet era.
The ethnic component is one of the most important in the study of history. Before the advent of statehood, the history of the Tatars largely boils down to ethnogenesis. Equally, the loss of statehood brings to the fore the study ethnic processes. The existence of the state, although it relegates the ethnic factor to the background, nevertheless preserves its relative independence as a subject historical research Moreover, sometimes it is the ethnic group that acts as a state-forming factor and, therefore, is decisively reflected in the course of history.
The Tatar people do not have a single ethnic root. Among his ancestors were the Huns, Bulgars, Kipchaks, Nogais and other peoples, who themselves were formed in ancient times, as can be seen from the first volume of this publication, on the basis of the culture of various Scythian and other tribes and peoples.
For formation modern Tatars Finno-Ugrians and Slavs had a certain influence. Trying to look for ethnic purity in the person of the Bulgars or some ancient Tatar people is unscientific. The ancestors of modern Tatars never lived in isolation; on the contrary, they actively moved, mixing with various Turkic and non-Turkic tribes. On the other hand, government agencies, while developing official language and culture, contributed to the active mixing of tribes and peoples. This is all the more true since the state has always played the function of the most important ethnic-forming factor. But the Bulgarian state, Golden Horde The Kazan, Astrakhan and other khanates existed for many centuries - a period sufficient to form new ethnic components. Religion was an equally strong factor in the mixing of ethnic groups. If Orthodoxy in Russia turned many baptized peoples into Russians, then in the Middle Ages Islam in the same way turned many into Turkic-Tatars.
The dispute with the so-called “Bulgarists”, who call to rename the Tatars into Bulgars and reduce our entire history to the history of one ethnic group, is mainly of a political nature, and therefore it should be studied within the framework of political science, and not history. At the same time, the emergence of such a direction social thought influenced by poor development methodological foundations history of the Tatars, the influence of ideological approaches to the presentation of history, including the desire to exclude the “Tatar period” from history.
In recent decades, there has been a passion among scientists for searching for linguistic, ethnographic and other features in the Tatar people. The slightest features of the language were immediately declared a dialect, and on the basis of linguistic and ethnographic nuances, separate groups were identified that today claim to be independent peoples. Of course, there are features in use Tatar language among the Mishars, Astrakhan and Siberian Tatars. There are ethnographic features of Tatars living in different territories. But this is precisely the use of a single Tatar literary language with regional characteristics, the nuances of a single Tatar culture. It would be reckless to talk about language dialects on such grounds, much less to single out independent peoples (Siberian and other Tatars). If you follow the logic of some of our scientists, Lithuanian Tatars who speak Polish cannot be classified as Tatar people at all.
The history of a people cannot be reduced to the vicissitudes of an ethnonym. It is not easy to trace the connection of the ethnonym “Tatars” mentioned in Chinese, Arabic and other sources with modern Tatars. It is even more incorrect to see a direct anthropological and cultural connection between modern Tatars and ancient and medieval tribes. Some experts believe that the true Tatars were Mongol-speaking (see, for example: [Kychanov, 1995, p. 29]), although there are other points of view. There was a time when the ethnonym “Tatars” designated the Tatar-Mongol peoples. “Because of their extreme greatness and honorable position,” wrote Rashid ad-din, “other Turkic clans, with all the differences in their ranks and names, became known by their name, and all were called Tatars. And those various clans believed their greatness and dignity in the fact that they included themselves among them and became known under their name, similar to the way they are now, due to the prosperity of Genghis Khan and his clan, since they are Mongols - different Turkic tribes, like the Jalairs, Tatars, On-Guts, Kereits, Naimans, Tanguts and others, each of whom had a specific name and a special nickname - all of them, out of self-praise, also call themselves Mongols, despite the fact that in ancient times they did not recognize this name. Their present descendants, therefore, imagine that since ancient times they have been related to the name of the Mongols and are called by this name - but this is not so, for in ancient times the Mongols were only one tribe from the entire totality of the Turkic steppe tribes" [Rashid ad-din,
t. i, book 1, p. 102–103].At different periods of history, the name “Tatars” meant different peoples. Often this depended on the nationality of the authors of the chronicles. Thus, monk Julian, ambassador of the Hungarian king Béla IV to the Polovtsians in the 13th century. associated the ethnonym “Tatars” with the Greek “Tartaros” - “hell”, “underworld”. Some European historians used the ethnonym “Tatar” in the same sense as the Greeks used the word “barbarian”. For example, on some European maps Muscovy is designated as "Moscow Tartary" or "European Tartary", in contrast to Chinese or Independent Tartaria. The history of the existence of the ethnonym “Tatar” in subsequent eras, in particular in the 16th–19th centuries, was far from simple. [Karimullin]. Damir Iskhakov writes: “In the Tatar khanates formed after the collapse of the Golden Horde, representatives of the military-service class were traditionally called “Tatars”... They played a key role in the spread of the ethnonym “Tatars” over the vast territory of the former Golden Horde. After the fall of the khanates, this term was transferred to the common people. But at the same time, many local self-names and the confessional name “Muslims” functioned among the people. Overcoming them and the final consolidation of the ethnonym “Tatars” as a national self-name is a relatively late phenomenon and is associated with national consolidation” [Iskhakov, p.231]. These arguments contain a considerable amount of truth, although it would be a mistake to absolutize any facet of the term “Tatars.” Obviously, the ethnonym “Tatars” has been and remains the subject of scientific debate. It is indisputable that before the revolution of 1917, Tatars were called not only Volga, Crimean and Lithuanian Tatars, but also Azerbaijanis, as well as a number of Turkic peoples North Caucasus, Southern Siberia, but in the end the ethnonym “Tatars” was assigned only to the Volga and Crimean Tatars.
The term “Tatar-Mongols” is very controversial and painful for the Tatars. Ideologists have done a lot to present the Tatars and Mongols as barbarians and savages. In response, a number of scientists use the term “Turkic-Mongols” or simply “Mongols,” sparing the pride of the Volga Tatars. But in fact, history does not need justification. No nation can boast of its peaceful and humane character in the past, because those who did not know how to fight could not survive and were themselves conquered, and often assimilated. Crusades Europeans or the Inquisition were no less cruel than the invasion of the “Tatar-Mongols”. The whole difference is that Europeans and Russians took the initiative in interpreting this issue into their own hands and offered a version and assessment of historical events that was favorable to themselves.
The term “Tatar-Mongols” needs careful analysis in order to find out the validity of the combination of the names “Tatars” and “Mongols”. The Mongols relied on Turkic tribes in their expansion. Turkic culture greatly influenced the formation of the empire of Genghis Khan and especially the Ulus of Jochi. The way historiography has developed is that both the Mongols and the Turks were often called simply “Tatars.” This was both true and false. True, since there were relatively few Mongols themselves, and Turkic culture (language, writing, military system, etc.) gradually became the general norm for many peoples. This is incorrect due to the fact that the Tatars and Mongols are two different peoples. Moreover, modern Tatars cannot be identified not only with the Mongols, but even with the medieval Central Asian Tatars. At the same time, they are the successors of the culture of the peoples of the 7th–12th centuries who lived on the Volga and in the Urals, the people and state of the Golden Horde, the Kazan Khanate, and it would be a mistake to say that they have nothing to do with the Tatars who lived in East Turkestan and Mongolia. Even the Mongol element, which is minimal in Tatar culture today, influenced the formation of the history of the Tatars. In the end, the khans buried in the Kazan Kremlin were Genghisids and this cannot be ignored [Mausoleums of the Kazan Kremlin]. History is never simple and straightforward.
When presenting the history of the Tatars, it turns out to be very difficult to separate it from the general Turkic basis. First of all, we should note some terminological difficulties in the study of common Turkic history. If the Turkic Khaganate is quite unambiguously interpreted as a common Turkic heritage, then the Mongol Empire and especially the Golden Horde are more complex formations from an ethnic point of view. In fact, Ulus Jochi is generally considered to be a Tatar state, meaning by this ethnonym all those peoples who lived in it, i.e. Turko-Tatars. But will today's Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and others who were formed in the Golden Horde agree to recognize the Tatars as their medieval ancestors? Of course not. After all, it is obvious that no one will particularly think about the differences in the use of this ethnonym in the Middle Ages and now. Today at public consciousness The ethnonym “Tatars” is clearly associated with modern Volga or Crimean Tatars. Consequently, it is methodologically preferable, following Zaki Validi, to use the term “Turkic-Tatar history,” which allows us to separate the history of today’s Tatars and other Turkic peoples.
The use of this term carries another burden. There is a problem of correlating the common Turkic history with the national one. In some periods (for example, the Turkic Kaganate) it is difficult to isolate individual parts from the general history. In the era of the Golden Horde, it is quite possible to study, along with general history, individual regions, which subsequently became independent khanates. Of course, the Tatars interacted with the Uighurs, and with Turkey, and with the Mamluks of Egypt, but these connections were not as organic as with Central Asia. Therefore, it is difficult to find a unified approach to the relationship between common Turkic and Tatar history - it turns out to be different in different eras and with different countries. Therefore, in this work we will use the term Turkic-Tatar history(in relation to the Middle Ages), it’s as simple as that Tatar history(applied to later times).
“History of the Tatars” as a relatively independent discipline exists insofar as there is an object of study that can be traced from ancient times to the present day. What ensures the continuity of this story, what can confirm the continuity of events? After all, over many centuries, some ethnic groups were replaced by others, states appeared and disappeared, peoples united and divided, new languages were formed to replace the ones that were leaving.
The object of the historian’s research in the most generalized form is the society that inherits the previous culture and passes it on to the next generation. In this case, society can act in the form of a state or an ethnic group. And during the years of persecution of the Tatars from the second half of the 16th century, separate ethnic groups, little connected with each other, became the main custodians of cultural traditions. The religious community is always playing significant role in historical development, serving as a criterion for classifying a society as a particular civilization. Mosques and madrassas, from the 10th century until the 20s XX centuries, were the most important institution for the unification of the Tatar world. All of them - the state, ethnic group and religious community - contributed to the continuity of Tatar culture, and therefore ensured the continuity historical development.
The concept of culture has the most broad meaning, which is understood as all the achievements and norms of society, be it economy (for example, agriculture), the art of government, military affairs, writing, literature, social norms etc. The study of culture as a whole makes it possible to understand the logic of historical development and determine the place of a given society in the broadest context. It is the continuity of the preservation and development of culture that allows us to speak about the continuity of Tatar history and its characteristics.
Any periodization of history is conditional, therefore, in principle, it can be built on a variety of foundations, and its various options can be equally correct - it all depends on the task that is assigned to the researcher. When studying the history of statehood there will be one basis for distinguishing periods, when studying the development of ethnic groups - another. And if you study the history of, for example, a home or a costume, then their periodization may even have specific grounds. Each specific object of research, along with general methodological guidelines, has its own development logic. Even the convenience of presentation (for example, in a textbook) can become the basis for a specific periodization.
When highlighting the main milestones in the history of the people in our publication, the criterion will be the logic of cultural development. Culture is the most important social regulator. Through the term “culture” we can explain both the fall and rise of states, the disappearance and emergence of civilizations. Culture determines social values, creates advantages for the existence of certain peoples, forms incentives for work and individual personality traits, determines the openness of society and opportunities for communication among peoples. Through culture one can understand the place of society in world history.
Tatar history with its difficult turns fate is not easy to imagine as a whole picture, since ups were followed by catastrophic regression, up to the need for physical survival and preservation of the elementary foundations of culture and even language.
The initial basis for the formation of the Tatar or, more precisely, the Turkic-Tatar civilization is the steppe culture, which determined the appearance of Eurasia from ancient times until early Middle Ages. Cattle breeding and horses determined the basic nature of the economy and way of life, housing and clothing, and ensured military success. The invention of the saddle, curved saber, powerful bow, war tactics, a unique ideology in the form of Tengrism and other achievements had a huge impact on world culture. Without steppe civilization, the development of the vast expanses of Eurasia would have been impossible; this is precisely its historical merit.
The adoption of Islam in 922 and the development of the Great Volga Route became turning points in the history of the Tatars. Thanks to Islam, the ancestors of the Tatars were included in the most advanced Muslim world of their time, which determined the future of the people and its civilizational characteristics. And the Islamic world itself, thanks to the Bulgars, advanced to the northernmost latitude, which is an important factor to this day.
The ancestors of the Tatars, who moved from nomadic to settled life and urban civilization, were looking for new ways of communication with other peoples. The steppe remained to the south, and the horse could not perform universal functions in the new conditions of sedentary life. He was only an auxiliary tool in the household. What connected the Bulgarian state with other countries and peoples were the Volga and Kama rivers. In later times, the route along the Volga, Kama and Caspian Sea was supplemented by access to the Black Sea through the Crimea, which became one of the most important factors in the economic prosperity of the Golden Horde. The Volga route also played a key role in the Kazan Khanate. It is no coincidence that Muscovy's expansion to the east began with the establishment of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, which weakened the economy of Kazan. The development of the Eurasian space in the Middle Ages cannot be understood and explained without the role of the Volga-Kama basin as a means of communication. The Volga still functions as the economic and cultural core of the European part of Russia.
The emergence of Ulus Jochi as part of the Mongol super-empire, and then independent state- the greatest achievement in the history of the Tatars. During the era of the Chingizids, Tatar history became truly global, affecting the interests of the East and Europe. The contribution of the Tatars to military art, which was reflected in the improvement of weapons and military tactics. The system of public administration, the postal (Yamskaya) service inherited by Russia, the excellent financial system, literature and urban planning of the Golden Horde had reached perfection - in the Middle Ages there were few cities equal to Sarai in size and scale of trade. Thanks to intensive trade with Europe, the Golden Horde came into direct contact with European culture. The enormous potential for the reproduction of Tatar culture was laid precisely in the era of the Golden Horde. The Kazan Khanate continued this path for the most part by inertia.
The cultural core of Tatar history after the capture of Kazan in 1552 was preserved primarily thanks to Islam. It became a form of cultural survival, a banner of the struggle against Christianization and assimilation of the Tatars.
In the history of the Tatars there were three turning points associated with Islam. They decisively influenced subsequent events: 1) the adoption of Islam as the official religion by the Volga Bulgaria in 922, which meant recognition by Baghdad of a young independent (from the Khazar Kaganate) state; 2) isthe Lama “revolution” of Uzbek Khan, who, contrary to the “Yasa” (“Code of Laws”) of Genghis Khan on the equality of religions, introduced one state religion - Islam, which largely predetermined the process of consolidation of society and the formation of the (Golden Horde) Turkic-Tatar people; 3) reform of Islam in the second half of the 19th century, called Jadidism (from the Arabic al-jadid - new, renewal).
The revival of the Tatar people in modern times begins precisely with the reform of Islam. Jadidism outlined several important facts: firstly, the ability of Tatar culture to resist forced Christianization; secondly, confirmation of the Tatars’ belonging to the Islamic world, moreover, with a claim to a vanguard role in it; thirdly, the entry of Islam into competition with Orthodoxy in its own state. Jadidism has become a significant contribution of the Tatars to modern world culture, a demonstration of Islam's ability to modernize.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the Tatars managed to create many social structures: an education system, periodicals, political parties, their own (“Muslim”) faction in the State Duma, economic structures, primarily trading capital, etc. By the revolution of 1917, the Tatars had matured ideas for restoring statehood.
The first attempt to recreate statehood by the Tatars dates back to 1918, when the Idel-Ural State was proclaimed. The Bolsheviks managed to forestall the implementation of this grandiose project. Nevertheless, the direct consequence of the political act itself was the adoption of the Decree on the creation of the Tatar-Bashkir Republic. Complex vicissitudes of political and ideological struggle ended with the adoption in 1920 of the Decree of the Central Executive Committee on the creation of the “Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic”. This form was very far from the formula of the Idel-Ural State, but it was undoubtedly a positive step, without which there would not have been the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Republic of Tatarstan in 1990.
The new status of Tatarstan after the declaration of state sovereignty put on the agenda the issue of choosing a fundamental path of development, determining Tatarstan’s place in Russian Federation, in the Turkic and Islamic world.
Historians of Russia and Tatarstan are facing a serious test. The 20th century was the era of the collapse of first the Russian and then the Soviet empire and a change in the political picture of the world. The Russian Federation has become a different country and it is forced to take a fresh look at the path traveled. It faces the need to find ideological reference points for development in the new millennium. In many ways, the understanding of the deep processes taking place in the country, the formation of non-Russian peoples the image of Russia as a “friend” or “foreign” state.
Russian science will have to reckon with the emergence of many independent research centers who have their own views on emerging problems. Therefore, it will be difficult to write the history of Russia only from Moscow; it should be written by various research teams, taking into account the history of all the indigenous peoples of the country.
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The seven-volume work entitled “History of the Tatars from Ancient Times” is published under the stamp of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Tatarstan, nevertheless it is joint work scientists of Tatarstan, Russian and foreign researchers. This collective work is based on a whole series of scientific conferences held in Kazan, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. The work is of an academic nature and is therefore intended primarily for scientists and specialists. We did not set ourselves the goal of making it popular and easy to understand. Our task was to present the most objective picture of historical events. Nevertheless, both teachers and those who are simply interested in history will find many interesting stories here.
This work is the first academic work that begins to describe the history of the Tatars from 3 thousand BC. The most ancient period cannot always be represented in the form of events, sometimes it exists only in archaeological materials, nevertheless we considered it necessary to give such a presentation. Much of what the reader will see in this work is subject to debate and requires further research. This is not an encyclopedia, which provides only established information. It was important for us to document the existing level of knowledge in this area of science, to propose new methodological approaches, when the history of the Tatars appears in the broad context of world processes, covers the destinies of many peoples, not just the Tatars, to focus attention on a number of problematic issues and thereby stimulate scientific thought .
Each volume covers a fundamentally new period in the history of the Tatars. The editors considered it necessary, in addition to the author's texts, to provide illustrative material, maps, and also excerpts from the most important sources as an appendix.
This did not affect the Russian principalities, where the dominance of Orthodoxy was not only preserved, but also gained further development. In 1313, Uzbek Khan issued a label to Metropolitan Peter of Rus', which contained the following words: “If anyone blasphemes Christianity, speaks ill of churches, monasteries and chapels, that person will be subjected to death penalty"(quoted from: [Fakhretdin, p. 94]). By the way, Uzbek Khan himself married his daughter to the Moscow prince and allowed her to convert to Christianity.
Bulgaro-Tatar and Tatar-Mongolian points of view on the ethnogenesis of the Tatars
It should be noted that in addition to linguistic and cultural community, as well as general anthropological features, historians pay a significant role to the origin of statehood. So, for example, the beginning of Russian history is considered not to be the archaeological cultures of the pre-Slavic period or even the tribal unions of those who migrated in the 3rd and 4th centuries Eastern Slavs, and Kievan Rus, which developed by the 8th century. For some reason, a significant role in the formation of culture is given to the spread (official adoption) of monotheistic religion, which happened in Kievan Rus in 988, and in Volga Bulgaria in 922. Probably, first of all, the Bulgaro-Tatar theory arose from such premises.
The Bulgar-Tatar theory is based on the position that the ethnic basis of the Tatar people was the Bulgar ethnos, which formed in the Middle Volga region and the Urals since the 8th century. n. e. (recently, some supporters of this theory began to attribute the appearance of Turkic-Bulgar tribes in the region to the 8th-7th centuries BC and earlier). Most important provisions This concept is formulated as follows. The main ethnocultural traditions and features of the modern Tatar (Bulgaro-Tatar) people were formed during the period of Volga Bulgaria (X-XIII centuries), and in subsequent times (Golden Horde, Kazan Khan and Russian periods) they underwent only minor changes in language and culture. The principalities (sultanates) of the Volga Bulgars, being part of the Ulus of Jochi (Golden Horde), enjoyed significant political and cultural autonomy, and the influence of the Horde ethnopolitical system of power and culture (in particular, literature, art and architecture) was purely external in nature, which did not have any impact significant influence on Bulgarian society. The most important consequence of the dominance of Ulus Jochi was the collapse single state Volga Bulgaria into a number of possessions, and the single Bulgar nation into two ethno-territorial groups (“Bulgar-Burtas” of the Mukhsha ulus and “Bulgars” of the Volga-Kama Bulgar principalities). During the period of the Kazan Khanate, the Bulgar (“Bulgaro-Kazan”) ethnos strengthened the early pre-Mongol ethnocultural features, which continued to be traditionally preserved (including the self-name “Bulgars”) until the 1920s, when it was forcibly imposed on it by Tatar bourgeois nationalists and the Soviet government ethnonym "Tatars".
Let's go into a little more detail. Firstly, the migration of tribes from the foothills of the North Caucasus after the collapse of the state of Great Bulgaria. Why is it that at present the Bulgarians, the Bulgars assimilated by the Slavs, have become a Slavic people, and the Volga Bulgars are a Turkic-speaking people who have absorbed the population that lived before them in this area? Is it possible that there were much more newcomer Bulgars than local tribes? In this case, the postulate that Turkic-speaking tribes penetrated into this territory long before the Bulgars appeared here - during the times of the Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns, Khazars, looks much more logical. The history of Volga Bulgaria begins not with the fact that alien tribes founded the state, but with the unification of the door cities - the capitals of the tribal unions - Bulgar, Bilyar and Suvar. The traditions of statehood also did not necessarily come from alien tribes, since local tribes neighbored powerful ancient states - for example, the Scythian kingdom. In addition, the position that the Bulgars assimilated local tribes contradicts the position that the Bulgars themselves were not assimilated by the Tatar-Mongols. As a result, the Bulgar-Tatar theory is broken by the fact that the Chuvash language is much closer to the Old Bulgar than the Tatar. And the Tatars today speak the Turkic-Kipchak dialect.
However, the theory is not without merits. For example, the anthropological type of the Kazan Tatars, especially men, makes them similar to the peoples of the North Caucasus and indicates the origin of their facial features - a hooked nose, a Caucasian type - in the mountainous area, and not in the steppe.
Until the early 90s of the 20th century, the Bulgaro-Tatar theory of the ethnogenesis of the Tatar people was actively developed by a whole galaxy of scientists, including A. P. Smirnov, H. G. Gimadi, N. F. Kalinin, L. Z. Zalyai, G. V. Yusupov, T. A. Trofimova, A. Kh. Khalikov, M. Z. Zakiev, A. G. Karimullin, S. Kh. Alishev.
The theory of the Tatar-Mongolian origin of the Tatar people is based on the fact of the resettlement of nomadic Tatar-Mongolian (Central Asian) ethnic groups to Europe, who, having mixed with the Kipchaks and adopted Islam during the period of the Ulus of Jochi (Golden Horde), created the basis of the culture of modern Tatars. The origins of the theory of the Tatar-Mongol origin of the Tatars should be sought in medieval chronicles, as well as in folk legends and epics. The greatness of the powers founded by the Mongolian and Golden Horde khans is spoken of in the legends of Genghis Khan, Aksak-Timur, and the epic of Idegei.
Supporters of this theory deny or downplay the importance of Volga Bulgaria and its culture in the history of the Kazan Tatars, believing that Bulgaria was an underdeveloped state, without urban culture and with a superficially Islamized population.
During the period of the Ulus of Jochi, the local Bulgar population was partially exterminated or, retaining paganism, moved to the outskirts, and the main part was assimilated by incoming Muslim groups, who brought urban culture and the language of the Kipchak type.
Here again it should be noted that, according to many historians, the Kipchaks were irreconcilable enemies with the Tatar-Mongols. That both campaigns of the Tatar-Mongol troops - under the leadership of Subedei and Batu - were aimed at the defeat and destruction of the Kipchak tribes. In other words, the Kipchak tribes during the Tatar-Mongol invasion were exterminated or driven to the outskirts.
In the first case, the exterminated Kipchaks, in principle, could not cause the formation of a nationality within the Volga Bulgaria; in the second case, it is illogical to call the theory Tatar-Mongol, since the Kipchaks did not belong to the Tatar-Mongols and were a completely different tribe, albeit Turkic-speaking.
The Tatar-Mongol theory can be called if we consider that Volga Bulgaria was conquered and then inhabited by Tatar and Mongol tribes that came from the empire of Genghis Khan.
It should also be noted that the Tatar-Mongols during the period of conquest were predominantly pagans, not Muslims, which usually explains the tolerance of the Tatar-Mongols towards other religions.
Therefore, it is more likely that the Bulgar population, who learned about Islam in the 10th century, contributed to the Islamization of the Ulus of Jochi, and not vice versa.
Archaeological data complement the factual side of the issue: on the territory of Tatarstan there is evidence of the presence of nomadic (Kipchak or Tatar-Mongol) tribes, but their settlement is observed in the southern part of the Tataria region.
However, it cannot be denied that the Kazan Khanate, which arose on the ruins of the Golden Horde, crowned the formation of the Tatar ethnic group.
This is strong and already clearly Islamic, which had for the Middle Ages great importance, the state contributed to the development and, during the period under Russian rule, the preservation of Tatar culture.
There is also an argument in favor of the kinship of the Kazan Tatars with the Kipchaks - the linguistic dialect is referred by linguists to the Turkic-Kipchak group. Another argument is the name and self-name of the people - “Tatars”. Presumably from the Chinese “da-dan”, as Chinese historians called part of the Mongolian (or neighboring Mongolian) tribes in northern China
The Tatar-Mongol theory arose at the beginning of the 20th century. (N.I. Ashmarin, V.F. Smolin) and actively developed in the works of Tatar (Z. Validi, R. Rakhmati, M.I. Akhmetzyanov, recently R.G. Fakhrutdinov), Chuvash (V.F. Kakhovsky, V.D. Dimitriev, N.I. Egorov, M.R. Fedotov) and Bashkir (N.A. Mazhitov) historians, archaeologists and linguists.
Turkic-Tatar theory of ethnogenesis of the Tatars and a number of alternative points of view
The Turkic-Tatar theory of the origin of the Tatar ethnos emphasizes the Turkic-Tatar origins of modern Tatars, notes the important role in their ethnogenesis of the ethnopolitical tradition of the Turkic Kaganate, Great Bulgaria and the Khazar Kaganate, Volga Bulgaria, Kipchak-Kimak and Tatar-Mongol ethnic groups of the Eurasian steppes.
The Turkic-Tatar concept of the origin of the Tatars is developed in the works of G. S. Gubaidullin, A. N. Kurat, N. A. Baskakov, Sh. F. Mukhamedyarov, R. G. Kuzeev, M. A. Usmanov, R. G. Fakhrutdinov , A.G. Mukhamadieva, N. Davleta, D.M. Iskhakova, Y. Shamiloglu and others. Proponents of this theory believe that it best reflects the rather complex internal structure of the Tatar ethnic group (characteristic, however, for all large ethnic groups), combines best achievements other theories. In addition, there is an opinion that M. G. Safargaliev was one of the first to point out the complex nature of ethnogenesis, which cannot be reduced to a single ancestor, in 1951. After the late 1980s. The unspoken ban on the publication of works that went beyond the decisions of the 1946 session of the USSR Academy of Sciences lost its relevance, and accusations of the “non-Marxism” of the multicomponent approach to ethnogenesis ceased to be used; this theory was replenished by many domestic publications. Proponents of the theory identify several stages in the formation of an ethnic group.
Stage of formation of the main ethnic components. (mid-VI - mid-XIII centuries). The important role of the Volga Bulgaria, the Khazar Kaganate and the Kipchak-Kimak state associations in the ethnogenesis of the Tatar people is noted. At this stage, the formation of the main components occurred, which were combined at the next stage. The great role of the Volga Bulgaria, which laid the foundation for the Islamic tradition, urban culture and writing based on Arabic script (after the 10th century), replaced the most ancient writing- Turkic runic. At this stage, the Bulgars tied themselves to the territory - to the land on which they settled. The territory of settlement was the main criterion for identifying a person with a people.
The stage of the medieval Tatar ethnopolitical community (mid-XIII - first quarter of the XV centuries). At this time, the consolidation of the components that emerged at the first stage took place in a single state - the Ulus of Jochi (Golden Horde); medieval Tatars, based on the traditions of peoples united in one state, not only created their own state, but also developed their own ethnopolitical ideology, culture and symbols of their community. All this led to the ethnocultural consolidation of the Golden Horde aristocracy, military service classes, Muslim clergy and the formation of the Tatar ethnopolitical community in the 14th century. The stage is characterized by the fact that in the Golden Horde, on the basis of the Oguz-Kypchak language, the norms of the literary language (literary Old Tatar language) were established. Earliest surviving literary monuments on it (Kul Gali’s poem “Kyisa-i Yosyf”) was written in the 13th century. The stage ended with the collapse of the Golden Horde (XV century) as a result of feudal fragmentation. In the formed Tatar khanates, the formation of new ethnic communities began, which had local self-names: Astrakhan, Kazan, Kasimov, Crimean, Siberian, Temnikov Tatars, etc. During this period, the established cultural community of the Tatars can be evidenced by the fact that there was still a central horde (Great Horde, Nogai Horde) most of the governors on the outskirts sought to occupy this main throne, or had close ties with the central Horde.
After the mid-16th century and until the 18th century, a stage of consolidation of local ethnic groups within the Russian state was distinguished. After the annexation of the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia to the Russian state, the processes of migration of the Tatars intensified (as mass migrations from the Oka to the Zakamskaya and Samara-Orenburg lines, from the Kuban to the Astrakhan and Orenburg provinces are known) and interactions between its various ethno-territorial groups, which contributed to their linguistic and cultural rapprochement. This was facilitated by the presence of a single literary language, a common cultural, religious and educational field. To a certain extent, the unifying factor was the attitude of the Russian state and the Russian population, who did not distinguish between ethnic groups. There is a common confessional identity - “Muslims”. Some of the local ethnic groups that entered other states at this time (primarily Crimean Tatars) further developed independently.
The period from the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century is defined by supporters of the theory as the formation of the Tatar nation. Just the same period mentioned in the introduction to this work. The following stages of nation formation are distinguished: 1) From the 18th to the mid-19th century - the stage of the “Muslim” nation, in which religion was the unifying factor. 2) From the middle of the 19th century to 1905 - the stage of the “ethnocultural” nation. 3) From 1905 to the end of the 1920s. - stage of the “political” nation.
At the first stage, the attempts of various rulers to carry out Christianization were beneficial. The policy of Christianization, instead of actually transferring the population of the Kazan province from one denomination to another, through its ill-consideration, contributed to the cementation of Islam in the consciousness of the local population.
At the second stage, after the reforms of the 1860s, the development of bourgeois relations began, which contributed to the rapid development of culture. In turn, its components (education system, literary language, book publishing and periodicals) completed the establishment in the self-awareness of all the main ethno-territorial and ethnic class groups of the Tatars of the idea of belonging to a single Tatar nation. It is to this stage that the Tatar people owe the appearance of the History of Tatarstan. For the specified period of time Tatar culture I not only managed to recover, but also made some progress.
From the second half of the 19th century, the modern Tatar literary language began to form, which by the 1910s had completely replaced the old Tatar language. The consolidation of the Tatar nation was strongly influenced by the high migration activity of Tatars from the Volga-Ural region.
The third stage from 1905 to the end of the 1920s. - This is the stage of the “political” nation. The first manifestation was the demands for cultural-national autonomy expressed during the revolution of 1905-1907. Later there were ideas of the State of Idel-Ural, the Tatar-Bashkir SR, the creation of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. After the 1926 census, the remnants of ethnic class self-determination disappeared, that is, the social stratum “Tatar nobility” disappeared.
Let us note that the Turkic-Tatar theory is the most extensive and structured of the theories considered. It really covers many aspects of the formation of the ethnic group in general and the Tatar ethnic group in particular.
In addition to the main theories of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars, there are also alternative ones. One of the most interesting is the Chuvash theory of the origin of the Kazan Tatars.
Most historians and ethnographers, just like the authors of the theories discussed above, are looking for the ancestors of the Kazan Tatars not where these people currently live, but somewhere far beyond the territory of present-day Tatarstan. In the same way, their emergence and formation as a distinctive nationality is attributed not to the historical era when this took place, but to more ancient times. In fact, there is every reason to believe that the cradle of the Kazan Tatars is their real homeland, that is, the region of the Tatar Republic on the left bank of the Volga between the Kazanka River and the Kama River.
There are also convincing arguments in favor of the fact that the Kazan Tatars arose, took shape as a distinctive people and multiplied over historical period, the duration of which covers the era from the founding of the Kazan Tatar kingdom by Khan of the Golden Horde Ulu-Magomet in 1437 until the Revolution of 1917. Moreover, their ancestors were not the alien “Tatars”, but local peoples: Chuvash (aka Volga Bulgars), Udmurts, Mari, and perhaps also not preserved to this day, but living in those parts, representatives of other tribes, including those who spoke the language , close to the language of the Kazan Tatars.
All these nationalities and tribes apparently lived in those forested regions since time immemorial, and partly perhaps also moved from Trans-Kama, after the invasion of the Tatar-Mongols and the defeat of Volga Bulgaria. In terms of character and level of culture, as well as way of life, this diverse mass of people, at least before the emergence of the Kazan Khanate, differed little from each other. Likewise, their religions were similar and consisted of the veneration of various spirits and sacred groves - kiremetii - places of prayer with sacrifices. This is confirmed by the fact that until the revolution of 1917 they remained in the same Tatar Republic, for example, near the village. Kukmor, a village of Udmurts and Maris, who were not touched by either Christianity or Islam, where until recently people lived according to the ancient customs of their tribe. In addition, in the Apastovsky district of the Tatar Republic, at the junction with the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, there are nine Kryashen villages, including the village of Surinskoye and the village of Star. Tyaberdino, where some of the residents, even before the Revolution of 1917, were “unbaptized” Kryashens, thus surviving until the Revolution outside of both the Christian and Muslim religions. And the Chuvash, Mari, Udmurts and Kryashens who converted to Christianity were only formally included in it, but continued to live according to ancient times until recently.
In passing, we note that the existence almost in our time of “unbaptized” Kryashens casts doubt on the very widespread point of view that the Kryashens arose as a result of the forced Christianization of Muslim Tatars.
The above considerations allow us to make the assumption that in the Bulgar state, the Golden Horde and, to a large extent, the Kazan Khanate, Islam was the religion of the ruling classes and privileged classes, and the common people, or most of them: Chuvash, Mari, Udmurts, etc. lived according to their ancient grandfathers customs.
Now let's see how, under those historical conditions, the Kazan Tatars as we know them at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries could arise and multiply.
In the middle of the 15th century, as already mentioned, on the left bank of the Volga, Khan Ulu-Mahomet, who had been overthrown from the throne and fled from the Golden Horde, appeared with a relatively small detachment of his Tatars. He conquered and subjugated the local Chuvash tribe and created the feudal-serf Kazan Khanate, in which the victors, the Muslim Tatars, were the privileged class, and the conquered Chuvash were the serf common people.
In the latest edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, we read the following in more detail about the internal structure of the state in its finalized period: “Kazan Khanate, a feudal state in the Middle Volga region (1438-1552), formed as a result of the collapse of the Golden Horde on the territory of Volga-Kama Bulgaria. The founder of the dynasty of Kazan khans was Ulu-Muhammad.”
The highest state power belonged to the khan, but was directed by the council of large feudal lords (divan). The top of the feudal nobility consisted of Karachi, representatives of four of the most noble families. Next came the sultans, emirs, and below them were the Murzas, lancers and warriors. A major role was played by the Muslim clergy, who owned vast waqf lands. The bulk of the population consisted of “black people”: free peasants who paid yasak and other taxes to the state, feudal-dependent peasants, serfs from prisoners of war and slaves. The Tatar nobles (emirs, beks, murzas, etc.) were hardly very merciful to their serfs, who were also foreigners and people of other faiths. Voluntarily or pursuing goals related to some benefit, but over time, the common people began to adopt their religion from the privileged class, which was associated with the renunciation of their national identity and with a complete change in their way of life and way of life, in accordance with the requirements of the new “Tatar” faith - Islam. This transition of the Chuvash to Mohammedanism was the beginning of the formation of the Kazan Tatars.
The new state that arose on the Volga lasted only about a hundred years, during which raids on the outskirts of the Moscow state almost did not stop. In the inner state life Frequent palace coups took place and proteges found themselves on the Khan’s throne: either Turkey (Crimea), or Moscow, or the Nogai Horde, etc.
The process of forming the Kazan Tatars in the above-mentioned way from the Chuvash, and partly from other, peoples of the Volga region occurred throughout the entire period of the existence of the Kazan Khanate, did not stop after the annexation of Kazan to the Moscow state and continued until the beginning of the twentieth century, i.e. almost up to our time. The Kazan Tatars grew in number not so much as a result of natural growth, but as a result of the Tatarization of other nationalities of the region.
Let us give another rather interesting argument in favor of Chuvash origin Kazan Tatars. It turns out that the Meadow Mari now call the Tatars “suas”. From time immemorial, the Meadow Mari were close neighbors with that part of the Chuvash people who lived on the left bank of the Volga and were the first to become Tatars, so that in those places not a single Chuvash village remained for a long time, although according to historical information and scribal records of the Moscow State there were them there a lot of. The Mari did not notice, especially at the beginning, any changes among their neighbors as a result of the appearance of another god among them - Allah, and forever retained the former name for them in their language. But for distant neighbors - the Russians - from the very beginning of the formation of the Kazan kingdom, there was no doubt that the Kazan Tatars were the same Tatar-Mongols who left a sad memory of themselves among the Russians.
Throughout the relatively short history of this “Khanate,” continuous raids by “Tatars” on the outskirts of the Moscow state continued, and the first Khan Ulu-Magomet spent the rest of his life in these raids. These raids were accompanied by the devastation of the region, the robberies of the civilian population and the deportation of them “in full”, i.e. everything happened in the style of the Tatar-Mongols.
How did the Tatars appear? Origin of the Tatar people
5 (100%) 1 voteHow did the Tatars appear? Origin of the Tatar people
The leading group of the Tatar ethnic group is the Kazan Tatars. And now few people doubt that their ancestors were the Bulgars. How did it happen that the Bulgars became Tatars? The versions of the origin of this ethnonym are very interesting.
Turkic origin of the ethnonym
For the first time the name “Tatar” is found in the 8th century in the inscription on the monument to the famous commander Kul-tegin, which was erected during the Second Turkic Khaganate- a state of the Turks, located on the territory of modern Mongolia, but with a larger area. The inscription mentions the tribal unions "Otuz-Tatars" and "Tokuz-Tatars".
In the X-XII centuries, the ethnonym “Tatars” spread in China, Central Asia and Iran. The 11th century scientist Mahmud Kashgari in his writings called the space between Northern China and Eastern Turkestan “Tatar steppe”.
Perhaps that is why at the beginning of the 13th century the Mongols began to be called that way, who by this time had defeated the Tatar tribes and seized their lands.
Turkic-Persian origin
The learned anthropologist Alexey Sukharev, in his work “Kazan Tatars,” published in St. Petersburg in 1902, noted that the ethnonym Tatars comes from the Turkic word “tat,” which means nothing more than mountains, and the word of Persian origin “ar” or “ ir”, which means person, man, inhabitant. This word is found among many peoples: Bulgarians, Magyars, Khazars. It is also found among the Turks.
Persian origin
Soviet researcher Olga Belozerskaya connected the origin of the ethnonym with the Persian word “tepter” or “defter”, which is interpreted as “colonist”. However, it is noted that the ethnonym “Tiptyar” is of later origin. Most likely, it arose in the 16th-17th centuries, when the Bulgars who moved from their lands to the Urals or Bashkiria began to be called this.
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Old Persian origin
There is a hypothesis that the name “Tatars” comes from the ancient Persian word “tat” - this is how the Persians were called in the old days. Researchers refer to the 11th century scientist Mahmut Kashgari, who wrote that“Tatami the Turks call those who speak Farsi.”
However, the Turks also called the Chinese and even the Uyghurs tatami. And it could well be that tat meant “foreigner,” “foreign-speaking.” However, one does not contradict the other. After all, the Turks could first call Iranian-speaking people tatami, and then the name could spread to other strangers.
By the way, the Russian word “thief” may also have been borrowed from the Persians.
Greek origin
We all know that among the ancient Greeks the word “tartar” meant other world, hell Thus, “Tartarine” was an inhabitant of the underground depths. This name arose even before the invasion of Batu’s army in Europe. Perhaps it was brought here by travelers and merchants, but even then the word “Tatars” was associated by Europeans with eastern barbarians.
After the invasion of Batu Khan, Europeans began to perceive them exclusively as a people who came out of hell and brought the horrors of war and death. Ludwig IX was nicknamed a saint because he prayed himself and called on his people to pray to avoid Batu's invasion. As we remember, Khan Udegey died at this time. The Mongols turned back. This convinced the Europeans that they were right.
From now on, among the peoples of Europe, the Tatars became a generalization of all barbarian peoples living in the east.
To be fair, it must be said that on some old maps of Europe, Tartary began just beyond the Russian border. The Mongol Empire collapsed in the 15th century, but European historians continued to call everyone Tatars until the 18th century. eastern peoples from the Volga to China.
By the way, the Tatar Strait, separating Sakhalin Island from the mainland, is called that because “Tatars” - Orochi and Udege - also lived on its shores. In any case, this was the opinion of Jean François La Perouse, who gave the name to the strait.
Chinese origin
Some scientists believe that the ethnonym “Tatars” is of Chinese origin. Back in the 5th century, in the northeast of Mongolia and Manchuria there lived a tribe that the Chinese called “ta-ta”, “da-da” or “tatan”. And in some dialects of Chinese the name sounded exactly like “Tatar” or “tartar” due to the nasal diphthong.
The tribe was warlike and constantly disturbed its neighbors. Perhaps later the name Tartar spread to other peoples who were unfriendly to the Chinese.
Most likely, it was from China that the name “Tatars” penetrated into Arab and Persian literary sources.
The Tatars are a Turkic people living in the central part of European Russia, as well as in the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia, the Far East, the Crimea, as well as in Kazakhstan, the states of Central Asia and the Chinese Autonomous Republic of Xinjiang. About 5.3 million people live in the Russian Federation Tatar nationality, which is 4% of the total population of the country, they rank second in number after the Russians, 37% of all Tatars in Russia live in the Republic of Tatarstan in the capital of the Volga Federal District with its capital in the city of Kazan and make up the majority (53%) of the population of the republic. National language - Tatar (group Altai languages, Turkic group, Kipchak subgroup), has several dialects. The majority of Tatars are Sunni Muslims; there are also Orthodox and those who do not identify themselves with specific religious movements.
Cultural heritage and family values
Tatar traditions of housekeeping and family life life has been preserved to a greater extent in villages and towns. Kazan Tatars, for example, lived in wooden huts, which differed from Russian ones only in that they did not have an entrance hall and the common room was divided into female and male half, separated by a curtain (charshau) or a wooden partition. In any Tatar hut it was obligatory to have green and red chests, which were later used as the bride’s dowry. In almost every house, a framed piece of text from the Koran, the so-called “shamail,” hung on the wall; it hung above the threshold as a talisman, and a wish for happiness and prosperity was written on it. In decorating the house and surrounding area, many bright rich colors and shades were used; the interior rooms were abundantly decorated with embroidery, since Islam prohibits the depiction of humans and animals, mainly embroidered towels, bedspreads and other things were decorated with geometric patterns.
The head of the family is the father, his requests and instructions must be carried out unquestioningly, the mother has a special place of honor. Tatar children are taught from an early age to respect their elders, not to hurt their younger ones, and to always help the disadvantaged. The Tatars are very hospitable, even if a person is an enemy of the family, but he came to the house as a guest, they will not refuse him anything, they will feed him, give him something to drink and offer him an overnight stay. Tatar girls are raised as modest and decent future housewives; they are taught in advance how to manage a household and are prepared for marriage.
Tatar customs and traditions
There are calendar and family rituals. The first are associated with labor activity(sowing, harvesting, etc.) and are held every year at approximately the same time. Family rituals are carried out as needed in accordance with changes that have occurred in the family: the birth of children, marriage and other rituals.
Traditional Tatar wedding characterized by the obligatory performance of the Muslim ritual nikah, it takes place at home or in a mosque in the presence of a mullah, the festive table consists exclusively of Tatar national dishes: chak-chak, kort, katyk, kosh-tele, peremyachi, kaymak, etc., guests do not eat pork and do not drink alcoholic beverages. The male groom puts on a skullcap, the female bride puts on a long dress with closed sleeves, a headscarf is required.
Tatar wedding ceremonies are characterized by a preliminary agreement between the parents of the bride and groom to enter into a marriage union, often even without their consent. The groom's parents must pay a bride price, the size of which is discussed in advance. If the groom is not satisfied with the size of the bride price and he wants to “save money,” there is nothing wrong with stealing the bride before the wedding.
When a child is born, a mullah is invited to him, he performs a special ceremony, whispering prayers into the child’s ear that drive away evil spirits and his name. Guests come with gifts, and a festive table is set for them.
Islam has a huge influence on social life Tatars and therefore the Tatar people divide all holidays into religious ones, they are called “gaete” - for example, Uraza Gaete - a holiday in honor of the end of fasting, or Korban Gaete, a holiday of sacrifice, and secular or folk “bayram”, meaning “spring beauty or celebration”.
On the holiday of Uraza, Muslim Tatar believers spend the whole day in prayers and conversations with Allah, asking him for protection and remission of sins; they can drink and eat only after sunset.
During the celebrations of Kurban Bayram, the holiday of sacrifice and the end of the Hajj, also called the holiday of goodness, every self-respecting Muslim, after performing morning prayer in the mosque, must slaughter a sacrificial ram, sheep, goat or cow and distribute the meat to those in need.
One of the most significant pre-Islamic holidays is the plow festival Sabantuy, which is held in the spring and symbolizes the end of sowing. The culmination of the celebration is the holding of various competitions and competitions in running, wrestling or horse racing. Also, a mandatory treat for all those present is porridge or botkasy in Tatar, which used to be prepared from common products in a huge cauldron on one of the hills or hillocks. Also at the holiday it was mandatory to have large quantity colored eggs for children to collect. Main holiday Sabantuy of the Republic of Tatarstan is officially recognized and is held every year in the Birch Grove in the village of Mirny, near Kazan.
“Scratch any Russian, you will find a Tatar there,” says a popular saying, alluding to the 300-year Tatar-Mongol yoke that ruled Russia. But what's interesting is that genetic research recent years showed that there are practically no Asian or Ural markers in the Russian gene pool. Either the yoke was somehow unreal, or the Tatars did not come to Rus' from Mongolia at all. What kind of mysterious people are these and why is the origin of the second largest ethnic group in Russia the subject of fierce debate among numerous scientists for many years?
Descendants of the Bulgarians
Today there are three theories about the origin of the Tatar people. And they all absolutely exclude each other, while each having their own armies of fans. Some historians identify the Kazan Tatars with those Mongol-Tatars who conquered Rus' and other countries of Eastern Europe in the 13th century. Other historians argue that the current Tatars are a conglomerate of Turko-Finnish tribes of the Middle Volga region and the Mongol conquerors. The third theory says that the Tatars are direct descendants of the Kama Bulgars, who received only the name “Tatars” from the Mongols. The last theory has the most evidence. In the 19th century, the Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedia wrote: “The Volga Bulgars are a people of Turkic origin, which was later joined by Finnish and even Slavic elements. From these three elements along the Volga and Kama a powerful and cultural state was formed. Until the 10th century, the dominant religion of the Bulgars was pagan; from the beginning of the tenth century it was replaced by Islam. In its subsequent history, the state came into frequent clashes with the Russians, traded with them and even had some influence on them, but then became part of the Russian state, disappearing from the historical arena forever.” The exact etymology of the word “Bulgar”, from which “Bulgar”, “Balkar”, “Malkar”, etc. is derived, is unknown. Existing interpretations of the etymology of this word are very diverse, often contradictory, and linguists are faced with the task of revealing its original meaning. In any case, the “ar” component in this ethnonym apparently means the concept of “person”, “man” from the Persian or Turkic word “ar” or “ir”. Perhaps this name was given to the Bulgarians by other peoples, but it was accepted by them for a long time as a self-name. They called themselves Bulgars back in the days when they lived in the North Caucasus, the Azov region, and the Don region. It was not for nothing that their country was called Great Bulgaria, on behalf of the self-name of the people.
They brought this ethnonym with them to the Danube, which then became the self-name of a new ethnic group - the Danube Bulgarians. They brought this name to the banks of the Kama, to the Middle Volga region, which, as a self-name, remained there for many hundreds of years and lives in the minds of the people to this day, even despite the persistent desire to call them Tatars for more than 500 years. In the middle of the last century, Soviet scientists, based on an analysis of numerous archaeological sites established that even after joining Rus', the culture of the Bulgars developed according to the old tradition. Speaking about the anthropology of modern Tatars, it was noted that they represent a Caucasoid group with a slight Mongol admixture, “that the Mongols, having passed Volga Bulgaria with fire and sword, did not settle in the Middle Volga region and did not have a noticeable influence on the formation of modern Tatars.” It was also established that the language of modern Tatars is a natural and direct continuation of the language of the Bulgars. Outstanding Turkic linguist and historian, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences A.Yu. Yakubovsky stated: “The population of the Tatar Republic, occupying the territory of the former Bulgarian principality, did not leave here, was not exterminated by anyone and lives to this day; “We can really say with confidence that the ethnic composition of the Tatars is made up of the ancient Bulgars, who included new elements that were still poorly examined, and only later received the name Tatars.” So almost 100 years ago, scientists were inclined to believe that modern Tatars, by their origin, have nothing to do with the Mongols and are direct descendants of the Bulgars.
Small but formidable tribe
It seemed that the question of the origin of the Tatars had been resolved at all levels and aspects, and in the future the incorrect use of this ethnonym would be forever put an end to. However, the habitual perception of the Tatars as fellow tribesmen of Genghis Khan turned out to be so stable and stubborn that the identification of the Tatars with the Mongols continues to this day. “But the whole point is,” writes Doctor of Philology A.G. Karimullin, “that the history of the ethnonym “Tatars” is completely different from the history of the people.” The origin of the name “Tatars” has attracted the attention of many researchers. Some derive the etymology of this word from “mountain resident,” where “tat” supposedly means “mountain,” and “ar” means “resident.” With this etymology, it seems that the ethnonym “Tatar” is of Turkic origin. There are attempts to explain the etymology of “Tatars” from the Tungusic word “ta-ta” in the meaning of “archer”, “drag”, “pull”. IN Greek mythology“tartar” means “the other world, hell,” and “tartarin” means “an inhabitant of hell, the underworld.” Western European peoples perceive the name “Tatars” precisely in the sense of “Tartar”. Many authors trace the origin of the word “Tatar” to Chinese language. Under the name “ta-ta”, “da-da”, or “tatan”, back in the 5th century, one Mongolian tribe lived in North-Eastern Mongolia and Manchuria. This tribe was quite warlike, disturbing not only the neighboring related Mongol tribes, but also did not leave the Chinese alone.
Since the raids of the Ta-ta tribe brought considerable trouble to the powerful Chinese, the latter sought to present them as savages and barbarians. Later, Chinese historians extended this name, which they presented as barbaric, to their northern neighbors, to peoples unfriendly to them, including the non-Mongolian tribes of Asia. With the light hand of the Chinese, the name “Tatars”, as a synonym for the contemptuous “barbarians”, “savages”, penetrated into Arab and Persian sources, and then into Europe. Genghis Khan, for the insults inflicted on his Tatami tribe, stated: “For a long time, the Tatar people destroyed our fathers and grandfathers. We will take revenge for our fathers and grandfathers.” And gathering all his strength, he physically destroyed this tribe. Soviet historian-Mongolian E.I. In this regard, Kychanov writes: “This is how the Tatar tribe perished, which, even before the rise of the Mongols, gave its name as a common noun to all Tatar-Mongol tribes. And when in distant auls and villages in the West, twenty to thirty years after that massacre, alarming cries of “Tatars!” were heard, there were few real Tatars among the advancing conquerors, only their formidable name remained, and they themselves had long been lying in the land of their native ulus.” Genghis Khan forbade calling the Mongols the hated name “Tatars,” and when the European traveler Rubruk arrived at the headquarters of the Mongol troops in 1254, he was specifically warned about this. But by that time this name had already become so widespread in Asia and Europe, right up to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, that such administrative measures could not erase it from the memory of peoples.
Great and terrible
The Mongol Empire collapsed in the 15th century, but Western historians and Jesuit missionaries, even in the 18th century, continued to call all eastern peoples “Tartars,” “spreading from the Volga to China and Japan, in the south from Tibet through all of mountainous Asia to the Arctic Ocean.” Medieval Europe, in order to frighten the masses, endowed the “Tartars” with horns, slanting eyes, and painted them as bow-legged and cannibals. In medieval Western European literature Russians were identified with the Tatars, and Muscovy was simultaneously called “Tartaria”. In such “favorable” conditions, it was not difficult for priests, official ideologists and historians to present the Tatars as barbarians, savages, descendants of the Mongol conquerors, which led to the confusion of different peoples in one name. The consequence of this is, first of all, a distorted idea of the origin of modern Tatars. All that has been said, ultimately, led and continues to lead to the falsification of the history of many Turkic peoples, primarily modern Tatars.
There remains one more, probably the most complex issue– and when did the Bulgars themselves begin to be called Tatars, and their language became Tatar? In Rus', and after the annexation of the Kazan Khanate, their inhabitants were known for a long time as Bulgars or were called Kazanians, clearly distinguished from the “Tatars.” From time immemorial, friendly, good neighborly relations, relations of mutual assistance and support existed between the Kazan Bulgars and the Russians. The chronicles tell that in the hungry, lean years in Rus', the Bulgars always rushed to help their neighbors - they brought Bulgar bread to the starving Russian people on dozens of ships, Bulgar craftsmen built wonderful buildings and churches in Russian cities. But at moments of aggravation of relations between the authorities of Kazan and Moscow, Russian princes and churchmen began to call Kazan residents “Tatars,” thereby expressing their dissatisfaction with them. The Kazan people did not agree to voluntary Christianization and, after the liquidation of their state independence, stubbornly resisted the assimilationist policy for centuries. Under these conditions, in addition to the general accusation of the Tatars of pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism, Kazan residents are beginning to be portrayed as descendants of the Mongol conquerors, former Mongol hordes, who devastated the Russian lands and kept the people oppressed for hundreds of years. In retrospect, the Polovtsians, who inhabited the southern Russian steppes and part of Kievan Rus even before the invasion of the Mongols, who fought hand in hand with the Russians against the Mongol conquerors, were also included in the “Tatars.”
Modern genetic data characterizing the populations of Eurasia have shown that the presence of any characteristics among the Tatars that could be attributed to traces of the “titular nation” of the Golden Horde has not been identified. According to genetic data, the Tatars as a whole are a typical population of Northern Europe. And this, as was said at the beginning of the article, can be explained by one of two hypotheses. Either the Golden Horde was a political formation of Eastern Europe that did not have a noticeable influence on the development of the peoples of the Ural-Volga region and, above all, the ancestors of the Kazan Tatars, or the genetic portrait of its “titular nation” was identical to the genetic portrait of modern Tatars and Russians. And from all the studies that have been written about the origin of the Tatars, we can conclude that thoroughly complicated story this people can present many more amazing discoveries.