TATARS, Tatarlar(self-name), people in Russia (the second largest after the Russians), main population of the Republic of Tatarstan .
According to the 2002 Census, 5 million 558 thousand Tatars live in Russia. They live in the Republic of Tatarstan (2 million people), Bashkiria (991 thousand people), Udmurtia, Mordovia, the Mari Republic, Chuvashia, as well as in the regions of the Volga-Ural region, Western and Eastern Siberia and the Far East. They live in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. According to the 2010 Census, 5,310,649 Tatars live in Russia.
History of the ethnonym
For the first time ethnonym "Tatars" appeared among the Mongolian and Turkic tribes in the 6th-9th centuries, but was fixed as a common ethnonym only in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
In the 13th century, the Mongols who created the Golden Horde included the tribes they conquered, including the Turks, who were called Tatars. In the 13-14 centuries, the Kipchaks, who were numerically predominant in the Golden Horde, assimilated all the other Turkic-Mongolian tribes, but adopted the ethnonym "Tatars". The European peoples, Russians and some Central Asian peoples also called the population of this state.
In the khanates formed after the collapse of the Golden Horde, the noble layers of Kypchak-Nogai origin called themselves Tatars. It was they who played the main role in the spread of the ethnonym. However, among the Tatars in the 16th century it was perceived as derogatory, and until the second half of the 19th century there were other self-names: Meselman, Kazanly, Bulgarians, Misher, Tipter, Nagaybek and others - in the Volga-Ural and nougai, karagash, yurt, tatars and others- the Astrakhan Tatars. Except for Meselman, all of them were local self-names. The process of national consolidation led to the choice of a unifying self-name. By the time of the 1926 census, most Tatars called themselves Tatars. In recent years, a small number in Tatarstan and other regions of the Volga region call themselves Bulgars or Volga Bulgars.
Language
Tatar language belongs to the Kypchak-Bulgarian subgroup of the Kypchak group of the Turkic branch of the Altaic language family and has three main dialects: western (Mishar), middle (Kazan-Tatar) and eastern (Siberian-Tatar). The literary norm was formed on the basis of the Kazan-Tatar dialect with the participation of Mishar. Writing based on Cyrillic graphics.
Religion
Most believing Tatars are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab. The population of the former Volga Bulgaria was Muslim from the 10th century and remained so in the Horde, therefore standing out among neighboring peoples. Then, after the entry of the Tatars into the Muscovite state, their ethnic self-consciousness became even more intertwined with the religious. Some of the Tatars even defined their nationality as "meselman", i.e. Muslims. At the same time, they retained (and partly retain to this day) elements of the ancient pre-Islamic calendar rituals.
Traditional activities
The basis of the traditional economy of the Volga-Ural Tatars in the 19th and early 20th centuries was plowed agriculture. They grew winter rye, oats, barley, lentils, millet, spelt, flax, and hemp. They were also engaged in horticulture and melon growing. Pasture-stall animal husbandry resembled nomadic in some ways. For example, horses in some areas grazed for a whole year. Only the Mishars were seriously engaged in hunting. A high level of development was achieved by handicraft and manufactory production (jewelry, fulling and felting, furrier, weaving and gold embroidery), tanneries and cloth factories were operating, and trade was developed.
National Costume
Men and women consisted of trousers with a wide step and a shirt, which was worn with a sleeveless jacket, often embroidered. Tatar women's costume was distinguished by an abundance of jewelry made of silver, cowrie shells, glass beads. Cossacks served as outerwear, and in winter - a quilted beshmet or fur coat. Men wore a skullcap on their heads, and over it a fur hat or a hat made of felt. Women wore an embroidered velvet cap and a scarf. The traditional shoes of the Tatars are leather ichigi with soft soles, over which they put on galoshes.
Sources: Peoples of Russia: Atlas of Cultures and Religions / Ed. V.A. Tishkov, A.V. Zhuravsky, O.E. Kazmina. - M.: CPI "Design. Information. Cartography", 2008.
Peoples and Religions of the World: Encyclopedia / Ch. ed. V.A. Tishkov. Editors: O.Yu.Artemova, S.A.Arutyunov, A.N.Kozhanovsky, V.M.Makarevich (deputy chief editor), V.A.Popov, P.I. ed.), G.Yu. Sitnyansky. - M .: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 1998, - 928 p.: ill. — ISBN 5-85270-155-6
In modern Russia, a very specific national policy is pursued. It is implicitly aimed at the complete assimilation of non-Russian peoples. This is evidenced by the policy of the state in the field of education, culture, financing, statistics ...
Such a policy is an example of the enviable continuity of the state strategy of the times of the Soviet Union and modern Russia. After perestroika and all sorts of upheavals, everything changed, bases, superstructures, ideology, education, economy, culture - only the pathological rejection of the existence of non-Russian peoples on the territory of the country remained unchanged.
Why am I writing this? And in order to report one interesting fact, which was once told by the popularly beloved Tatar writer Muhammet Magdeev at the turn of the 80-90s. At that time I was a student, and M. Magdeev gave us lectures on modern Russian literature. His in-line lectures always aroused the most lively interest, the audiences were so full of students that there were no empty seats even in the aisles. This is understandable: even those students who disappeared in a long-term hibernation in the bowels of stuffy hostels came, I'm not talking about students from parallel streams.
Once M. Magdeev told a story about his acquaintance with a certain high-ranking official from the State Statistical Service. It happened in one of the rest houses for the Soviet nomenklatura. The atmosphere reigning in the rest house was conducive to confidential conversations and frankness. And so the statistics official told M. Magdeev that there were not 5-6 million Tatars in the Soviet Union, as official population census data show, but 20 million. Only now the policy of the state is such that it is not supposed to publish real data on the number of Tatars in the USSR.
Just the other day, I had a conversation with one of the modern Tatar writers, who back in Soviet times was summoned to a showdown in the Tatar Regional Committee of the CPSU for spreading rumors about twenty million Tatars living in Russia. Then the daredevil referred to the official academic edition of the works of the Tatar poet Gabdulla Tukay, where in one of the volumes G. Tukay, based on the statistics of his time (i.e. Tsarist Russia), reported about twenty million Tatars living in the territories from Moscow to the Urals and from Perm to Astrakhan. And if we add to this number the Tatars of Siberia, Turkestan and Central Asia, the Crimea?
I feel sorry for the state, which is trying in every possible way to hide the true data on the number of my Tatar people. All Russian history will remain scanty and dishonest until the official historical science recognizes its “Tatar component”.
Editorial opinion may not reflect the views of the author
People in the Russian Federation. The number in the Russian Federation is 5522096 people. The popular spoken Tatar language of the Kypchak group of the Turkic language is divided into three dialects.
Tatars are the most numerous Turkic people of Russia. They live in the Republic of Tatarstan, as well as in Bashkortostan, the Udmurt Republic and the adjacent regions of the Urals and the Volga region. There are large Tatar communities in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other large cities. And in general, in all regions of Russia, one can meet Tatars who have been living outside their homeland, the Volga region, for decades. They have taken root in a new place, fit into a new environment for them, feel great there and do not want to leave anywhere.
There are several peoples in Russia who call themselves Tatars. Astrakhan Tatars live not far from Astrakhan, Siberian ~ in Western Siberia, Kasimov Tatars live near the city of Kasimov on the Oka River (in the territory where serving Tatar princes lived several centuries ago). And finally, the Kazan Tatars are named after the capital of Tatarstan - the city of Kazan. All these are different, although close to each other peoples. However, only Kazan should be called simply Tatars.
Among the Tatars, two ethnographic groups are distinguished - the Mishari Tatars and the Kryashen Tatars. The first are known for the fact that, being Muslims, they do not celebrate the national holiday Sabantuy, but they celebrate Red Egg Day - something similar to Orthodox Easter. On this day, children collect colored eggs from home and play with them. The Kryashens (“baptized”) are called so because they were baptized, that is, they accepted Christianity, and they celebrate not Muslim, but Christian holidays.
The Tatars themselves began to call themselves that way quite late - only in the middle of the 19th century. For a very long time they did not like this name and considered it humiliating. Until the 19th century they were called differently: "Bulgarly" (Bulgars), "Kazanly" (Kazan), "Meselman" (Muslims). And now many demand the return of the name "Bulgars".
The Turks came to the regions of the Middle Volga and the Kama region from the steppes of Central Asia and from the North Caucasus, crowded by tribes that moved from Asia to Europe. The migration continued for several centuries. At the end of the IX-X centuries. a prosperous state, the Volga Bulgaria, arose on the Middle Volga. The people living in this state were called Bulgars. Volga Bulgaria existed for two and a half centuries. Here agriculture and cattle breeding, handicrafts developed, there was trade with Russia and with the countries of Europe and Asia.
The high level of Bulgar culture in that period is evidenced by the existence of two types of writing - the ancient Turkic runic and the later Arabic, which came along with Islam in the 10th century. The Arabic language and writing gradually replaced the signs of the ancient Turkic writing from the sphere of state circulation. And this is natural: the entire Muslim East, with which Bulgaria had close political and economic contacts, used the Arabic language.
The names of remarkable poets, philosophers, scientists of Bulgaria, whose works are included in the treasury of the peoples of the East, have survived to our time. This is Khoja Ahmed Bulgari (XI century) - a scientist and theologian, an expert on the moral precepts of Islam; Suleiman ibn Daud al-Saksini-Suvari (XII century) is the author of philosophical treatises with very poetic titles: “The light of the rays is the truthfulness of secrets”, “The flower of the garden that delights sick souls”. And the poet Kul Gali (XII-XIII centuries) wrote the "Poem about Yusuf", which is considered a classic Turkic-language work of art of the pre-Mongolian period.
In the middle of the XIII century. Volga Bulgaria was conquered by the Tatar-Mongols and became part of the Golden Horde. After the fall of the Horde in the XV century. in the Middle Volga region, a new state arises - the Kazan Khanate. The main backbone of its population is formed by the same Bulgars, who by that time had already experienced the strong influence of their neighbors - the Finno-Ugric peoples (Mordovians, Mari, Udmurts), who lived next to them in the Volga basin, as well as the Mongols, who made up the majority of the ruling class Golden Horde.
Where did the name "Tatars" come from? There are several versions of this. According to the most common, one of the Central Asian tribes conquered by the Mongols was called "tatan", "tatabi". In Rus', this word turned into “Tatars”, and they began to call everyone: the Mongols, and the Turkic population of the Golden Horde subject to the Mongols, far from being mono-ethnic in composition. With the collapse of the Horde, the word "Tatars" did not disappear, they continued to collectively call the Turkic-speaking peoples on the southern and eastern borders of Rus'. Over time, its meaning narrowed down to the name of one people who lived on the territory of the Kazan Khanate.
The Khanate was conquered by Russian troops in 1552. Since then, the Tatar lands have been part of Russia, and the history of the Tatars has been developing in close cooperation with the peoples inhabiting the Russian state.
Tatars excelled in various types of economic activity. They were excellent farmers (they grew rye, barley, millet, peas, lentils) and excellent cattle breeders. Of all types of livestock, sheep and horses were especially preferred.
Tatars were famous as excellent artisans. Coopers made barrels for fish, caviar, sour, pickles, beer. Tanners made leather. Kazan morocco and Bulgar yuft (original locally produced leather), shoes and boots, very soft to the touch, decorated with applique from pieces of multi-colored leather, were especially valued at fairs. Among the Kazan Tatars there were many enterprising and successful merchants who traded throughout Russia.
In the Tatar cuisine, one can distinguish "agricultural" dishes and "cattle-breeding" dishes. The former include soups with pieces of dough, cereals, pancakes, cakes, that is, what can be prepared from grain and flour. The second - dried horse meat sausage, sour cream, different types of cheese, a special kind of sour milk - katyk. And if katyk is diluted with water and cooled, you get a wonderful thirst-quenching drink - ayran. Well, belyashi - round pies fried in butter with meat or vegetable filling, which can be seen through a hole in the dough - are known to everyone. Smoked goose was considered a festive dish among the Tatars.
Already at the beginning of the X century. the ancestors of the Tatars converted to Islam, and since then their culture has developed within the framework of the Islamic world. This was facilitated by the spread of writing based on the Arabic script and the construction of a large number of mosques. Schools were created at mosques - mektebe and madrasah, where children (and not only from noble families) learned to read the Koran in Arabic.
Ten centuries of written tradition have not been in vain. Among the Kazan Tatars, in comparison with other Turkic peoples of Russia, there are many writers, poets, composers, and artists. Often it was the Tatars who were the mullahs and teachers of other Turkic peoples. Tatars have a highly developed sense of national identity, pride in their history and culture.
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Scratch a Tatar - you will find a Russian
Multinational Russia
There are many strangers in our country. It is not right. We should not be strangers to each other. I'll start with Tatars - the second largest ethnic group in Russia, there are almost 6 million of them.
Shot from the film "Mongol"
Who are the Tatars? The history of this ethnonym, as often happened in the Middle Ages, is the history of ethnographic confusion.
In the 11th-12th centuries, the steppes of Central Asia were inhabited by various Mongol-speaking tribes: Naimans, Mongols, Kereits, Merkits and Tatars. The latter wandered along the borders of the Chinese state. Therefore, in China, the name of the Tatars was transferred to other Mongolian tribes in the meaning of "barbarians". Actually, the Chinese called the Tatars white Tatars, the Mongols who lived to the north were called black Tatars, and the Mongolian tribes who lived even further, in the Siberian forests, were called wild Tatars.
At the beginning of the 13th century, Genghis Khan undertook a punitive campaign against real Tatars in retaliation for the poisoning of his father. The order that the lord of the Mongols gave to his soldiers has been preserved: to destroy everyone who is taller than the cart axle. As a result of this massacre, the Tatars as a military-political force were wiped off the face of the earth. But, as the Persian historian Rashid ad-Din testifies, “due to their extraordinary greatness and honorary position, other Turkic clans, with all the difference in their ranks and names, became known under their name, and everyone was called Tatars.”
The Mongols themselves never called themselves Tatars. However, the Khorezm and Arab merchants who were constantly in contact with the Chinese brought the name "Tatars" to Europe even before the arrival of Batu Khan's troops here. Europeans brought together the ethnonym "Tatars" with the Greek name for hell - Tartarus. Later, European historians and geographers used the term Tartaria as a synonym for the "barbarian East". For example, on some European maps of the 15th-16th centuries, Moscow Rus' is designated as "Moscow Tartaria" or "European Tartaria".
As for the modern Tatars, they have absolutely nothing to do with the Tatars of the XII-XIII centuries, neither by origin nor by language. The Volga, Crimean, Astrakhan and other modern Tatars inherited only the name from the Central Asian Tatars.
The modern Tatar people do not have a single ethnic root. Among his ancestors were the Huns, Volga Bulgars, Kipchaks, Nogais, Mongols, Kimaks and other Turkic-Mongolian peoples. But even more, the formation of modern Tatars was influenced by the Finno-Ugric peoples and Russians. According to anthropological data, more than 60% of Tatars have Caucasoid features, and only 30% have Turkic-Mongolian features.
The appearance on the banks of the Volga Ulus Jochi was an important milestone in the history of the Tatars. In the era of Genghisides, Tatar history became truly global. The system of state administration and finance, the postal (Yamskaya) service, inherited by Moscow, has reached perfection. More than 150 cities arose where the boundless Polovtsian steppes recently stretched. Some of their names sound like a fairy tale: Gulstan (land of flowers), Saray (palace), Aktobe (white vault).
Some cities in size and population far exceeded those of Western Europe. For example, if Rome in the XIV century had 35 thousand inhabitants, and Paris - 58 thousand, then the capital of the Horde, the city of Saray, has more than 100 thousand. According to Arab travelers, there were palaces, mosques, temples of other religions, schools, public gardens, baths, and water supply in Sarai. Not only merchants and warriors lived here, but also poets. All religions in the Golden Horde enjoyed the same freedom. According to the laws of Genghis Khan, insulting religion was punishable by death. The clergy of each religion were exempted from paying taxes.
In the era of the Golden Horde, a huge potential for the reproduction of the Tatar culture was laid. But the Kazan Khanate continued this path mostly by inertia. Among the fragments of the Golden Horde, scattered along the borders of Rus', Kazan was of the greatest importance for Moscow due to its geographical proximity. Spread out on the banks of the Volga, among dense forests, the Muslim state was a curious phenomenon. As a state formation, the Kazan Khanate arose in the 30s of the 15th century and, over a short period of its existence, managed to show its cultural identity in the Islamic world.
The 120-year neighborhood of Moscow and Kazan was marked by fourteen major wars, not counting the almost annual border skirmishes. However, for a long time, both sides did not seek to conquer each other. Everything changed when Moscow recognized itself as the "third Rome", that is, the last defender of the Orthodox faith. Already in 1523, Metropolitan Daniil outlined the further path of Moscow politics, saying: "The Grand Duke will take all the land of Kazan." Three decades later, Ivan the Terrible fulfilled this prediction.
On August 20, 1552, the 50,000-strong Russian army encamped under the walls of Kazan. The city was defended by 35 thousand selected soldiers. About ten thousand more Tatar horsemen hid in the surrounding forests and disturbed the Russians with sudden raids from the rear.
The siege of Kazan lasted five weeks. After the sudden attacks of the Tatars from the side of the forest, the cold autumn rains annoyed the Russian army most of all. The soaking wet warriors even thought that Kazan sorcerers sent bad weather on them, who, according to Prince Kurbsky, went out onto the wall at sunrise and performed all sorts of spells. All this time, a tunnel was being built under one of the Kazan towers. On the night of October 1, the work was completed. 48 barrels of gunpowder were laid in the tunnel. At dawn there was a huge explosion. It was terrible to see, wrote the chronicler, many tormented corpses and crippled people flying in the air at a terrible height.
The Russian army rushed to the attack. The royal banners were already fluttering on the city walls, when Ivan the Terrible himself drove up to the city with guards regiments. The presence of the tsar gave the Moscow warriors new strength. Despite the fierce resistance of the Tatars, Kazan fell a few hours later. There were so many killed on both sides that in some places the piles of bodies lay flush with the city walls.
The death of the Kazan Khanate, of course, did not mean the death of the Tatar people. On the contrary, exactly
As part of Russia, in fact, the Tatar nation was formed, which finally received its truly national-state formation - the Republic of Tatarstan.
The Muscovite state has never closed itself in a narrow national-religious framework. Historians have calculated that among the nine hundred most ancient noble families of Russia, the Great Russians make up only one third, while 300 families come from Lithuania, and the other 300 from the Tatar lands.
The Moscow of Ivan the Terrible seemed to Western Europeans an Asian city not only in terms of its unusual architecture and buildings, but also in terms of the number of Muslims living in it. One English traveler who visited Moscow in 1557 and was invited to the royal feast noted that the tsar himself with his sons and Kazan tsars sat at the first table, Metropolitan Macarius with the Orthodox clergy at the second table, and the third table was entirely reserved for the Circassian princes. In addition, another two thousand noble Tatars feasted in other chambers. In the state service, they were given not the last place. Subsequently, the Tatar clans gave Russia a huge number of intellectuals, prominent military and political figures.
Over the centuries, the culture of the Tatars was also absorbed by Russia, and now many native Tatar words, household items, culinary dishes have entered the consciousness of a Russian person as if they were their own. According to Valishevsky, going out into the street, a Russian person put on a shoe, an army coat, a zipun, a caftan, a hood, a cap. In a fight, he used his fist. As a judge, he ordered to put shackles on the convict and give him a whip. Going on a long journey, he got into a sleigh to the coachman. And getting up from the mail sleigh, he went into a tavern, which replaced the old Russian tavern.
After the capture of Kazan in 1552, the culture of the Tatar people was preserved, first of all, thanks to Islam. Islam (in its Sunni version) is the traditional religion of the Tatars. The exception is a small group of them, which was converted to Orthodoxy in the 16th-18th centuries. This is how they call themselves: "Kryashen" - baptized.
Islam in the Volga region was established as early as 922, when the ruler of the Volga Bulgaria voluntarily converted to the Muslim faith. But even more important was the "Islamic revolution" of Khan Uzbek, who at the beginning of the XIV century made Islam the state religion of the Golden Horde (by the way, contrary to the laws of Genghis Khan on the equality of religions). As a result, the Kazan Khanate became the northernmost stronghold of world Islam.
In Russian-Tatar history there was a sad period of acute religious confrontation. The first decades after the capture of Kazan were marked by the persecution of Islam and the forcible planting of Christianity among the Tatars. Only the reforms of Catherine II fully legalized the Muslim clergy. In 1788, the Orenburg Spiritual Assembly was opened - the governing body of Muslims, with its center in Ufa.
And what can be said about the “Kazan orphan” or about uninvited guests? The Russians have long said that "an old proverb is not said in vain" and therefore "there is no trial or reprisal against the proverb." Silencing uncomfortable proverbs is not the best way to achieve interethnic understanding.
So, Ushakov's "Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language" explains the origin of the expression "Kazan orphan" as follows. Initially, this was said "about the Tatar mirzas (princes), who, after the conquest of the Kazan Khanate by Ivan the Terrible, tried to receive all kinds of indulgences from the Russian tsars, complaining about their bitter fate."
Indeed, the Moscow sovereigns considered it their duty to ingratiate the Tatar murzas, especially if they decided to change their faith. According to the documents, such "Kazan orphans" received about a thousand rubles of annual salary. Whereas, for example, a Russian doctor was entitled to only 30 rubles a year. Naturally, this state of affairs gave rise to envy among Russian service people. Later, the idiom "Kazan orphan" lost its historical and ethnic coloring - this is how they began to talk about anyone who only pretends to be unhappy, trying to arouse sympathy.
Now about the Tatar and the guest: which of them is “worse”, and which is “better”. The Tatars of the times of the Golden Horde, if they happened to come to a subordinate country, behaved like masters in it. Our chronicles are full of stories about oppression by the Tatar Baskaks and about the greed of the Khan's courtiers. It was then that they began to say: “A guest in the yard - and trouble in the yard”; “And the guests did not know how the host was tied up”; "The edge is not great, but the devil brings a guest - and the last one will be carried away." Well, and - "an uninvited guest is worse than a Tatar." When times changed, the Tatars, in turn, knew what he was like - the Russian "uninvited guest". Tatars also have a lot of offensive sayings about Russians. What can you do about it?
History is the irreparable past. What was, was. Only the truth heals morals, politics, interethnic relations. But it should be remembered that the truth of history is not bare facts, but an understanding of the past in order to live correctly in the present and future.
Tatars are the second largest ethnic group and the most numerous people of Muslim culture in the Russian Federation.
The Tatar ethnos has an ancient and colorful history, closely connected with the history of all the peoples of the Ural-Volga region and Russia as a whole.
The original culture of the Tatars deservedly entered the treasury of world culture and civilization.
We find traces of it in the traditions and language of Russians, Mordovians, Maris, Udmurts, Bashkirs, Chuvashs. At the same time, the national Tatar culture synthesizes the achievements of the Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Indo-Iranian peoples (Arabs, Slavs and others).
There are also various interpretations of the ethnonym "Tatars". This question is very relevant at the present time.
Some researchers deduce the origin of this word from the “mountain inhabitant”, where “tat” means “mountains”, and “ar” means “resident”, “person” (A.A. Sukharev. Kazan Tatars. St. Petersburg, 1904, p. 22). Others - the etymology of the word "Tatars" to the ancient Greek "messenger" (N.A. Baskakov. Russian surnames of Turkic origin. Baku, 1992, p. 122).
The well-known Turkologist D.E. Eremov connects the origin of the word "Tatars" with the ancient Turkic word and people. He associates the first component of the word "tat" with the name of the ancient Iranian people. At the same time, he refers to the information of the ancient Turkic chronicler Mahmud Kashgari that the Turks called “tatam” those who speak Farsi, that is, the Iranian language. The original meaning of the word "tat" was most likely "Persian", but then this word in Rus' began to denote all the Eastern and Asian peoples (D.E. Eremeev. Semantics of Turkic ethnonymy. - Sat. "Ethnonyms". M., 1970 , p.134).
Thus, a complete decoding of the ethnonym "Tatars" is still waiting for its researcher. In the meantime, unfortunately, even now the burden of established traditions, stereotypes about the Mongol-Tatar yoke makes most people think in highly distorted categories about the history of the Tatars, about their true origin, about Tatar culture.
According to the 1989 census, about 7 million people lived on the territory of the USSR. Of these, in the RSFSR - more than 5.5 million or 83.1% of the indicated number, including in Tatarstan - more than 1.76 million people (26.6%).
At present, Tatars make up slightly more than half of the population of Tatarstan, their national republic. At the same time, the number of people living outside Tatarstan is 1.12 million people in Bashkortostan, 110.5 thousand in Udmurtia, 47.3 thousand in Mordovia, 43.8 thousand in Mari El, and 35.7 thousand in Chuvashia. In addition, the Tatars also live in the regions of the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia.
Tatars are one of the most mobile peoples. Due to lack of land, frequent crop failures in their homeland and traditional craving for trade, even before 1917 they began to move to various regions of the Russian Empire, including the provinces of Central Russia, the Donbass, Eastern Siberia and the Far East, the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia, Central Asia and Kazakhstan. This migration process intensified during the years of Soviet rule, especially during the period of "great construction projects of socialism." Therefore, at present in the Russian Federation there is practically not a single subject of the federation, wherever the Tatars live. Even in the pre-revolutionary period, Tatar national communities were formed in Finland, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and China. As a result of the collapse of the USSR, Tatars living in the former Soviet republics - Uzbekistan (467.8 thousand), Kazakhstan (327.9 thousand), Tajikistan (72.2 thousand), Kyrgyzstan (70.5 thousand people) found themselves in the near abroad. ), Turkmenistan (39.2 thousand), Azerbaijan (28 thousand), Ukraine (86.9 thousand), in the Baltic countries (14 thousand). Already at the expense of remigrants from China. In Turkey and Finland, since the middle of the 20th century, Tatar national diasporas have formed in the USA, Japan, Australia, and Sweden.
According to many historians, the Tatar people with a single literary and practically common spoken language developed during the existence of a huge Turkic state - the Golden Horde. The literary language in this state was the so-called "Idel Terkise" or Old Tatar, based on the Kypchak-Bulgarian (Polovtsian) language and incorporating elements of the Central Asian literary languages. The modern literary language based on the middle dialect arose in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
In ancient times, the Turkic ancestors of the Tatars used runic writing, as evidenced by archaeological finds in the Urals and the Middle Volga region. From the moment of the voluntary adoption of Islam by one of the ancestors of the Tatars, the Volga-Kama Bulgars - the Tatars used the Arabic script, from 1929 to 1939 - the Latin script, since 1939 they use the Cyrillic alphabet with additional characters.
The modern Tatar language, belonging to the Kypchak-Bulgar subgroup of the Kypchak group of the Turkic language family, is divided into four dialects: middle (Kazan Tatar), western (Mishar), eastern (the language of the Siberian Tatars) and Crimean (the language of the Crimean Tatars). Despite the dialectal and territorial differences, the Tatars are a single nation with a single literary language, a single culture - folklore, literature, music, religion, national spirit, traditions and rituals.
The Tatar nation, in terms of literacy (the ability to write and read in their own language), even before the 1917 coup, occupied one of the leading places in the Russian Empire. The traditional craving for knowledge has been preserved in the current generation.
The ethnonym "Tatars" is of ancient origin, however, as a self-name of modern Tatars, it was accepted only in the 19th century, and the Ancient Tatars - Turkic tribes lived on the territory of today's Eurasia. The current Tatars (Kazan, Western, Siberian, Crimean) are not direct descendants of the ancient Tatars who came to Europe along with the troops of Genghis Khan. They formed into a single nation called the Tatars, after they were given such a name by the European peoples.
There is an opinion of historians that the name "Tatars" came from the name of a large influential clan "Tata", from which many Turkic-speaking military leaders of the state "Altyn Urta" (Golden Mean), better known as the "Golden Horde" came from.
Tatars are one of the most urbanized peoples of the Russian Federation. The social groups of Tatars living both in cities and in villages are almost no different from those that exist among other peoples, primarily among Russians.
In terms of their way of life, the Tatars do not differ from other surrounding peoples. The modern Tatar ethnos originated in parallel with the Russian. Modern Tatars are the Turkic-speaking part of the indigenous population of Russia, which, due to its greater territorial proximity to the East, chose not Orthodoxy but Islam. 99% of believing Tatars are Sunni Muslims of the moderate Hanafi persuasion.
Many ethnologists note the unique phenomenon of Tatar tolerance, which consists in the fact that in the entire history of the existence of the Tatars, they did not initiate a single conflict on ethnic and religious grounds. The most famous ethnologists and researchers are sure that tolerance is an invariable part of the Tatar national character.
The traditional food of the Tatars is meat, dairy and vegetable - soups seasoned with pieces of dough (tokmach-noodles, chumar), cereals, sourdough bread, kabartma cakes. National dishes - byalesh with a variety of fillings, often from meat (peryamyach), cut into pieces and mixed with millet, rice or potatoes, unleavened pastry is widely represented in the form of bavyrsak, kosh tele, ichpochmak, gubadia, katykly salma, chak-chak ( wedding dish). From horse meat (the favorite meat of many groups) they prepare dried sausage - kazylyk or kazy. Dried goose (kaklagan kaz) is considered a delicacy. Dairy products - katyk (a special kind of sour milk), sour cream, cottage cheese. Drinks - tea, airan (tan) - a mixture of katyk with water (used mainly in summer).
Tatars have always taken an active part in all defensive and liberation wars. In terms of the number of "Heroes of the Soviet Union", the Tatars are in fourth place, and in terms of the percentage of heroes for the entire nation, they are first. According to the number of Heroes of Russia, the Tatars have the second place.
From the Tatars advanced such military leaders as General of the Army M.A. Gareev, Colonel Generals P.S. Akchurin and F.Kh. Churakov, Vice Admiral M.D. Iskanderov, Rear Admirals Z.G. Lyapin, A.I. Bichurin and others. Outstanding scientists - academicians R.Z.Sagdeev (physical chemist), K.A.Valiev (physicist), R.A.Syunyaev (astrophysicist), and others.
Tatar literature is one of the most ancient in the Russian Federation. The most ancient literary monument is the poem "The Tale of Yusuf" by the Bulgarian poet Kul Gali, written in 1236. Among the famous poets of the past are M. Sarai-Gulistani (XIV century), M. Mukhammadyar (1496/97-1552), G. Utyz-Imyani (1754-1834), G. Kandaly (1797-1860). Of the poets and writers of the 20th century - the classics of Tatar literature Gabdullu Tukay, Fatih Amirkhan, the writers of the Soviet period - Galimzyan Ibragimov, Hadi Taktash, Majit Gafuri, Hasan Tufan, the patriotic poet, Hero of the Soviet Union Musa Jalil, Sibgat Hakim and many other talented poets and writers.
One of the first among the Turkic peoples, the Tatars developed theatrical art. The most outstanding artists are: Abdulla Kariev, actor and playwright Karim Tinchurin, Khalil Abjalilov, Gabdulla Shamukov, actors: Chulpan Khamatova, Marat Basharov Renata Litvinova, actor and director Sergei Shakurov, director Marcel Salimzhanov, opera singers - Khaidar Bigichev and Zilya Sungatullina, folk singers Ilgam Shakirov and Alfiya Afzalova, popular performers - Rinat Ibragimov, Zemfira Ramazanova, Salavat Fatkhutdinov, Aidar Galimov, Malika Razakova, young poet and musician Rustam Alyautdinov.
Fine art of the Tatars: First of all, this is the artist-patriarch Baki Urmanche, and many other prominent Tatar artists.
The sports achievements of the Tatars also constantly make themselves felt:
Wrestling - Shazam Safin, champion of the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki in Greco-Roman wrestling.
Rhythmic gymnastics - Olympic champion and multiple world champion Alina Kabaeva, world champions Amina Zaripova and Laysan Utyasheva.
Football - Rinat Dasaev, goalkeeper No. 1 in the world in 1988, goalkeeper of the Spartak team, members of the 2002 World Cup football team, attacking midfielder of the Russian national team Marat Izmailov (Lokomotiv Moscow), winner of the Russian Cup 2000/01; silver medalist of the Russian Championship in 2001, and goalkeeper of the Russian national team, KAMAZ (Naberezhnye Chelny); "Spartak Moscow); Lokomotiv (Moscow); "Verona" (Italy) Ruslan Nigmatullin, Hockey - Irek Gimaev, Sergei Gimaev, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, Tennis World Champion Marat Safin, and many many others.
Famous Russians - people from Tatar families
Many famous noble families of Russia have Tatar roots. Apraksins, Arakcheevs, Dashkovs, Derzhavins, Yermolovs, Sheremetevs, Bulgakovs, Gogols, Golitsyns, Milyukovs, Godunovs, Kochubeys, Stroganovs, Bunins, Kurakins, Saltykovs, Saburovs, Mansurovs, Tarbeevs, Godunovs, Yusupovs - not to list them all. By the way, the origin of the Counts Sheremetevs, in addition to the surname, is also confirmed by the family coat of arms, on which there is a silver crescent. The nobles Ermolovs, for example, where General Alexei Petrovich Ermolov came from, the pedigree begins like this: "The ancestor of this family Arslan-Murza-Yermola, and by baptism named John, as shown in the presented pedigree, in 1506 went to Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich from the Golden Horde ." Rus' was fabulously enriched at the expense of the Tatar people, talents flowed like a river. The princes Kurakins appeared in Rus' under Ivan III, this family comes from Ondrey Kurak, who was the offspring of the Horde Khan Bulgak, the recognized ancestor of the Great Russian princes Kurakins and Golitsyns, as well as the noble family of Bulgakovs. Chancellor Alexander Gorchakov, whose family was descended from the Tatar ambassador Karach-Murza. The nobles of the Dashkovs are also from the Horde. And the Saburovs, Mansurovs, Tarbeevs, Godunovs (from Murza Chet, who left the Horde in 1330), Glinskys (from Mamai), Kolokoltsevs, Talyzins (from Murza Kuchuk Tagaldyzin) ... A separate conversation is desirable about each clan - a lot, a lot they did for Russia. Every Russian patriot has heard about Admiral Ushakov, and only a few know that he is a Turk. This clan comes from the Horde Khan Redeg. The princes of Cherkasy are descended from the khan's family of Inal. “As a sign of allegiance,” it is written in their genealogy, “he sent his son Saltman and daughter Princess Maria to the sovereign, who later was married to Tsar John Vasilyevich, and Saltman was named Mikhail by baptism and was granted a boyar.”
But even by the named surnames it is clear that the Tatar blood greatly influenced the gene pool of the Russian people. Among the Russian nobility there are more than 120 famous Tatar families. In the sixteenth century, Tatars dominated among the nobles. Even by the end of the nineteenth century in Russia, there were approximately 70 thousand nobles with Tatar roots. This amounted to more than 5 percent of the total number of nobles throughout the Russian Empire.
A lot of Tatar nobility disappeared forever for their people. This is well told by the genealogical books of the Russian nobility: "The General Armorial of the Noble Clans of the All-Russian Empire", begun in 1797, or "The History of the Clans of the Russian Nobility", or "The Russian Genealogical Book". Historical novels pale before them.
The Yushkovs, Suvorovs, Apraksins (from Salakhmir), Davydovs, Yusupovs, Arakcheevs, Golenishchev-Kutuzovs, Bibikovs, Chirikovs... The Chirikovs, for example, came from the clan of Khan Berke, brother of Batu. Polivanovs, Kochubeys, Kozakovs...
Kopylovs, Aksakovs (aksak means "lame"), Musins-Pushkins, Ogarkovs (the first from the Golden Horde came in 1397, Lev Ogar, "a man of great stature and a brave warrior"). The Baranovs... In their pedigree it is written as follows: "The ancestor of the Baranov family, Murza Zhdan, nicknamed Baran, and named Daniel by baptism, came in 1430 from the Crimea."
Karaulovs, Ogarevs, Akhmatovs, Bakaevs, Gogol, Berdyaevs, Turgenevs ... "The ancestor of the Turgenev family, Murza Lev Turgen, and by baptism named John, went to Grand Duke Vasily Ioannovich from the Golden Horde ..." This family belonged to the aristocratic Horde tukhum , as well as the Ogarev family (their Russian ancestor is "Murza with an honest name Kutlamamet, nicknamed Ogar").
Karamzins (from Kara-Murza, a Crimean), Almazovs (from Almazy, named Erifei by baptism, he came from the Horde in 1638), Urusovs, Tukhachevskys (their ancestor in Russia was Indris, a native of the Golden Horde), Kozhevnikovs (coming from Murza Kozhaya, since 1509 in Russia), Bykovs, Ievlevs, Kobyakovs, Shubins, Taneevs, Shuklins, Timiryazevs (there was such Ibragim Timiryazev, who came to Russia in 1408 from the Golden Horde).
Chaadaevs, Tarakanovs... and it will take a long time to continue. Dozens of so-called "Russian clans" were founded by the Tatars.
The Moscow bureaucracy grew. Power was gathering in her hands, Moscow really did not have enough educated people. Is it any wonder that the Tatars also became carriers of more than three hundred simple Russian surnames. In Russia, at least half of the Russians are genetic Tatars.
In the 18th century, the rulers of Russia tailored the current ethnographic map, tailored it in their own way, as they wanted: they recorded entire provinces as "Slavic". So Russia became the one about which the Kipchak from the Tukhum (clan) Turgen said: "Russia is thousands of miles around."
Then, in the XVIII century - only two hundred years ago - the inhabitants of Tambov, Tula, Oryol, Ryazan, Bryansk, Voronezh, Saratov and other regions were called "Tatars". This is the former population of the Golden Horde. Therefore, the ancient cemeteries in Ryazan, Orel or Tula are still called Tatar.
Defenders of the Fatherland
Tatar warriors honestly served Russia. "Be not only the son of your father, but also be the son of your Fatherland" - says a Tatar folk proverb. The fact that Tatars and Russians supposedly always opposed each other religiously is a myth invented by our common enemies. During the war of 1812, 28 Tatar-Bashkir regiments were formed in the Kazan province. It was these regiments under the command of Kutuzov's son-in-law, the Tatar prince Kudashev, an active participant in the Battle of Borodino, that terrified the Napoleonic soldiers. The Tatar regiments, together with the Russian people, liberated the European peoples from the occupation of the Napoleonic troops.
In the army, due to the national and religious characteristics of the Tatars, a number of indulgences were made, based on respect for the religion they professed. The Tatars were not given pork, they were not subjected to corporal punishment, they were not drilled. In the Navy, Russian sailors were given a glass of vodka, and Tatars - for the same amount - tea and sweets. They were not forbidden to bathe several times a day, as is customary among Muslims before each prayer. Their colleagues were strictly forbidden to mock the Tatars and say bad things about Islam.
Great scientists and writers
Tatars faithfully served the Fatherland, not only fighting for it in countless wars. In peaceful life, they gave him many famous people - scientists, writers, artists. Suffice it to name such scientists as Mendeleev, Mechnikov, Pavlov and Timiryazev, researchers of the North Chelyuskin and Chirikov. In literature, these are Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Yazykov, Bulgakov, Kuprin. In the field of art - ballerinas Anna Pavlova, Galina Ulanova, Olga Spesivtseva, Rudolf Nureyev, as well as composers Skryabin and Taneyev. All of them are Russians of Tatar origin.
