In the section on the question What place do the Tatars occupy in terms of numbers? In Russia, in the world? given by the author Sayli the best answer is Tatars - the main population of the Republic of Tatarstan (1.765.4 thousand people), live in Bashkortostan - 1.120.7 thousand people, in Udmurtia - 110.5 thousand people, Mordovia - 47.3 thousand people, in Republic of Mari El - 43.8 thousand, Chuvashia - 35.7 thousand people. In general, the main part of the Tatar population - more than 4/5 lives in the Russian Federation (5.522 thousand people), occupying the second place in terms of numbers.
In addition, a significant number of Tatars live in the CIS countries: 327.9 thousand people in Kazakhstan, 467.8 thousand people in Uzbekistan, 72.2 thousand people in Tajikistan, and 70.5 thousand people in Kyrgyzstan. , Turkmenistan - 39.2 thousand people, Azerbaijan - 28 thousand people, in Ukraine - 86.9 thousand people, in the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) about 14 thousand people. There is also a significant diaspora throughout the rest of the world (Finland, Turkey, USA, China, Germany, Australia, etc.). In view of the fact that there has never been a separate account of the number of Tatars in other countries, it is difficult to determine the total number of the Tatar population abroad (according to various estimates, from 100 to 200 thousand people).
Source: There are many in the world. Sunits - the West also considers the Tatar ethnic group
Answer from beg[newbie]
and why are you a nationalist or what? don't fuck for a foreign nation to tell something when you don't know the truth
Answer from worldview[newbie]
1st place is occupied by the Tatars
Answer from Ikhonov Roman[newbie]
Yes, and you appointed governors from the family of Russian princes, even if the father was sentenced, then the son was still allowed to rule. You don't have to flatter yourself. You are quite capable partners of the Rosens - no more and no less. In the USA, after the settlement by the Spaniards, after 300 years everyone spoke their languages, and after 300 years, no one knows a single Tatar word))
Answer from Neurologist[newbie]
This creates the impression that no one knows anything about how many Russians, Tatars, migrants, both legal and illegal, and other nationalities live in the Russian Federation. All by eye and deceit. The USA knows better about us than our rules
Answer from Zheltkov Alexey[active]
In Russia, the Tatars occupy the second place (about 6 million). It's hard to say in the world. In general, about 8 million Tatars live in the world. In Moscow, the Tatar diaspora is the most numerous and is considered the most influential. There are Crimean, Astrakhan, Nizhny Novgorod, etc. Tatars. In Tatarstan itself, the Tatars are in second place in terms of numbers after the Russians (the gap is minimal).
Rafael Khakimov
The history of the Tatars: a view from the XXI century
(Article from Ivolumes of the History of the Tatars from ancient times. On the history of the Tatars and the concept of a seven-volume work entitled "History of the Tatars from ancient times")
Tatars are one of those few peoples about which legends and outright lies are known to a much greater extent than the truth.
The history of the Tatars in the official presentation, both before and after the revolution of 1917, was extremely ideological and biased. Even the most eminent Russian historians presented the "Tatar question" in a biased way, 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. At the same time, 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 those 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 from Ancient Times, noted: “A historian has no right to interrupt the natural thread of events from the middle of the 13th century - namely, the gradual transition of tribal princely relations into state ones - and insert the Tatar period, bring to the fore the Tatars, Tatar relations, as a result of which the main phenomena, the main causes of these phenomena, must be closed” [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 Russians, fell out of the chain of events in the formation of Russian statehood.
Another prominent 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 other facts of it were in close or distant connection" [Klyuchevsky, p.50]. The main subjects of research by V.O. Klyuchevsky were, as he himself wrote, the state and the nationality, 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, by its resolution “On the State and Measures for Improving Mass-Political and Ideological Work in the Tatar Party Organization” of 1944, simply banned the study of the history of the Golden Horde (Ulus Jochi), the Kazan Khanate, thus excluding the Tatar period from history of Russian statehood.
As a result of such approaches about the Tatars, an image was formed of a terrible and wild tribe that oppressed not only Russians, but almost half the world. There was no question of any positive Tatar history, Tatar civilization. Initially, it was believed that the Tatars and civilization are incompatible things.
Today, each nation begins to write its own history. 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, the three-volume history of Russia, published under the auspices of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences and recommended as a textbook for university students, provides a lot of information about the non-Russian peoples who lived on the territory of present-day Russia. It has the characteristics of the Turkic, Khazar Khaganates, Volga Bulgaria, the era of the Tatar-Mongol invasion and the period of the Kazan Khanate is more calmly described, but this is nevertheless a Russian history that cannot replace or absorb the Tatar one.
Until recently, Tatar historians in their research were limited by a number of rather harsh objective and subjective conditions. Before the revolution, being citizens of the Russian Empire, they worked on the basis of the tasks of ethnic revival. After the revolution, the period of freedom was too short to write a full history. The ideological struggle strongly influenced their position, but, perhaps, the repressions of 1937 had a greater effect. Control by the Central Committee of the CPSU 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.
The democratization of Soviet and Russian society made it possible to revise many pages of history anew, and most importantly, to rearrange all research work from ideological to scientific tracks. It became possible to use the experience of foreign scientists, access to new sources and museum reserves was opened.
Together with the general democratization, a new political situation arose in Tatarstan, which declared sovereignty, moreover, on behalf of the entire multi-ethnic people of the republic. In parallel, there were quite turbulent processes 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 defined as a key political task. All this required a rethinking of the place of the republic and the Tatars in the 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 the existing Russian history cannot replace or exhaust it.
Methodological problems of studying the history of the Tatars were raised by scientists who worked on generalizing works. Shigabutdin Marjani in his work “Mustafad al-akhbar fi ahvali Kazan va Bolgar” (“Information used for the history of Kazan and Bulgar”) wrote: “Historians of the Muslim world, wishing to fulfill the duty of providing complete information about various eras and explaining the meaning of human society, have collected many information about the capitals, caliphs, kings, scientists, Sufis, different social strata, ways and directions of thought of the ancient sages, past nature and everyday life, science and crafts, wars and uprisings. And then he noted that "historical science absorbs the fate of all nations and tribes, checks scientific directions and discussions" [Marjani, p.42]. At the same time, he did not single out the methodology for studying the Tatar history proper, although in the context of his works it can be seen quite clearly. He considered 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 in the Russian Empire.
In Soviet times, ideological clichés demanded the use of Marxist methodology. Gaziz Gubaidullin wrote the following: “If we consider the path traveled by the Tatars, we can see that it is made up of the replacement of some economic formations by others, of the interaction of classes born of economic conditions” [Gubaidullin, p.20]. It was a tribute to the times. His very presentation of history was much broader than the designated position.
All subsequent historians of the Soviet period were under severe ideological pressure and the 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 Decay 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 alternativeness into the existing interpretation of history, forcing one 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 dealt specifically with the methodological problems of history, but he was more interested in the methods, goals and objectives of historical science in general, unlike other sciences, as well as approaches to writing the general Turkic history. At the same time, in his books one can see specific methods of studying Tatar history. First of all, it should be noted that he described the Turkic-Tatar history without singling out the Tatar one from it. Moreover, this concerned not only the ancient general Turkic period, but also subsequent eras. He equally considers the personality of Genghis Khan, his children, Tamerlane, various khanates - Crimean, Kazan, Nogai and Astrakhan, calling all this Turkish world. Of course, there are reasons for this approach. The ethnonym "Tatars" was often understood very broadly and included practically 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 Ulus of Jochi, was unified. Therefore, the term "Turkic-Tatar history" in relation to the Turkic population of the Dzhuchiev Ulus allows the historian to avoid many difficulties in describing the 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 is largely reduced to ethnogenesis. Equally, the loss of statehood brings to the fore the study of ethnic processes. The existence of the state, although it relegates the ethnic factor to the background, nevertheless retains its relative independence as a subject of historical research, moreover, sometimes it is the ethnos that acts as a state-forming factor and, therefore, decisively affects 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 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.
The formation of modern Tatars was influenced by the Finno-Ugric peoples and the Slavs. 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, state structures, developing the official language and culture, contributed to the active mixing of tribes and peoples. This is all the more true since the state at all times has played the function of the most important ethnic-forming factor. But the Bulgarian state, the Golden Horde, 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 made many peoples who were baptized Russian, then in the Middle Ages Islam in the same way turned many into Turko-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, not history. At the same time, the appearance of such a direction of social thought was influenced by the poor development of the methodological foundations of the history of the Tatars, the influence of ideologized 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 the search for linguistic, ethnographic and other features in the Tatar people. The slightest features of the language were immediately declared a dialect, on the basis of linguistic and ethnographic nuances, separate groups were distinguished that today claim to be independent peoples. Of course, there are peculiarities in the use of the Tatar language among the Mishar, Astrakhan and Siberian Tatars. There are ethnographic features of the 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 rash on such grounds to talk about dialects of the language, and even more so to single out independent peoples (Siberian and other Tatars). If we follow the logic of some of our scientists, the Lithuanian Tatars who speak Polish cannot be attributed to the Tatar people at all.
The history of the people cannot be reduced to the ups and downs of the 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 all the more wrong 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: 29]), although there are other points of view. There was a time when the Tatar-Mongolian peoples were designated by the ethnonym "Tatars". “Because of their extraordinary greatness and honorary position,” Rashid ad-din wrote, “other Turkic clans, with all the difference in their ranks and names, became known under their name, and all were called Tatars. And those various clans believed their greatness and dignity in the fact that they attributed themselves to them and became known under their name, like at the present time, due to the prosperity of Genghis Khan and his family, since they are the Mongols - different Turkic tribes, like Jalairs, Tatars, On-Guts, Kereites, Naimans, Tanguts and others, each of whom had a certain name and a special nickname - all of them, because 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 they have been referring to the name of the Mongols since ancient times and are called by this name - but this is not so, because in ancient times the Mongols were only one tribe out of the totality of the Turkic steppe tribes "[Rashid-ad-din,
t . i, book 1, p. 102–103].In different periods of history, the name "Tatars" meant different peoples. Often this depended on the nationality of the authors of the annals. So, the monk Julian, the ambassador of the Hungarian king Bela IV to the Polovtsians in the 13th century. associated the ethnonym "Tatars" with the Greek "Tartaros "- "hell", "underworld". Some European historians used the ethnonym "Tatars" in the same sense as the Greeks used the word "barbarian". For example, on some European maps, Muscovy is designated as "Moscow Tartaria" or "European Tartaria", in contrast to Chinese or Independent Tartaria. The history of the existence of the ethnonym "Tatars" in subsequent eras, in particular, in the 16th-19th centuries, was far from simple. [Karimullin]. Damir Iskhakov writes: “In the Tatar khanates that formed after the collapse of the Golden Horde, “Tatars” were traditionally called representatives of the military service class ... They played a key role in spreading 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 finally fixing 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 erroneous to absolutize any facet of the term "Tatars". Obviously, the ethnonym "Tatars" has been and remains the subject of scientific discussions. It is indisputable that before the revolution of 1917, not only the Volga, Crimean and Lithuanian Tatars were called Tatars, but also Azerbaijanis, as well as a number of Turkic peoples of the 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 the Mongols as barbarians, savages. In response, a number of scholars use the term "Turco-Mongols" or simply "Mongols", sparing the pride of the Volga Tatars. But as a matter of 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. The crusades of the Europeans or the Inquisition were no less cruel than the invasion of the "Tatar-Mongols". The whole difference is that the Europeans and Russians took the initiative in interpreting this issue into their own hands and offered a version and assessment of historical events that were beneficial for 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 the Turkic tribes in their expansion. Turkic culture strongly influenced the formation of the empire of Genghis Khan, and even more so Ulus Jochi. Historiography so happened 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 the Turkic culture (language, writing, military system, etc.) gradually became the general norm for many peoples. It is not true due to the fact that 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 Mongolian element, which is minimal in Tatar culture today, had an impact on the formation of the history of the Tatars. In the end, the khans buried in the Kazan Kremlin were Genghisides and it is impossible to ignore this [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, it should be noted some terminological difficulties in the study of the general Turkic history. If the Turkic Khaganate is quite unequivocally interpreted as a common Turkic heritage, then the Mongol Empire and in particular the Golden Horde are more complex formations from an ethnic point of view. In fact, Ulus Jochi is 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, Kirghiz, 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 especially think about the differences in the use of this ethnonym in the Middle Ages and at the present time. Today, in the public mind, the ethnonym "Tatars" is unambiguously associated with modern Volga or Crimean Tatars. Therefore, 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 connotation. There is a problem of correlating the history of the common Turkic with the national one. In some periods (for example, the Turkic Khaganate), it is difficult to single out separate parts from the general history. In the era of the Golden Horde, it is quite possible to explore, along with a common history, individual regions, which later separated into independent khanates. Of course, the Tatars interacted with the Uighurs, and with Turkey, and with the Mamluks of Egypt, but these ties were not as organic as with Central Asia. Therefore, it is difficult to find a unified approach to the correlation of the general Turkic and Tatar history - it turns out to be different in different eras and with different countries. Therefore, in this work will be used as a term Turko-Tatar history(in relation to the Middle Ages), and simply Tatar history(referring to more recent 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 history, which 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 departing ones.
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. At the same time, society can act as 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 keepers of cultural traditions. The religious community always plays a significant role in historical development, acting as a criterion for classifying a society to a particular civilization. Mosques and madrasahs from the 10th century to the 20s XX century, were the most important institution for the unification of the Tatar world. All of them - the state, the ethnic group and the religious community - contributed to the continuity of the Tatar culture, and therefore ensured the continuity of historical development.
The concept of culture has the broadest meaning, which is understood as all the achievements and norms of society, whether it be 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 talk about the continuity of Tatar history and its features.
Any periodization of history is conditional, therefore, in principle, it can be built on a variety of grounds, and its various variants can be equally true - it all depends on the task that is set for the researcher. When studying the history of statehood, there will be one basis for distinguishing periods, while studying the development of ethnic groups - another. And if you study the history, for example, of a dwelling or a costume, then their periodization may even have specific grounds. Each specific object of research, along with general methodological guidelines, has its own logic of development. 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 logic of the development of culture will be the criterion. Culture is the most important social regulator. Through the term "culture" it is possible to 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 qualities of a person, determines the openness of society and opportunities for communication between peoples. Through culture, one can understand the place of society in world history.
Tatar history, with its complex twists and turns of fate, is not easy to present as a whole picture, as ups and downs were replaced by catastrophic regression, up to the need for physical survival and the 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 face of Eurasia from ancient times until the early Middle Ages. Cattle breeding and the horse determined the basic nature of the economy and lifestyle, housing and clothing, ensured military success. The invention of a saddle, a curved saber, a powerful bow, tactics of warfare, a peculiar ideology in the form of Tengrism and other achievements had a huge impact on world culture. Without the steppe civilization, it would be impossible to develop the vast expanses of Eurasia, and this is precisely its historical merit.
The adoption of Islam in 922 and the development of the Great Volga Road became a turning point in the history of the Tatars. Thanks to Islam, the ancestors of the Tatars were included in the most advanced Muslim world for their time, which determined the future of the people and its civilizational features. 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 settled life. He was only an auxiliary tool in the economy. What connected the Bulgar state with other countries and peoples were the Volga and Kama rivers. In later times, the path along the Volga, Kama and Caspian 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 the expansion of Muscovy 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 today still performs the function of 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 an independent state, is the greatest achievement in the history of the Tatars. In the era of Genghisides, Tatar history became truly global, hitting the interests of the East and Europe. The contribution of the Tatars to the art of war is indisputable, which was reflected in the improvement of weapons and military tactics. The system of state administration, the postal (Yamskaya) service inherited by Russia, the excellent financial system, literature and urban planning of the Golden Horde reached perfection - in the Middle Ages there were few cities equal to Saray in size and scale of trade. Thanks to intensive trade with Europe, the Golden Horde came into direct contact with European culture. The huge potential for the reproduction of the Tatar culture was laid down precisely in the era of the Golden Horde. The Kazan Khanate continued this path mostly 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 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 in 922 of Islam as the official religion of the Volga Bulgaria, which meant recognition by Baghdad of a young independent (from the Khazar Khaganate) state; 2) isLama's "revolution" of Uzbek Khan, who, contrary to the "Yase" ("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) the reform of Islam in the second half of the 19th century, which was 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 the Tatar culture to resist forced Christianization; secondly, confirmation of the belonging of the Tatars 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 merchant capital, etc. By the revolution of 1917, the ideas of restoring statehood matured among the Tatars.
The first attempt to restore statehood by the Tatars dates back to 1918, when the Idel-Ural State was proclaimed. The Bolsheviks were able to pre-empt the implementation of this grandiose project. Nevertheless, a direct consequence of the political act itself was the adoption of the Decree on the creation of the Tatar-Bashkir Republic. The complex vicissitudes of the political and ideological struggle culminated in 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 Idel-Ural State formula, but it was undoubtedly a positive step, without which there would have been no 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 the place of Tatarstan in the Russian Federation, in the Turkic and Islamic world.
The 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 anchor points for development in the new millennium. In many respects, the understanding of the underlying processes taking place in the country, the formation of the image of Russia among non-Russian peoples as “their own” or “foreign” state will largely depend on historians.
Russian science will have to reckon with the emergence of many independent research centers with 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.
* * *
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, however, it is a joint work of scientists from Tatarstan, Russian and foreign researchers. This collective work is based on a whole series of scientific conferences held in Kazan, Moscow, St. Petersburg. The work is of an academic nature and therefore is 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 the description of the history of the Tatars from 3000 BC. The most ancient period can not 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 the subject of controversy and requires further research. This is not an encyclopedia, where only established information is given. It was important for us to fix the existing level of knowledge in this field of science, to propose new methodological approaches, when the history of the Tatars appears in the broad context of world processes, covers the fate of many peoples, and not just the Tatars, to focus 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, as well as 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 further developed. In 1313, Uzbek Khan issued a label to the Metropolitan of Rus' Peter, which contained the following words: “If someone defames Christianity, speaks badly about churches, monasteries and chapels, that person will be subjected to the death penalty” (quoted from: [Fahretdin, p.94]). By the way, Uzbek Khan himself married his daughter to a Moscow prince and allowed her to accept Christianity.
A fascinating excursion into the history of the nomadic tribes of East Asia by the famous scientist Edward Parker will acquaint you with the origin, formation and evolution of a conglomerate that has developed as a result of complex and contradictory historical processes. This unique book tells about the life, traditions and social structure of the Tatar people, traces the dynastic ties of the ruling elite, tells about bloody battles and the creation of nomadic empires.
The true history of the nomadic tribes of East Asia dates back approximately to the same time and develops in almost the same way as the history of the northern peoples of Europe. The Chinese Empire, like the Roman Empire, owes its prosperity to discoveries and conquests, which resulted in closer contacts between peoples and their mutual assimilation, incessant border conflicts and a global displacement of political centers. Similar processes also took place in Greece and Persia.
Unlike Chinese and Roman authors, Herodotus, talking about the Scythians, focused more on recreating a picture of the life and customs of this people than on presenting its political history. Nevertheless, the story of Herodotus corresponds to the portrait of the Xiongnu painted by the Chinese, on the one hand, and the idea of the Romans about the Huns, on the other. Since the etymological connection between the Xiongnu of China and the Huns of the West can hardly be supported by irrefutable evidence, we confine ourselves to a simple presentation of the facts recorded in Chinese sources, leaving the reader the right to his own point of view and trying not to put forward groundless hypotheses.
China's neighbors from the north
During the period to which the beginning of our story belongs, the Chinese knew nothing about the Japanese, Burmese, Siamese, Indians, and Turkestans. They had a very poor understanding of Korea, the Tungus tribes, the peoples inhabiting the territory south of the great Yangtze River, and the Tibetan nomads. External relations of China were actually limited to contacts with the riding nomads of the north. In antiquity they were known under different names, more or less close in sound to the above-mentioned name, accepted in general history.
However, it would be erroneous to assume, as many European authors do, that the name "Xiongnu" came into use only from the 2nd century BC. e. The historian Ma Duan-lin, who lived six hundred years ago, himself refutes this fact and quotes from two sources, trying to prove not only that the name was in use long before the indicated time, but also that the community whose name is speech has already become quite significant. The Chinese themselves did not pay much attention to the Xiongnu until 1200 BC. e., when a member of the ruling family, who may have committed some kind of offense, fled to the nomads of the north and founded something like a dynasty there.
Where did the name Tatars come from?
Despite the fact that for many centuries, until 200 BC. e., the northern states of the Chinese Empire were in conflict with these nomads, there is no written evidence of their tribes and succession to the throne. As much is known about them as about the Scythians from the stories of Herodotus. Just as little was known about the Tungus, or the eastern branch of the nomads, with whom the Chinese came into close contact only two centuries later. The Chinese had much more information about the great nomadic people of the Xiongnu. Later, the words "Turkic" and "Turkic-Scythian" were used to designate various homogeneous tribes that formed the Xiongnu empire. However, the word "Turk" was completely unknown until the 5th century AD. e., therefore, we cannot yet speak of the "Turks", since this would be a chronological error. The same is true with the word "Tatars".
Curiously, the Chinese used it, endowing it with the same vague meaning that we do. This word did not occur in history in any form until the 2nd century AD. e., but even after that, as later with the "Turks", it was used in relation to one small tribe. Thus, no matter what we think about the identification of the words "Xiongnu" and "Huns", it is quite clear that the Chinese had no other name for the riding nomads of North Asia, eating meat and drinking koumiss, just like the Europeans had the name " Huns" was the only one for riding nomads from Northern Europe, eating meat and drinking koumiss.
Ways of the nomads
These nomads appeared in Europe after the Xiongnu ruling castes were expelled from China. Moreover, the Scythians of Herodotus, faced with the Greeks and Persians, led exactly the same way of life as the Xiongnu from China and the Huns from Europe. Thus, we can conclude, supported by scattered evidence, that there was some kind of ethnographic connection between these three peoples.
The nomadic people of the Xiongnu lived on horseback. "Their country was the back of a horse." They moved from place to place, driving their herds and flocks in search of new pastures. Horses, cattle and sheep are their common possessions.
However, from time to time, camels, donkeys, mules and other representatives of the equine family, which cannot be identified, appeared in their herds. Perhaps one of them was an onager (wild ass) from Assyria and Central Asia. The Xiongnu did not build cities and other settlements of this kind, but although they did not stay long in one place, each tribe was assigned a certain territory. Since they were not engaged in agriculture, each tent, or family, had its own personal piece of land. The Xiongnu did not have a written language, and therefore all orders and other administrative acts were transmitted orally.
From early childhood, the Xiongnu learned to ride sheep and hunt rats or birds with a tiny bow and arrow. As they grew older, the objects of hunting changed, now the goal of the hunters was foxes and hares. Every adult male who could draw a bow became a warrior. Everyone, old and young, ate meat and milk. They used the skins of dead animals as clothing, and felt capes were thrown over them. Warriors full of strength always got the best, the old and the weak were despised, they got crumbs.
For a thousand years, a custom flourished in Tatarstan, according to which the wives of the deceased father (with the exception of his own mother) passed to the son, and the wives of the elder brothers inherited the younger brothers. It is not known for certain who was given the right to choose - a son or a brother: it is possible that a brother received an inheritance only in the absence of a son or a substitute for him. In peacetime, in addition to caring for livestock, the Xiongnu devoted a lot of time to hunting and shooting. Every man was ready for battle or raid. Retreat before the enemy was not considered a disgrace. In fact, the tactics of warfare consisted of surprise, poorly coordinated raids, feints and ambushes.
According to the Chinese, the Xiongnu were completely devoid of a sense of compassion or justice: they obeyed the only law - force. The Xiongnu used not only bows. In hand-to-hand combat, they demonstrated equally brilliant sword and knife skills. In some ancient sources, there is a mention of the Xiongnu, who lived in caves in winter; however, this statement refers more to the Tungus tribes.
There is no need to consider early information about the Tatar wars, the description of which is rather vague. Suffice it to say that from 1400 BC. e. before 200 AD e. there are brief references to clashes between the Chinese and nomads. In each case, approximate dates are given, so this information can be considered historical. However, it should be remembered that the annual dating of Chinese history begins only from 828 BC. e. The northern regions of the provinces now known as Shanxi, Shaanxi and Zhili 1 were then dominated by nomads.
For many centuries, during the so-called “warring states” period, the nomads were not inferior to China by force. The emperor of China, like his restless vassal kings, entered into marriage alliances with ruling nomad families at various periods, and at least one Chinese ruler deliberately borrowed the Tatar costume and way of life. Now another etymological question arises, namely: does the Chinese word "tung-hu", or "Eastern Tatars" (a term as often applied to the ancestors of the Katays, Manchus and Koreans, as the name "Xiongnu" is used in relation to the ancestors of the Turks, Uighurs , Kirghiz, etc.), any etymological connection with the European word "Tungus".
If these two words are not connected in any way, then we have an extremely curious coincidence, since both words in Russian and Chinese have the same meaning. The sources also mention another case, which is intended to show that the border states of the Chinese Empire were deeply affected by the Tatar influence. One of the vassal lords had a goblet made from the skull of a rival ruler - a fact that is as contrary to Confucian ideas as it corresponds to everything we know about the customs of the Xiongnu and Scythians.
The defeat of the Tatars
At the end of the III century BC. e., just before the western Qin kingdom succeeded in destroying the old feudal system and uniting China into a single empire, the vassal state, which ruled over the present provinces of Shanxi, Shaanxi and Zhili, systematically resisted the invasions of nomads and eventually forced the Tatar king enter into an open battle, during which the Tatar troops were utterly defeated. The losses of the Tatars amounted to 100,000 people.
After that, Emperor Qin annexed this state to the rest, and the illustrious commander Meng Tian, at the head of several hundred thousand soldiers, was sent on a campaign against the Tatars. He succeeded in recapturing the Yellow River (Huang He) along its entire length, including the section of the bend now known as the Ordos Plateau. The Tatars were pushed back north of the Great Steppe. Countless detachments of criminals and other unfortunates were sent north to build a military road and carry out garrison duty. About forty fortresses and fortified cities were erected along the border. Finally, from the environs of the modern capital of the Gansu province - the city of Lanzhou - the Great Wall stretched to the sea.
Since it is marked on almost all modern maps of China, the reader will make it easier for himself if he keeps such a map in front of his eyes. This will save us the trouble of citing numerous and bizarre Chinese place names - as well as names that often vary with the location of each successive dynasty.
According to the author of the book, the Great Wall is a bloody trail along which millions of human skeletons turn white, marking a thousand-year struggle. It should be noted, however, that Meng Tian, with half a million slaves, only strengthened the already existing wall, since we know that the Chinese king, who adopted Tatar customs, had already built the Great Wall from the northeast of Shanxi to the most western point of the Yellow River bend. And shortly before that, the rising Qin rulers further west built another wall.
To the east, the frontier kingdom of Yan, located in present-day Beijing, built the Great Wall approximately at Beijing's longitude to the sea, so Meng Tian had only to complete or reinforce the existing fortifications. Later, various northern dynasties also contributed - they added new sections to the Great Wall or extended its line to the side, to Beijing.
So the magnificent and almost perfect structure, which modern travelers see at a distance of almost fifty kilometers from the capital, has little in common with the ancient Great Wall, built two thousand years ago. Most of the ancient wall is now in a dilapidated state.
Look for a book online...
I am often asked to tell the story of a particular people. Including often ask a question about the Tatars. Probably, both the Tatars themselves and other peoples feel that the school history was cunning about them, something lied to please the political situation.
The most difficult thing in describing the history of peoples is to determine the point from which to start. It is clear that everyone ultimately comes from Adam and Eve and all peoples are relatives. But still ... The history of the Tatars should probably begin from 375, when a big war broke out in the southern steppes of Rus' between the Huns and Slavs on the one hand and the Goths on the other. In the end, the Huns won and, on the shoulders of the retreating Goths, went to Western Europe, where they disappeared into the knightly castles of the emerging medieval Europe.
The ancestors of the Tatars are the Huns and Bulgars.
Often the Huns are considered some mythical nomads who came from Mongolia. This is wrong. The Huns are a religious and military formation that arose as a response to the decay of the ancient world in the monasteries of Sarmatia on the middle Volga and Kama. The ideology of the Huns was based on a return to the original traditions of the Vedic philosophy of the ancient world and the code of honor. It was they who became the basis of the code of knightly honor in Europe. According to racial characteristics, they were blond and red-haired giants with blue eyes, the descendants of the ancient Aryans, who from time immemorial lived in the space from the Dnieper to the Urals. Actually "tata - ary" from Sanskrit, the language of our ancestors, and is translated as "fathers of the Aryans." After the departure of the Hun army from South Rus' to Western Europe, the remaining Sarmatian-Scythian population of the lower Don and Dnieper began to call themselves Bulgars.
Byzantine historians do not distinguish between Bulgars and Huns. This suggests that the Bulgars and other tribes of the Huns were similar in customs, languages, race. The Bulgars belonged to the Aryan race, they spoke one of the military Russian jargons (a variant of the Turkic languages). Although it is not excluded that in the military collectives of the Huns there were also people of the Mongoloid type as mercenaries.
As for the earliest mentions of the Bulgars, this is 354, "Roman Chronicles" by an unknown author (Th. Mommsen Chronographus Anni CCCLIV, MAN, AA, IX, Liber Generations,), and also the work of Moise de Khorene.
According to these records, already before the Huns appeared in Western Europe in the middle of the 4th century, the presence of the Bulgars was observed in the North Caucasus. In the 2nd half of the 4th century, some part of the Bulgars penetrated into Armenia. It can be assumed that the Bulgars are not quite Huns. According to our version, the Huns are a religious-military formation similar to today's Taliban in Afghanistan. The only difference is that this phenomenon arose then in the Aryan Vedic monasteries of Sarmatia on the banks of the Volga, the Northern Dvina and the Don. Blue Rus' (or Sarmatia), after numerous periods of decline and dawn in the fourth century AD, began a new rebirth into Great Bulgaria, which occupied the territory from the Caucasus to the Northern Urals. So the appearance of the Bulgars in the middle of the 4th century in the region of the North Caucasus is more than possible. And the reason that they were not called Huns is obviously that at that time the Bulgars did not call themselves Huns. A certain class of military monks called themselves the Huns, who were the guardians of my special Vedic philosophy and religion, experts in martial arts and bearers of a special code of honor, which later formed the basis of the code of honor of the knightly orders of Europe. All the Hunnic tribes came to Western Europe along the same path, it is obvious that they did not come at the same time, but in batches. The appearance of the Huns is a natural process, as a reaction to the degradation of the ancient world. Just as today the Taliban are a response to the processes of degradation of the Western world, so at the beginning of the era the Huns became a response to the decay of Rome and Byzantium. It seems that this process is an objective regularity in the development of social systems.
At the beginning of the 5th century, in the north-west of the Carpathian region, wars broke out twice between the Bulgars (Vulgars) and the Langobards. At that time, all the Carpathians and Pannonia were under the rule of the Huns. But this testifies that the Bulgars were part of the union of the Hunnic tribes and that together with the Huns they came to Europe. The Carpathian Vulgars of the beginning of the 5th century are the same Bulgars from the Caucasus in the middle of the 4th century. The homeland of these Bulgars is the Volga region, the rivers Kama and Don. Actually, the Bulgars are fragments of the Hunnic Empire, which at one time destroyed the ancient world, which remained in the steppes of Rus'. Most of the "people of long will", religious warriors who formed the invincible religious spirit of the Huns, went to the West and, after the emergence of medieval Europe, were dissolved in knightly castles and orders. But the communities that gave birth to them remained on the banks of the Don and Dnieper.
By the end of the 5th century, two main Bulgar tribes are known: the Kutrigurs and the Utigurs. The latter settle along the shores of the Sea of Azov in the area of the Taman Peninsula. The Kutrigurs lived between the bend of the lower Dnieper and the Sea of Azov, controlling the steppes of the Crimea up to the walls of the Greek cities.
They periodically (in alliance with the Slavic tribes) raid the borders of the Byzantine Empire. So, in 539-540, the Bulgars carried out raids across Thrace and Illyria to the Adriatic Sea. At the same time, many Bulgars enter the service of the emperor of Byzantium. In 537, a detachment of the Bulgars fought on the side of the besieged Rome with the Goths. There are known cases of hostility between the Bulgar tribes, which was skillfully kindled by Byzantine diplomacy.
Around 558, the Bulgars (mainly Kutrigurs), led by Khan Zabergan, invade Thrace and Macedonia, approach the walls of Constantinople. And only at the cost of great efforts did the Byzantines stop Zabergan. The Bulgars return to the steppes. The main reason is the news of the appearance of an unknown militant horde to the east of the Don. These were the Avars of Khan Bayan.
Byzantine diplomats immediately use the Avars to fight against the Bulgars. New allies are offered money and land for settlements. Although the Avar army is only about 20 thousand horsemen, it still carries the same invincible spirit of the Vedic monasteries and, naturally, turns out to be stronger than the numerous Bulgars. This is facilitated by the fact that another horde, now the Turks, is moving after them. The Utigurs are the first to be attacked, then the Avars cross the Don and invade the lands of the Kutrigurs. Khan Zabergan becomes a vassal of the Khagan Bayan. The further fate of the Kutrigurs is closely connected with the Avars.
In 566, the advanced detachments of the Turks reached the shores of the Black Sea near the mouth of the Kuban. The Utigurs recognize the authority of the Turkic Khagan Istemi over them.
Having united the army, they capture the most ancient capital of the ancient world Bosporus on the shore of the Kerch Strait, and in 581 appear under the walls of Chersonesus.
rebirth
After the departure of the Avars to Pannonia and the beginning of civil strife in the Turkic Khaganate, the Bulgar tribes united again under the rule of Khan Kubrat. The Kurbatovo station in the Voronezh region is the ancient headquarters of the legendary Khan. This ruler, who headed the Onnogur tribe, was brought up as a child at the imperial court in Constantinople and was baptized at the age of 12. In 632, he proclaimed independence from the Avars and stood at the head of the association, which received the name Great Bulgaria in Byzantine sources.
It occupied the south of modern Ukraine and Russia from the Dnieper to the Kuban. In 634-641, the Christian Khan Kubrat entered into an alliance with the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius.
The emergence of Bulgaria and the settlement of the Bulgars around the world
However, after the death of Kubrat (665), his empire fell apart, as it was divided among his sons. The eldest son Batbayan began to live in the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov in the status of a tributary of the Khazars. Another son - Kotrag - moved to the right bank of the Don and also fell under the rule of Jews from Khazaria. The third son - Asparuh - under Khazar pressure went to the Danube, where, having subjugated the Slavic population, laid the foundation for modern Bulgaria.
In 865, the Bulgarian Khan Boris converted to Christianity. The mixing of the Bulgars with the Slavs led to the emergence of modern Bulgarians.
Two more sons of Kubrat - Kuver (Kuber) and Alcek (Alcek) - went to Pannonia to the Avars. During the formation of Danube Bulgaria, Kuver rebelled and went over to the side of Byzantium, settling in Macedonia. Subsequently, this group became part of the Danube Bulgarians. Another group led by Alcek intervened in the struggle for succession in the Avar Khaganate, after which they were forced to flee and seek asylum from the Frankish king Dagobert (629-639) in Bavaria, and then settle in Italy near Ravenna.
A large group of Bulgars returned to their historical homeland - to the Volga and Kama regions, from where their ancestors were once carried away by the whirlwind of the passionary impulse of the Huns. However, the population they met here was not much different from themselves.
At the end of the 8th century Bulgarian tribes on the Middle Volga created the state of Volga Bulgaria. On the basis of these tribes, the Kazan Khanate subsequently arose in these places.
In 922 Almas, the ruler of the Volga Bulgars, converted to Islam. By that time, life in the Vedic monasteries, once located in these places, had practically died out. The descendants of the Volga Bulgars, in the formation of which a number of other Turkic and Finno-Ugric tribes took part, are the Chuvash and Kazan Tatars. Islam from the very beginning was strengthened only in cities. The son of King Almus went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and stopped in Baghdad. After that, an alliance arose between Bulgaria and Bagdat. Citizens of Bulgaria paid the tsar tax in horses, leather, etc. There was a customs. The royal treasury also received a duty (a tenth of the goods) from merchant ships. Of the kings of Bulgaria, Arab writers mention only Silk and Almus; Fren managed to read three more names on the coins: Ahmed, Taleb and Mumen. The oldest of them, with the name of King Taleb, dates back to 338 BC.
In addition, the Byzantine-Russian treaties of the XX century. mention a horde of black Bulgarians who lived near the Crimea.
Volga Bulgaria
BULGARIA VOLGA-KAMA, the state of the Volga-Kama, Finno-Ugric peoples in the XX-XV centuries. Capitals: the city of Bulgar, and from the XII century. city of Bilyar. By the 20th century, Sarmatia (Blue Rus') was divided into two kaganates - Northern Bulgaria and southern Khazaria.
The largest cities - Bolgar and Bilyar - surpassed London, Paris, Kyiv, Novgorod, Vladimir of that time in terms of area and population.
Bulgaria played an important role in the ethnogenesis of modern Kazan Tatars, Chuvashs, Mordovians, Udmurts, Maris and Komis, Finns and Estonians.
Bulgaria by the time of the formation of the Bulgar state (beginning of the 20th century), the center of which was the city of Bulgar (now the village of Bolgari Tatarii), was dependent on the Khazar Khaganate ruled by the Jews.
The Bulgarian king Almas turned to the Arab Caliphate for support, as a result of which Bulgaria adopted Islam as the state religion. The collapse of the Khazar Khaganate after its defeat by the Russian prince Svyatoslav I Igorevich in 965 secured the de facto independence of Bulgaria.
Bulgaria becomes the most powerful state in Blue Rus'. The intersection of trade routes, the abundance of black soil in the absence of wars made this region rapidly prosperous. Bulgaria became the center of production. Wheat, furs, livestock, fish, honey, handicrafts (hats, boots, known in the East as “Bulgari”, skins) were exported from here. But the main income was brought by trade transit between East and West. Here since the 20th century. minted its own coin - dirham.
In addition to Bulgar, other cities were also known, such as Suvar, Bilyar, Oshel, etc.
Cities were powerful fortresses. There were many fortified estates of the Bulgar nobility.
Literacy among the population was widespread. Lawyers, theologians, doctors, historians, astronomers live in Bulgaria. The poet Kul-Gali created the poem "Kissa and Yusuf", widely known in the Turkic literature of its time. After the adoption of Islam in 986, some Bulgarian preachers visited Kyiv and Ladoga, offered the great Russian prince Vladimir I Svyatoslavich to accept Islam. Russian chronicles from the 10th century distinguish Volga Bulgars, Silver or Nukrat (according to Kama), Timtyuz, Cheremshan and Khvalis Bulgars.
Naturally, there was a continuous struggle for leadership in Rus'. Clashes with princes from White Rus' and Kyiv were commonplace. In 969, they were attacked by the Russian prince Svyatoslav, who ravaged their lands, according to the Arab Ibn Haukal, in revenge for the fact that in 913 they helped the Khazars destroy the Russian squad, who undertook a campaign on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. In 985, Prince Vladimir also made a campaign against Bulgaria. In the XII century, with the rise of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality, which sought to spread its influence in the Volga region, the struggle between the two parts of Rus' intensified. The military threat forced the Bulgars to move their capital inland - to the city of Bilyar (now the village of Bilyarsk of Tatarstan). But the Bulgarian princes did not remain in debt either. In 1219 the Bulgars managed to capture and plunder the city of Ustyug on the Northern Dvina. It was a fundamental victory, since here from the most primitive times there were ancient libraries of Vedic books and ancient monasteries patronizing
mye, as the ancients believed, the god Hermes. It was in these monasteries that the knowledge of the ancient history of the world was hidden. Most likely, it was in them that the military-religious estate of the Huns arose and a code of laws of knightly honor was developed. However, the princes of White Rus' soon avenged the defeat. In 1220 Oshel and other Kama towns were taken by Russian squads. Only a rich ransom prevented the ruin of the capital. After that, peace was established, confirmed in 1229 by the exchange of prisoners of war. Military clashes between the White Rus and the Bulgars took place in 985, 1088, 1120, 1164, 1172, 1184, 1186, 1218, 1220, 1229 and 1236. Bulgars during the invasions reached Murom (1088 and 1184) and Ustyug (1218). At the same time, a single people lived in all three parts of Rus', often speaking dialects of the same language and descended from common ancestors. This could not but leave an imprint on the nature of relations between the fraternal peoples. So, the Russian chronicler preserved under the year 1024 the news that in e
that year famine raged in Suzdal and that the Bulgars supplied the Russians with a large amount of bread.
Loss of independence
In 1223, the Horde of Genghis Khan, who came from the depths of Eurasia, defeated the army of Red Rus' (the Kiev-Polovtsian army) in the south in the battle on the Kalka, but on the way back they were badly battered by the Bulgars. It is known that Genghis Khan, when he was still an ordinary shepherd, met with the Bulgar Buyan, a wandering philosopher from Blue Rus', who predicted a great fate for him. It seems that he passed on to Genghis Khan the same philosophy and religion that gave birth to the Huns in his time. Now a new Horde has arisen. This phenomenon occurs in Eurasia with enviable regularity as a response to the degradation of the social order. And each time, through destruction, it gives rise to a new life for Rus' and Europe.
In 1229 and 1232, the Bulgars managed to repel the Horde raids again. In 1236, Genghis Khan's grandson Batu begins a new campaign to the West. In the spring of 1236 the Khan of the Horde Subutai took the capital of the Bulgars. In the autumn of the same year, Bilyar and other cities of Blue Rus' were devastated. Bulgaria was forced to submit; but as soon as the Horde army left, the Bulgars withdrew from the union. Then Khan Subutai in 1240 was forced to invade again, accompanying the campaign with bloodshed and ruin.
In 1243, Batu founded the state of the Golden Horde in the Volga region, one of the provinces of which was Bulgaria. She enjoyed some autonomy, her princes became vassals of the Golden Horde Khan, paid tribute to him and supplied soldiers to the Horde army. The high culture of Bulgaria became the most important component of the culture of the Golden Horde.
The end of the war helped revive the economy. It reached its peak in this region of Rus' in the first half of the 14th century. By this time, Islam had established itself as the state religion of the Golden Horde. The city of Bulgar becomes the residence of the khan. The city attracted many palaces, mosques, caravanserais. It had public baths, paved streets, underground water supply. Here, the first in Europe mastered the smelting of cast iron. Jewelry, ceramics from these places were sold in medieval Europe and Asia.
The death of the Volga Bulgaria and the birth of the people of Tatarstan
From the middle of the XIV century. the struggle for the khan's throne begins, separatist tendencies intensify. In 1361, Prince Bulat-Temir seized from the Golden Horde a vast territory in the Volga region, including Bulgaria. The khans of the Golden Horde only for a short time managed to reunite the state, where everywhere there is a process of fragmentation and isolation. Bulgaria breaks up into two actually independent principalities - Bulgar and Zhukotinsky - with the center in the city of Zhukotin. After the start of civil strife in the Golden Horde in 1359, the Novgorod army captured Zhukotin. Russian princes Dmitry Ioannovich and Vasily Dmitrievich took possession of other cities of Bulgaria and put their "customs officers" in them.
In the second half of the 14th-beginning of the 15th century, Bulgaria experienced the constant military pressure of White Rus'. Finally, Bulgaria lost its independence in 1431, when the Moscow army of Prince Fyodor Motley conquered the southern lands. Independence was preserved only by the northern territories, the center of which was Kazan. It was on the basis of these lands that the formation of the Kazan Khanate and the degeneration of the ethnic group of the ancient inhabitants of Blue Rus' (and even earlier the Aryans of the country of seven fires and lunar cults) into Kazan Tatars began. At this time, Bulgaria had already finally fallen under the rule of the Russian tsars, but when exactly - it is impossible to say; in all likelihood, this happened under Ivan the Terrible, simultaneously with the fall of Kazan in 1552. However, the title of "sovereign of Bulgaria" was still worn by his grandfather, John Sh. Rus'. Tatar princes form many prominent families of the Russian state, becoming
are famous military leaders, statesmen, scientists, cultural figures. Actually, the history of Tatars, Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians is the history of one Russian people, whose horses go back to antiquity. Recent studies have shown that all European peoples, one way or another, come from the Volga-Oka-Don areola. Part of the once united people settled around the world, but some peoples always remained in their original lands. Tatars are just one of those.
Gennady Klimov
More in my LiveJournal
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
