Among the non-Russian population of the east of the European part of the USSR, the Tatars are the most numerous (4969 thousand people, according to the 1959 census). In addition to the so-called Volga Tatars living along the middle reaches of the Volga and in the Urals, the ethnographic characteristics of which this article is devoted to, this number also includes the Tatars of other regions of the Soviet Union. So, between the Volga and Ural rivers live the Astrakhan Tatars (Kundra and Karagash) - the descendants of the Nogais, the main population of the Golden Horde, who differ in their way of life from the Volga Tatars. The Crimean Tatars, who differ both in way of life and in language from the Volga Tatars, are now settled in various regions of the USSR. The Lithuanian Tatars are the descendants of the Crimean Tatars, but they have not retained their language and differ from the Lithuanians only in some features of their way of life 1 . The West Siberian Tatars are close to the Volga Tatars in terms of language, but differ in their way of life 2 .
According to the dialect features of the language, everyday differences, and the history of formation, the Volga Tatars are divided into two main groups: Kazan Tatars and Mishars, among these groups there are several divisions.
The most compactly Kazan Tatars are settled in the Tatar, as well as in the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and are found in separate groups in the Mari and Udmurt Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics, in the Perm, Kirov, Sverdlovsk and Orenburg regions. The Mishars are settled mainly on the right bank of the Volga: in the Gorky, Ulyanovsk, Penza, Tambov, Saratov regions, as well as in the Tatar, Bashkir, Mordovian and Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (in particular, significant groups of Mishars live in the Western Trans-Kama region, in Tataria, south of the Kama, and in western regions of Bashkiria). Mishari Tatars live in separate villages in the left-bank parts of the Kuibyshev and Saratov regions, as well as in the Sverdlovsk and Orenburg regions. The so-called Kasimov Tatars living in the Ryazan region stand somewhat apart. The Karin (Nukrat) and Glazov Tatars live in isolation - the descendants of the population of the ancient Bulgar colony on the river. Cheptse, a tributary of the river. Vyatka.
A significant number of Kazan Tatars and Mishars live in the Donbass. Grozny region, Azerbaijan, the republics of Central Asia, in Western and Eastern Siberia, in particular in the Lena mines, where they appeared in the late XIX - early XX century. as otkhodnik workers and partly as migrant peasants. There are many Tatars in Moscow and Leningrad, in the cities of the Volga and Ural regions. There are Tatar migrants from the Volga region and abroad: in China, Finland and some other countries.
According to the 1959 census, there are 1345.2 thousand Tatars in the Tatar ASSR, of which 29.4% are in cities. In addition to Tatars, Russians, Mordovians, Chuvashs, Udmurts, Maris, and others live in the republic.
The name "Volga Tatars" is used only in literature. They call themselves Tatars. Kazan Tatars sometimes call themselves Kazanlak, and Mishars - Migaer. The Mishars call themselves Tatars. Russians, calling all groups Tatars, distinguish them according to their habitat: Kazan, Kasimov, Sergach, Tambov, Penza, etc.
Among the Volga Tatars there is a small ethnographic group of Kryashen Tatars who converted to Orthodoxy. They adopted Russian culture to some extent, retaining, however, their language and many features of everyday life.
Tatars speak one of the languages of the Turkic group, formed as a result of mixing a number of ancient tribal languages. Traces of this mixing are still found in various dialects and dialects. The modern language of the Tatars of the Volga region breaks up into the western - Mishar and middle - Kazan dialects, somewhat different from each other in phonetics, morphology and vocabulary.
The Tatar literary language is built on the basis of the Kazan dialect, but in our time it has included many Mishar elements. So, in a number of words, Kazan was replaced by Mishar ye (shchigit - yeget).
In Soviet times, the Tatar literary language has received significant development, enriched with new words, especially in the field of political and scientific terms, which is a consequence of the huge cultural upsurge that the Tatar people are experiencing under the conditions of the Soviet socialist state system.
Brief historical outline
The population of the territory of the modern Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic became acquainted with iron in the era of the so-called Ananyin culture (VII-III centuries BC). The Ananyin people were sedentary, the basis of their economy was hoe farming and cattle breeding. Hunting continued to play an important role. Around the turn of our era, on the basis of the Ananyino culture, the Pyanobor culture was formed. The descendants of the drunken fighters are the Finnish peoples of the Middle Volga and Kama regions.
Some of these Finnish peoples were conquered and assimilated by the Bulgars, a Turkic people who came from the south in the second half of the 1st millennium AD. e. Even in the steppes of the Volga and Azov regions, that is, before the resettlement in the Kama region, a part of the Alans, an Iranian-speaking people, whose ancestors are considered to be the Sarmatians, and the modern Ossetians, joined the Bulgars. The Bulgaro-Alanian tribes created a state in the Kama region, known as the Volga Bulgaria. A significant, if not large, part of the population of the Volga Bulgaria was the descendants of the local Finnish peoples. The language of the Volga Bulgars, belonging to the Turkic language family, was probably the closest to the modern Chuvash.
In 1236-1238. Volga Bulgaria was defeated by the Mongols, who were known to their neighbors under the name of the Tatars. Later, the name "Tatars" began to be applied to those Turkic peoples who were conquered by the Mongols and were part of the Mongol armies. After the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Volga Bulgaria became part of the Golden Horde, the overwhelming majority of whose population was made up of Turkic peoples, mainly Kipchaks (Polovtsy). The name "Tatars" was assigned to them. The newcomers began to settle in the Bulgar lands, mainly in the southern places, gradually moving to a settled way of life and merging with the indigenous population, introducing many of their features into their way of life, and especially into the language.
The religious beliefs of the Bulgaro-Tatar population were close to the animistic views of the neighboring peoples of the Middle Volga region. They believed in the spirits-masters of water (su anasy), forests (urman iyase or shurale), earth (shir anasy-mother of the earth), in spirits that sent diseases (the mother of smallpox, fever and other diseases). In addition to the brownie (ey iyase) - the patron of the house, they revered the "owner of the barn" (abzar iyase), close to the patron spirits of cattle among nomads. They believed in werewolves (ubyr), as well as in a special spirit of bichur, which was not in the mythology of the neighbors. Bichura, according to the ideas of the Tatars, settled in the house and could help the owner: get him money, milk other people's cows for him, etc., or harm him. Almost all the spirits of the Tatar folk mythology have an analogy with their neighbors, but some were endowed with specific properties. For example, the goblin-shurale allegedly loves to tickle people who have fallen into the forest to death, rides horses grazing at the edge, bringing them to exhaustion.
Sunni Islam began to penetrate into the environment of the Bulgars from the East, starting from the 10th century. It was at first the religion of the ruling elite of the Bulgar, later - the Tatar-Bulgar society, and then gradually penetrated into the working strata of the Tatars.
In the second half of the XIV century. the Bulgarian lands that had been restored were again attacked by the Golden Horde feudal lords, Russian specific princes, and then by the invasion of Tamerlane's troops. As a result, the Volga Bulgaria ceased to exist as a vassal state of the Golden Horde. The territory of the former center of the Volga Bulgaria became empty, the population moved even further north of the lower reaches of the Kama and to the northern part of the interfluve of the Sviyaga and Sura, on the right bank of the Volga. On these lands, a new economic and cultural association began to be created, the center of which was the city of Kazan. In the middle of the XV century. it turned into a feudal state - the Kazan Khanate.
The question of the origin of the main population of the khanate - the Kazan Tatars - has long been the subject of controversy. Some scholars (V.V. Radlov, V.V. Bartold, N.I. Ashmarin, S.E. Malov) considered them to be the Golden Horde Tatars who moved to the region, displacing the former Bulgars, others (D.K. Grekov, S. P. Tolstov, A. P. Smirnov, N. F. Kalinin, N. I. Vorobyov, X. G. Gimadi), based on archaeological, historical and ethnographic materials, as well as anthropological data, believe that the ethnic basis of the Kazan Tatars are part of the ancient Bulgars, who moved to the north and assimilated separate groups of the Finno-Ugric population there. A part of the Tatar-Kypchaks merged with them, who had a significant influence, mainly on the language, making it close to the Tatar official language of the Golden Horde. Such an opinion is currently considered the most reasonable. The neighbors of the Kazan Tatars, mainly the Russians, with whom they had also been in contact for a long time, first called the population of the khanate the new Bulgars, Kazanians, and later, in view of the fact that the Golden Horde dynasty ruled in the new state and the Horde feudal lords-Tatars were of great importance, they gave them the name Kazan Tatars , which, by the way, did not take root as a self-name for a long time.
The formation of the Tatar-Mishars took place in the forest-steppe zone to the west of the river. Sura, in the Oka tributary basin. Here, in the areas inhabited by local tribes, Finno-Ugric in language, mainly the ancestors of the Mordovians, since the beginning and the millennium AD. e. Separate groups of steppe nomads began to penetrate, and they settled here. After the formation of the Golden Horde, separate groups of Tatar-Kypchaks with their Murzas moved to this area, which became the actual border of the Horde proper and the lands inhabited by Russians. There were strongholds of these groups, small towns: Temnikov, Narovchat, Shatsk, Kadom, etc. Here the Tatars gradually switched to a settled way of life, approaching the ancient inhabitants of these places - the Finno-Ugric tribes. After the Battle of Kulikovo and the weakening of the power of the Golden Horde, the Kipchak Tatars went over to the service of the Moscow princes and, together with the Russian detachments, began to guard the southern borders of the Russian lands.
During the Golden Horde period, Islam became the official religion. However, ancient beliefs were manifested in various rituals for a long time. Tatars revered the places of prayers of neighboring peoples, sacred groves, where the evil spirit keremet supposedly lived. The groves themselves were also called Keremets. The efforts of the Muslim clergy to destroy these groves were unsuccessful, as the population guarded them.
Healers and healers (yemchi) were very popular. at especially as healers of diseases. They were treated with conspiracies. Magic techniques for the treatment and prevention of diseases were also used by the Muslim clergy. Mullahs, azanchis (a junior spiritual rank) practiced treatment by reading certain passages from the Koran, various conspiracy prayers, hanging amulets with the texts of sacred books sewn into them, used sacred water from the Zem-Zem source in Arabia, the earth brought by pilgrims from Mecca - the sacred Muslim cities.
Many magical tricks were used to treat childhood illnesses, allegedly caused by the evil eye. In order to ward off the evil eye and generally protect children from the action of evil forces, various amulets were sewn onto their clothes and hats, in particular pieces of wood (rowan), as well as shiny objects that were supposed to receive an evil look.
Among the religious beliefs of the Tatars were some of the ancient beliefs of the Arabs, brought along with Islam. These include belief in yuhu - a wonderful snake, which supposedly can take on a human form, belief in genies and peri-spirits, supposedly capable of causing great harm to a person. The Tatars believed, for example, that mental illness is the result of a certain period settling in a person, and paralysis is the result of accidental contact with them.
After the fall of the Golden Horde, the number of Tatars who moved from the south to Russian lands began to increase. So, in the XV century. in Moscow, the Horde prince Kasym appeared with his retinue, who transferred to the Russian service. He was transferred to the management of the Meshchersky town on the Oka, later called Kasimov. The vassal Kasimov Khanate was formed here. Later, many Nogai Murzas with their detachments also switched to Russian service; they, together with a part of the Kipchaks 1 who had moved here, were settled along a defensive line that ran along the river. Sura, to protect the border with the Kazan Khanate. Tatar settlements arose in the areas of new Russian cities: Arzamas, later Alatyr, Kurmysh, etc.
Thus, during the XV - XVI centuries. both groups of Volga Tatars were formed at the same time: on the old Bulgarian lands - Kazan Tatars, descendants of the Bulgars with an admixture of Tatar-Kypchaks, and Mishars, mostly Kipchaks, immigrants from the Golden Horde, who settled west of the river. Sura, in the Oka basin.
The struggle between Moscow and Kazan for the Middle Volga region ended in 1552 with the capture of Kazan and the annexation of all lands subject to the khanate to the Russian state. Thus, in the middle of the XVI century. all Tatars of the Volga region, both Kazan and Mishars, ended up on the territory of Russian possessions.
After the accession of the Middle Volga region to the Moscow state, the population of the region closely connected its fate with the Russian people. Accession to the Russian state put an end to feudal fragmentation, constant attacks by nomads, predatory extermination of productive forces, despotic oppression by the khans, from which the population of the region suffered. The peoples of the Middle Volga region were included in the more intensive and developed economic life of the Russian state.
At the same time, the indigenous peoples of the region, especially the Kazan Tatars, had to fight hard to defend their language and culture against the Russification policy of the tsarist government. One of the sides of this policy was the imposition of Orthodoxy on the Tatar population. By the time the region was annexed to the Russian state, not all segments of the population professed Islam, so the spread of Orthodoxy was to some extent successful; even an ethnic group of Tatars-Kryashens (baptized) was formed, which still exists. Later, the Christianization of the Tatars was much more difficult. In the dialect of modern Kryashens, whose ancestors were not Muslims, there are almost no Arabic and Persian words that got into the Tatar language through Islam.
Carrying out the colonization of the region by the Russian population, the tsarist government drove the Tatar peasants from the best lands. This caused a series of uprisings, and then the flight of part of the Kazan Tatars, mainly to the middle part of the Urals and Bashkiria.
The laboring masses of the Tatars fell under a double oppression: being in the majority first yasak, and later state peasants, they suffered a lot from the arbitrariness of the tsarist administration and from their feudal lords, who at first tried to get a second yasak from them in their favor, and later exploited them in other ways. All this aggravated class contradictions and paved the way for fierce class battles that unfolded more than once in the region, especially during the popular uprisings led by Stepan Razin and Emelyan Pugachev, in which the Tatars took an active part.
After the region was annexed to the Russian state, the Tatar feudal lords in the majority went over to the service of the tsarist government, but at the same time continued to fight for their privileges, for dominance over the indigenous population; opposing Islam to Orthodoxy, they preached hatred for everything Russian. However, during popular movements, the Tatar ruling classes usually took the side of the tsarist government.
In relation to the Tatars-Mishars, who became part of the Russian state before the Kazan Tatars, the national-colonial policy of tsarism was carried out somewhat differently; in particular, among them there was no cruel Russification through forced baptism. Imperial government in the 17th century transferred part of the Mishars, along with their Murzas, to the western part of Bashkiria to protect the fortified borders of the Volga region from the attack of southern nomads. The Mishars were involved in the construction of fortifications both on the right bank and beyond the Volga, giving them lands in the newly captured places. The government equalized the Mishars who remained in their former places with the yasak, later state peasants, taking away a significant part of their land and transferring them to Russian landowners.
Thus, in the XVII - XVIII centuries. Kazan Tatars and right-bank Tatars-Mishars in a fairly significant number moved east, into the Volga lands, especially in the Western Urals, making up a large percentage of the population there. The Kazan Tatars, who had fled here even earlier, fell into semi-serf dependence on the Bashkir feudal lords and received the name "pripuskniki", or "teptyars". The service Tatars-Mishars called Temen (Temnikovsky) for a long time retained their privileged position, and the so-called Alatyr, or Simbirsk, Mishars who moved later became ordinary yasak, later state peasants. They settled down with the Bashkirs or occupied free lands. The Teptyars and Alatyr Mishars became close to the Bashkirs and representatives of other peoples of the Volga region: Chuvash, Mordovians, Mari, Udmurts, but retained their language, although with some Bashkirsms. They formed a peculiar subgroup of the Tatars of the Cis-Urals, in everyday life different from the Kazan Tatars and the Tatar-Mishars of the right bank.
Migration of the Tatars after their entry into the Russian state during the XVI - XVIII centuries. contributed to the further process of their ethnic formation. In new places, they did not lose their main features, but as a result of rapprochement with new neighbors, features appeared in their language and way of life that distinguish them from those remaining in their former habitats.
The development of capitalist relations among the Tatars was slower than among the Russians. However, commodity-money relations gradually penetrated the Tatar village, contributing to the stratification of the Tatar peasantry. At the end of the XVIII century. the ruined peasants began to engage in handicrafts, and the merchants and the wealthy part of the peasants first started buying products from handicraftsmen, and then - organizing small manufactories.
The abolition of serfdom had little effect on the Tatars, who had previously been state peasants, but the reform of 1866, which concerned state peasants, worsened their economic situation, depriving a significant part of forest and hay land.
The rapid development of capitalism in Russia in the post-reform period intensified the stratification of the Tatar village. Peasants lost their livestock and implements and were forced to rent out allotment land. Because of the brutal exploitation by buyers and owners of handicraft industries, handicrafts did not provide the working population with a means of subsistence. The Tatar poor began to leave for seasonal work, creating separate groups of workers in the places of otkhodnichestvo. However, the formation of the Tatar proletariat was hampered by feudal remnants that kept the poor in the countryside.
The Tatar bourgeoisie, into whose ranks the old feudal elite gradually joined, which engaged in trade both in the region and abroad (Central Asia, Kazakhstan), in the second half of the 19th century. tried to establish large industrial enterprises, but ran into fierce competition: it was more profitable for Russian industrialists to keep the Tatars in buying up raw materials, especially outside the region, and in its primary processing, than to allow them to large-scale production, where Russian capital was firmly established.
At this time, the Tatars were already forming into a bourgeois nation. The Tatar ruling classes proclaimed Islam the basis of popular culture. Numerous cadres of Muslim clergy arose, subjugating the school and intruding even into the family life of the Tatars. For centuries, Islam has permeated with its dogmas and institutions not only the consciousness, but also the way of life of the people. In every Tatar village there was always at least one mosque with the corresponding staff of the clergy. To perform the ceremony of marriage (nikah), as well as to name the child, a mullah was invited.
The funeral was carried out according to a religious rite. They tried to bury the deceased as quickly as possible, and the whole ritual was performed by men. Women were not even allowed to enter the cemetery. On the graves of the Tatars, large trees were usually planted, so the cemeteries were large groves, carefully fenced and guarded.
The relative isolation of the culture of the Tatars, impregnated with Muslim fanaticism, determined the preservation of their backwardness and hindered the cultural growth of the Tatar society. The religious school, where all attention was focused on the senseless cramming of Muslim dogmas, did not provide the knowledge necessary in practical life. The progressive people of the Tatar society rebelled against Muslim scholasticism with its doctrine of indifference to everything earthly and boundless submission to fate (Sufism), so convenient for the exploitation of the working masses by the ruling classes. At the same time, the advanced Russian social thought of the post-reform period could not but influence the Tatar educated society. A huge role here was played by Kazan University, opened in 1804, which became the center of culture of the entire Middle Volga region.
Among the Tatar bourgeoisie, supporters of some transformations in the life of the Tatar people stood out. They began their activities by changing teaching methods at school, therefore they were called New Methodists (Jadidists), in contrast to the supporters of antiquity - Old Methodists (Kadimists). Gradually, the struggle between these currents covered various aspects of the life of the Tatar society.
As in any national movement, there were two sharply different trends among the Jadids - bourgeois-liberal and democratic. The liberals demanded careful reforms within the basic dogmas of Islam, the introduction of the new (Russian) culture only among the ruling classes, and the preservation of the old Muslim culture for the masses. The democrats stood for building Tatar culture along the lines of democratic Russian culture, for raising the cultural level of the working masses, for their enlightenment.
At the head of the educational movement among the Tatars was the democratic scientist Kayum Nasyri (1825-1901). He organized the first new method Tatar school, was the founder of the Tatar literary language, since the Tatars used to write in Arabic. Caring about the enlightenment of the people, Nasyri compiled and published many books on various branches of knowledge. His activities aroused the furious hatred of the reactionaries, the ridicule of the liberals, but the democratic community found in him its leader. Nasyri's ideas had a great influence on the development of Tatar democratic culture.
In the second half of the XIX century. large-scale industry began to develop in the region and a cadre of workers began to form, although still weak, who entered the struggle against capitalist exploitation. At first, this struggle was of a spontaneous nature, but from the end of the 1880s, Marxist social democratic circles began to help create workers' organizations and develop their proletarian self-consciousness. The first of these was the circle of N. E. Fedoseev, in which V. I. Lenin took part, who returned to Kazan from his first exile in the village. Kokushkino.
In the early 1900s, the Kazan Social Democratic Group arose, in 1903 the Kazan Committee of the RSDLP was organized, which stood on the positions of Lenin's Iskra.
The Social Democrats launched a great propaganda activity among the workers of Kazan enterprises. At this time, the highly educated Marxist-Bolshevik Khusain Yamashev (1882-1912) stood out from the Tatars.
During the revolution of 1905-1907. in Tatar society, the alignment of class forces was already clearly delineated. The advanced Tatar workers, under the leadership of the Bolshevik party organization, at the head of which at that time was Ya. M. Sverdlov, fought against the tsarist government together with the proletariat of other nationalities. The peasant Tatars fought for the land, but Social Democratic propaganda was still weak among them, and they often acted spontaneously. The ruling classes completely sided with the government, although outwardly they were divided into groups: some became outright obscurantist Black Hundreds, others became Kadet liberals. Having united in the “Union of Muslims” party, the Tatar bourgeoisie, which stood on nationalist positions, tried to take a dominant position not only among its people, but also in the entire Muslim East of Russia.
The camp of the bourgeoisie was opposed by the democratic intelligentsia, from which a group of prominent figures of Tatar culture emerged - the poets G. Tukay and M. Gafuri, the playwright G. Kamal, the writers G. Kulakhmetov, Sh. Kamal, G. Ibragimov, and others. ideas, fighting the Black Hundreds and liberals. In 1907, the Bolsheviks managed to organize the publication of the first Tatar Bolshevik newspaper Ural, which was published in Orenburg under the leadership of Kh. Yamashev and was of great importance for promoting social democratic ideas among the working Tatars.
The revolution of 1905 had a huge impact on the Tatar society. Even in the dark years of the Stolypin reaction, the best representatives of the Tatar people continued their struggle for democratic culture. The working Tatars began to gradually emerge from centuries of stagnation and isolation, they accumulated strength in order, together with the Russian people under their leadership, to give the last battle to the oppressors, without distinction of nationalities.
During the development of capitalism, there was a significant cultural rapprochement between the Kazan Tatars and the Mishars. Reading literature created in the Kazan dialect influenced the language of the Mishars, gradually bringing it closer to Kazan-Tatar. The Mishars took an active part in the creation of an all-Tagar democratic culture.
The February revolution, when the leadership was seized by the Tatar bourgeoisie, gave nothing to the working masses. Only the Great October Socialist Revolution, carried out by the working people of Russia under the leadership of the Communist Party, freed all the peoples of the country, including the Tatars, from centuries of oppression and opened the way for them to a new happy life.
The main laboring masses of the Tatars, like all the peoples of the region, took an active part in the October Revolution, but the Tatar bourgeoisie met the Soviet government with fierce resistance. During the civil war, which engulfed some part of the territory of this region, the working population actively resisted the Whites.
After the civil war, in which the Red Tatar units took an active part, the working Tatars received their autonomy. On May 27, 1920, the Tatar ASSR was formed. It included the territories of the Middle Volga region and the Lower Kama region, most densely populated by Tatars. A significant part of the Mishars and Tatars of the Urals, scattered in small groups among other nationalities, did not enter the Tatar ASSR.
The formation of the Tatar ASSR made it possible for the Tatar people, together with other peoples living on the territory of the republic, to carry out socialist transformations under the leadership of the Communist Party.
The Tatar people completely overcame their former economic and cultural backwardness, became an equal member of socialist society, successfully building communism. In the common treasury of the socialist culture of the Soviet Union, the Tatar people also contribute their share, their cultural values collected over the centuries of its historical existence and created in recent decades.
Tatars are the second largest people in Russia.
Photo ITAR-TASS
On the European ethno-political scene, the Bulgar Turks appeared as a special ethnic community in the second half of the 5th century, after the collapse of the Hunnic state. In the 5th-6th centuries, an alliance of many tribes led by the Bulgars formed in the Sea of Azov and the Northern Black Sea region. In the literature they are called both Bulgars and Bulgarians; so that there is no confusion with the Slavic people in the Balkans, in this essay I use the ethnonym "Bulgars".
Bulgaria – options are possible
At the end of the 7th century, part of the Bulgars moved to the Balkans. Around 680, their leader, Khan Asparukh, conquered the lands near the Danube Delta from Byzantium, at the same time concluding an agreement with the Yugoslav tribal association of the Seven Clans. In 681, the First Bulgar (Bulgarian) kingdom arose. In subsequent centuries, the Danube Bulgars, both linguistically and culturally, were assimilated by the Slavic population. A new people appeared, which, however, retained the former Turkic ethnonym - "Bulgars" (self-name - Bulgar, Bulgari).
The Bulgars, who remained in the steppes of the Eastern Black Sea region, created a state formation, which went down in history under the loud name "Great Bulgaria". But after a brutal defeat from the Khazar Khaganate, they moved (in the 7th-8th centuries) to the Middle Volga region, where at the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th century their new state was formed, which historians call Bulgaria / Volga-Kama Bulgaria.
The lands to which the Bulgars came (the territory mainly on the left bank of the Volga, bounded in the north by the Kama, and in the south by the Samara Luka) were inhabited by Finno-Ugric tribes and Turks who had come here earlier. All this multi-ethnic population - both old-timers and new settlers - actively interacted; By the time of the Mongol conquest, a new ethnic community had formed - the Volga Bulgars.
The state of the Volga Bulgars fell under the blows of the Turkic Mongols in 1236. Cities were destroyed, part of the population died, many were taken into captivity. The rest fled to the right-bank regions of the Volga region, to the forests north of the lower reaches of the Kama.
The Volga Bulgars were destined to play an important role in the ethnic history of all three Turkic-speaking peoples of the Middle Volga region - Tatars, Bashkirs and Chuvashs.
Talented Chuvash people
Chuvash, Chavash (self-name) - the main population of Chuvashia, they also live in neighboring republics of the region, in different regions and regions of Russia. There are about 1,436,000 of them in the country in total (2010). The ethnic basis of the Chuvashs was the Bulgars and related Suvars, who settled on the right bank of the Volga. Here they mixed with the local Finno-Ugric population, making it linguistically Turkic. The Chuvash language has retained many features of the Bulgar language; in the linguistic classification, it forms the Bulgar subgroup of the Turkic group of the Altaic family.
In the Golden Horde period, the “second wave” of Bulgar tribes moved from the left bank of the Volga to the interfluve of the Tsivil and Sviyaga. It laid the foundation for a sub-ethnic group of the lower Chuvashs (Anatri), who retain to a greater extent the Bulgar component not only in the language, but also in many components of material culture. Among the riding (northern) Chuvashs (Virials), along with the Bulgars, elements of the traditional culture of the mountain Maris are very noticeable, with which the Bulgars intensively mixed, migrating to the north. This was also reflected in the vocabulary of the Chuvash-Virials.
The self-name "Chavash" is most likely associated with the name of the tribal group of Suvars/Suvazs (Suas) close to the Bulgars. Suvaz are mentioned in Arabic sources of the 10th century. In Russian documents, the ethnonym Chavash first appears in 1508. In 1551, the Chuvash became part of Russia.
The predominant religion among the Chuvash (since the middle of the 18th century) is Orthodoxy; however, pre-Christian traditions, cults and rituals have survived to this day among the rural population. There are also Muslim Chuvashs (mostly those who have been living in Tatarstan and Bashkiria for several generations). Since the 18th century, writing has been based on Russian graphics (it was preceded by Arabic writing - from the time of the Volga Bulgaria).
The talented Chuvash people gave Russia many wonderful people, I will name only three names: P.E. Egorov (1728–1798), architect, creator of the Summer Garden fence, participant in the construction of the Marble, Winter Palaces, Smolny Monastery in St. Petersburg; N.Ya.Bichurin (monastic Iakinf) (1777–1853), who headed the Russian spiritual mission in Beijing for 14 years, an outstanding sinologist, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences; A.G. Nikolaev (1929–2004), USSR pilot-cosmonaut (No. 3), twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General of Aviation.
Bashkir - wolf-leader
Bashkirs are the indigenous population of Bashkiria. According to the 2010 census, there are 1,584.5 thousand of them in Russia. They also live in other regions, in the states of Central Asia, in Ukraine.
The ethnonym accepted as the main self-name of the Bashkirs - "Bashkort" - has been known since the 9th century (basqyrt - basqurt). It is etymologized as “chief”, “leader”, “head” (bash-) plus “wolf” (kort in the Oguz-Turkic languages), that is, “wolf-leader”. Thus, it is believed that the ethnic name of the Bashkirs is from the totemic hero-ancestor.
Previously, the ancestors of the Bashkirs (Turkic nomads of Central Asian origin) roamed in the region of the Aral Sea and Syr Darya (VII–VIII). From there, in the 8th century, they migrated to the Caspian and North Caucasian steppes; at the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th century, they move northward, into the steppe and forest-steppe lands between the Volga and the Urals.
Linguistic analysis shows that the vocalism (vowel system) of the Bashkir language (as well as Tatar) is very close to the vowel system of the Chuvash language (a direct descendant of Bulgar).
In the 10th - early 13th centuries, the Bashkirs were in the zone of political domination of the Volga-Kama Bulgaria. Together with the Bulgars and other peoples of the region, they fiercely resisted the invasion of the Turkic-Mongols led by Batu Khan, but were defeated, their lands were annexed to the Golden Horde. In the Golden Horde period (40s of the 13th - 40s of the 15th century), the influence on all aspects of the life of the Kipchak Bashkirs was very strong. The Bashkir language was formed under the powerful influence of the Kypchak language; it is included in the Kypchak subgroup of the Turkic group of the Altai family.
After the collapse of the Golden Horde, the Bashkirs fell under the rule of the Nogai khans, who ousted the Bashkirs from their best nomadic lands. This forced them to leave to the north, where there was a partial mixing of the Bashkirs with the Finno-Ugric peoples. Separate groups of Nogais also joined the Bashkir ethnic group.
In 1552-1557, the Bashkirs accepted Russian citizenship. This important event, which determined the further historical fate of the people, was formalized as an act of voluntary accession. Under the new conditions and circumstances, the process of ethnic consolidation of the Bashkirs significantly accelerated, despite the long-term preservation of the tribal division (there were about 40 tribes and tribal groups). It should be noted in particular that in the 17th-18th centuries the Bashkir ethnos continued to absorb people from other peoples of the Volga and Ural regions - Mari, Mordovians, Udmurts and especially Tatars, with whom they were brought together by linguistic kinship.
When on March 31, 1814, the allied armies led by Emperor Alexander I entered Paris, the Bashkir cavalry regiments were also part of the Russian troops. It is appropriate to recall this this year, when the 200th anniversary of the Patriotic War of 1812 is being celebrated.
Adventures of an ethnonym, or why "Tatars"
Tatars (Tatars, self-name) - the second largest people of Russia (5310.6 thousand people, 2010), the largest Turkic-speaking people of the country, the main population of Tatarstan. They also live in many Russian regions, in other countries. Among the Tatars, there are three main ethnoterritorial groups: the Volga-Urals (Tatars of the Middle Volga and Urals, the most numerous community); Siberian Tatars and Astrakhan Tatars.
Supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept of the origin of the Tatar people believe that the Bulgars of the Volga Bulgaria became its ethnic basis, in which the basic ethno-cultural traditions and features of the modern Tatar (Bulgaro-Tatar) people were formed. Other scholars develop the Turkic-Tatar theory of the origin of the Tatar ethnos - that is, they speak of broader ethno-cultural roots of the Tatar people than the Ural-Volga region.
The anthropological influence of the Mongols who invaded the region in the 13th century was very insignificant. According to some estimates, 4-5 thousand of them settled on the Middle Volga under Batu. In the subsequent period, they completely "dissolved" in the surrounding population. In the physical types of the Volga Tatars, Central Asian Mongoloid features are practically absent, for the most part they are Caucasoids.
Islam appeared in the Middle Volga region in the 10th century. Both the ancestors of the Tatars and the modern believing Tatars are Muslims (Sunnis). The exception is a small group of so-called Kryashens who converted to Orthodoxy in the 16th-18th centuries.
For the first time, the ethnonym "Tatars" appeared among the Mongol and Turkic tribes who roamed in the 6th-9th centuries in Central Asia, as the name of one of their groups. In the XIII-XIV centuries, it spread to the entire Turkic-speaking population of a huge power created by Genghis Khan and the Genghisids. This ethnonym was adopted by the Kipchaks of the Golden Horde and the khanates that formed after its collapse, apparently because representatives of the nobility, military service and bureaucratic strata called themselves Tatars.
However, among the broad masses, especially in the Middle Volga - Urals, the ethnonym "Tatars" and in the second half of the 16th century, after the annexation of the region to Russia, took root with difficulty, very gradually, to a large extent under the influence of the Russians, who called the entire population of the Horde Tatars and khanates The famous Italian traveler of the 13th century, Plano Carpini, who, on behalf of Pope Innocent IV, visited the residence of Batu Khan (in Saray on the Volga) and at the court of the Great Khan Guyuk in Karakorum (Mongolia), called his work "History of the Mongols, called by us Tatars."
After the unexpected and crushing Turkic-Mongol invasion of Europe, some historians and philosophers of that time (Matthew of Paris, Roger Bacon, etc.) reinterpreted the word "Tatars" as "natives of Tartarus" (that is, the underworld) ... And six and a half centuries later, the author article "Tatars" in the famous encyclopedic dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron reports that "in the V century. under the name ta-ta or tatan (from which, in all likelihood, the word Tatars comes) meant the Mongol tribe that lived in northeastern Mongolia and partly in Manchuria. We have almost no information about this tribe. In general, he summarizes, “the word “Tatars” is a collective name for a number of peoples of Mongolian and, mainly, Turkic origin, who speak the Turkic language…”.
Such a generalized-ethnic naming of many peoples and tribes by the name of some one is not uncommon. Recall that in Russia just a century ago, Tatars were called not only Kazan, Astrakhan, Siberian and Crimean Tatars, but also some Turkic-speaking peoples of the North Caucasus (“Mountain Tatars” - Karachays and Balkars), Transcaucasia (“Transcaucasian Tatars” - Azerbaijanis), Siberia (Shors, Khakases, Tofalars, etc.).
In 1787, the outstanding French navigator La Perouse (Count de La Perouse) named the strait between the island of Sakhalin and the Tatar mainland - because even in that already very enlightened time, almost all the peoples living east of the Russians and north of the Chinese were called Tatars. This hydronym, the Tatar Strait, is truly a monument to the inscrutableness, the mystery of the migrations of ethnic names, their ability to “stick” to other peoples, as well as to territories and other geographical objects.
In search of ethnohistorical unity
The ethnos of the Volga-Ural Tatars took shape in the 15th-18th centuries in the process of migration and rapprochement, rallying different Tatar groups: Kazan, Kasimov Tatars, Mishars (the latter are considered by researchers to be descendants of the Turkic Finno-Ugric tribes known as the Meshchers). In the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, the growth of the all-Tatar national self-consciousness, the awareness of the ethno-historical unity of all territorial groups of Tatars, intensified in broad sections of Tatar society, and especially in intellectual circles.
At the same time, the literary Tatar language was formed, mainly on the basis of the Kazan-Tatar dialect, which replaced the Old Tatar language, which was based on the language of the Volga Turks. Writing from the 10th century to 1927 is based on the Arabic alphabet (before the 10th century, the so-called Turkic runic was occasionally used); from 1928 to 1939 - based on the Latin alphabet (yanalif); from 1939-1940 - Russian graphics. In the 1990s, a discussion intensified in Tatarstan about the transfer of the Tatar script to a modernized version of the Latin script (Yanalif-2).
The described process naturally led to the rejection of local self-names, to the approval of the most common ethnonym, which united all groups. In the 1926 census, 88% of the Tatar population of the European part of the USSR called themselves Tatars.
In 1920, the Tatar ASSR was formed (as part of the RSFSR); in 1991 it was transformed into the Republic of Tatarstan.
A special and very interesting topic, which I can only touch upon in this essay, is the relationship between the Russian and Tatar populations. As Lev Gumilyov wrote, "our Great Russian ancestors in the 15th-16th-17th centuries mixed easily and rather quickly with the Tatars of the Volga, Don, Ob ...". He liked to repeat: "scratch a Russian - you will find a Tatar, scratch a Tatar - you will find a Russian."
Many Russian noble families had Tatar roots: Godunovs, Yusupovs, Beklemishevs, Saburovs, Sheremetevs, Korsakovs, Buturlins, Basmanovs, Karamzins, Aksakovs, Turgenevs ... The Tatar "origins" of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky were traced in detail in the most interesting book "Born in Russia" by a literary critic and poet , Professor Igor Volgin.
It was no accident that I began this short list of surnames with the Godunovs: known to everyone from history books and even more from the great Pushkin tragedy, Boris Godunov, the Russian Tsar in 1598-1605, was a descendant of the Tatar Murza Chet, who left the Golden Horde for Russian service under Ivane Kalita (in the 30s of the XIV century), was baptized and received the name Zacharias. He founded the Ipatiev Monastery, became the ancestor of the Russian noble family of the Godunovs.
I want to complete this almost endless topic with the name of one of the most talented Russian poets of the 20th century - Bella Akhatovna Akhmadulina, whose rare talent has different genetic sources, Tatar - one of the main ones: "The immemorial spirit of Asiaticism / Still roams in me." But her native language, the language of her work, was Russian: “And Pushkin looks kindly, / And the night has passed, and the candles go out, / And the gentle taste of her native speech / So pure her lips cool.”
Russians, Tatars, Bashkirs, Chuvashs, all the peoples of multi-ethnic Russia, which is celebrating the 1150th anniversary of its statehood this year, have had a common, common, inseparable history and destiny for a very long time, for many centuries.
They speak the Kazan dialect of the Tatar language of the Kypchak group of Turkic languages. The ethnic basis of the Kazan Tatars was made up of the Turkic (Bulgars, Kipchaks, etc.) peoples, as well as representatives of the Imenkovo culture.
Story
Early history
Funeral rite
Many facts of the funeral rites of the Kazan Tatars show complete continuity from the Bulgars, today most of the rites of the Kazan Tatars are associated with their Muslim religion.
Location. The urban necropolises of the Golden Horde were located within the city, as were the burial grounds of the period of the Kazan Khanate. Cemeteries of the Kazan Tatars of the XVIII-XIX centuries. located outside the villages, not far from the villages, if possible - across the river.
Tomb structures. From the descriptions of ethnographers, it follows that the Kazan Tatars used to plant one or more trees on the grave. The graves were almost always surrounded by a fence, sometimes a stone was placed on the grave, small log cabins were made without a roof, in which birch trees were planted and stones were placed, sometimes monuments were erected in the form of pillars.
Burial method. The Bulgars of all periods are characterized by the rite of inhumation (deposition of corpses). The pagan Bulgars were buried with their heads to the west, on their backs, with their arms along the body. A distinctive feature of the burial grounds of the X-XI centuries. is the period of the formation of a new rite in the Volga Bulgaria, hence the lack of strict uniformity in the individual details of the ritual, in particular, in the position of the body, hands and face of the buried. Along with observance of the qibla, in the vast majority of cases there are individual burials facing up or even to the north. There are burials of the dead on the right side. The position of the hands is especially diverse during this period. For necropolises of the XII-XIII centuries. the unification of the details of the rite is characteristic: strict observance of the qibla, the orientation of the face to Mecca, the uniform position of the deceased with a slight turn to the right side, with the right hand extended along the body, and the left, slightly bent and laid on the pelvis. On average, 90% of the burials show this stable combination of features, compared to 40-50% in early burials. In the Golden Horde period, all burials were made according to the rite of inhumation, the body was stretched out on its back, sometimes with a turn to the right side, head to the west, facing south. During the period of the Kazan Khanate, the funeral rite did not change. According to the descriptions of ethnographers, the deceased was lowered into the grave, then laid in a side lining, facing Mecca. The hole was filled with bricks or boards. The spread of Islam among the Volga Bulgars already in pre-Mongol times was very clearly manifested in the rite of the Bulgars of the 12th-13th centuries, during the Golden Horde period, and later in the funeral rite of the Kazan Tatars.
National clothes
The clothes of men and women consisted of wide-leg trousers and a shirt (for women it was supplemented with an embroidered bib), on which a sleeveless camisole was put on. Cossacks served as outerwear, and in winter - a quilted beshmet or fur coat. The headdress of men is a skullcap, and on top of it is a hemispherical hat with fur or a felt hat; for women - an embroidered velvet cap (kalfak) and a scarf. Traditional shoes are leather ichigi with soft soles, they were worn outside the home with leather galoshes. The women's costume was characterized by an abundance of metal jewelry.
Anthropological types of Kazan Tatars
The most significant in the field of anthropology of the Kazan Tatars are the studies of T. A. Trofimova, conducted in 1929-1932. In particular, in 1932, together with G. F. Debets, she carried out extensive research in Tatarstan. 160 Tatars were examined in the Arsk region, 146 Tatars in the Yelabuga region, and 109 Tatars in the Chistopol region. Anthropological studies have revealed the presence of four main anthropological types among the Kazan Tatars: Pontic, light Caucasoid, sublaponoid, Mongoloid.
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These types have the following characteristics:
Pontic type- characterized by mesocephaly, dark or mixed pigmentation of the hair and eyes, high nasal bridge, convex bridge of the nose, with a lowered tip and base, significant beard growth. Growth is average with an upward trend.
Light Caucasian type- characterized by subbrachycephaly, light pigmentation of hair and eyes, medium or high nose bridge with a straight back of the nose, moderately developed beard, medium height. A number of morphological features - the structure of the nose, the size of the face, pigmentation, and a number of others - bring this type closer to the Pontic.
Sublaponoid type(Volga-Kama) - characterized by meso-subbrachycephaly, mixed pigmentation of hair and eyes, wide and low nose, weak beard growth and a low, medium-wide face with a tendency to flattening. Quite often there is a fold of the eyelid with a weak development of the epicanthus.
Mongoloid type(South Siberian) - characterized by brachycephaly, dark shades of hair and eyes, a wide and flattened face and low nose bridge, often occurring epicanthus and poor beard development. Growth, on a European scale, is average.
The theory of ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars
There are several theories of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars. Three of them are described in the scientific literature in the most detail:
- Bulgaro-Tatar theory
- Tatar-Mongolian theory
- Turko-Tatar theory.
see also
Notes
Literature
- Akhatov G. Kh. Tatar dialectology. Middle dialect (textbook for students of higher educational institutions). - Ufa, 1979.
- Akhmarov G. N. (Tatar.)Russian. Wedding ceremonies of the Kazan Tatars// Akhmarev G.N. (Tatar.)Russian Tarihi-documentary җyentyk. - Kazan: “Җyen-TatArt”, “Khater” Nәshriyati, 2000.
- Drozdova G.I. Funeral rite of the peoples of the Volga-Kama region of the 16th-19th centuries: based on archaeological and ethnographic materials / Abstract of the thesis. ... candidate of historical sciences: 07.00.06. - Kazan: Sh. Marjani Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, 2007. - 27 p.
, Finno-Ugrians
Story [ | ]
Early history [ | ]
Funeral rite[ | ]
Many facts of the funeral rites of the Kazan Tatars show complete continuity from the Bulgars, today most of the rites of the Kazan Tatars are associated with their Muslim religion.
Location. The urban necropolises of the Golden Horde were located within the city, as were the burial grounds of the period of the Kazan Khanate. Cemeteries of the Kazan Tatars of the XVIII-XIX centuries. located outside the villages, not far from the villages, if possible - across the river.
Tomb structures. From the descriptions of ethnographers, it follows that the Kazan Tatars used to plant one or more trees on the grave. The graves were almost always surrounded by a fence, sometimes a stone was placed on the grave, small log cabins were made without a roof, in which birch trees were planted and stones were placed, sometimes monuments were erected in the form of pillars.
Burial method. The Bulgars of all periods are characterized by the rite of inhumation (deposition of corpses). The pagan Bulgars were buried with their heads to the west, on their backs, with their arms along the body. A distinctive feature of the burial grounds of the X-XI centuries. is the period of the formation of a new rite in the Volga Bulgaria, hence the lack of strict uniformity in the individual details of the ritual, in particular, in the position of the body, hands and face of the buried. Along with observance of the qibla, in the vast majority of cases there are individual burials facing up or even to the north. There are burials of the dead on the right side. The position of the hands is especially diverse during this period. For necropolises of the XII-XIII centuries. the unification of the details of the rite is characteristic: strict observance of the qibla, the orientation of the face to Mecca, the uniform position of the deceased with a slight turn to the right side, with the right hand extended along the body, and the left, slightly bent and laid on the pelvis. On average, 90% of the burials show this stable combination of features, compared to 40-50% in early burials. In the Golden Horde period, all burials were made according to the rite of inhumation, the body was stretched out on its back, sometimes with a turn to the right side, head to the west, facing south. During the period of the Kazan Khanate, the funeral rite did not change. According to the descriptions of ethnographers, the deceased was lowered into the grave, then laid in a side lining, facing Mecca. The hole was filled with bricks or boards. The spread of Islam among the Volga Bulgars already in pre-Mongol times was very clearly manifested in the rite of the Bulgars of the 12th-13th centuries, during the Golden Horde period, and later in the funeral rite of the Kazan Tatars.
National clothes[ | ]
The clothes of men and women consisted of wide-leg trousers and a shirt (for women it was supplemented with an embroidered bib), on which a sleeveless camisole was put on. Cossacks served as outerwear, and in winter - a quilted beshmet or fur coat. The headdress of men is a skullcap, and on top of it is a hemispherical hat with fur or a felt hat; for women - an embroidered velvet cap (kalfak) and a scarf. Traditional shoes are leather ichigi with soft soles, they were worn outside the home with leather galoshes. The women's costume was characterized by an abundance of metal jewelry.
Anthropological types of Kazan Tatars[ | ]
The most significant in the field of anthropology of the Kazan Tatars are the studies of T. A. Trofimova, conducted in 1929-1932. In particular, in 1932, together with G. F. Debets, she carried out extensive research in Tatarstan. 160 Tatars were examined in the Arsk region, 146 Tatars in the Yelabuga region, and 109 Tatars in the Chistopol region. Anthropological studies have revealed the presence of four main anthropological types among the Kazan Tatars: Pontic, light Caucasoid, sublaponoid, Mongoloid.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
These types have the following characteristics:
Pontic type- characterized by mesocephaly, dark or mixed pigmentation of the hair and eyes, high nasal bridge, convex bridge of the nose, with a lowered tip and base, significant beard growth. Growth is average with an upward trend.
Light Caucasian type- characterized by subbrachycephaly, light pigmentation of hair and eyes, medium or high nose bridge with a straight back of the nose, moderately developed beard, medium height. A number of morphological features - the structure of the nose, the size of the face, pigmentation, and a number of others - bring this type closer to the Pontic.
Sublaponoid type(Volga-Kama) - characterized by meso-subbrachycephaly, mixed pigmentation of hair and eyes, wide and low nose, weak beard growth and a low, medium-wide face with a tendency to flattening. Quite often there is a fold of the eyelid with a weak development of the epicanthus.
Mongoloid type(South Siberian) - characterized by brachycephaly, dark shades of hair and eyes, a wide and flattened face and low nose bridge, often occurring epicanthus and poor beard development. Growth, on a European scale, is average.
The theory of ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars[ | ]
There are several theories of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars. Three of them are described in the scientific literature in the most detail:
- Bulgaro-Tatar theory
- Tatar-Mongolian theory
- Turko-Tatar theory.
see also [ | ]
Notes [ | ]
Literature [ | ]
- Akhatov G. Kh. Tatar dialectology. Middle dialect (textbook for students of higher educational institutions). - Ufa, 1979.
- Akhmarov G. N. (Tatar.). Wedding ceremonies of the Kazan Tatars// Akhmarev G.N. (Tatar.) Tarihi-documentary җyentyk. - Kazan: “Җyen-TatArt”, “Khater” Nәshriyati, 2000.
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, felting, furriery, 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
