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Scratch a Tatar and you will find a Russian
Multinational Russia
There are many stranger nations in our country. This is not correct. We should not be strangers to each other. I'll start with Tatars are the second largest ethnic group in Russia, there are almost 6 million of them.
Still from the film "Mongol"
Who are the Tatars? The history of this ethnonym, as often happened in the Middle Ages, is a history of ethnographic confusion.
IN XI-XII centuries The steppes of Central Asia were inhabited by various Mongol-speaking tribes: Naiman, Mongols, Kereits, Merkits and Tatars. The latter wandered along the borders of the Chinese state. Therefore, in China the name Tatars was transferred to other Mongolian tribes in the meaning of “barbarians.” Actually, the Chinese called the Tatars white Tatars, the Mongols who lived to the north were called black Tatars, and the Mongolian tribes who lived even further, in the Siberian forests, were called wild Tatars.
IN early XIII century, Genghis Khan launched a punitive campaign against real Tatars in revenge for the poisoning of his father. The order that the Mongol ruler gave to his soldiers has been preserved: to destroy everyone taller than the cart axle. As a result of this massacre, the Tatars as a military-political force were wiped off the face of the earth. But, as the Persian historian Rashid ad-Din testifies, “because of their extreme greatness and honorable position, other Turkic clans, with all the differences in their ranks and names, became known by their name, and all were called Tatars.”
The Mongols themselves never called themselves Tatars. However, Khorezm and Arab merchants, who were constantly in contact with the Chinese, brought the name “Tatars” to Europe even before the appearance of Batu Khan’s troops here. Europeans compared the ethnonym “Tatars” with the Greek name for hell - Tartarus. Later, European historians and geographers used the term Tartaria as a synonym for the "barbarian East". For example, on some European maps XV-XVI centuries Muscovite Rus' is designated as “Moscow Tartary” or “European Tartary”.
As for modern Tatars, neither by origin nor by language they have absolutely nothing to do with the Tatars of the 12th-13th centuries. The Volga, Crimean, Astrakhan and other modern Tatars inherited only the name from the Central Asian Tatars.
The modern Tatar people do not have a single ethnic root. Among his ancestors were the Huns, Volga Bulgars, Kipchaks, Nogais, Mongols, Kimaks and other Turkic-Mongolian peoples. But the formation of modern Tatars was even more influenced by the Finno-Ugrians and Russians. According to anthropological data, more than 60% of Tatars have predominantly Caucasian features, and only 30% have Turkic-Mongolian features.
The emergence of the Ulus Jochi on the banks of the Volga was an important milestone in the history of the Tatars. During the era of Genghisids, Tatar history became truly global. The system of public administration and finance and the postal (yam) service inherited by Moscow have reached perfection. More than 150 cities arose where the endless Polovtsian steppes recently stretched. Their names alone sound like a fairy tale: Gulstan (land of flowers), Saray (palace), Aktobe (white vault).
Some cities were much larger than Western European ones in size and population. For example, if Rome in the 14th century had 35 thousand inhabitants, and Paris - 58 thousand, then the capital of the Horde, the city of Sarai, had more than 100 thousand. According to the testimony of Arab travelers, Sarai had palaces, mosques, temples of other religions, schools, public gardens, baths, and running water. Not only merchants and warriors lived here, but also poets. All religions in the Golden Horde enjoyed equal freedom. According to the laws of Genghis Khan, insult to religion was punishable by death penalty. The clergy of each religion were exempt from paying taxes.
During the era of the Golden Horde, there was enormous potential for the reproduction of Tatar culture. But the Kazan Khanate continued this path mostly by inertia. Among the fragments of the Golden Horde that scattered along the borders of Rus', Kazan was of greatest importance to Moscow due to its geographical proximity. Spread on the banks of the Volga, among dense forests, the Muslim state was a curious phenomenon. As a state entity, the Kazan Khanate arose in the 30s of the 15th century and during the short period of its existence managed to demonstrate its cultural identity in the Islamic world.
The 120-year-old neighborhood of Moscow and Kazan was celebrated with fourteen major wars, not counting almost annual border skirmishes. However, for a long time both sides did not seek to conquer each other. Everything changed when Moscow realized itself as the “third Rome,” that is, the last defender of the Orthodox faith. Already in 1523, Metropolitan Daniel outlined the future path of Moscow politics, saying: “ Grand Duke He will take all the land of Kazan.” Three decades later, Ivan the Terrible fulfilled this prediction.
August 20, 1552 50,000th Russian army camped under the walls of Kazan. The city was defended by 35 thousand selected soldiers. About ten thousand more Tatar horsemen were hiding in the surrounding forests and alarming the Russians with sudden raids from the rear.
The siege of Kazan lasted five weeks. After the sudden attacks of the Tatars from the direction of the forest, the cold autumn rains annoyed the Russian army most of all. The thoroughly wet warriors even thought that the bad weather was being sent to them by Kazan sorcerers, who, according to the testimony of Prince Kurbsky, went out onto the wall at sunrise and performed all sorts of spells. All this time, a tunnel was being built under one of the Kazan towers. On the night of October 1, the work was completed. 48 barrels of gunpowder were placed in the tunnel. At dawn there was a monstrous explosion. It was terrible to see, the chronicler wrote, many tortured corpses and mutilated people flying in the air at a terrible height.
The Russian army rushed to attack. The royal banners were already fluttering on the city walls when Ivan the Terrible himself rode up to the city with his guards regiments. The presence of the Tsar gave new strength to the Moscow warriors. Despite the desperate resistance of the Tatars, Kazan fell a few hours later. There were so many killed on both sides that in some places the piles of bodies lay level with the city walls.
The death of the Kazan Khanate, of course, did not mean the death of the Tatar people. On the contrary, it is
as part of Russia, in fact, it developed Tatar nation, which finally received its truly national state formation - the Republic of Tatarstan.
The Moscow state never confined itself to narrow national-religious boundaries. Historians have calculated that among the nine hundred most ancient noble families of Russia, Great Russians make up only one third, while 300 families come from Lithuania, and the other 300 come from Tatar lands.
Ivan the Terrible's Moscow seemed to Western Europeans to be an Asian city not only for its unusual architecture and buildings, but also for the number of Muslims living in it. One English traveler, who visited Moscow in 1557 and was invited to the royal feast, noted that the tsar himself sat at the first table with his sons and the Kazan kings, at the second table sat Metropolitan Macarius with the Orthodox clergy, and the third table was entirely allocated to the Circassian princes. In addition, another two thousand noble Tatars were feasting in other chambers. They were not given the last place in the government service. Subsequently, the Tatar births gave Russia huge amount representatives of the intelligentsia, prominent military and socio-political figures.
Over the centuries, the culture of the Tatars was also absorbed by Russia, and now many native Tatar words, household items, culinary dishes entered the consciousness of the Russian people as if they were their own. According to Valishevsky, when going out into the street, a Russian person put on a shoe, an army coat, a zipun, a caftan, a bashlyk, and a cap. In a fight, he used his fist. Being a judge, he ordered to put shackles on the convicted person and give him a whip. Setting off on a long journey, he sat in the sleigh with the coachman. And getting up from the mail sleigh, he went into a tavern, which replaced the ancient Russian tavern.
After the capture of Kazan in 1552, the culture of the Tatar people was preserved, first of all, thanks to Islam. Islam (in its Sunni version) is the traditional religion of the Tatars. The exception is a small group of them, which in XVI-XVIII centuries was converted to Orthodoxy. That’s what they call themselves: “Kryashen” - baptized.
Islam in the Volga region established itself in 922, when the ruler of Volga Bulgaria voluntarily converted to the Muslim faith. But still higher value had the “Islamic revolution” of Khan Uzbek, who at the beginning of the 14th century made Islam the state religion of the Golden Horde (by the way, contrary to the laws of Genghis Khan on the equality of religions). As a result, the Kazan Khanate became the northernmost stronghold of world Islam.
In Russian-Tatar history there was a sad period of acute religious confrontation. The first decades after the capture of Kazan were marked by persecution of Islam and the forced introduction of Christianity among the Tatars. Only the reforms of Catherine II fully legalized the Muslim clergy. In 1788, the Orenburg Spiritual Assembly was opened - a governing body of Muslims, with its center in Ufa.
But what can be said about the “orphan of Kazan” or about uninvited guests? Russians have long said that “the old proverb is said for a reason” and therefore “there is no trial or punishment for the proverb.” Silencing inconvenient proverbs is not the best way to achieve interethnic understanding.
So, " Dictionary Russian language" Ushakova explains the origin of the expression "Kazan orphan" as follows. Initially, this was said “about the Tatar mirzas (princes), who, after the conquest of the Kazan Khanate by Ivan the Terrible, tried to receive all kinds of concessions from the Russian tsars, complaining about their bitter fate.”
Indeed, the Moscow sovereigns considered it their duty to win over the Tatar Murzas, especially if they decided to change their faith. According to documents, such “Kazan orphans” received about a thousand rubles in annual salaries. Whereas, for example, a Russian doctor was entitled to only 30 rubles a year. Naturally, this state of affairs gave rise to envy among Russian service people. Later, the idiom “Kazan orphan” lost its historical and ethnic connotation - this is how they began to talk about anyone who just pretends to be unhappy, trying to evoke sympathy.
Now about the Tatar and the guest: which of them is “worse” and which is “better”. The Tatars of the Golden Horde, if they happened to come to a subordinate country, behaved in it like gentlemen. Our chronicles are full of stories about oppression by the Tatar Baskaks and the greed of the Khan's courtiers. It was then that they began to say: “A guest in the yard - and trouble in the yard”; “And the guests did not know how the owner was tied up”; “The edge is not big, but the devil brings a guest and takes away the last one.” Well, and - “an uninvited guest is worse than a Tatar.” When times changed, the Tatars, in turn, learned what the Russian “uninvited guest” was like. The Tatars also have many offensive sayings about Russians. What can you do about it?
History is the irreparable past. What happened, happened. Only the truth heals morals, politics, and interethnic relations. But it should be remembered that the truth of history is not bare facts, but an understanding of the past in order to live correctly in the present and future.
Tatars are the second largest ethnic group and the most numerous people Muslim culture in the Russian Federation.
The Tatar ethnic group has an ancient and vibrant history, closely connected with the history of all the peoples of the Ural-Volga region and Russia as a whole.
The original culture of the Tatars has worthily entered the treasury of world culture and civilization.
We find traces of it in the traditions and languages of the Russians, Mordvins, Mari, Udmurts, Bashkirs, and Chuvashs. At the same time, the national Tatar culture synthesizes the achievements of the Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Indo-Iranian peoples (Arabs, Slavs and others).
There are also different interpretations of the ethnonym “Tatars”. This question is very relevant at the present time.
Some researchers deduce the origin of this word from “mountain inhabitant”, where “tat” means “mountain”, and “ar” means “resident”, “person” (A.A. Sukharev. Kazan Tatars. St. Petersburg, 1904, p. 22). Others are the etymology of the word “Tatars” to the ancient Greek “messenger” (N.A. Baskakov. Russian surnames of Turkic origin. Baku, 1992, p. 122).
The famous Turkologist D.E. Eremev connects the origin of the word “Tatars” with the ancient Turkic word and people. He associates the first component of the word “tat” with the name of the ancient Iranian people. At the same time, he refers to the information of the ancient Turkic chronicler Mahmud Kashgari that the Turks called “tatam” those who speak Farsi, that is, the Iranian language. The original meaning of the word “tat” was most likely “Persian”, but then this word in Rus' began to designate all eastern and Asian peoples (D.E. Eremeev. Semantics of Turkic ethnonymy. - Collection “Ethnonyms”. M., 1970 , p.134).
Thus, a complete deciphering of the ethnonym “Tatars” is still waiting for its researcher. In the meantime, unfortunately, even today the burden of established traditions and stereotypes about the Mongol-Tatar yoke forces most people to think in highly distorted categories about the history of the Tatars, about their true origin, about Tatar culture.
According to the 1989 census, about 7 million people lived on the territory of the USSR. Of these, in the RSFSR - more than 5.5 million or 83.1% of the indicated number, including in Tatarstan - more than 1.76 million people (26.6%).
Currently, Tatars make up just over half the population of Tatarstan, their national republic. At the same time, the number of people living outside Tatarstan is -1.12 million people in Bashkortostan, -110.5 thousand in Udmurtia, 47.3 thousand in Mordovia, 43.8 thousand in Mari El, 35.7 thousand in Chuvashia. In addition, Tatars also live in the regions of the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia.
Tatars are one of the most mobile peoples. Due to landlessness, frequent crop failures in their homeland and the traditional desire for trade, even before 1917 they began to move to various regions Russian Empire, including in the provinces of Central Russia, in the Donbass, in Eastern Siberia And Far East, North Caucasus and Transcaucasia, Central Asia and Kazakhstan. This migration process intensified during the years of Soviet rule, especially during the period of the “great construction projects of socialism.” Therefore, at present there is practically no federal subject in the Russian Federation where Tatars live. Even in the pre-revolutionary period, Tatar national communities were formed in Finland, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and China. As a result of the collapse of the USSR, Tatars who lived in the former Soviet republics - Uzbekistan (467.8 thousand), Kazakhstan (327.9 thousand), Tajikistan (72.2 thousand), Kyrgyzstan (70.5 thousand) - ended up in the near abroad. ), Turkmenistan (39.2 thousand), Azerbaijan (28 thousand), Ukraine (86.9 thousand), in the Baltic countries (14 thousand). Already due to re-emigrants from China. In Turkey and Finland, since the mid-20th century, Tatar national diasporas have been formed in the USA, Japan, Australia, and Sweden.
According to many historians, the Tatar people with a single literary and practically common spoken language emerged during the existence of the huge Turkic state - the Golden Horde. The literary language in this state was the so-called “idel terkise” or Old Tatar, based on the Kipchak-Bulgar (Polovtsian) language and incorporating elements of Central Asian literary languages. The modern literary language based on the middle dialect arose in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
In ancient times, the Turkic ancestors of the Tatars used runic writing, as evidenced by archaeological finds in the Urals and Middle Volga region. Since the voluntary adoption of Islam by one of the ancestors of the Tatars, the Volga-Kama Bulgars, the Tatars used Arabic writing, from 1929 to 1939 - Latin script, and since 1939 they have used the Cyrillic alphabet with additional characters.
Modern Tatar language, belonging to the Kipchak-Bulgar subgroup of the Kipchak group of the Turkic language family, is divided into four dialects: middle (Kazan Tatar), western (Mishar), eastern (language of the Siberian Tatars) and Crimean (language Crimean Tatars). Despite dialectal and territorial differences, the Tatars are a single nation with a single literary language, a single culture - folklore, literature, music, religion, national spirit, traditions and rituals.
Even before the 1917 coup, the Tatar nation occupied one of the leading places in the Russian Empire in terms of literacy (the ability to write and read in its own language). The traditional thirst for knowledge has survived in the current generation.
Ethnonym "Tatars" - ancient origin, however, it was adopted as the self-name of modern Tatars only in the 19th century, and the Ancient Tatars, Turkic tribes, lived on the territory of today's Eurasia. The current Tatars (Kazan, Western, Siberian, Crimean) are not direct descendants of the ancient Tatars who came to Europe along with the troops of Genghis Khan. They formed in one nation called Tatars, after they were given that name European peoples.
There is an opinion among historians that the name “Tatars” comes from the name of the large influential family “Tata”, from which many Turkic-speaking military leaders of the state “Altyn Urta” (Golden Mean) came, better known as “ Golden Horde».
The Tatars are one of the most urbanized peoples of the Russian Federation. The social groups of the Tatars, living both in cities and in villages, are almost no different from those that exist among other peoples, especially Russians.
In their way of life, the Tatars do not differ from other surrounding peoples. The modern Tatar ethnic group arose in parallel with the Russian one. Modern Tatars are the Turkic-speaking part of the indigenous population of Russia, which, due to their greater territorial proximity to the East, chose Islam rather than Orthodoxy. 99% of Tatar believers are Sunni Muslims of moderate Hanafi persuasion.
Many ethnologists note the unique phenomenon of Tatar tolerance, which consists in the fact that in the entire history of the existence of the Tatars, they have not initiated a single conflict on ethnic and religious grounds. The most famous ethnologists and researchers are sure that tolerance is an invariable part of the Tatar national character.
The traditional food of the Tatars is meat, dairy and vegetable - soups seasoned with pieces of dough (tokmach noodles, chumar), porridges, sour dough bread, kabartma flatbreads. National dishes- balesh with a variety of fillings, often made from meat (peryamyach), cut into pieces and mixed with millet, rice or potatoes; unleavened dough baked goods are widely represented in the form of bavyrsak, kosh tele, ichpochmak, gubadia, katykly salma, chak-chak (wedding dish ). Dried sausage - kazylyk or kazy - is prepared from horse meat (the favorite meat of many groups). Dried goose (kaklagan kaz) is considered a delicacy. Dairy products - katyk (a special type sour milk), sour cream, cottage cheese. Drinks - tea, ayran (tan) - a mixture of katyk with water (used mainly in summer).
The Tatars always took an active part in all defensive and liberation wars. In terms of the number of “Heroes of the Soviet Union”, the Tatars occupy fourth place, and in terms of percentage the number of heroes for the entire nation is the first. In terms of the number of Heroes of Russia, the Tatars have second place.
From the Tatars came such military leaders as Army General M.A. Gareev, Colonel Generals P.S. Akchurin and F.Kh. Churakov, Vice Admiral M.D. Iskanderov, Rear Admirals Z.G. Lyapin, A.I. Bichurin and others. Outstanding scientists - academicians R.Z. Sagdeev (physical chemist), K.A. Valiev (physicist), R.A. Syunyaev (astrophysicist), and others.
Tatar literature is one of the most ancient in the Russian Federation. The most ancient literary monument- the poem “The Tale of Yusuf” by the Bulgarian poet Kul Gali, written in 1236. Among the famous poets of the past one can name M. Sarai-Gulistani (XIV century), M. Muhammadyar (1496/97-1552), G. Utyz-Imeni (1754-1834), G. Kandaly (1797-1860). From the poets and writers of the 20th century - classics of Tatar literature Gabdulla Tukay, Fatih Amirkhan, writers of the Soviet period - Galimzyan Ibragimov, Khadi Taktash, Majit Gafuri, Hasan Tufan, patriotic poet, Hero of the Soviet Union Musa Jalil, Sibgat Hakim and many other talented poets and writers.
One of the first among Turkic peoples the Tatars had performing arts. The most outstanding artists are: Abdulla Kariev, artist and playwright Karim Tinchurin, Khalil Abjalilov, Gabdulla Shamukov, actors: Chulpan Khamatova, Marat Basharov Renata Litvinova, actor and director Sergei Shakurov, director Marcel Salimzhanov, opera singers- Khaidar Bigichev and Zilya Sungatullina, folk singers Ilgam Shakirov and Alfiya Afzalova, popular performers - Rinat Ibragimov, Zemfira Ramazanova, Salavat Fatkhutdinov, Aidar Galimov, Malika Razakova, young poet and musician Rustam Alyautdinov.
Fine art of the Tatars: First of all, this is the artist-patriarch Baki Urmanche, and many other outstanding Tatar artists.
The sporting achievements of the Tatars also constantly make themselves felt:
Fight - Shazam Safin, champion Olympic Games 1952 in Helsinki in Greco-Roman wrestling.
Rhythmic gymnastics - Olympic champion and multiple world champion Alina Kabaeva, world champions Amina Zaripova and Laysan Utyasheva.
Football - Rinat Dasaev, goalkeeper No. 1 in the world in 1988, goalkeeper of the Spartak team, members of the 2002 World Cup football team, attacking midfielder of the Russian national team Marat Izmailov (Lokomotiv-Moscow), winner of the Russian Cup 2000/01; silver medalist of the 2001 Russian Championship, and goalkeeper of the Russian national team, KAMAZ (Naberezhnye Chelny); "Spartak" (Moscow); "Lokomotiv" (Moscow); "Verona" (Italy) Ruslan Nigmatullin, Hockey-Irek Gimaev, Sergei Gimaev, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, Tennis-world champion Marat Safin, and many many others.
Famous Russians come from Tatar clans
Many famous noble families of Russia have Tatar roots. Apraksins, Arakcheevs, Dashkovs, Derzhavins, Ermolovs, Sheremetevs, Bulgakovs, Gogols, Golitsyns, Milyukovs, Godunovs, Kochubeis, Stroganovs, Bunins, Kurakins, Saltykovs, Saburovs, Mansurovs, Tarbeevs, Godunovs, Yusupovs - it’s impossible to list them all. By the way, the origin of the Sheremetev counts, in addition to the surname, is also confirmed by the family coat of arms, which has a silver crescent. The Ermolov nobles, for example, where General Alexey Petrovich Ermolov came from, begin their genealogy as follows: “The ancestor of this family Arslan-Murza-Ermola, and at baptism named John, as shown in the presented pedigree, in 1506 went to Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich from the Golden Horde " Rus' became fabulously rich at the expense of the Tatar people, talents flowed like a river. The Kurakin princes appeared in Rus' under Ivan III, this family comes from Ondrei Kurak, who was the offspring of the Horde khan Bulgak, the recognized ancestor of the Great Russian princes Kurakin and Golitsyn, as well as noble family Bulgakov. Chancellor Alexander Gorchakov, whose family descended from the Tatar ambassador Karach-Murza. The Dashkov nobles also came from the Horde. And the Saburovs, Mansurovs, Tarbeevs, Godunovs (from the Murza Chet, who left the Horde in 1330), the Glinskys (from Mamai), the Kolokoltsevs, the Talyzins (from the Murza Kuchuk Tagaldyzin)... A separate conversation is desirable about each clan - a lot, a lot they did for Russia. Every Russian patriot has heard about Admiral Ushakov, but only a few know that he is a Turk. This family descends from the Horde Khan Redeg. The Princes of Cherkassy come from the Khan's family of Inal. “As a sign of citizenship,” it is written in their genealogy, “he sent his son Saltman and daughter Princess Maria to the sovereign, who was later married to Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, and Saltman was named Mikhail by baptism and granted a boyar status.”
But even from the named surnames it is clear that Tatar blood greatly influenced the gene pool of the Russian people. Among the Russian nobility there are more than 120 known Tatar families. In the sixteenth century, Tatars predominated among the nobles. Even by the end of the nineteenth century in Russia there were approximately 70 thousand nobles with Tatar roots. This accounted for more than 5 percent of the total number of nobles throughout the Russian Empire.
Many Tatar nobility disappeared forever for their people. The genealogical books of the Russian nobility tell a good story about this: “General Armorial of the Noble Clans of the All-Russian Empire”, begun in 1797, or “History of the families of the Russian nobility”, or “Russian genealogical book”. Historical novels pale in comparison to them.
Yushkovs, Suvorovs, Apraksins (from Salakhmir), Davydovs, Yusupovs, Arakcheevs, Golenishchevs-Kutuzovs, Bibikovs, Chirikovs... The Chirikovs, for example, came from the family of Khan Berke, Batu’s brother. Polivanovs, Kochubeis, Kozakovs...
Kopylovs, Aksakovs (aksak means “lame”), Musins-Pushkins, Ogarkovs (the first to come from the Golden Horde in 1397 was Lev Ogar, “a man of great stature and a brave warrior”). The Baranovs... In their genealogy it is written as follows: “The ancestor of the Baranov family, Murza Zhdan, nicknamed Baran, and named after baptism Daniil, came in 1430 from Crimea.”
The Karaulovs, Ogarevs, Akhmatovs, Bakaevs, Gogol, Berdyaevs, Turgenevs... "The ancestor of the Turgenev family, Murza Lev Turgen, and at baptism called John, went to Grand Duke Vasily Ioannovich from the Golden Horde..." This family belonged to the aristocratic Horde tukhum , as well as the Ogarev family (their Russian ancestor is “Murza in good faith Kutlamamet, nicknamed Ogar").
Karamzins (from Kara-Murza, a Crimean), Almazovs (from Almazy, named after baptism Erifei, he came from the Horde in 1638), Urusovs, Tukhachevskys (their ancestor in Russia was Indris, a native of the Golden Horde), Kozhevnikovs (come from Murza Kozhaya, since 1509 in Rus'), Bykovs, Ievlevs, Kobyakovs, Shubins, Taneyevs, Shuklins, Timiryazevs (there was one Ibragim Timiryazev, who came to Rus' in 1408 from the Golden Horde).
Chaadaevs, Tarakanovs... but it will take a long time to continue. Dozens of so-called “Russian clans” were started by the Tatars.
The Moscow bureaucracy grew. Power was gathering in her hands; Moscow really did not have enough educated people. Is it any wonder that Tatars also became bearers of more than three hundred simple Russian surnames. In Russia, at least half of Russians are genetic Tatars.
In the 18th century, the rulers of Russia tailored the current ethnographic map, tailored it in their own way, as they wanted: entire provinces were recorded as “Slavs”. So Russia became the kind about which the Kipchak from the Tukhum (clan) Turgen said: “Russia is thousands of miles around.”
Then, in the 18th century - just two hundred years ago - the inhabitants of Tambov, Tula, Oryol, Ryazan, Bryansk, Voronezh, Saratov and other regions were called “Tatars”. This is the former population of the Golden Horde. Therefore, ancient cemeteries in Ryazan, Orel or Tula are still called Tatar.
Defenders of the Fatherland
Tatar warriors served Russia honestly. “Be not only the son of your father, but also be the son of your Fatherland,” says the Tatar folk proverb. The fact that Tatars and Russians supposedly always opposed each other in religious terms is a myth invented by our common enemies. During the War of 1812, 28 Tatar-Bashkir regiments were formed in the Kazan province. It was these regiments, under the command of Kutuzov’s son-in-law, the Tatar prince Kudashev, an active participant in the Battle of Borodino, that terrified Napoleonic soldiers. The Tatar regiments, together with the Russian people, liberated the European peoples from the occupation of Napoleonic troops.
In the army, due to their national and religious characteristics, the Tatars were given a number of concessions, which were based on respect for the religion they professed. The Tatars were not given pork, were not subjected to corporal punishment, and were not drilled. In the navy, Russian sailors were given a glass of vodka, and the Tatars were given tea and sweets for the same amount. They were not forbidden to bathe several times a day, as is customary among Muslims before each prayer. Their colleagues were strictly forbidden to mock the Tatars and say bad things about Islam.
Great scientists and writers
The Tatars served their Fatherland faithfully and truly, not only fighting for it in countless wars. IN peaceful life they gave him a lot famous people- scientists, writers, artists. It is enough to name such scientists as Mendeleev, Mechnikov, Pavlov and Timiryazev, researchers of the North Chelyuskin and Chirikov. In literature, these are Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Yazykov, Bulgakov, Kuprin. In the field of art - ballerinas Anna Pavlova, Galina Ulanova, Olga Spesivtseva, Rudolf Nureyev, as well as composers Scriabin and Taneyev. All of them are Russians of Tatar origin.
Leading group Tatar ethnic group are Kazan Tatars. And now few people doubt that their ancestors were the Bulgars. How did it happen that the Bulgars became Tatars? The versions of the origin of this ethnonym are very interesting.
Turkic origin of the ethnonym
For the first time, the name “Tatar” was found in the 8th century in the inscription on the monument to the famous commander Kül-tegin, which was erected during the Second Turkic Khaganate - a Turkic state located on the territory of modern Mongolia, but with a larger area. The inscription mentions the tribal unions "Otuz-Tatars" and "Tokuz-Tatars".
In the X-XII centuries, the ethnonym “Tatars” spread in China, Central Asia and Iran. The 11th century scientist Mahmud Kashgari in his writings called the space between Northern China and Eastern Turkestan “Tatar steppe”.
Perhaps that is why at the beginning of the 13th century the Mongols began to be called that way, who by this time had defeated the Tatar tribes and seized their lands.
Turkic-Persian origin
The learned anthropologist Aleksey Sukharev, in his work “Kazan Tatars,” published in St. Petersburg in 1902, noted that the ethnonym Tatars comes from the Turkic word “tat,” which means nothing more than mountains, and the word of Persian origin “ar” or “ ir”, which means person, man, inhabitant. This word is found among many peoples: Bulgarians, Magyars, Khazars. It is also found among the Turks.
Persian origin
Soviet researcher Olga Belozerskaya associated the origin of the ethnonym with the Persian word “tepter” or “defter”, which is interpreted as “colonist”. However, it is noted that the ethnonym “Tiptyar” is of later origin. Most likely, it arose in XVI-XVII centuries, when they began to call the Bulgars who moved from their lands to the Urals or Bashkiria.
Old Persian origin
There is a hypothesis that the name “Tatars” comes from the ancient Persian word “tat” - this is how the Persians were called in ancient times. Researchers refer to the 11th century scientist Mahmut Kashgari, who wrote that “the Turks call those who speak Farsi tatami.”
However, the Turks also called the Chinese and even the Uyghurs tatami. And it could well be that tat meant “foreigner,” “foreign-speaking.” However, one does not contradict the other. After all, the Turks could first call Iranian-speaking people tatami, and then the name could spread to other strangers.
By the way, Russian word“thief” may also have been borrowed from the Persians.
Greek origin
We all know that among the ancient Greeks the word “tartar” meant other world, hell Thus, “Tartarine” was an inhabitant of the underground depths. This name arose even before the invasion of Batu’s army in Europe. Perhaps it was brought here by travelers and merchants, but even then the word “Tatars” was associated by Europeans with eastern barbarians.
After the invasion of Batu Khan, Europeans began to perceive them exclusively as a people who came out of hell and brought the horrors of war and death. Ludwig IX was nicknamed a saint because he prayed himself and called on his people to pray to avoid Batu's invasion. As we remember, Khan Udegey died at this time. The Mongols turned back. This convinced the Europeans that they were right.
From now on, among the peoples of Europe, the Tatars became a generalization of all barbarian peoples living in the east.
To be fair, it must be said that on some old maps of Europe, Tartary began just beyond the Russian border. The Mongol Empire collapsed in the 15th century, but European historians until the 18th century continued to call all eastern peoples from the Volga to China Tatars.
By the way, the Tatar Strait, separating Sakhalin Island from the mainland, is called that because “Tatars” - Orochi and Udege - also lived on its shores. In any case, this was the opinion of Jean François La Perouse, who gave the name to the strait.
Chinese origin
Some scientists believe that the ethnonym “Tatars” is of Chinese origin. Back in the 5th century, in the northeast of Mongolia and Manchuria there lived a tribe that the Chinese called “ta-ta”, “da-da” or “tatan”. And in some dialects of Chinese the name sounded exactly like “Tatar” or “tartar” due to the nasal diphthong.
The tribe was warlike and constantly disturbed its neighbors. Perhaps later the name Tartar spread to other peoples who were unfriendly to the Chinese.
Most likely, it was from China that the name “Tatars” penetrated into Arab and Persian literary sources.
According to legend, the warlike tribe itself was destroyed by Genghis Khan. Here is what Mongol expert Evgeniy Kychanov wrote about this: “This is how the Tatar tribe perished, which, even before the rise of the Mongols, gave its name as a common noun to all Tatar-Mongol tribes. And when in distant auls and villages in the West, twenty to thirty years after that massacre, alarming cries were heard: “Tatars!”, there were few real Tatars among the approaching conquerors, only their formidable name remained, and they themselves had long been lying in the land of their native ulus.” (“The Life of Temujin, Who Thought to Conquer the World”).
Genghis Khan himself categorically forbade calling the Mongols Tatars.
By the way, there is a version that the name of the tribe could also come from the Tungus word “ta-ta” - to pull the bowstring.
Tocharian origin
The origin of the name could also be associated with the Tocharians (Tagars, Tugars), who lived in Central Asia starting from the 3rd century BC.
The Tochars defeated the great Bactria, which was once a great state, and founded Tokharistan, which was located in the south of modern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and in the north of Afghanistan. From the 1st to the 4th centuries AD. Tokharistan was part of the Kushan kingdom, and later broke up into separate possessions.
At the beginning of the 7th century, Tokharistan consisted of 27 principalities that were subordinate to the Turks. Most likely, the local population mixed with them.
The same Mahmud Kashgari called the huge region between Northern China and Eastern Turkestan the Tatar steppe.
For the Mongols, the Tokhars were strangers, “Tatars.” Perhaps, after some time, the meaning of the words “Tochars” and “Tatars” merged, and a large group of peoples began to be called that way. The peoples conquered by the Mongols adopted the name of their kindred aliens, the Tokhars.
So the ethnonym Tatars could also be transferred to the Volga Bulgars.
I am often asked to tell the history of this or that people. Among other things, people often ask questions about the Tatars. Probably, both the Tatars themselves and other peoples feel that school history lied about them, lied something to please the political situation.
The most difficult thing when describing the history of peoples is to determine the point from which to begin. It is clear that everyone ultimately descends from Adam and Eve and all peoples are relatives. But still... The history of the Tatars should probably begin in 375, when a great 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 into Western Europe, where they disappeared into the knightly castles of the emerging medieval Europe.
The ancestors of the Tatars are the Huns and Bulgars.
The Huns are often considered to be some mythical nomads who came from Mongolia. This is wrong. The Huns are a religious-military formation that arose as a response to the disintegration 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 Vedic philosophy ancient world and code of honor. It was they who became the basis of the code of knightly honor in Europe. By race, they were blond and red-haired giants with blue eyes, descendants of the ancient Aryans, who from time immemorial lived in the space from the Dnieper to the Urals. Actually, “Tata-Ars” is from Sanskrit, the language of our ancestors, and is translated as “fathers of the Aryans.” After the army of the Huns left Southern Rus' for Western Europe, the remaining Sarmatian-Scythian population of the lower Don and Dnieper began to call themselves Bulgars.
Byzantine historians do not distinguish between the Bulgars and the Huns. This suggests that the Bulgars and other tribes of the Huns were similar in customs, languages, and race. The Bulgars belonged to the Aryan race and spoke one of the Russian military jargons (a variant of the Turkic languages). Although it is possible that the military groups of the Huns also included people of the Mongoloid type as mercenaries.
As for the earliest mentions of the Bulgars, this is the year 354, “Roman Chronicles” by an unknown author (Th. Mommsen Chronographus Anni CCCLIV, MAN, AA, IX, Liber Generations,), as well as 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 Bulgars was observed in the North Caucasus. In the 2nd half of the 4th century, some of the Bulgars penetrated into Armenia. It can be assumed that the Bulgars are not exactly 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 then arose in the Aryan Vedic monasteries of Sarmatia on the banks of the Volga, Northern Dvina and Don. Blue Rus' (or Sarmatia), after numerous periods of decline and rise 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 North Caucasus region 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 Huns, who were the guardians of the 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 Hunnic tribes came to Western Europe along the same route; 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 decomposition of Rome and Byzantium. It seems that this process is an objective pattern of development of social systems.
At the beginning of the 5th century, wars broke out twice in the northwestern Carpathian region between the Bulgars (Vulgars) and Langobards. At that time all the Carpathians and Pannonia were under the rule of the Huns. But this indicates that the Bulgars were part of the union of Hunnic tribes and that they came to Europe together with the Huns. The Carpathian Vulgars of the early 5th century are the same Bulgars from the Caucasus of the mid-4th century. The homeland of these Bulgars is the Volga region, the Kama and Don rivers. 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 “men 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, disappeared into 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 were known: the Kutrigurs and the Utigurs. The latter settle along the shores of the Azov Sea in the Taman Peninsula area. The Kutrigurs lived between the bend of the lower Dnieper and the Sea of Azov, controlling the Crimean steppes right up to the walls of Greek cities.
They periodically (in alliance with 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 entered the service of the Byzantine emperor. In 537, a detachment of Bulgars fought on the side of besieged Rome against the Goths. There are known cases of enmity between the Bulgar tribes, which was skillfully incited by Byzantine diplomacy.
Around 558, the Bulgars (mainly Kutrigurs), led by Khan Zabergan, invaded Thrace and Macedonia and approached 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 was news of the appearance of an unknown warlike horde 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 also facilitated by the fact that another horde is moving after them, now the Turks. 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 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 power of the Turkic Kagan Istemi over themselves.
Having united the army, they captured the most ancient capital of the ancient world, Bosporus, on the shores of the Kerch Strait, and in 581 they appeared under the walls of Chersonesus.
Renaissance
After the Avar army left for Pannonia and the beginning of civil strife in the Turkic Kaganate, the Bulgar tribes united again under the rule of Khan Kubrat. Kurbatovo station in the Voronezh region is the ancient headquarters of the legendary Khan. This ruler, who led the Onnogurov tribe, was raised as a child at the imperial court in Constantinople and was baptized at the age of 12. In 632, he declared independence from the Avars and stood at the head of the association, which in Byzantine sources received the name Great Bulgaria.
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 disintegrated, as it was divided between his sons. The eldest son Batbayan began to live in the Azov region as a tributary of the Khazars. Another son, Kotrag, moved to the right bank of the Don and also came under the rule of Jews from Khazaria. The third son, Asparukh, under Khazar pressure, went to the Danube, where, having subjugated the Slavic population, he 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 Altsekom (Altsekom) - went to Pannonia to join 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 Alzek, intervened in the struggle for succession to the throne in the Avar Khaganate, after which they were forced to flee and seek refuge with 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 - the Volga region and the Kama region, from where their ancestors had once been carried away by the whirlwind of the passionate impulse of the Huns. However, the population they met here was not much different from themselves.
At the end of the 8th century. Bulgar tribes in the Middle Volga created the state of Volga Bulgaria. Based on these tribes, the Kazan Khanate subsequently arose in these places.
In 922, the ruler of the Volga Bulgars, Almas, 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. From the very beginning, Islam took hold only in cities. The son of King Almus went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and stopped in Baghdad. After this, an alliance arose between Bulgaria and Bagdat. The subjects of Bulgaria paid the king taxes in horses, leather, etc. There was a customs office. The royal treasury also received duties (a tenth of the goods) from merchant ships. Of the kings of Bulgaria, Arab writers mention only Silk and Almus; Frehn was able 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.
In addition, Byzantine-Russian treaties of the 20th century. mention a horde of black Bulgarians living near Crimea.
Volga Bulgaria
BULGARIA VOLGA-KAMA, state of the Volga-Kama, Finno-Ugric peoples in the XX-XV centuries. Capitals: the city of Bulgar, and from the 12th century. city of Bilyar. By the 20th century, Sarmatia (Blue Rus') was divided into two khaganates - Northern Bulgaria and southern Khazaria.
The largest cities - Bolgar and Bilyar - were larger in area and population than London, Paris, Kyiv, Novgorod, Vladimir of that time.
Bulgaria played an important role in the process of ethnogenesis of modern Kazan Tatars, Chuvash, Mordovians, Udmurts, Mari and Komi, Finns and Estonians.
Bulgaria at 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 Bolgars of Tatarstan), was dependent on the Khazar Khaganate, ruled by 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 Kaganate after its defeat by the Russian prince Svyatoslav I Igorevich in 965 secured the actual independence of Bulgaria.
Bulgaria becomes the most powerful state in Blue Rus'. The intersection of trade routes, the abundance of black soils in the absence of wars made this region rapidly prosperous. Bulgaria became a center of production. Wheat, furs, livestock, fish, honey, and handicrafts (hats, boots, known in the East as “bulgari”, leather) were exported from here. But the main income came from trade transit between East and West. Here since the 20th century. minted its own coin - the dirham.
In addition to Bulgar, other cities were 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, and astronomers live in Bulgaria. The poet Kul-Gali created the poem "Kysa and Yusuf", widely known in the Turkic literature of its time. After the adoption of Islam in 986, some Bulgar preachers visited Kyiv and Ladoga and suggested that the Great Russian Prince Vladimir I Svyatoslavich convert to Islam. Russian chronicles from the 10th century distinguish between the Volga, Silver or Nukrat (according to Kama) Bulgars, Timtyuz, Cheremshan and Khvalis.
Naturally, there was a continuous struggle for leadership in Rus'. Clashes with princes from White Rus' and Kyiv were common. In 969, they were attacked by the Russian prince Svyatoslav, who devastated their lands, according to the legend of 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 12th 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 in Tatarstan). But the Bulgar princes did not remain in debt. The Bulgars managed to capture and plunder the city of Ustyug on the Northern Dvina in 1219. This was a fundamental victory, since here from the most primitive times there were ancient libraries of Vedic books and ancient monasteries of patronage
worshiped, as the ancients believed, by the god Hermes. It was in these monasteries that knowledge about the ancient history of the world was hidden. Most likely, it was in them that the military-religious class of the Huns arose and a set of laws of knightly honor was developed. However, the princes of White Rus' soon avenged the defeat. In 1220, Russian troops took Oshel and other Kama cities. Only a rich ransom prevented the ruin of the capital. After this, peace was established, confirmed in 1229 by the exchange of prisoners of war. Military clashes between the White Russians and the Bulgars occurred in 985, 1088, 1120, 1164, 1172, 1184, 1186, 1218, 1220, 1229 and 1236. During the invasions, the Bulgars 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 descending from common ancestors. This could not but leave an imprint on the nature of relations between fraternal peoples. Thus, the Russian chronicler preserved under the year 1024 the news that in this
That year, famine was raging in Suzdal and the Bulgars supplied the Russians with a large amount of grain.
Loss of independence
In 1223, the Horde of Genghis Khan, who came from the depths of Eurasia, defeated the army of Red Rus' (Kievan-Polovtsian army) in the south in the Battle of Kalka, but on the way back they were badly beaten by the Bulgars. It is known that Genghis Khan, when he was still an ordinary shepherd, met the Bulgar brawler, 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 rise 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 structure. And every time through destruction it generates new life Rus' and Europe.
In 1229 and 1232, the Bulgars managed to repel the attacks of the Horde again. In 1236, Genghis Khan's grandson Batu begins a new campaign to the West. In the spring of 1236, the Horde khan 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 left the alliance. Then Khan Subutai in 1240 was forced to invade a second time, accompanying the campaign with bloodshed and destruction.
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 him tribute 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 greatest prosperity 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, and caravanserais. It contained public baths, paved streets, underground water supply. Here they were the first in Europe to master the smelting of cast iron. Jewelry and ceramics from these places were sold in medieval Europe and Asia.
The death of Volga Bulgaria and the birth of the people of Tatarstan
From the middle of the 14th century. The struggle for the Khan's throne begins, separatist tendencies intensify. In 1361, Prince Bulat-Temir seized a vast territory in the Volga region, including Bulgaria, from the Golden Horde. The khans of the Golden Horde only for a short time manage to reunite the state, where everywhere there is a process of fragmentation and isolation. Bulgaria splits into two virtually independent principalities - Bulgarian and Zhukotinsky - with the center in the city of Zhukotin. After the outbreak of civil strife in the Golden Horde in 1359, the army of the Novgorodians captured Zhukotin. The Russian princes Dmitry Ioannovich and Vasily Dmitrievich took possession of other cities of Bulgaria and stationed their “customs officers” in them.
In the second half of the 14th and early 15th centuries, Bulgaria experienced constant military pressure from White Rus'. Bulgaria finally lost its independence in 1431, when the Moscow army of Prince Fyodor the Motley conquered the southern lands. Only the northern territories, the center of which was Kazan, retained independence. It was on the basis of these lands that the formation of the Kazan Khanate began and the degeneration of the ethnic group of the ancient inhabitants of Blue Rus' (and even earlier, the Aryans of the land of seven lights and lunar cults) into the Kazan Tatars. At this time, Bulgaria had already finally fallen under the rule of the Russian tsars, but exactly when it was 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 borne by his grandfather, Ivan Sh. From this time, it can be considered that the formation of the ethnos of modern Tatars begins, which occurs already in the united Rus'. The Tatar princes form many outstanding clans of the Russian state, becoming
are famous military leaders, statesmen, scientists, and cultural figures. Actually, the history of the Tatars, Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians is the history of one Russian people, whose horses go back to ancient times. Recent studies have shown that all European peoples, in one way or another, come from the Volga-Oka-Don area. Part of the once united people settled around the world, but some peoples always remained in their ancestral lands. The Tatars are just one of these.
Gennady Klimov
More details in my LiveJournal
Every nation has its own distinctive features, which make it possible to determine a person’s nationality almost without errors. It is worth noting that Asian peoples are very similar to each other, since they are all descendants of the Mongoloid race. How can you identify a Tatar? How do Tatars look different?
Uniqueness
Without a doubt, every person is unique, regardless of nationality. And yet there are some common features, which bring together representatives of a race or nationality. Tatars are usually classified as members of the so-called Altai family. This is a Turkic group. The ancestors of the Tatars were known as farmers. Unlike other representatives of the Mongoloid race, Tatars do not have pronounced appearance features.
The appearance of the Tatars and the changes that are now manifested in them are largely caused by assimilation with the Slavic peoples. Indeed, among the Tatars they sometimes find fair-haired, sometimes even red-haired representatives. This, for example, cannot be said about the Uzbeks, Mongols or Tajiks. Do Tatar eyes have any special characteristics? They do not necessarily have narrow eyes and dark skin. Are there any common features of the appearance of Tatars?
Description of the Tatars: a little history
The Tatars are among the most ancient and populous ethnic groups. In the Middle Ages, mentions of them excited everyone around: in the east from the shores of the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic coast. A variety of scientists included references to this people in their works. The mood of these notes was clearly polar: some wrote with rapture and admiration, while other scientists showed fear. But one thing united everyone - no one remained indifferent. It is quite obvious that it was the Tatars who had a huge influence on the course of development of Eurasia. They managed to create a distinctive civilization that influenced a variety of cultures.
The history of the Tatar people has had both ups and downs. Periods of peace were followed by brutal times of bloodshed. The ancestors of modern Tatars took part in the creation of several strong states at once. Despite all the vicissitudes of fate, they managed to preserve both their people and their identity.
Ethnic groups
Thanks to the works of anthropologists, it became known that the ancestors of the Tatars were not only representatives of the Mongoloid race, but also Europeans. It was this factor that determined the diversity in appearance. Moreover, the Tatars themselves are usually divided into groups: Crimean, Ural, Volga-Siberian, South Kama. The Volga-Siberian Tatars, whose facial features have the greatest signs of the Mongoloid race, are distinguished by the following characteristics: dark hair, pronounced cheekbones, brown eyes, a wide nose, a fold above upper eyelid. Representatives of this type are few in number.
The face of the Volga Tatars is oblong, the cheekbones are not too pronounced. The eyes are large and gray (or brown). Nose with a hump, oriental type. The physique is correct. In general, the men of this group are quite tall and hardy. Their skin is not dark. This is the appearance of the Tatars from the Volga region.
Kazan Tatars: appearance and customs
The appearance of the Kazan Tatars is described as follows: strongly built strong man. The Mongols have a wide oval face and a slightly narrowed eye shape. The neck is short and strong. Men rarely wear a thick beard. Such features are explained by the fusion of Tatar blood with various Finnish nationalities.
The marriage ceremony is not like a religious event. From religiosity - only reading the first chapter of the Koran and a special prayer. After marriage, a young girl does not immediately move into her husband’s house: she will live with her family for another year. It is curious that her newly-made husband comes to her as a guest. Tatar girls are ready to wait for their lover.
Only a few have two wives. And in cases where this happens, there are reasons: for example, when the first one is already old, and the second one, younger, now runs the household.
The most common Tatars are of the European type - owners of light brown hair and light eyes. The nose is narrow, aquiline or hump-shaped. Height is short - women are about 165 cm.
Peculiarities
Some features were noticed in the character of a Tatar man: hard work, cleanliness and hospitality border on stubbornness, pride and indifference. Respect for elders is what especially distinguishes the Tatars. It was noted that representatives of this people tend to be guided by reason, adapt to the situation, and are law-abiding. In general, the synthesis of all these qualities, especially hard work and perseverance, makes a Tatar man very purposeful. Such people are able to achieve success in their careers. They finish their work and have a habit of getting their way.
A purebred Tatar strives to acquire new knowledge, showing enviable perseverance and responsibility. Crimean Tatars have a special indifference and calmness in stressful situations. Tatars are very curious and talkative, but during work they remain stubbornly silent, apparently so as not to lose concentration.
One of characteristic features- self-esteem. It manifests itself in the fact that the Tatar considers himself special. As a result, there is a certain arrogance and even arrogance.
Cleanliness distinguishes Tatars. They do not tolerate disorder and dirt in their homes. Moreover, this does not depend on financial capabilities - both rich and poor Tatars zealously monitor cleanliness.
My home is your home
Tatars are very hospitable people. We are ready to host a person, regardless of his status, faith or nationality. Even with modest incomes, they show warm hospitality, ready to share a modest dinner with a guest.
Tatar women are distinguished by their great curiosity. They are attracted by beautiful clothes, they watch with interest people of other nationalities, and follow fashion. Tatar women are very attached to their home and devote themselves to raising children.
Tatar women
What an amazing creature - a Tatar woman! In her heart lies immeasurable, deepest love for her loved ones, for her children. Its purpose is to bring peace to people, to serve as a model of peacefulness and morality. A Tatar woman is distinguished by a sense of harmony and special musicality. She radiates a certain spirituality and nobility of soul. The inner world of a Tatar woman is full of riches!
Tatar girls with youth aimed at a strong, long-lasting marriage. After all, they want to love their husband and raise future children behind solid walls of reliability and trust. No wonder the Tatar proverb says: “A woman without a husband is like a horse without a bridle!” Her husband’s word is law for her. Although witty Tatar women complement - for any law, however, there is an amendment! And yet these are devoted women who sacredly honor traditions and customs. However, don’t expect to see a Tatar woman in a black burqa - this is a stylish lady who has a sense of self-esteem.
The appearance of the Tatars is very well-groomed. Fashionistas have stylized items in their wardrobe that highlight their nationality. For example, there are shoes that imitate chitek - national leather boots worn by Tatar girls. Another example is appliques, where patterns convey the stunning beauty of the earth's flora.
What's on the table?
A Tatar woman is a wonderful hostess, loving and hospitable. By the way, a little about the kitchen. The national cuisine of the Tatars is quite predictable in that the basis of the main dishes is often dough and fat. Even a lot of dough, a lot of fat! Of course, this is far from the healthiest diet, although guests are usually offered exotic dishes: kazylyk (or dried horse meat), gubadia (a layer cake with a wide variety of fillings, from cottage cheese to meat), talkysh-kalev (an incredibly high-calorie dessert from flour, butter and honey). You can wash down all this rich treat with ayran (a mixture of katyk and water) or traditional tea.
Like Tatar men, women are distinguished by their determination and perseverance in achieving their goals. Overcoming difficulties, they show ingenuity and resourcefulness. All this is complemented by great modesty, generosity and kindness. Truly, a Tatar woman is a wonderful gift from above!