Self-name of the Tatars. Basic theories of the origin of the Tatar people

18.04.2019

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Introduction

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. in the world and in Russian Empire a social phenomenon developed - nationalism. Which promoted the idea that it is very important for a person to classify himself as a member of a certain social group - a nation (nationality). A nation was understood as a common territory of settlement, culture (especially a common literary language), and anthropological features (body structure, facial features). Against the background of this idea, in each of the social groups there was a struggle to preserve culture. The emerging and developing bourgeoisie became the herald of the ideas of nationalism. At this time, a similar struggle was being waged on the territory of Tatarstan - global social processes did not bypass our region.

In contrast to the revolutionary cries of the first quarter of the 20th century. and the last decade of the 20th century, who used very emotional terms - nation, nationality, people; in modern science it is customary to use a more cautious term - ethnic group, ethnos. This term carries within itself the same community of language and culture, like people, nation, and nationality, but does not need to clarify the nature or size of the social group. However, belonging to an ethnic group is still important social aspect for a person.

If you ask a passerby in Russia what nationality he is, then, as a rule, the passerby will proudly answer that he is Russian or Chuvash. And, of course, one of those who are proud of their ethnic origin, there will be a Tatar. But what will this word - “Tatar” - mean in the mouth of the speaker? In Tatarstan, not everyone who considers themselves a Tatar speaks or reads the Tatar language. Not everyone looks like a Tatar from a generally accepted point of view - a mixture of features of the Caucasian, Mongolian and Finno-Ugric anthropological types, for example. Among the Tatars there are Christians and many atheists, and not everyone who considers themselves a Muslim has read the Koran. But all this does not prevent the Tatar ethnic group from surviving, developing and being one of the most distinctive in the world.

Development national culture entails the development of the history of the nation, especially if the study of this history has been prevented for a long time. As a result, the unspoken, and sometimes even public, ban on studying the region led to a particularly rapid surge in Tatar historical science, which is observed to this day. Pluralism of opinions and lack of factual material led to the formation of several theories trying to combine greatest number known facts. Not just historical doctrines were formed, but several historical schools who are conducting a scientific dispute among themselves. At first, historians and publicists were divided into “Bulgarists,” who considered the Tatars to be descended from the Volga Bulgars, and “Tatarists,” who considered the period of the formation of the Tatar nation to be the period of the existence of the Kazan Khanate and denied participation in the formation of the Bulgar nation. Subsequently, another theory appeared, on the one hand, contradicting the first two, and on the other, combining all the best of the available theories. It was called “Turkic-Tatar”.

Purpose of the work: to explore the range of points of view on the origin of the Tatars that currently exist.

Consider the Bulgaro-Tatar and Tatar-Mongol points of view on the ethnogenesis of the Tatars;

Consider the Turkic-Tatar point of view on the ethnogenesis of the Tatars and a number of alternative points of view.

1. History of the origin of the Tatars

The term "Turk" has three meanings. For the 6th - 7th centuries, this is a small ethnos (Turkut), which headed a huge association in the Great Steppe (El) and died in the middle of the 8th century. These Turks were Mongoloids. From them came the Khazar dynasty, but the Khazars themselves were Europeans of the Dagestan type. For the 9th - 12th centuries "Turk" - common name warlike northern peoples, including the Malyars, Russians and Slavs. For modern orientalists, “Turk” is a group of languages spoken by ethnic groups of different origins. In his work, Lev Gumilyov writes: “In the 6th century, the Great Turkic Khaganate was created. Among those who considered it good to help the conqueror in order to share with him the fruits of victory were the Khazars and the Bulgar tribe of the Uturgurs, who lived between the Kuban and the Don. However, in the Western Turkic Kaganate, two tribal unions formed two parties that fought for power over the powerless khan. The Uturgurs joined one, and the Khazars, naturally, another party, and after the defeat they accepted the fleeing prince as their khan. Eight years later, the Western Turkic Kaganate was captured by the troops of the Tang Empire, which benefited the Khazars, who took the side of the previously defeated prince, and to the detriment of the Bulgars - the Uturgurs, who lost the support of the Supreme Khan. As a result, the Khazars defeated the Bulgars around 670, and they fled to the Kama, to the Danube, to Hungary, and even to Italy. The Bulgars did not create a single state: the eastern, in the Kuban basin, the Uturgurs, and the western, between the Don and the lower reaches of the Danube, the Kuturgurs, were at enmity with each other and became prey to new newcomers from the east: the Kuturgurs were subjugated by the Avars, and the Uturgurs by the Turkuts.”

In 922, the head of the Kama Bulgars, Almush, converted to Islam and separated his state from Khazaria (which was subordinated after the Tyuryut Khaganate), counting on the help of the Baghdad Caliph, who was supposed to prohibit Muslim mercenaries from fighting against their co-religionists. The caliph ordered to sell the confiscated estate of the executed vizier and hand over the money to ambassador Ibn Fadlan, but the buyer “could not” catch up with the embassy caravan, and the fortress in Bulgar was not built, and the Khorezmians in the 10th century no longer paid attention to the orders of the weakened Baghdad caliphs. Apostasy did not strengthen, but weakened the Great Bulgars. One of the three Bulgar tribes - the Suvaz (ancestors of the Chuvash) - refused to convert to Islam and fortified themselves in the forests of the Trans-Volga region. The divided Bulgarian state could not compete with the Jewish Khazaria. In 985 Kyiv prince Vladimir started a war with the Kama Bulgars and Khazars. The war with the Kama Bulgars was unsuccessful. After the “victory,” the head of the campaign, Vladimir’s maternal uncle, Dobrynya, made a strange decision: the booted Bulgars would not give tribute; we need to look for lapotniks. An eternal peace was concluded with the Bulgar, that is, the government of Vladimir recognized the independence of Kama Bulgaria. In the 17th century, the Volga Bulgars reduced the constant war with Suzdal and Murom to an exchange of raids for the sake of capturing captives. The Bulgars replenished their harems, and the Russians made up for their losses. At the same time, children of mixed marriages were considered legitimate, but the exchange of the gene pool did not lead both neighboring ethnic groups to unification. Orthodoxy and Islam separated the Russians and the Bulgars despite genetic mixing, economic and social similarity, the monolithic geographical environment and the extremely superficial knowledge of the dogma of both world religions by the majority of the Slavic and Bulgar population. Based on the collective meaning of the term “Tatar,” the medieval Tatars considered the Mongols as part of the Tatars, since in the 12th century the hegemony among the tribes of Eastern Mongolia belonged to the latter. In the 13th century, the Tatars began to be considered as part of the Mongols in the same broad sense of the word, and the name “Tatars” was familiar and well known, and the word “Mongol” were synonymous because numerous Tatars made up the vanguard of the Mongol army since they were not spared in being placed in the most dangerous places. “Medieval historians divided the eastern nomadic peoples into “white”, “black”, and “wild” Tatars. In the fall of 1236, Mongol troops took the Great Bulgar, and in the spring of 1237 they attacked the Alan Kipchaks. In the Golden Horde, after it became a “Muslim sultanate,” a “great turmoil” arose, followed by the collapse of the state and ethnic division into Kazan, Crimean, Siberian, Astrakhan and Kazakh Tatars. The Mongol campaigns mixed up all the ethnic communities that existed before the 13th century and seemed so integral and stable. From some only their names remained, while from others even their names disappeared, being replaced by the collective term - Tatars. So the Kazan Tatars are a mixture of ancient Bulgars, Kipchaks, Ugrians - descendants of Magyars and Russian women whom Muslims captured and made legal wives - inhabitants of harems."

2. Bulgaro-Tatar and Turkic points of view on the ethnogenesis of the Tatars

It should be noted that in addition to linguistic and cultural community, as well as general anthropological features, historians pay a significant role to the origin of statehood. So, for example, the beginning Russian history They consider not the archaeological cultures of the pre-Slavic period and not even the tribal unions of the Eastern Slavs who migrated in the 3-4 centuries, but Kievan Rus, which emerged by the 8th century. For some reason, a significant role in the formation of culture is given to the spread (official adoption) of the monotheistic religion, which happened in Kievan Rus in 988, and in Volga Bulgaria in 922. Probably, the Bulgaro-Tatar theory arose primarily from such premises.

The Bulgaro-Tatar theory is based on the position that the ethnic basis of the Tatar people was the Bulgar ethnos, which formed in the Middle Volga region and the Urals since the 8th century. n. e. (V lately Some supporters of this theory began to attribute the appearance of Turkic-Bulgar tribes in the region to the 8th-7th centuries. BC e. and earlier). The most important provisions of this concept are formulated as follows. The main ethnocultural traditions and features of the modern Tatar (Bulgaro-Tatar) people were formed during the period of Volga Bulgaria (X-XIII centuries), and in subsequent times (Golden Horde, Kazan Khan and Russian periods) they underwent only minor changes in language and culture. The principalities (sultanates) of the Volga Bulgars, being part of the Ulus of Jochi (Golden Horde), enjoyed significant political and cultural autonomy, and the influence of the Horde ethnopolitical system of power and culture (in particular, literature, art and architecture) was purely external in nature, which did not have any impact significant influence on Bulgarian society. The most important consequence of the dominance of the Ulus of Jochi was the disintegration of the unified state of Volga Bulgaria into a number of possessions, and the single Bulgar nation into two ethno-territorial groups (“Bulgaro-Burtas” of the Mukhsha ulus and “Bulgars” of the Volga-Kama Bulgar principalities). During the period of the Kazan Khanate, the Bulgar (“Bulgaro-Kazan”) ethnic group strengthened the early pre-Mongol ethnocultural characteristics, which continued to be traditionally preserved (including the self-name “Bulgars”) until the 1920s, when the ethnonym “Tatars” was forcibly imposed on it by Tatar bourgeois nationalists and the Soviet government.

Let's go into a little more detail. Firstly, the migration of tribes from the foothills of the North Caucasus after the collapse of the state of Great Bulgaria. Why is it that at present the Bulgarians, the Bulgars assimilated by the Slavs, have become a Slavic people, and the Volga Bulgars are a Turkic-speaking people who have absorbed the population that lived before them in this area? Is it possible that there were much more newcomer Bulgars than local tribes? In this case, the postulate that Turkic-speaking tribes penetrated this territory long before the Bulgars appeared here - during the times of the Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns, Khazars, looks much more logical. The history of Volga Bulgaria begins not with the fact that alien tribes founded the state, but with the unification of the door cities - the capitals of the tribal unions - Bulgar, Bilyar and Suvar. The traditions of statehood also did not necessarily come from alien tribes, since local tribes neighbored powerful ancient states - for example, the Scythian kingdom. In addition, the position that the Bulgars assimilated local tribes contradicts the position that the Bulgars themselves were not assimilated by the Tatar-Mongols. As a result, the Bulgar-Tatar theory is broken by the fact that the Chuvash language is much closer to the Old Bulgar than the Tatar. And the Tatars today speak the Turkic-Kipchak dialect.

However, the theory is not without merits. For example, the anthropological type of the Kazan Tatars, especially men, makes them similar to the peoples of the North Caucasus and indicates the origin of their facial features - a hooked nose, a Caucasian type - in the mountainous area, and not in the steppe.

Until the early 90s of the 20th century, the Bulgaro-Tatar theory of the ethnogenesis of the Tatar people was actively developed by a whole galaxy of scientists, including A. P. Smirnov, H. G. Gimadi, N. F. Kalinin, L. Z. Zalyai, G. V. Yusupov, T. A. Trofimova, A. Kh. Khalikov, M. Z. Zakiev, A. G. Karimullin, S. Kh. Alishev.

In his work A.G. Karimullin “On the Bulgaro-Tatar and Turkic origin” he writes that the first information about the Turkic tribes called “Tatars” is known from the monuments of the 18th century placed on the graves of the rulers of the East Turkic Kaganate. Among the large nations that sent their representatives to the funeral of Bumyn - Kagan and Istemi - Kagan (VI century), the founders of a powerful Turkic state, are mentioned in “Otuz Tatars” (30 Tatars). Tatar tribes are also known from other historical sources from more western regions. Thus, in the famous Persian geographical work

X century “Hudud al-alam” (“Borders of the world”) the Tatars are named as one of the clans of the Toguz - Oguz - the population of the Karakhanid state, formed after the collapse of the Western Turkic Kaganate. The Central Asian philologist of the 11th century Mahmud Kashgari in his famous “Dictionary” also names the Tatars among 20 Turkic tribes, and the Persian historian of the same century al-Gardizi describes the legend about the formation of the Kimak Kaganate, in which the main role was played by people from the Tatar tribal union (Kimaks are Turkic tribes that lived in the 8th - 10th centuries in the Irtysh basin; their western part is known as the Kipchaks. According to some information, for example, according to Russian chronicles, as well as according to the Khiva khan and the 17th century historian Abdul-Gazi, the Tatars were known in Eastern Europe. , in particular in Hungary, Rus' and Volga Bulgaria, even before Mongol conquests, they appeared there as part of the Oguzes, Kipchaks, and other Turkic tribes. Consequently, medieval historical sources clearly indicate ancient Turkic and Tatar tribes known since the 6th century, some of which moved to the West - to Western Siberia and Eastern Europe even before the Mongol invasion and the formation of the Golden Horde.

The theory of the Tatar-Mongolian origin of the Tatar people is based on the fact of the resettlement of nomadic Tatar-Mongolian (Central Asian) ethnic groups to Europe, who, having mixed with the Kipchaks and adopted Islam during the period of the Ulus of Jochi (Golden Horde), created the basis of the culture of modern Tatars. The origins of the theory of the Tatar-Mongol origin of the Tatars should be sought in medieval chronicles, as well as in folk legends and epics. The greatness of the powers founded by the Mongolian and Golden Horde khans is spoken of in the legends of Genghis Khan, Aksak-Timur, and the epic of Idegei.

Supporters of this theory deny or downplay the importance of Volga Bulgaria and its culture in the history of the Kazan Tatars, believing that Bulgaria was an underdeveloped state, without urban culture and with a superficially Islamized population.

During the period of the Ulus of Jochi, the local Bulgar population was partially exterminated or, retaining paganism, moved to the outskirts, and the main part was assimilated by incoming Muslim groups who brought urban culture and a language of the Kipchak type.

Here again it should be noted that, according to many historians, the Kipchaks were irreconcilable enemies with the Tatar-Mongols. That both campaigns of the Tatar-Mongol troops - under the leadership of Subedei and Batu - were aimed at the defeat and destruction of the Kipchak tribes. In other words, the Kipchak tribes during the Tatar period Mongol invasion were exterminated or driven to the outskirts.

In the first case, the exterminated Kipchaks, in principle, could not cause the formation of a nationality within the Volga Bulgaria; in the second case, it is illogical to call the theory Tatar-Mongol, since the Kipchaks did not belong to the Tatar-Mongols and were a completely different tribe, albeit Turkic-speaking.

The Tatar-Mongol theory can be called if we consider that Volga Bulgaria was conquered and then inhabited by Tatar and Mongol tribes that came from the empire of Genghis Khan. It should also be noted that the Tatar-Mongols during the period of conquest were predominantly pagans, not Muslims, which usually explains the tolerance of the Tatar-Mongols towards other religions.

Therefore, it is more likely that the Bulgar population, who learned about Islam in the 10th century, contributed to the Islamization of the Ulus of Jochi, and not vice versa. Archaeological data complement the factual side of the issue: on the territory of Tatarstan there is evidence of the presence of nomadic (Kipchak or Tatar-Mongol) tribes, but their settlement is observed in the southern part of the Tataria region.

However, it cannot be denied that the Kazan Khanate, which arose on the ruins of the Golden Horde, crowned the formation of the Tatar ethnic group. This is strong and already clearly Islamic, which was of great importance for the Middle Ages; the state contributed to the development and, during the period under Russian rule, to the preservation of Tatar culture.

There is also an argument in favor of the kinship of the Kazan Tatars with the Kipchaks - the linguistic dialect is referred by linguists to the Turkic-Kipchak group. Another argument is the name and self-name of the people - “Tatars”. Presumably from the Chinese “da-dan,” as Chinese historians called part of the Mongolian (or neighboring Mongolian) tribes in northern China.

The Tatar-Mongol theory arose at the beginning of the 20th century. (N.I. Ashmarin, V.F. Smolin) and actively developed in the works of Tatar (Z. Validi, R. Rakhmati, M.I. Akhmetzyanov, and more recently R.G. Fakhrutdinov), Chuvash (V.F. Kakhovsky, V.D. Dimitriev, N.I. Egorov, M.R. Fedotov) and Bashkir (N.A. Mazhitov) historians, archaeologists and linguists.

3. Turkic-Tatar theory of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars and a number of alternative points of view

Tatar nation ethnic migration

The Turkic-Tatar theory of the origin of the Tatar ethnos emphasizes the Turkic-Tatar origins of modern Tatars, notes the important role in their ethnogenesis of the ethnopolitical tradition of the Turkic Khaganate, Great Bulgaria and the Khazar Khaganate, Volga Bulgaria, Kipchak-Kimak and Tatar-Mongol ethnic groups of the Eurasian steppes.

The Turkic-Tatar concept of the origin of the Tatars is developed in the works of G. S. Gubaidullin, M. Karateev, N. A. Baskakov, Sh. F. Mukhamedyarov, R. G. Kuzeev, M. A. Usmanov, R. G. Fakhrutdinov, A G. Mukhamadieva, N. Davleta, D. M. Iskhakova, etc. Proponents of this theory believe that it in the best possible way reflects the rather complex internal structure of the Tatar ethnos (characteristic, however, of all major ethnic groups), and combines the best achievements of other theories. In addition, there is an opinion that M. G. Safargaliev was one of the first to point out the complex nature of ethnogenesis, which cannot be reduced to a single ancestor, in 1951. After the late 1980s. The unspoken ban on the publication of works that went beyond the decisions of the 1946 session of the USSR Academy of Sciences lost its relevance, and accusations of the “non-Marxism” of the multicomponent approach to ethnogenesis ceased to be used; this theory was replenished by many domestic publications. Proponents of the theory identify several stages in the formation of an ethnic group.

Stage of formation of the main ethnic components. (mid VI - mid-XIII centuries). The important role of Volga Bulgaria is noted, Khazar Kaganate and Kipchak-Kimak state associations in the ethnogenesis of the Tatar people. At this stage, the formation of the main components occurred, which were combined at the next stage. The great role of Volga Bulgaria was that it laid the foundation for the Islamic tradition, urban culture and writing based on Arabic script (after the 10th century), which replaced the most ancient writing - the Turkic runic. At this stage, the Bulgars tied themselves to the territory - to the land on which they settled. The territory of settlement was the main criterion for identifying a person with a people.

The stage of the medieval Tatar ethnopolitical community (mid-XIII - first quarter of the XV centuries). At this time, the consolidation of the components that emerged at the first stage took place in a single state - the Ulus of Jochi (Golden Horde); medieval Tatars, based on the traditions of peoples united in one state, not only created their own state, but also developed their own ethnopolitical ideology, culture and symbols of their community. All this led to the ethnocultural consolidation of the Golden Horde aristocracy, military service classes, Muslim clergy and the formation of the Tatar ethnopolitical community in the 14th century. The stage is characterized by the fact that in the Golden Horde, on the basis of the Oguz-Kypchak language, the norms of the literary language were established (literary old Tatar language). The earliest surviving literary monument on it (Kul Gali’s poem “Kyisa-i Yosyf”) was written in the 13th century. The stage ended with the collapse of the Golden Horde (XV century) as a result of feudal fragmentation. In the formed Tatar khanates, the formation of new ethnic communities began, which had local self-names: Astrakhan, Kazan, Kasimov, Crimean, Siberian, Temnikov Tatars, etc. During this period, the established cultural community of the Tatars can be evidenced by the fact that there was still a central horde (Great Horde, Nogai Horde) most of the governors on the outskirts sought to occupy this main throne, or had close ties with the central Horde.

After mid-16th century century and until the 18th century, a stage of consolidation of local ethnic groups within the Russian state is distinguished. After the annexation of the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia to the Russian state, the processes of migration of the Tatars intensified (as mass migrations from the Oka to the Zakamskaya and Samara-Orenburg lines, from the Kuban to the Astrakhan and Orenburg provinces are known) and interactions between its various ethno-territorial groups, which contributed to their linguistic and cultural rapprochement. This was facilitated by the presence of a single literary language, a common cultural, religious and educational field. To a certain extent, the unifying factor was the attitude of the Russian state and the Russian population, who did not distinguish between ethnic groups. There is a common confessional identity - “Muslims”. Some of the local ethnic groups that entered other states at this time (primarily the Crimean Tatars) further developed independently.

The period from the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century is defined by supporters of the theory as the formation of the Tatar nation. Just the same period mentioned in the introduction to this work. The following stages of nation formation are distinguished: 1) From the 18th to the mid-19th century - the stage of the “Muslim” nation, in which religion was the unifying factor. 2) From the middle of the 19th century to 1905 - the stage of the “ethnocultural” nation. 3) From 1905 to the end of the 1920s. - stage of the “political” nation.

At the first stage, the attempts of various rulers to carry out Christianization were beneficial. The policy of Christianization, instead of actually transferring the population of the Kazan province from one denomination to another, through its ill-consideration, contributed to the cementation of Islam in the consciousness of the local population.

At the second stage, after the reforms of the 1860s, the development of bourgeois relations began, which contributed to the rapid development of culture. In turn, its components (the education system, the literary language, book publishing and periodicals) completed the establishment in the self-consciousness of all the main ethno-territorial and ethnic class groups of the Tatars of the idea of belonging to a single Tatar nation. It is to this stage that the Tatar people owe the appearance of the History of Tatarstan. During this period of time, Tatar culture not only managed to recover, but also achieved certain progress.

From the second half of the 19th century, the modern Tatar literary language began to form, which by the 1910s had completely replaced the old Tatar language. The consolidation of the Tatar nation was strongly influenced by the high migration activity of Tatars from the Volga-Ural region.

The third stage from 1905 to the end of the 1920s. - This is the stage of the “political” nation. The first manifestation was the demands for cultural-national autonomy expressed during the revolution of 1905-1907. Later there were ideas of the State of Idel-Ural, the Tatar-Bashkir SR, the creation of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. After the 1926 census, the remnants of ethnic class self-determination disappeared, that is, the social stratum “Tatar nobility” disappeared.

Let us note that the Turkic-Tatar theory is the most extensive and structured of the theories considered. It really covers many aspects of the formation of the ethnic group in general and the Tatar ethnic group in particular.

In addition to the main theories of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars, there are also alternative ones. One of the most interesting is the Chuvash theory of the origin of the Kazan Tatars.

Most historians and ethnographers, just like the authors of the theories discussed above, are looking for the ancestors of the Kazan Tatars not where these people currently live, but somewhere far beyond the territory of present-day Tatarstan. In the same way, their emergence and formation as a distinctive nationality is attributed to the wrong historical era when this took place, but to more ancient times. In fact, there is every reason to believe that the cradle of the Kazan Tatars is their real homeland, that is, the region of the Tatar Republic on the left bank of the Volga between the Kazanka River and the Kama River.

There are also convincing arguments in favor of the fact that the Kazan Tatars arose, took shape as a distinctive people and multiplied over historical period, the duration of which covers the era from the founding of the Kazan Tatar kingdom by Khan of the Golden Horde Ulu-Magomet in 1437 until the Revolution of 1917. Moreover, their ancestors were not the alien “Tatars”, but local peoples: Chuvash (aka Volga Bulgars), Udmurts, Mari, and perhaps also not preserved to this day, but living in those parts, representatives of other tribes, including those who spoke the language , close to the language of the Kazan Tatars.

All these nationalities and tribes apparently lived in those forested regions since time immemorial, and partly perhaps also moved from Trans-Kama, after the invasion of the Tatar-Mongols and the defeat of Volga Bulgaria. In terms of character and level of culture, as well as way of life, this diverse mass of people, at least before the emergence of the Kazan Khanate, differed little from each other. Likewise, their religions were similar and consisted of the veneration of various spirits and sacred groves - kiremetii - places of prayer with sacrifices. This is confirmed by the fact that until the revolution of 1917 they remained in the same Tatar Republic, for example, near the village. Kukmor, a village of Udmurts and Maris who were not touched by either Christianity or Islam, where until recently people lived according to the ancient customs of their tribe. In addition, in the Apastovsky district of the Tatar Republic, at the junction with the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, there are nine Kryashen villages, including the village of Surinskoye and the village of Star. Tyaberdino, where some of the residents, even before the Revolution of 1917, were “unbaptized” Kryashens, thus surviving until the Revolution outside of both the Christian and Muslim religions. And the Chuvash, Mari, Udmurts and Kryashens who converted to Christianity were only formally included in it, but continued to live according to ancient times until recently.

In passing, we note that the existence almost in our time of “unbaptized” Kryashens casts doubt on the very widespread point of view that the Kryashens arose as a result of the forced Christianization of Muslim Tatars.

The above considerations allow us to make the assumption that in the Bulgar state, the Golden Horde and, to a large extent, the Kazan Khanate, Islam was the religion of the ruling classes and privileged classes, and the common people, or most of them: Chuvash, Mari, Udmurts, etc. lived according to their ancient grandfathers customs.

Now let's see how, under those historical conditions, the Kazan Tatar nationality could arise and multiply, as we know them in late XIX and the beginning of the 20th centuries.

In the middle of the 15th century, as already mentioned, on the left bank of the Volga, Khan Ulu-Mahomet, who had been overthrown from the throne and fled from the Golden Horde, appeared with a relatively small detachment of his Tatars. He conquered and subjugated the local Chuvash tribe and created the feudal-serf Kazan Khanate, in which the victors, the Muslim Tatars, were the privileged class, and the conquered Chuvash were the serf common people.

In the latest edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, we read the following in more detail about the internal structure of the state in its finalized period: “Kazan Khanate, a feudal state in the Middle Volga region (1438-1552), formed as a result of the collapse of the Golden Horde on the territory of Volga-Kama Bulgaria. The founder of the dynasty of Kazan khans was Ulu-Muhammad.”

The highest state power belonged to the khan, but was directed by the council of large feudal lords (divan). The top of the feudal nobility consisted of Karachi, representatives of the four most noble families. Next came the sultans, emirs, and below them were the Murzas, lancers and warriors. A major role was played by the Muslim clergy, who owned vast waqf lands. The bulk of the population consisted of “black people”: free peasants who paid yasak and other taxes to the state, feudal-dependent peasants, serfs from prisoners of war and slaves. The Tatar nobles (emirs, beks, murzas, etc.) were hardly very merciful to their serfs, who were also foreigners and people of other faiths. Voluntarily or in pursuit of goals related to some benefit, but over time, the common people began to adopt their religion from the privileged class, which was associated with the renunciation of their national identity and with a complete change in their way of life and way of life, in accordance with the requirements of the new “Tatar” faith - Islam. This transition of the Chuvash to Mohammedanism was the beginning of the formation of the Kazan Tatars.

The new state that arose on the Volga lasted only about a hundred years, during which raids on the outskirts of the Moscow state almost did not stop. In the internal life of the state, frequent palace coups took place and proteges found themselves on the khan’s throne: either from Turkey (Crimea), then from Moscow, then from the Nogai Horde, etc.

The process of forming the Kazan Tatars in the above-mentioned way from the Chuvash, and partly from other, peoples of the Volga region occurred throughout the entire period of the existence of the Kazan Khanate, did not stop after the annexation of Kazan to the Moscow state and continued until the beginning of the twentieth century, i.e. almost up to our time. The Kazan Tatars grew in number not so much as a result of natural growth, but as a result of the Tatarization of other nationalities of the region.

Let us give another rather interesting argument in favor of Chuvash origin Kazan Tatars. It turns out that the Meadow Mari now call the Tatars “suas”. From time immemorial, meadow mari have been close neighbors to that part Chuvash people, which lived on the left bank of the Volga and was the first to become Tatarized, so that not a single Chuvash village remained in those places for a long time, although according to historical information and scribal records of the Moscow State there were many of them there. The Mari did not notice, especially at the beginning, any changes among their neighbors as a result of the appearance of another god among them - Allah, and forever retained the former name for them in their language. But for distant neighbors - the Russians, from the very beginning of the formation of the Kazan kingdom there was no doubt that the Kazan Tatars were the same Tatar-Mongols who left a sad memory of themselves among the Russians.

Throughout the relatively short history of this “Khanate,” continuous raids by “Tatars” on the outskirts of the Moscow state continued, and the first Khan Ulu-Magomet spent the rest of his life in these raids. These raids were accompanied by the devastation of the region, the robberies of the civilian population and the deportation of them “in full”, i.e. everything happened in the style of the Tatar-Mongols. Thus, the Chuvash theory is also not without its foundations, although it presents us with the ethnogenesis of the Tatars in the most original form.

Conclusion

As we conclude from the material reviewed, on at the moment Even the most developed of the available theories - the Turkic-Tatar one - is not ideal. She leaves many questions for one simple reason: historical science Tatarstan is still exceptionally young. A lot of historical sources have not yet been studied; active excavations are underway on the territory of Tataria. All this allows us to hope that in the coming years the theories will be replenished with facts and will acquire a new, even more objective shade.

The material reviewed also allows us to note that all theories are united in one thing: the Tatar people have a complex history of origin and a complex ethnocultural structure.

In the growing process of world integration, we are already striving to create a single state and a common cultural space European states. Tatarstan may not be able to avoid this either. The trends of recent (free) decades indicate attempts to integrate the Tatar people into the modern Islamic world. But integration is a voluntary process, it allows you to preserve the self-name of the people, language, and cultural achievements. As long as at least one person speaks and reads Tatar, Tatar nation will exist.

References

1. Akhmetyanov R. “From a deceived generation” P.20

2. Gumilyov L. “Who are the Tatars?” - Kazan: a collection of modern studies on the history and culture of the Tatar people. P.110

3. Kakhovsky V.F. Origin of the Chuvash people. - Cheboksary: Chuvash Book Publishing House, 2003. - 463 p.

4. Mustafina G.M., Munkov N.P., Sverdlova L.M. History of Tatarstan XIX century - Kazan, Magarif, 2003. - 256c.

5.Safargaliev M.G. “The Golden Horde and the history of the Tatars” - Kazan: Collection of modern studies on the culture of the Tatar people. P.110

5. Sabirova D.K. History of Tatarstan. From ancient times to the present day: textbook / D.K. Sabirova, Ya.Sh. Sharapov. - M.: KNORUS, 2009. - 352 p.

6. Rashitov F.A. History of the Tatar people. - M.: Children's book, 2001. - 285 p.

7. Tagirov I.R. History of the national statehood of the Tatar people and Tatarstan - Kazan, 2000. - 327c.

8. R.G.Fakhrutdinov. History of the Tatar people and Tatarstan. (Antiquity and Middle Ages). Textbook for secondary secondary schools, gymnasiums and lyceums. - Kazan: Magarif, 2000.- 255 p.

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Cultural heritage and family values

Tatar traditions of housekeeping and family life life has been preserved to a greater extent in villages and towns. Kazan Tatars, for example, lived in wooden huts, which differed from Russian ones only in that they did not have an entrance hall and the common room was divided into female and male half, separated by a curtain (charshau) or a wooden partition. In any Tatar hut it was obligatory to have green and red chests, which were later used as the bride’s dowry. In almost every house, a framed piece of text from the Koran, the so-called “shamail,” hung on the wall; it hung above the threshold as a talisman, and a wish for happiness and prosperity was written on it. In decorating the house and surrounding area, many bright rich colors and shades were used, the interior rooms were richly decorated with embroidery, since Islam prohibits the depiction of humans and animals, mainly embroidered towels, bedspreads and other things were decorated with geometric patterns.

The head of the family is the father, his requests and instructions must be carried out unquestioningly, the mother has a special place of honor. Tatar children are taught from an early age to respect their elders, not to hurt their younger ones, and to always help the disadvantaged. The Tatars are very hospitable, even if a person is an enemy of the family, but he came to the house as a guest, they will not refuse him anything, they will feed him, give him something to drink and offer him an overnight stay. Tatar girls are raised as modest and decent future housewives; they are taught in advance how to manage a household and are prepared for marriage.

Tatar customs and traditions

There are calendar and family rituals. The first are associated with labor activity (sowing, harvesting, etc.) and are carried out every year at approximately the same time. Family rituals are carried out as needed in accordance with changes that have occurred in the family: the birth of children, marriages and other rituals.

A traditional Tatar wedding is characterized by the obligatory performance of the Muslim nikah ceremony; it takes place at home or in a mosque in the presence of a mullah; the festive table consists exclusively of Tatar national dishes: chak-chak, court, katyk, kosh-tele, peremyachi, kaymak, etc., guests do not eat pork and do not drink alcohol. The male groom puts on a skullcap, the female bride puts on a long dress with closed sleeves, a headscarf is required.

Tatar wedding rites are characterized by a preliminary agreement between the parents of the bride and groom to enter into a marriage union, often even without their consent. The groom's parents must pay a bride price, the size of which is discussed in advance. If the groom is not satisfied with the size of the bride price and he wants to “save money,” there is nothing wrong with stealing the bride before the wedding.

When a child is born, a mullah is invited to him, he performs a special ceremony, whispering prayers into the child’s ear that drive away evil spirits and his name. Guests come with gifts, and a festive table is set for them.

Islam has a huge influence on the social life of the Tatars and therefore the Tatar people divide all holidays into religious ones, they are called “gaete” - for example, Uraza Gaete - a holiday in honor of the end of fasting, or Korban Gaete - a holiday of sacrifice, and secular or folk “bayram”, meaning "spring beauty or celebration."

On the holiday of Uraza, Muslim Tatar believers spend the whole day in prayers and conversations with Allah, asking him for protection and remission of sins; they can drink and eat only after sunset.

During the celebrations of Kurban Bayram, the holiday of sacrifice and the end of the Hajj, also called the holiday of goodness, every self-respecting Muslim, after performing morning prayer in the mosque, must slaughter a sacrificial ram, sheep, goat or cow and distribute the meat to those in need.

One of the most significant pre-Islamic holidays is the Sabantuy plow festival, which is held in the spring and symbolizes the end of sowing work. The culmination of the celebration is the holding of various competitions and competitions in running, wrestling or horse racing. Also, a mandatory treat for all those present is porridge or botkasy in Tatar, which used to be prepared from common products in a huge cauldron on one of the hills or hillocks. Also at the holiday it was obligatory to have a large number of colored eggs for children to collect. The main holiday of the Republic of Tatarstan, Sabantuy, is recognized at the official level and is held every year in the Birch Grove in the village of Mirny, near Kazan.

There are many stranger nations in our country. This is not correct. We should not be strangers to each other.
Let's start with the Tatars - the second largest ethnic group in Russia (there are almost 6 million of them).

1. Who are the Tatars?

The history of the ethnonym “Tatars,” as often happened in the Middle Ages, is a history of ethnographic confusion.

In the 11th-12th 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 the 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 of the 15th-16th 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.

2. Tatar people in the era of Genghisids

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 Chingizids Tatar history has become truly global. The system of public administration and finance, as well as the postal (Yamskaya) service inherited by Moscow, 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, insulting religion was punishable by death. The clergy of each religion were exempt from paying taxes.

The contribution of the Tatars to the art of war is undeniable. It was they who taught the Europeans not to neglect reconnaissance and reserves.
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.

3. Capture of Kazan

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: “The Grand Duke will take all the land of Kazan.” Three decades later, Ivan the Terrible fulfilled this prediction.

On August 20, 1552, a 50,000-strong 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, Russian warriors, under the leadership of the Danish engineer Rasmussen, were digging a tunnel 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, says the chronicler, 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 did not mean the death of the Tatar people. On the contrary, it was within Russia that the Tatar nation itself emerged, which finally received its truly national-state formation - the Republic of Tatarstan.

4. Tatars in Russian history and culture

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 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. And there was no case when the Tatars in Russian service betrayed the Moscow Tsar.

Subsequently Tatar clans gave Russia a huge number of intellectuals, prominent military and socio-political figures. I will name at least some names: Alyabyev, Arakcheev, Akhmatova, Bulgakov, Derzhavin, Milyukov, Michurin, Rachmaninov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Tatishchev, Chaadaev. The Yusupov princes were direct descendants of the Kazan queen Suyunbike. The Timiryazev family descends from Ibragim Timiryazev, whose surname literally means “iron warrior.” General Ermolov had Arslan-Murza-Ermola as his ancestor. Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov wrote: “I am a purebred Tatar on both my father’s and mother’s sides.” He signed “Arslanbek”, which means “Lion”. The list can be endless.

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 shoe, armyak, zipun, caftan, bashlyk, cap. In a fight he used fist. Being a judge, he ordered to put on the convicted person shackles and give it to him whip. Setting off on a long journey, he sat in a sleigh with coachman. And, getting up from the mail sleigh, he went into tavern, which replaced the ancient Russian tavern.

5. Tatar religion

After the capture of Kazan in 1552, the culture of the Tatar people was preserved primarily 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 the 16th-18th 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 even more important was the “Islamic revolution” of Uzbek Khan, who at the beginning of the 14th century made Islam state religion 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 opened - a governing body of Muslims, with its center in Ufa.

In the 19th century, forces gradually matured within the Muslim clergy and Tatar intelligentsia, feeling the need to move away from the dogmas of medieval ideology and traditions. The revival of the Tatar people began precisely with the reform of Islam. This religious-renovation movement received the name Jadidism (from the Arabic al-jadid - renewal, “new method”).

Jadidism became a significant contribution of the Tatars to modern world culture, an impressive demonstration of Islam's ability to modernize. The main result of the activities of the Tatar religious reformers was the transition of Tatar society to Islam, cleansed of medieval fanaticism and meeting the requirements of the time. These ideas penetrated deeply into the masses of the people, primarily through Jadidist madrassas and printed materials. Thanks to the activities of the Jadids, by the beginning of the 20th century, among the Tatars, faith was largely separated from culture, and politics became an independent sphere, where religion already occupied a subordinate position. Therefore, today Russian Tatars are in the full sense of the word modern nation, which is completely alien to religious extremism.

6. About the Kazan orphan and the uninvited guest

Russians have long said: “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, Ushakov’s “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” explains the origin of the expression “orphan of Kazan” as follows: initially it was said “about the Tatar mirzas (princes), who, after the conquest of the Kazan Khanate by Ivan the Terrible, tried to receive all sorts of concessions from the Russian tsars, complaining about their bitter fate.” .

Indeed, the Moscow sovereigns considered it their duty to caress and affectionate 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 the oppression of the Tatar Baskaks and the greed of the Khan's courtiers. Russian people unwittingly got used to considering every Tatar who came to the house not so much as a guest, but as a rapist. 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.

7. Tatar hut

Unlike others Turkic peoples, Kazan Tatars for centuries lived not in yurts and tents, but in huts. True, in accordance with common Turkic traditions, the Tatars have preserved the method of separating the female half and the kitchen with a special curtain - charshau. In the second half of the 19th century, instead of ancient curtains, a partition appeared in Tatar dwellings.

On the men's side of the hut there was a place of honor for guests and a place for the owner. Here, a space for relaxation was allocated, the family table was set, and many household chores were carried out: men were engaged in tailoring, saddlery, and weaving bast shoes, women worked at the loom, twisting threads, spinning, and rolling felt.

The front wall of the hut, from corner to corner, was occupied by wide bunks, on which rested soft down jackets, feather beds and pillows, which were replaced by felt among the poor. Bunks are still in fashion to this day, because they have traditionally had a place of honor. In addition, they are universal in their functions: they can serve as a place to work, eat, and relax.

Red or green chests were a mandatory attribute of the interior. According to custom, they formed an indispensable part of the bride's dowry. In addition to their main purpose - storing clothes, fabrics and other valuables - chests noticeably enlivened the interior, especially in combination with bedding picturesquely laid out on them. In the huts of the rich Tatars there were so many chests that sometimes they were stacked on top of each other.

The next attribute of the interior of Tatar rural dwellings was a striking national feature, and characteristic only of Muslims. This is a popular and universally revered shamail, i.e. a text from the Koran written on glass or paper and inserted into a frame with wishes for peace and prosperity to the family. Flowers on the windowsills were also a characteristic detail of the interior of a Tatar home.

Traditional Tatar villages (auls) are located along rivers and roads. These settlements are characterized by cramped buildings and the presence of numerous dead ends. The buildings are located inside the estate, and the street is formed by a continuous line of blind fences. Externally, a Tatar hut can hardly be distinguished from a Russian one - only the doors open not into the hallway, but into the hut.

8. Sabantui

In the past, the Tatars were mostly rural residents. Therefore they folk holidays were associated with the cycle of agricultural work. Like other agricultural peoples, spring was especially anticipated among the Tatars. This time of year was celebrated with a holiday called “Saban Tue” - “wedding of the plow”.

Sabantuy is a very ancient holiday. In the Alkeevsky district of Tatarstan, a tombstone was discovered, the inscription on which says that the deceased died in 1120 on the day of Sabantuy.

Traditionally, before the holiday, young men and old men began collecting gifts for Sabantuy. The most valuable gift was considered to be a towel, which was received from young women who got married after the previous Sabantuy.

The holiday itself was celebrated with competitions. The place where they were held was called “Maidan”. Competitions included horse racing, running, long and high jumps, and national koresh wrestling. Only men took part in all types of competitions. The women just watched from the sidelines.

The competitions were held according to a routine developed over centuries. Their races began. Participation in them was considered prestigious, so everyone who could entered horses into village races. The riders were boys 8-12 years old. The start was arranged in the distance, and the finish was on the Maidan, where the participants of the holiday were waiting for them. The winner was given one of the best towels. Owners of horses received separate prizes.

While the riders were heading to the starting point, other competitions were taking place, in particular running. Participants were divided by age: boys, adult men, old people.

After the completion of the competition, people went home to treat themselves to festive dishes. And after a few days, depending on the weather, they began sowing spring crops.

Sabantuy to this day remains the most beloved public holiday in Tatarstan. In cities this is a one-day holiday, but in rural areas it consists of two parts: collecting gifts and Maidan. But if previously Sabantuy was celebrated in honor of the beginning of spring field work (at the end of April), now it is celebrated in honor of its end, in June.

We all know that our country is multinational state. Of course, the bulk of the population is Russian, but, as you know, the Tatars are the second largest ethnic group and the most numerous people Muslim culture in Russia. We should not forget that Tatar ethnicity originated in parallel with Russian.

Today, Tatars make up just over half the population of their national republic, Tatarstan. At the same time, a considerable number of Tatars live outside the Republic of Tatarstan - in Bashkortostan -1.12 million, in Udmurtia -110.5 thousand, in Mordovia - 47.3 thousand, in Mari El - 43.8 thousand, Chuvashia - 35.7 thousand. In addition, Tatars also live in the regions of the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia.

Where did the name of the ethnic group “Tatars” come from? This question is considered very relevant at the present time, since there are many different interpretations of this ethnonym. We will present the most interesting ones.

Many historians and researchers believe that the name “Tatars” comes from the name of the large influential family “Tata”, from which many Turkic-speaking military leaders of the “Golden Horde” came.

But the famous Turkologist D.E. Eremev believes that the origin of the word “Tatars” is somehow connected with the ancient Turkic word and people. “Tat”, according to the ancient Turkic chronicler Mahmud Kashgari, is the name of an ancient Iranian family. Kashgari said that the Turks called “tatam” those who spoke Farsi, that is, the Iranian language. Thus, it turns out that the original meaning of the word “tat” was probably “Persian,” but then in Rus' this word began to designate all eastern and Asian peoples.

Despite their disagreements, historians agree on one thing - the ethnonym “Tatars” is certainly of ancient origin, but it was adopted as the name of modern Tatars only in the 19th century. The current Tatars (Kazan, Western, Siberian, Crimean) are not direct descendants of the ancient Tatars who came to Europe along with the troops of Genghis Khan. They formed into a single nation only after European peoples gave them the name “Tatars”.

Thus, it turns out that a complete deciphering of the ethnonym “Tatars” is still waiting for its researcher. Who knows, maybe you will one day give an accurate explanation of the origin of this ethnonym. Well, for now let's talk about the culture of the Tatars.

It is impossible to ignore the fact that the Tatar ethnic group has an ancient and colorful history.
The original culture of the Tatars, without a doubt, has entered the treasury of world culture and civilization. Judge for yourself, we find traces of this culture in the traditions and language of the Russians, Mordovians, Mari, Udmurts, Bashkirs, Chuvashs, and the national Tatar culture synthesizes all the best achievements of the Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Indo-Iranian peoples. How did this happen?

The thing is that the Tatars are one of the most mobile peoples. Lack of land, frequent crop failures in their homeland and the traditional desire for trade led to the fact that even before 1917 they began to move to various regions of the Russian Empire. During the years of Soviet rule, this migration process only intensified. That is why, at present, there is practically no federal subject in Russia where representatives of the Tatar ethnic group live.

Tatar diasporas have formed in many countries around the world. In the pre-revolutionary period, Tatar national communities were formed in countries such as Finland, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and China. After the collapse of the USSR, Tatars who lived in the former Soviet republics also ended up abroad - in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and the Baltic countries. Later, in the middle of the 20th century, Tatar national diasporas were formed in the USA, Japan, Australia, and Sweden.

According to most historians, the Tatar people themselves, with a single literary and practically common spoken language, emerged during the period of the existence of such a Turkic state as the Golden Horde. The literary language in this state was the so-called “idel terkise”, that is, Old Tatar, based on the Kipchak-Bulgar language and incorporating elements of Central Asian literary languages. The modern literary language arose in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries on the basis of the middle dialect.

The development of writing among the Tatars was also gradual. Archaeological finds in the Urals and Middle Volga region indicate that in ancient times the Turkic ancestors of the Tatars used runic writing. From the moment of the voluntary adoption of Islam by the Volga-Kama Bulgars - the Tatars - they used Arabic writing, later, in 1929 - 1939 - Latin script, and since 1939 they have used the traditional Cyrillic alphabet with additional characters.

The modern Tatar language belongs to the Kipchak-Bulgar subgroup of the Kipchak group of the Turkic language family. It is divided into four main dialects: middle (Kazan Tatar), western (Mishar), eastern (language of the Siberian Tatars) and Crimean (language of the Crimean Tatars). Don’t forget that almost every district, every village has its own special mini-dialect. Nevertheless, 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. It is noteworthy that the Tatar nation occupied one of the leading places in the Russian Empire in terms of literacy even before the 1917 coup. I would like to believe that the traditional thirst for knowledge has been preserved in the current generation.

In the section on the question: What place do the Tatars occupy in terms of numbers? In Russia, in the world? given by the author Sayli the best answer is Tatars are the main population of the Republic of Tatarstan (1,765.4 thousand people), 1,120.7 thousand people live in Bashkortostan, 110.5 thousand people live in Udmurtia, 47.3 thousand people live in Mordovia, The Republic of Mari El - 43.8 thousand, Chuvashia - 35.7 thousand people. In general, the bulk of the Tatar population - more than 4/5 - lives in Russian Federation(5.522 thousand people), occupying second place in terms of numbers.
In addition, a significant number of Tatars live in the CIS countries: in Kazakhstan 327.9 thousand people, Uzbekistan - 467.8 thousand people, Tajikistan - 72.2 thousand people, Kyrgyzstan - 70.5 thousand people. , Turkmenistan - 39.2 thousand people, Azerbaijan - 28 thousand people, in Ukraine - 86.9 thousand people, in the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) about 14 thousand people. There is also a significant diaspora throughout the rest of the world (Finland, Turkey, USA, China, Germany, Australia, etc.). Due to the fact that there has never been a separate record of the number of Tatars in other countries, it is difficult to determine the total number of the Tatar population abroad (according to various estimates, from 100 to 200 thousand people).
Source: There are a lot of them in the world. Sunitov is also considered by the West to be a Tatar ethnic group

Reply from simplify[newbie]
and why are you a nationalist here? don’t give a fuck about telling something for someone else’s nation when you don’t know the truth

Reply from Worldview[newbie]
1st place is occupied by Tatars

Reply from Ikhonov Roman[newbie]
Yes, and YOU appointed governors from the family of Russian princes, even if the father was sentenced, the son was still allowed to rule. There is no need to flatter yourself. You are quite capable partners of the Rosens - no more and no less. In the USA, after the Spanish settled, 300 years later everyone spoke their languages, and 300 years later no one knows a single Tatar word))

Reply from Neurologist[newbie]
This creates the impression that no one knows anything about how many Russians, Tatars, migrants, both legal and illegal, and other nationalities live in the Russian Federation. Everything is by eye and deception. The USA knows better about us than our rules

Reply from Zheltkov Alexey[active]
In Russia, Tatars occupy second place (about 6 million). It's hard to say in the world. In total, there are about 8 million Tatars living in the world. In Moscow, the Tatar diaspora is the largest and is considered the most influential. There are Crimean, Astrakhan, Nizhny Novgorod, etc. Tatars In Tatarstan itself, Tatars are in second place in number after Russians (the gap is minimal).

Self-name of the Tatars. Basic theories of the origin of the Tatar people

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