Ethnic history of the Tatars. Origin of the name "Tatars"

Tatars - history (www.vokrugsveta.ru)

Tatars, Tatarlar (self-name), Tatars (English, French), Tataren (German) - the titular nation of the Republic of Tatarstan within the Russian Federation. Tatarstan is located in the Middle Volga region. Tatars speak the Tatar language of the Kypchak subgroup of the Turkic group of the Altaic language family. The Tatar language is divided into western (Mishar), middle (Kazan-Tatar) and eastern (Siberian-Tatar) dialects. The literary language was formed on the basis of the middle dialect. Until 1927, the Tatars used the Arabic script, which was replaced in 1927 by the Latin alphabet, and in 1939 by the Russian Cyrillic alphabet with the addition of special characters. Tatars are divided into 3 main ethno-territorial groups: Tatars of the Middle Volga and Ural regions, Siberian Tatars, Astrakhan Tatars. In addition, a separate group of Polish-Lithuanian Tatars is distinguished. The Crimean Tatars, due to their ethno-historical development, are considered a separate nation. Volga Tatars are divided into 3 groups: Kazan Tatars, Mishars and Teptyars, Kasimov Tatars form an intermediate group. Siberian Tatars are divided into 3 groups: Baraba, Tobolsk, Tomsk. Astrakhan Tatars are also divided into 3 groups: Yurt, Kundra Tatars and Karagash, close to the Nogais. The traditional occupation of the Tatars is arable farming, while the Astrakhan Tatars have cattle breeding and melon growing. Tatars are Sunni Muslims, with the exception of minor groups of Kryashens and Nagaybaks, who converted to Orthodoxy back in the 16th-18th centuries. According to the anthropological type, the Kazan Tatars are Caucasoids, part of the Astrakhan and Siberian Tatars belong to the South Siberian type of the Mongoloid race.

resettlement

Russia

The number of Tatars in the world is estimated at about 8 million. According to the 2002 census, the number of Tatars in Russia is 5 million 554.6 thousand people (3.83% of the population of the Russian Federation). Tatars are the 2nd largest nationality in the Russian Federation after Russians. However, Tatars make up slightly more than 1/2 of the population (52.9% according to the 2002 census) of Tatarstan. Tatars also live compactly in the following subjects of the Russian Federation: Bashkortostan - 990.7 thousand (24.14% of the total population of Bashkiria), Chelyabinsk region - 205 thousand (5.69%), Ulyanovsk region - 168.7 thousand (12. 20%), Sverdlovsk region - 168.1 thousand (3.75%), Moscow - 166 thousand (1.6%), Orenburg region - 165.9 thousand (7.61%), Perm region - 136 .59 thousand (4.84%), Samara region - 127.9 thousand (3.95%), Udmurtia - 109.2 (6.96%), Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - 107.6 (7, 51%), Tyumen region - 106.95 thousand (8.07%), Penza region - 86.8 thousand (5.97%), Astrakhan region - 70.5 thousand (7.02%).

Abroad

Abroad, Tatars mainly live on the territory of the former USSR, in the "near abroad": in Uzbekistan - 324 thousand (2002); in Kazakhstan - 203.3 thousand (2009), in Ukraine - 73.3 thousand (2001), in Kyrgyzstan - 45.5 thousand (1999), Azerbaijan - 30 thousand (2008) .), Tajikistan - 19 thousand in 2000 (instead of 79.4 thousand in 1989), in Belarus - 10.1 thousand (1999). Only 3,235 Tatars remained in Lithuania in 2001.

In 2002, 24.1 thousand Tatars lived in Romania, approx. 10 thousand Tatars. From the end of the 19th century, the Tatars settled on the territory of the modern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of the PRC. In 2001, 5.1 thousand Tatars lived compactly there and continued to use their traditional Arabic alphabet for writing.

Etymology and evolution of the ethnonym

There is no generally accepted etymology of the ethnonym Tatars. Turkologist N.A. Baskakov suggested 3 possible etymologies:

1) from the word tat - "foreigner";

2) from the stem tat -, tata - "to test" and the participle affix - ar > "testing", "experienced adviser"

3) from the stem tat - a derivative of the words tatuv - "union", "peace", tavly - "peaceful" > tavdash - "ally".

Researcher of the Kalmyk language G.-J. Ramshedt compared the Kalmyk word tatr and the old written Mongolian tatari - "speaking with a foreign accent", "poorly speaking, stutterer" with the Baraba tele tartyk - "stutterer". Probably, initially the name "Tatars" referred to tribes speaking a language that was incomprehensible or poorly understood by their neighbors, and later the exoethnonym "Tatars" could well turn into a self-name.

In the XIII century. the ethnonym "Tatars" is spreading within the Mongol Empire itself, which has become the designation of both the peoples conquered by the Mongols, in particular, the Tatars themselves, and the Mongols themselves. By the beginning of the XIV century. the term "Tatars" in the territory of the Ulus of Jochi (the western regions of the divided Mongol Empire) acquires a social meaning - the designation of nomadic military service nobility, mainly of Mongolian origin. Gradually, the settled population of the Tatar khanates "Tatars" began to call all nomads. In Chinese literature, a double ethnonym Meng-da (Mongol-Tatars) arose, accepted by modern historical science - "Mongol-Tatars".

During the existence of the Golden Horde, in the XIII-XV centuries, in the Middle Volga region, probably, a significant part of the population retained the Bulgar self-consciousness. Since in the medieval mentality the confessional religious self-consciousness prevailed over the ethnic one, already in the 15th-16th centuries, judging by the Russian source, the population called themselves "Muslims", in the Russian version - "Besermen". Only in the XVIII-XIX centuries. among the Tatars of the Volga and Ural regions, the name "Tatars" began to spread. The name became widespread in connection with the development of Tatar nationalism at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. and finally entrenched with the formation of the Tatar ASSR. This process was an additional incentive for the spread of the ethnonym "Tatars" to the Turkic-speaking population of Siberia and the Lower Volga region.

in Russia until the beginning of the 20th century. the ethnonym "Tatars" was used broadly and applied to many, mostly Turkic-speaking, usually nomadic or semi-nomadic, peoples of Eurasia: Altai Tatars (Altaians), fraternal Tatars (Buryats), Transcaucasian Tatars (Azerbaijanis), Mountain Tatars (Karachays and Balkars), Dagestan Tatars (Kumyks), Nogai Tatars (Nogais), Abakan / Yenisei / Minusinsk Tatars (Khakasses), Kazan Tatars, Crimean Tatars (self-names: qirimtatarlar - Crimean Tatars or qirimlar - Crimeans). For example, one of the regiments of the Caucasian native cavalry division ("Wild Division"), formed in 1914, was called the "Tatar cavalry regiment", although the regiment was recruited from Azerbaijanis. In everyday speech in the XIX century. "Tatars" were called Muslim highlanders of the North Caucasus.

In Western Europe, starting from the 13th century, the Tatars began to be called by consonance Tartari lat., Tartares French, Tartaren German, Tartars English, which is associated with ancient Tartarus (Tartarus lat.), Which in the Middle Ages was associated with hell, and the Tatars themselves, respectively, with people from the underworld. Already the first European who visited the headquarters of the Mongol khans in 1246-1247 and left a description of his journey - the Franciscan Plano Carpini (c. 1180-1252) called his work "Historia Mongalorum quos nos Tartaros appellamus" lat. - "The history of the Mongols, whom we call Tartars." Up until the 19th century. in Western European literature, the Asian nomadic and semi-nomadic Turkic and Mongolian peoples were collectively called Tatars-Tartars.

ethnic history

732-1202: The first mention of the Tatars - 732 - the tribes "Otuz-Tatars" and "Tokuz-Tatars" appear in the text of the Turkic runic inscription dedicated to the commander of the Second Turkic Khaganate Kul-tegin (Kul Tigin Türk., 685-731). Through the Uighurs, the name "Tatars" got into Chinese sources, in which it is regularly found from 842 - in Chinese: dada, datan. According to Chinese sources, the Tatar tribes lived in the 10th-11th centuries. along the upper and middle reaches of the Amur. The Turkic scholar Mahmud of Kashgar (1029-1101) called the vast region between northern China and eastern Turkestan the "Tatar steppe". Mahmud of Kashgar in his immortal linguistic work "Divan lugat at-Turk" (Kitabu divan-i lugat it-Turk - "Collection of Turkic dialects") noted that the peoples of Chumul, Kai, Yabaku, Tatars and Basmyl have their own language, but they They also speak Turkic well, which, apparently, confirms the Mongol-speaking of the ancient Tatars. In the "Secret Tale" (c. 1240), outlining the history of Genghis Khan (1155 / 1162-1227), various Tatar tribes are mentioned: Airiud-Buyruud, both Tatars and Dorben-Tatars ("four Tatars"), divided into 4 clans : chaan-tatars, alchi-tatars, dudaut-tatars and alukhay-tatars (Secret legend, § 16, 53, 58, 141, 153). By the middle of the XII century. Tatars became one of the most powerful tribal associations in Mongolia. They defeated the Mongols at the turn of the 60-70s. 12th century Chinese sources began to call "Tatars" (da-dan) all nomads of the eastern part of the Great Steppe, regardless of their ethnicity. In 1196, Genghis Khan defeated the Tatars, and in 1202 destroyed all the Tatars who were taller than the axis of the cart, as punishment for their rebellion. The remnants of the Tatars were incorporated into the Mongol horde.

1204-1241: the era of the great Mongol conquests, the formation of the Mongol Empire (Yeke Mongyol ulus old Mong. - "The Great Mongol State" from 1211) from Korea to Romania with an area of ​​​​2 million 741 thousand square kilometers (22% of the land) and with a population of approx. 100 million people

1224-1391: the time of the existence of the Golden Horde (Ulus Jochi), which was ruled by the descendants of the eldest son of Genghis Khan Jochi (c. 1184-c. 1227). The ulus included the territory of Southern Ukraine, the North Caucasus, the Volga region, Western Siberia, Kazakhstan and the northern part of Central Asia. In 1269 the ulus became completely independent from the great khan in Khanbalik. The bulk of the nomadic population of the Horde were nomadic Kipchaks (Polovtsy). The proportion of the Mongols themselves among the nomads was small, and they soon dissolved into the Turkic mass surrounding them. The settled population was the Bulgars, the peoples of the Volga region and Khorezm. In the XIII century. Mongolian was the official language of the Golden Horde, Uighur was the diplomatic language, and Kipchak was the spoken language, which became common by the middle of the 14th century. became official.

1312: Khan of the Golden Horde Uzbek (1312-1342), having converted to Islam, made it the official religion of the state and began to persecute shamanists and Buddhists.

1391-1502: The decline of the Golden Horde and its fall in 1502, when the troops of the Crimean Khanate took Saray, the capital of the Great Horde - the remnant of the Golden Horde, forcing the last Khan Sheikh-Ahmed (1495-1502) to flee to Lithuania.

XIV-beginning of the XVIII centuries: during the instability in the Golden Horde and the Tatar khanates, the mass of Tatar princes with their attendants went to serve in the Moscow kingdom. The bulk of the Tatar nobility joined the ruling stratum of Russian society and became service people.

1799-1920: serving Tatars-Cossacks of the Muslim faith as part of the Don, Orenburg, Ural and Siberian Cossack troops. On October 12, 1799, by the nominal decree of Paul I (1796-1801), the yasak peasants and Tatars of the Orenburg district were excluded from the poll salary and included in the Orenburg Cossack army, but in 1819 a significant part of the Orenburg Tatars was transferred to the taxable estate. In the Siberian Cossack army in 1914, there were only 0.81% of Tatar Cossacks, i.e. about 1.3 thousand people. The history of the Tatar-Cossacks ends with the liquidation of the Cossacks as a class in Soviet Russia by a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in 1920.

1918-1922: During the Civil War in Russia, some of the Tatars emigrated to Turkey and Harbin in China, from where they later moved to various countries in Europe and America.

Kazan Tatars

There are 3 main scientific hypotheses about the ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars:

1) Bulgaro-Tatar - the main one in Soviet time. The Tatars were considered an autochthonous population - direct descendants of the Turkic Volga Bulgars, on whom the domination of the Mongol khans had little effect;

2) the Mongol-Tatar hypothesis, according to which the Mongol-Tatar tribes, mixed with the Polovtsy, became the basis of the Tatar ethnos;

3) the Turkic-Tatar hypothesis, highlighting the multi-stage ethnogenesis of the Tatars: the Bulgar with a predominance of the Turkic element, the Golden Horde, the time of the existence of the Kazan Khanate, the consolidation of the nation within the Russian state in the 16th-18th centuries. and the formation of the nation in the XVIII-XX centuries. Today, this complex construction is accepted by most researchers.

670s-late 9th century: one of the ancient Tuk-speaking Bulgarian tribes, consisting mainly of Kutrigurs, led by Kotrag, son of Kubrat (c. 605-c. 665), Khan the Great of Bulgaria, moved from the Azov steppes to the north, to the forest-steppe regions of the Middle Volga and Kama, where it began to mix with the local Finno-Ugric population.

Beginning of the 10th century-1240: the existence of the state of Volga Bulgaria. In 922, the Bulgars adopted Islam, which became the main religion of the population. The runic writing system was replaced by Arabic. During this period, the Bulgar settled people were formed - the ancestors of the Tatars and Chuvash. In 1236-1240 Bulgaria was conquered by the Mongols.

1241-1391: "the stage of the medieval Tatar ethno-political community" as part of the ulus of the Golden Horde. The ethno-cultural consolidation of the Golden Horde aristocracy, military service classes, Muslim clergy leads to the formation by the XIV century. Tatar ethnopolitical community. On the basis of the Oguz-Kypchak language, the formation of the literary Old Tatar language takes place, the earliest monument of which is the poem of Kul Gali (1183-1236) "Kyisa-i Yosyf" ("The Legend of Joseph"), written as early as 1233. The Mongolian language is becoming obsolete even in office at the end of the 14th century.

1438-1552: the era of the Kazan Khanate - the formation of an ethnic community that had local self-determination. The bulk of the Tatars, according to the ethno-class stratification, occupied a privileged position in the state, in particular, the Tatars were "Cossacks" who were obliged to serve for land ownership.

1552-1556: conquest of the Kazan Khanate by the troops of Ivan the Terrible - Kazan War. On October 15, 1552, after a 41-day siege by a 150,000-strong Russian army, Kazan fell, which was defended by approx. 30 thousand soldiers. The men were mostly killed, the women and children were taken prisoner. Soon, in 1552-1553, the uprising of the centurion of the Mari Mamich-Berdeya (Mamysh-Berdy Tatar.) began. The restoration of the Kazan Khanate was announced, headed by the Nogai Murza Ali-Akram. The Khanate declared war on Russia, which forced Ivan the Terrible in the summer of 1553 to begin his 5th Kazan campaign. The territories of the khanate began to be combed in search of the rebels who took the fight. In April 1556, the capital of the rebels, Chalym, was taken by storm, and Ali-Akram was killed, and Mamich-Berdei was captured and executed in Moscow. To guarantee future security in the future, 7,000 Russian colonists were resettled in Kazan, and all of its former population was evicted to Kuransheva Sloboda. The lands abandoned during the suppression of the uprising, Ivan the Terrible handed over to his close associates, and they were settled by Russians from central Russia.

XVI-XVIII centuries: the stage of consolidation of local groups of Tatars in the Russian state. After the annexation of the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia to Russia, the processes of Tatar migration intensified (in particular, from the Oka to the Zakamskaya and Samara-Orenburg lines, from the Kuban to the Astrakhan and Orenburg provinces) and interaction between its various ethnic groups, which contributed to their linguistic and cultural rapprochement . To a certain extent, the attitude of the Russian state and the Russian population was also unifying, which did not distinguish between different groups of the Tatar people.

XVI-XVIII centuries: due to religious oppression and forced Christianization, seizure of land, attribution to factories, uprisings of the Muslim population of the Volga region occur. 1572-1574, 1582-1584 - spontaneous popular uprisings at the end of the reign of Ivan the Terrible. In 1615-1616, due to the introduction of new taxes and recruitment duty, an uprising of Tatars, Chuvashs and Bashkirs took place under the leadership of the Tatar Dzhangali Shagurov (ZhemAli Shoger Tatars.). In 1662 the Tatars and Bashkirs attacked the Russian fortresses. In 1669, a detachment of 6,000 Tatars led by Khasan Karachurin joined the uprising of Stepan Razin (c. 1630-1671). 1682-1684 - up to 30 thousand representatives of the Volga peoples, led by Mullah Sagit Yagafarov, rose to fight against forced Christianization.

A detachment from the Tamyansky volost of the Trans-Urals was led by the Bashkirs Tyulekey-batyr (Tulekey-batyr Tatar.), Later captured and state-owned. In 1705, due to the introduction of numerous new taxes, the Tatars led by Dyumay Ishkaev acted. 1707-1708 - the uprising of Aldar-Tarkhan and Kusyum-batyr, the son of the executed Tyulekey, who led the rebels with a total number of up to 30-40 thousand people, operating throughout the Volga-Ural region. During the suppression of the uprising, only in the Kazan province, approx. 11 thousand, over 300 villages were robbed and burned. In 1709-1711, the Aldar detachment continued to fight in the Urals and Trans-Urals. In 1717-1718, the yasak Tatar Sait-batyr and his nephew Gabdrakhman Tuikin, leaving the Kazakh steppes with a 5,000-strong detachment, again began hostilities against the Russian authorities. In 1735-1740, a new uprising of 10 thousand Tatars and Bashkirs broke out against the construction of fortresses, led by the teacher Kilmyak Nurushev and the foreman of the Tamyansky volost of the Kazan road Akai Kusyumov. According to the historian P. Rychkov, during the period of 1735-1737, during the suppression of the uprising in the Kazan province, 696 villages were burned, 16,893 people were killed during the fighting or executed, 3,406 people were exiled, 9,194 women and children were distributed to the Russians.

The uprising of 1755-1756, led by Imam Batyrshi, the "Brave Shah" (Gabdulla Galiev, 1715-1762), covered vast territories of the Volga-Ural region. Tatars also actively participated in the Pugachev Peasant War in 1773-1775: the number of Tatar rebels is estimated at 84 thousand people.

1570s-1917: the participation of the Tatars in the military campaigns of the Russian state. In the 70s of the XVI century. in the protection of the borders of the Russian state against the raids of nomads on the territory of the Arzamas district, the Arzamas service Tatars take part, and in the 1580s. - Alatyr servants. In the XVI century. the Tatar nobility, who was in the service of the Moscow sovereign, was part of the local cavalry 10 thousand - out of 70 thousand. During the Livonian War (1558-1583), the number of service Tatars in the army of 33.4 thousand people was 5854 soldiers. Detachments of the Tatar muzr also participated in the 2nd militia, which went to liberate Moscow in 1612. In 1613, a royal decree was issued on the recruitment of the Tatars for military service, and in 1615 the number of Tatar horsemen sent to war against the Commonwealth was 6019. The Tatars participated in wars with the Poles in 1617, 1632-1634, 1647-1667 and in 1673, against the Turks and Crimeans - in 1677-1679, 1689, against the Swedes - in the Northern War (1700-1721). At the beginning of the XVIII century. service Tatars were transferred to the class of single-dvortsy, - basically, small landowners serving for the possession of land in the border territory. In 1722, Peter I (1682-1725) extended the recruitment duty to the Tatars. At the same time, it was decided to call on 10-12-year-old boys to serve as batmen officers. Tatars (horsemen, footmen and rowers) took part in the Persian campaign of Peter I in 1722-1723. Tatar soldiers also participated in the Patriotic War of 1812 (2 out of 4 cavalry regiments participated in hostilities), in the Caucasian War, which lasted from 1817 to 1864, in the Crimean War (1853-1856). During the First World War, about 1.5 million Tatars and Bashkirs were drafted into the Russian army.

XVIII-early XX century: the formation of the Tatar nation. From the 18th to the middle of the 19th century - the stage of the "Muslim" nation, in which religion acted as a unifying factor. From the middle of the XIX century. until 1905 - the stage of the "ethno-cultural" nation. Since the 1860s The education system, book publishing and periodicals in the Tatar language, have completed the assertion in the self-consciousness of all the main ethnic groups of the Tatars of the idea of ​​belonging to a single nation. In the 2nd half of the XIX century. the modern Tatar literary language begins to form, by the 1910s. it completely replaces the Old Tatar.

1905-1990: the stage of the "political" nation, which has its own state education. The first manifestation was the demand for cultural-national autonomy expressed by the intelligentsia during the revolution of 1905-1907. On March 22, 1918, an autonomous Tatar-Bashkir Soviet Republic was proclaimed by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR, which, however, was not organized due to the outbreak of the Civil War and in connection with the creation of a separate Bashkir ASSR on March 23, 1919. On May 27, 1920, a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR was signed on the formation of the Tatar Soviet Republic within the RSFSR, renamed on December 30, 1922 during the formation of the USSR into the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. After the mid-1920s the remnants of ethno-class self-consciousness are disappearing in the republic. A "Soviet socialist" Tatar nation is being formed. Since August 30, 1990, the republic has been officially called the Republic of Tatarstan.

1942-1945: the formation of the Volga-Tatar Legion "Idel-Ural" of 12.5 thousand from the captured Germans Tatars and other peoples of the Volga region, the combat group "Idel-Ural" of the Eastern Turkic SS formation, 15 economic, sapper, railway and road -construction companies. Total - ok. 40 thousand people. Organizationally, the unit was subordinate to the command of the Eastern Legions (Kommando der Ostlegionen in German).

Astrakhan Tatars

Astrakhan Tatars (Asterkhan Tatarlary Tatars.) - an ethnoterritorial group of Tatars - the descendants of the Turkic-speaking population of the Golden Horde, speaking their own dialect of the Tatar language.

1456-1556: the period of the formation of the people during the existence of the Astrakhan Khanate with its capital in Khadzhi-Tarkhan, 12 km from Astrakhan, which became completely independent in 1502, when the Great Horde ceased to exist. In 1554, the khan had 500 murzas and 10,000 "black people" who led a semi-nomadic lifestyle. June 2, 1556 Russian detachment entered the capital, which left most of population together with the last khan Dervish-Ali (1554-1556), having fled to Azov under the protection of the Turks.

XVIII-XX centuries: the formation of a mixed population in the Astrakhan province (existed from 1717). The northern regions were mastered by the Russian and Ukrainian population. The first groups of representatives of the peoples of the Middle Volga region began to arrive in the Lower Volga: Chuvash, Mordovians, Kazan Tatars. The semi-nomadic suburban Yurt Nogais settled down, the Edisan (Kilinchin) Nogais passed to settled life. The languages ​​of the Yurt Tatars and Karagash were strongly influenced by the Nogai language. Kalmyks and Kazakhs roamed the region. In the XVIII century. Ethnic interaction and mixing of the Astrakhan with the Volga-Ural Tatars intensified. At the end of the XVIII century. the share of the latter in the Astrakhan province was 13.2%, and at the beginning of the 20th century. exceeded 1/3 of the total Tatar population.

According to the Russian census in 2002, there were only 2003 Astrakhan Tatars (Alabugat and Yurt Tatars).

Kasimov Tatars

1452-1681: the existence of the specific Kasimov Khanate. In 1452, Grand Duke Vasily II the Dark (1425-1462) granted Nizovoi Gorodets for his service to the Tatar prince Kasim (1562-1569), who had fled to Russia from Kazan. Thus, a buffer state with the Kazan Khanate was formed on Ryazan land. In 1471, in honor of Qasim, the city received its modern name. In 1575, for an unclear reason, the Kasimov Khan Sain-Bulat (1567-1573), who was baptized in 1573 under the name of Simeon, Tsar Ivan the Terrible made for 11 months instead of himself "Tsar and Grand Duke of All Rus'", crowning the kingdom in the Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin . He is known in documents as Tsar Simeon Bekbulatovich (1575-1576). Then the former tsar received the principality of Tver. In 1681 the Kasimov Khanate was abolished.

Now there are only approx. 1.1 thousand people.

Polish-Lithuanian Tatars

Polish-Lithuanian Tatars (Polish Tatars, Belarusian Tatars, Lipkowie Polish, Lipcani or Muslimi Lat.) - descendants of the Crimean and Nogai Tatars living in the territory of the former Commonwealth: in North-Eastern Poland (447 people in 2002), Belarus (10.1 thousand according to the 1999 census), Lithuania (3.2 thousand, 2001), South-Eastern Latvia (3 thousand Tatars). In total, there are 10-15 thousand Polish-Lithuanian Tatars in the world. Usually Tatars are bilingual, also speaking the language of the state in which they live. They use the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet, depending on the country of residence. By religion - Sunni Muslims. This Tatar subethnos has its own ethnonym - "lipki" (singular Lipka Polish), formed from the Crimean Tatar name of Lithuania Libka / Lipka, from which the Polish derivative Lipka was formed. Lithuanian Tatars thus began to call themselves "sticky", using the term of the Crimeans (lupkalar, lupka tatarlar Turkish.).

1397-1775: in 1397 a mass of captive Crimean Tatars was settled by the Lithuanian prince Vitovt (1492-1430) in the vicinity of Vilnius, Trakai, Kaunas, Minsk (in the future Tatar settlement) and Grodno. Even Tokhtamysh (1381-1395), deprived of power in the Golden Horde, with numerous attendants found shelter in Lithuania with Vitovt in 1398-1399. The Lithuanian prince Svidrigailo (1430-1432) gathered 3,000 Tatars and Nogays to serve in his army. In particular, the Tatars fought in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, in the campaign against Vienna in 1683. The number of Tatars in Lithuania increased due to prisoners and fugitives from the Golden Horde and the Crimean Khanate, which continued until the beginning of the 16th century. Tatars married local women. In the XVI century. part of the Tatars, especially the nobility, had already switched to the Polish language, then the middle and lower layers began to speak Belarusian, using, however, the Arabic alphabet for writing (until the 1930s). Islam remained the ethno-determining factor. According to the anonymous work "Risale-yi Tatar-i Leh", written in 1557-1558 for the Turkish sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566), there were 100 Tatar settlements with mosques. Until the middle of the XVI century. the Tatar nobility had equal rights with the Lithuanian gentry, and the Tatars became a service class that had tax-free land and freedom of religion. In 1775 the Sejm confirmed the privilege of the Tatars. The Tatars served in the light cavalry, which later, in the middle of the 18th century, received the Polish name of ulans: ulan from the Tatar "oglan" (oglan) - "well done" - a term that originally denoted young representatives of the Tatar nobility. More precisely, the name "ulans" comes from the name of Colonel Alexander Ulan (Aleksander Ulan) - a representative of the Tatar nobility, whose detachment of light cavalry served the Saxon kufürstram and the Polish kings August II the Strong (1697-1704, 1709-1733) and August III (1734-1764). The regiment especially distinguished itself in the Polish civil war of 1715-1716, for which he was transferred to serve in the Saxon army in 1717. After the death of Alexander (previously 1740), his regiment received the nickname "Ulan's children" (Ulanowe dzieci Polish.) or "Ulan's army" ( Ulanowe wojsko Polsk.), whence the name "ulans" came from. Already during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), all the Tatar regiments of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania began to be called "lancers". In the XVIII century. in the Commonwealth there were 5 regular regiments of Tatar uhlans, which, however, had a Polish military organization.

1438-1494: existence in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of the vassal possession (tumena) of Yagoldai (Jaholdajewszczyzna, Ksiestwo Jaholdajowe, Jaholdajowa tjma in Polish). The appanage was founded by Vitovt between 1428 and 1438 for Tsarevich Yagoldai Sarayevich (Cagalday Tatar.), who left Ulu Muhammad, Khan of the Golden Horde in 1424-1428, in the territory of modern Kursk region of Russia - then bordering Lithuania with the Tatars. Then this territory again became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and was divided among the Kievan boyars, and in 1500 it was already within the boundaries of the Muscovite kingdom. In addition to Yagoldaev's lot, there were 2 more Tatar fiefs in Left-Bank Ukraine, called Kursk and Chernigov darkness in Russian sources.

1672: uprising of Tatar squadrons (choragwie Polish) in Podolia, which then belonged to Poland, with a total number of 2-3 thousand soldiers. In 1667 the Sejm adopted laws restricting the religious freedom and military privileges of the Tatars. During the invasion of Turkish troops in Podolia, the Tatars joined the Turks. In 1679, the Seim restored the privileges of the Tatars, which served as an excuse for them to return to the service of the Commonwealth. King Jan III Sobieski (1674-1696) distributed estates of 0.5-7.5 square kilometers in the crown lands near Brest, Kobrin and Grodno to the Tatars in accordance with their military rank. The last detachments of Tatars returned to Poland in 1691

XVIII-XIX centuries: after the division of the Commonwealth between Prussia, Austria and Russia in 1772-1795, the Tatars ended up on the territory of different states. The Tatar nobility continued to perform military service here. In 1797, the Lithuanian-Tatar cavalry regiment was created in the Russian Empire (1168 combatants and non-combatants in the state), which in 1803 was divided into 2 regiments: Lithuanians and Poles began to serve in the Lithuanian cavalry regiment, and Tatars - in the Tatar cavalry regiment. In 1812, in Vilna, Napoleon I (1804-1814/1815) recruited a squadron of Lithuanian Tatars from volunteers, a squadron led by Mustafa Murza Akhmatovich, who was appointed major of the 1st squadron of the Tatar cavalry of the French guard. At the beginning of 1813, the surviving cavalrymen were assigned to the light cavalry of the guard. In this era, the upper and middle layers of the Tatars were Polonized, who adopted the Polish language and customs, while the lower layer of the Tatar society adopted the Belarusian or Ukrainian languages, but the Muslim religion remained, being the ethno-determining factor.

1919-1939: after the restoration of Polish statehood in 1918, the Tatars again began to serve in the Polish army. In 1919, the Tatar Cavalry Regiment named after (Colonel) Mutsaf Akhmatovich (Pulk Jazdy Tatarskiej im. Mustafy Achmatowicza Polish) was created from the Tatars, renamed on February 3, 1920 into the Tatar Regiment of Lancers (Tatarski Pulk Ulanow imienia Mustafy Achmatowicza Polish.) , which had a bunchuk instead of a regimental banner. The regiment was disbanded on September 10, 1920, and a significant mass of cavalrymen transferred to the 13th Regiment of the Vilna Lancers (13 Pulk Ulanow Wilenskich in Polish), the 1st company of which until 1936 was called "Tatar".

1944-1951: "Population exchange" between the USSR and Poland, during which ca. 3,000 Tatars moved from the territories ceded to the USSR in 1939 back to Poland, where only 2 Tatar villages remained: Bohoniki and Kruszyniany.

Siberian Tatars

Siberian Tatars (Seber Tatarlar Tatars, self-name - Sybyrtar), live to the west of the Ob in the steppe and forest-steppe zones, mainly in rural areas of the Tyumen, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Tomsk regions. Siberian Tatars consist of 3 ethnographic groups: Tobol-Irtysh, Baraba and Tomsk Tatars, which differ in dialect and cultural characteristics. The main occupations are cattle breeding and arable farming for the Tobolsk and Tyumen Tatars, known even before the arrival of the Russians in the region, for the Barabans - fishing. According to the 2002 census, there were 9.6 thousand Siberian Tatars.

XIII-XVI centuries: the ethnogenesis of the Turkic-Tatar population of Western Siberia - the era of "pre-national development" of the Siberian Tatars (according to the Tatar scholar D.M. Iskhakov). The main core of the Siberian Tatars came from the environment of the nomadic Kipchaks, who in the process of ethnogenesis interacted with the Ugric and Samoyedic peoples. Despite the division of society into a mass of ethno-geographical groups-tribes, already in the 2nd half of the 16th century. Siberian Muslims are already referred to in Russian sources by a single name ("Tatars", "Busormans", "Siberian people"), which indicates the formation of an ethnic community.

1468-1582: the existence of the Tyumen Khanate independent of the Golden Horde, and from 1495 - the Siberian Khanate. There was an ethno-social stratification of society: service Tatars, representing the Golden Horde nobility, were the highest stratum of society who lived in towns (the latter number about 70), while the rest of the Tatars were simple "black people" who paid yasak and supplied soldiers. In 1582-1598, the khanate was conquered by the Cossacks, who were led by Yermak until his death on August 6, 1585 (between 1532 and 1542-1585).

XV-XX centuries: migration to Siberia of Uzbeks and Tajiks, who settled in cities under the general name of Bukharians (Sarts). Also, Kazan Tatars settled in Siberia, in particular, refugees due to unrest in Kazan and after the capture of Kazan by the troops of Ivan the Terrible. The Nogai constantly clashed with the Siberians, placing the last Khan Kuchum (1563-1598) guards. All of them were mostly assimilated by the Siberian Tatars by the middle of the 19th century, having influenced the culture of the Siberians. At the end of the period, the Siberian Tatars were already fully aware of themselves as a separate ethnic group, which was already fixed in the Soviet period with the introduction of the item "nationality" in the general passport.

Kryashens

The Kryashens (from the Russian "baptized Tatars", ker?shen Tatarlar Tatars) are an ethno-confessional group of Tatars who profess Orthodoxy and live mainly in Tatarstan. The process of Christianization of the Tatars of the Volga region in the 2nd half of the 16th-17th centuries had a decisive significance for the ethnogenesis of the Kryashens. ("Old-baptized Tatars") and in the 1st half of the 18th century. ("newly baptized Tatars"). 5 ethnographic groups of Kryashens were formed: Kazan-Tatar, Yelabuga, Molkeev, Chistopol, Nagaybak (the latter was singled out as a separate nationality in 2000). According to the 1926 USSR census, there were 101.4 thousand Kryashens, and in 2002 - only 24.6 thousand.

Nagaibaki

Since the 18th century the Orenburg Cossack army consisted of Nagaybaks (Nagaib? Kl? R Tatars.) - an estate of baptized Tatars who lived both in separate settlements and in Cossack villages. At the end of the XVIII century. Nagaibaks lived in the Verkhneuralsk district - in the Nagaybak fortress (near the modern village of Nagaybaksky in the Chelyabinsk region) and in 13 other settlements. Now the Nagaibaks live in the Chelyabinsk region. According to the 2002 census, there were 9.6 thousand Nagaibaks, most of whom lived in the Chelyabinsk region (9.1 thousand). Back in 1926, they considered themselves a separate people and retained their national self-consciousness (11.2 thousand); in Soviet times, the Nagaibaks were considered part of the Tatar people, however, by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 255 of March 24, 2000 "On a unified list of indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation", the Nagaibaks were again registered as a separate ethnic group.

Mishari

Mishari (misher tat.) - an ethnographic group of Tatars, speaking the western dialect of the Tatar language, living on the territory of Bashkiria. The name probably goes back to the Finno-Ugric tribe Meshchera, part of which became Russified, while the other part became Tatar. After the collapse of the Golden Horde, the land of the Mishars did not become part of the Kazan Khanate, but from 1493 became part of the Russian state. As early as 1784, the Murzas of the Mishars were equated in their rights with the Russian nobility. In general, the name "Mishari" -meshchera denoted the service class of the Bashkir-Meshcheryak army, created in 1798 on the basis of service Tatars resettled in Bashkiria from the Penza and Simbirsk provinces. The Bashkir-Meshcheryak army is an irregular military formation settled by the type of Cossack troops on the territory of the Orenburg, Samara and Vyatka provinces. Geographically, the army was divided into 16 cantons, 5 of which were Mishar. The conscripts were men aged 20-50 years, who served from 4-5 yards in turn. Mishars participated in campaigns and carried out border guards along the Ural River. In the Patriotic War of 1812, 2 cavalry regiments were formed from the Mishars, the 1st regiment in 1812-1814 carried out garrison service in Moscow, and the 2nd regiment reached Paris. In 1847, a 30-year service life was established. According to the "Regulations on the Bashkirs" of May 14, 1863, the Bashkirs, Mishars, Teptyars and Bobyls received the rights of free villagers, and on July 2, 1865, the canton system was abolished. During the 1926 census, 242 thousand people identified themselves as Mishars. Now the ethnonym Mishar is preserved only as a self-name of the 2nd level after the common ethnonym "Tatars".

Teptyari

1631-1926: Teptyari (tipter tat.) - an ethnic class group in Bashkiria that paid yasak, mentioned in Russian sources since 1631. In 1734, a census of tepyars and bobyls was carried out, they were divided into teams controlled by elders, centurions, elders, and obeyed the Ufimsky and Menzelinsky governors and the Orenburg commission. By the nature of their duties, the Teptyars occupied a transitional place between the military service classes (Bashkirs, Mishars, Cossacks) and state peasants. In 1790, the Teptyars were transferred to the ranks of the military service class, and the Teptyar Regiment was formed from them, later the 2nd. During the Patriotic War of 1812, the 1st Teptyar Regiment was part of a separate Cossack corps of Ataman M.I. Platov (1853-1818). Since 1855, the Teptyars have been attached to the Bashkir army and included in the canton system of the Bashkir-Meshcheryak army. With the abolition of the Bashkir army in 1865, the Teptyar estate also disappeared. In 1926, during the census of the USSR, 27.3 thousand Teptyars were registered, who later became part of the Tatar and, to a lesser extent, Bashkir people.

People in the Russian Federation. The number in the Russian Federation is 5522096 people. The popular spoken Tatar language of the Kypchak group of the Turkic language is divided into three dialects.

Tatars are the most numerous Turkic people of Russia. They live in the Republic of Tatarstan, as well as in Bashkortostan, the Udmurt Republic and the adjacent regions of the Urals and the Volga region. There are large Tatar communities in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other large cities. And in general, in all regions of Russia, one can meet Tatars who have been living outside their homeland, the Volga region, for decades. They have taken root in a new place, fit into a new environment for them, feel great there and do not want to leave anywhere.

There are several peoples in Russia who call themselves Tatars. Astrakhan Tatars live not far from Astrakhan, Siberian ~ in Western Siberia, Kasimov Tatars live near the city of Kasimov on the Oka River (in the territory where serving Tatar princes lived several centuries ago). And finally, the Kazan Tatars are named after the capital of Tatarstan - the city of Kazan. All these are different, although close to each other peoples. However, only Kazan should be called simply Tatars.

Among the Tatars, two ethnographic groups are distinguished - the Mishari Tatars and the Kryashen Tatars. The first are known for the fact that, being Muslims, they do not celebrate the national holiday Sabantuy, but they celebrate Red Egg Day - something similar to Orthodox Easter. On this day, children collect colored eggs from home and play with them. The Kryashens (“baptized”) are called so because they were baptized, that is, they accepted Christianity, and they celebrate not Muslim, but Christian holidays.

The Tatars themselves began to call themselves that way quite late - only in the middle of the 19th century. For a very long time they did not like this name and considered it humiliating. Until the 19th century they were called differently: "Bulgarly" (Bulgars), "Kazanly" (Kazan), "Meselman" (Muslims). And now many demand the return of the name "Bulgars".

The Turks came to the regions of the Middle Volga and the Kama region from the steppes of Central Asia and the North Caucasus, crowded by tribes that moved from Asia to Europe. The migration continued for several centuries. At the end of the IX-X centuries. a prosperous state, the Volga Bulgaria, arose on the Middle Volga. The people living in this state were called Bulgars. Volga Bulgaria existed for two and a half centuries. Here agriculture and cattle breeding, handicrafts developed, there was trade with Russia and with the countries of Europe and Asia.

The high level of Bulgar culture in that period is evidenced by the existence of two types of writing - the ancient Turkic runic and the later Arabic, which came along with Islam in the 10th century. The Arabic language and writing gradually replaced the signs of the ancient Turkic writing from the sphere of state circulation. And this is natural: the entire Muslim East, with which Bulgaria had close political and economic contacts, used the Arabic language.

The names of remarkable poets, philosophers, scientists of Bulgaria, whose works are included in the treasury of the peoples of the East, have survived to our time. This is Khoja Ahmed Bulgari (XI century) - a scientist and theologian, an expert on the moral precepts of Islam; Suleiman ibn Daud al-Saksini-Suvari (XII century) is the author of philosophical treatises with very poetic titles: “The light of the rays is the truthfulness of secrets”, “The flower of the garden that delights sick souls”. And the poet Kul Gali (XII-XIII centuries) wrote the "Poem about Yusuf", which is considered a classic Turkic-language work of art of the pre-Mongolian period.

In the middle of the XIII century. Volga Bulgaria was conquered by the Tatar-Mongols and became part of the Golden Horde. After the fall of the Horde in the XV century. in the Middle Volga region, a new state arises - the Kazan Khanate. The main backbone of its population is formed by the same Bulgars, who by that time had already experienced the strong influence of their neighbors - the Finno-Ugric peoples (Mordovians, Mari, Udmurts), who lived next to them in the Volga basin, as well as the Mongols, who made up the majority of the ruling class Golden Horde.

Where did the name "Tatars" come from? There are several versions of this. According to the most common, one of the Central Asian tribes conquered by the Mongols was called "tatan", "tatabi". In Rus', this word turned into “Tatars”, and they began to call everyone: the Mongols, and the Turkic population of the Golden Horde subject to the Mongols, far from being mono-ethnic in composition. With the collapse of the Horde, the word "Tatars" did not disappear, they continued to collectively call the Turkic-speaking peoples on the southern and eastern borders of Rus'. Over time, its meaning narrowed down to the name of one people who lived on the territory of the Kazan Khanate.

The Khanate was conquered by Russian troops in 1552. Since then, the Tatar lands have been part of Russia, and the history of the Tatars has been developing in close cooperation with the peoples inhabiting the Russian state.

Tatars excelled in various types of economic activity. They were excellent farmers (they grew rye, barley, millet, peas, lentils) and excellent cattle breeders. Of all types of livestock, sheep and horses were especially preferred.

Tatars were famous as excellent artisans. Coopers made barrels for fish, caviar, sour, pickles, beer. Tanners made leather. Kazan morocco and Bulgar yuft (original locally produced leather), shoes and boots, very soft to the touch, decorated with applique from pieces of multi-colored leather, were especially valued at fairs. Among the Kazan Tatars there were many enterprising and successful merchants who traded throughout Russia.

In the Tatar cuisine, one can distinguish "agricultural" dishes and "cattle-breeding" dishes. The former include soups with pieces of dough, cereals, pancakes, cakes, that is, what can be prepared from grain and flour. The second - dried horse meat sausage, sour cream, different types of cheese, a special kind of sour milk - katyk. And if katyk is diluted with water and cooled, you get a wonderful thirst-quenching drink - ayran. Well, belyashi - round pies fried in butter with meat or vegetable filling, which can be seen through a hole in the dough - are known to everyone. Smoked goose was considered a festive dish among the Tatars.

Already at the beginning of the X century. the ancestors of the Tatars converted to Islam, and since then their culture has developed within the framework of the Islamic world. This was facilitated by the spread of writing based on the Arabic script and the construction of a large number of mosques. Schools were created at mosques - mektebe and madrasah, where children (and not only from noble families) learned to read the Koran in Arabic.

Ten centuries of written tradition have not been in vain. Among the Kazan Tatars, in comparison with other Turkic peoples of Russia, there are many writers, poets, composers, and artists. Often it was the Tatars who were the mullahs and teachers of other Turkic peoples. Tatars have a highly developed sense of national identity, pride in their history and culture.

“Scratch any Russian, you will find a Tatar there,” says a popular saying, alluding to the 300-year-old Tatar-Mongol yoke that ruled Russia. But interestingly, recent genetic studies have shown that there are practically no Asian or Ural markers in the Russian gene pool. Either the yoke was somehow fake, or the Tatars came to Rus' not at all from Mongolia. What is this mysterious people and why the origin of the second largest ethnic group in Russia has been the subject of a fierce dispute among numerous scientists for many years now?

Descendants of the Bulgarians

There are three theories about the origin of the Tatar people today. And they all absolutely exclude each other, while each having its own armies of fans. Some historians identify the Kazan Tatars with those Mongol-Tatars who conquered Rus' and other countries of Eastern Europe in the 13th century. Other historians argue that the current Tatars are a conglomeration of the Turkic-Finnish tribes of the Middle Volga region and the Mongols conquerors. The third theory says that the Tatars are direct descendants of the Kama Bulgars, who received only the name “Tatars” from the Mongols. The latter theory has the most evidence. In the 19th century, the encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron wrote: “The Volga Bulgars are a people of Turkic origin, to which Finnish and even Slavic elements later joined. From these three elements, along the Volga and Kama, a powerful and cultured state was formed. Until the 10th century, the dominant religion among the Bulgars was pagan; from the beginning of the tenth century it was replaced by Islam. In its subsequent history, the state came into frequent clashes with the Russians, traded with them and even had some influence on them, but then became part of the Russian state, disappearing from the historical arena forever. The exact etymology of the word "Bolgar", from which "Bulgar", "Balkar", "Malkar", etc., is derived, is unknown. The existing interpretations of the etymology of this word are the most diverse, often contradictory, and linguists are faced with the task of revealing its original meaning. In any case, the “ar” component in this ethnonym apparently means the concept of “man”, “man” from the Persian or Turkic word “ar” or “ir”. Perhaps this name was given to the Bulgarians by other peoples, but it was accepted by them for a long time as a self-name. They called themselves Bulgars back in those days when they lived in the North Caucasus, the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov, the Don region. It is not for nothing that their country was called Great Bulgaria, on behalf of the self-name of the people.

They brought this ethnonym with them to the Danube, which then became the self-name of a new ethnic group - the Danube Bulgarians. They also brought this name to the banks of the Kama, to the Middle Volga region, which, as a self-name, has been preserved there for many hundreds of years and lives in the minds of the people to this day, even despite the stubborn desire to call them Tatars for more than 500 years. In the middle of the last century, Soviet scientists, based on the analysis of numerous archaeological sites, established that even after joining Rus', the culture of the Bulgars developed according to the old tradition. Speaking about the anthropology of modern Tatars, it was noted that they represent a Caucasoid group with a slight Mongolian admixture, "that the Mongols, having passed the Volga Bulgaria with fire and sword, did not settle in the Middle Volga region and did not have a noticeable influence on the formation of modern Tatars." It was also established that the language of modern Tatars is a natural and direct continuation of the Bulgar language. An outstanding Turkologist-linguist and historian, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences A.Yu. Yakubovsky stated: “The population of the Tatar Republic, occupying the territory of the former Bulgar principality, did not leave here, was not exterminated by anyone and lives to this day; we can really say with confidence that the ethnic composition of the Tatars is made up of the ancient Bulgars, who included still new elements, still poorly examined, and only later received the name of the Tatars. So almost 100 years ago, scientists were inclined to believe that the modern Tatars, by their origin, have nothing to do with the Mongols and are direct descendants of the Bulgars.

Small but formidable tribe

It seemed that the question of the origin of the Tatars was resolved at all levels and aspects, and in the future it would be forever put an end to the incorrect use of this ethnonym. However, the usual perception of the Tatars as fellow tribesmen of Genghis Khan turned out to be so stable and stubborn that the identification of the Tatars with the Mongols continues to this day. “And the whole point is,” writes Doctor of Philology A.G. Karimullin, - that the history of the ethnonym "Tatars" is completely different from the history of the people. The origin of the name "Tatars" has attracted the attention of many researchers. Some deduce the etymology of this word from “mountain inhabitant”, where “tat” supposedly means “mountain”, and “ar” means “resident”. With such an etymology, it seems that the ethnonym "Tatars" is of Turkic origin. There are attempts to explain the etymology of "Tatars" from the Tungus word "ta-ta" in the meaning of "archer", "drag", "pull". In Greek mythology, "tartar" means "the other world, hell," and "tartarin" means "inhabitant of hell, the underworld." Western European peoples perceive the name "Tatars" precisely in the sense of "Tartar". Many authors originate the word "Tatar" from the Chinese language. Under the name "ta-ta", "da-da", or "tatan" back in the 5th century, one Mongolian tribe lived in North-Eastern Mongolia and Manchuria. This tribe was quite warlike, disturbing not only the neighboring related Mongol tribes, but also did not leave the Chinese alone.

Since the raids of the Ta-ta tribe brought considerable trouble to the powerful Chinese, the latter sought to present them as savages, barbarians. Later, Chinese historians extended this name, which they passed off as barbarian, to their northern neighbors, to peoples unfriendly to them, including the non-Mongolian tribes of Asia. With the light hand of the Chinese, the name "Tatars", as a synonym for contemptuous "barbarians", "savages", penetrated into Arabic and Persian sources, and then into Europe. Genghis Khan for the insults inflicted on his Tatami tribe, said: “For a long time the Tatar people have destroyed our fathers and grandfathers. We will avenge our fathers and grandfathers with revenge. And having gathered all his strength, he destroyed this tribe physically. Soviet historian-mongolist E.I. Kychanov writes in this regard: “So the Tatar tribe perished, which, even before the rise of the Mongols, gave its name as a common name to all the Tatar-Mongolian tribes. And when in distant villages and villages in the West, twenty or thirty years after that massacre, alarming cries of “Tatars!” were heard, there were few real Tatars among the impending conquerors, only their formidable name remained, and they themselves had long been lying in the land of their native ulus. Genghis Khan forbade calling the Mongols the hated name "Tatars", and when the European traveler Rubruk arrived at the headquarters of the Mongol troops in 1254, he was specifically warned about this. But by that time this name had already found such wide distribution in Asia and Europe, up to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, that such administrative measures could not erase it from the memory of the peoples.

Great and terrible

The Mongol Empire collapsed as early as the 15th century, but Western historians and Jesuit missionaries, even in the 18th century, continued to call "Tartars" all the eastern peoples, "spread from the Volga to China and Japan, in the south from Tibet through all of mountainous Asia to the Arctic Ocean." Medieval Europe, in order to frighten the masses, endowed the "Tartars" with horns, slanting eyes, painted with bow-legged and cannibals. In medieval Western European literature, Russians were also identified with the Tatars, and Muscovy was simultaneously called "Tartaria". In such "favorable" conditions, it was not difficult for priests, semi-official ideologists and historians to present the Tatars as barbarians, savages, descendants of the Mongol conquerors, which led to a mixture of different peoples in one name. The consequence of this is, first of all, a distorted idea of ​​the origin of modern Tatars. All of the above, in the end, has led and continues to lead to the falsification of the history of many Turkic peoples, primarily modern Tatars.

There remains one more, probably the most difficult question - when did the Bulgars themselves begin to be called Tatars, and their language became Tatar? In Rus', and after the annexation of the Kazan Khanate, their inhabitants were known for a long time as Bulgars or they were called Kazanians, they were clearly distinguished from "Tatars". From time immemorial, friendly, good neighborly relations, relations of mutual assistance and support have existed between Kazan Bulgars and Russians. The annals say that in the hungry, lean years in Rus', the Bulgars always rushed to help their neighbors - they carried Bulgarian bread on dozens of ships to the starving Russian people, the Bulgar masters built wonderful buildings, churches in Russian cities. But at times of aggravation of relations between the authorities of Kazan and Moscow, Russian princes and churchmen began to call Kazanians "Tatars", thus expressing their dissatisfaction with them. Kazanians did not agree to voluntary Christianization and after the liquidation of their state independence for centuries stubbornly resisted the assimilation policy. Under these conditions, in addition to the universal accusation of the Tatars in pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism, Kazanians are being portrayed as descendants of the Mongol conquerors, the former Mongol hordes who devastated the Russian lands and kept the people in oppression for hundreds of years. In hindsight, the Polovtsians, who inhabited the southern Russian steppes and part of Kievan Rus even before the invasion of the Mongols, fought hand in hand with the Russians against the Mongol conquerors, were also added to the “Tatars”.

Modern genetic data characterizing the populations of Eurasia have shown that the presence of any features in the Tatars that could be attributed to the traces of the "titular nation" of the Golden Horde have not been identified. According to genetic data, the Tatars as a whole are a typical population of Northern Europe. And this, as was said at the beginning of the article, can be explained by one of two hypotheses. Either the Golden Horde was a political entity in Eastern Europe that did not have a noticeable impact on the development of the peoples of the Ural-Volga region and, above all, the ancestors of the Kazan Tatars, or the genetic portrait of its “titular nation” was identical to the genetic portrait of modern Tatars and Russians. And from all the studies that have been written about the origin of the Tatars, we can conclude that the thoroughly intricate history of this people can present many more amazing discoveries.

In the section on the question What place do the Tatars occupy in terms of numbers? In Russia, in the world? given by the author Sayli the best answer is Tatars - the main population of the Republic of Tatarstan (1.765.4 thousand people), live in Bashkortostan - 1.120.7 thousand people, in Udmurtia - 110.5 thousand people, Mordovia - 47.3 thousand people, in Republic of Mari El - 43.8 thousand, Chuvashia - 35.7 thousand people. In general, the main part of the Tatar population - more than 4/5 lives in the Russian Federation (5.522 thousand people), occupying the second place in terms of numbers.
In addition, a significant number of Tatars live in the CIS countries: 327.9 thousand people in Kazakhstan, 467.8 thousand people in Uzbekistan, 72.2 thousand people in Tajikistan, and 70.5 thousand people in Kyrgyzstan. , Turkmenistan - 39.2 thousand people, Azerbaijan - 28 thousand people, in Ukraine - 86.9 thousand people, in the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) about 14 thousand people. There is also a significant diaspora throughout the rest of the world (Finland, Turkey, USA, China, Germany, Australia, etc.). In view of the fact that there has never been a separate account of the number of Tatars in other countries, it is difficult to determine the total number of the Tatar population abroad (according to various estimates, from 100 to 200 thousand people).
Source: There are many in the world. Sunits - the West also considers the Tatar ethnic group

Answer from beg[newbie]
and why are you a nationalist or what? don't fuck for a foreign nation to tell something when you don't know the truth

Answer from worldview[newbie]
1st place is occupied by the Tatars

Answer from Ikhonov Roman[newbie]
Yes, and you appointed governors from the family of Russian princes, even if the father was sentenced, then the son was still allowed to rule. You don't have to flatter yourself. You are quite capable partners of the Rosens - no more and no less. In the USA, after the settlement by the Spaniards, after 300 years everyone spoke their languages, and after 300 years, no one knows a single Tatar word))

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

Answer from Zheltkov Alexey[active]
In Russia, the Tatars occupy the second place (about 6 million). It's hard to say in the world. In general, about 8 million Tatars live in the world. In Moscow, the Tatar diaspora is the most numerous and is considered the most influential. There are Crimean, Astrakhan, Nizhny Novgorod, etc. Tatars. In Tatarstan itself, the Tatars are in second place in terms of numbers after the Russians (the gap is minimal).

Tatars are the second largest ethnic group and the most numerous people of Muslim culture in the Russian Federation.

The Tatar ethnos has an ancient and colorful history, closely connected with the history of all the peoples of the Ural-Volga region and Russia as a whole.

The original culture of the Tatars deservedly entered the treasury of world culture and civilization.
We find traces of it in the traditions and language of Russians, Mordovians, Maris, Udmurts, Bashkirs, Chuvashs. At the same time, the national Tatar culture synthesizes the achievements of the Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Indo-Iranian peoples (Arabs, Slavs and others).

There are also various interpretations of the ethnonym "Tatars". This question is very relevant at the present time.
Some researchers deduce the origin of this word from the “mountain inhabitant”, where “tat” means “mountains”, and “ar” means “resident”, “person” (A.A. Sukharev. Kazan Tatars. St. Petersburg, 1904, p. 22). Others - the etymology of the word "Tatars" to the ancient Greek "messenger" (N.A. Baskakov. Russian surnames of Turkic origin. Baku, 1992, p.122).

The well-known Turkologist D.E. Eremov connects the origin of the word "Tatars" with the ancient Turkic word and people. He associates the first component of the word "tat" with the name of the ancient Iranian people. At the same time, he refers to the information of the ancient Turkic chronicler Mahmud Kashgari that the Turks called “tatam” those who speak Farsi, that is, the Iranian language. The original meaning of the word "tat" was most likely "Persian", but then this word in Rus' began to denote all the Eastern and Asian peoples (D.E. Eremeev. Semantics of Turkic ethnonymy. - Sat. "Ethnonyms". M., 1970 , p.134).
Thus, a complete decoding of the ethnonym "Tatars" is still waiting for its researcher. In the meantime, unfortunately, even now the burden of established traditions, stereotypes about the Mongol-Tatar yoke makes most people think in highly distorted categories about the history of the Tatars, about their true origin, about Tatar culture.

According to the 1989 census, about 7 million people lived on the territory of the USSR. Of these, in the RSFSR - more than 5.5 million or 83.1% of the indicated number, including in Tatarstan - more than 1.76 million people (26.6%).

At present, Tatars make up slightly more than half of the population of Tatarstan, their national republic. At the same time, the number of people living outside Tatarstan is 1.12 million people in Bashkortostan, 110.5 thousand in Udmurtia, 47.3 thousand in Mordovia, 43.8 thousand in Mari El, and 35.7 thousand in Chuvashia. In addition, the Tatars also live in the regions of the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia.

Tatars are one of the most mobile peoples. Due to lack of land, frequent crop failures in their homeland and traditional craving for trade, even before 1917 they began to move to various regions of the Russian Empire, including the provinces of Central Russia, the Donbass, Eastern Siberia and the Far East, the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia, Central Asia and Kazakhstan. This migration process intensified during the years of Soviet rule, especially during the period of "great construction projects of socialism." Therefore, at present in the Russian Federation there is practically not a single subject of the federation, wherever the Tatars live. Even in the pre-revolutionary period, Tatar national communities were formed in Finland, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and China. As a result of the collapse of the USSR, Tatars living in the former Soviet republics - Uzbekistan (467.8 thousand), Kazakhstan (327.9 thousand), Tajikistan (72.2 thousand), Kyrgyzstan (70.5 thousand people) found themselves in the near abroad. ), Turkmenistan (39.2 thousand), Azerbaijan (28 thousand), Ukraine (86.9 thousand), in the Baltic countries (14 thousand). Already at the expense of remigrants from China. In Turkey and Finland, since the middle of the 20th century, Tatar national diasporas have formed in the USA, Japan, Australia, and Sweden.

According to many historians, the Tatar people with a single literary and practically common spoken language developed during the existence of a huge Turkic state - the Golden Horde. The literary language in this state was the so-called "Idel Terkise" or Old Tatar, based on the Kypchak-Bulgarian (Polovtsian) language and incorporating elements of the Central Asian literary languages. The modern literary language based on the middle dialect arose in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

In ancient times, the Turkic ancestors of the Tatars used runic writing, as evidenced by archaeological finds in the Urals and the Middle Volga region. From the moment of the voluntary adoption of Islam by one of the ancestors of the Tatars, the Volga-Kama Bulgars - the Tatars used the Arabic script, from 1929 to 1939 - the Latin script, since 1939 they use the Cyrillic alphabet with additional characters.

The modern Tatar language, belonging to the Kypchak-Bulgar subgroup of the Kypchak group of the Turkic language family, is divided into four dialects: middle (Kazan Tatar), western (Mishar), eastern (the language of the Siberian Tatars) and Crimean (the language of the Crimean Tatars). Despite the dialectal and territorial differences, the Tatars are a single nation with a single literary language, a single culture - folklore, literature, music, religion, national spirit, traditions and rituals.

The Tatar nation, in terms of literacy (the ability to write and read in their own language), even before the 1917 coup, occupied one of the leading places in the Russian Empire. The traditional craving for knowledge has been preserved in the current generation.

The ethnonym "Tatars" is of ancient origin, however, as a self-name of modern Tatars, it was accepted only in the 19th century, and the Ancient Tatars - Turkic tribes lived on the territory of today's Eurasia. The current Tatars (Kazan, Western, Siberian, Crimean) are not direct descendants of the ancient Tatars who came to Europe along with the troops of Genghis Khan. They formed into a single nation called the Tatars, after they were given such a name by the European peoples.

There is an opinion of historians that the name "Tatars" came from the name of a large influential clan "Tata", from which many Turkic-speaking military leaders of the state "Altyn Urta" (Golden Mean), better known as the "Golden Horde" came from.

Tatars are one of the most urbanized peoples of the Russian Federation. The social groups of Tatars living both in cities and in villages are almost no different from those that exist among other peoples, primarily among Russians.

In terms of their way of life, the Tatars do not differ from other surrounding peoples. The modern Tatar ethnos originated in parallel with the Russian. Modern Tatars are the Turkic-speaking part of the indigenous population of Russia, which, due to its greater territorial proximity to the East, chose not Orthodoxy but Islam. 99% of believing Tatars are Sunni Muslims of the moderate Hanafi persuasion.

Many ethnologists note the unique phenomenon of Tatar tolerance, which consists in the fact that in the entire history of the existence of the Tatars, they did not initiate a single conflict on ethnic and religious grounds. The most famous ethnologists and researchers are sure that tolerance is an invariable part of the Tatar national character.

The traditional food of the Tatars is meat, dairy and vegetable soups seasoned with pieces of dough (tokmach noodles, chumar), cereals, sourdough bread, kabartma cakes. National dishes - byalesh with a variety of fillings, often from meat (peryamyach), cut into pieces and mixed with millet, rice or potatoes, unleavened pastry is widely represented in the form of bavyrsak, kosh tele, ichpochmak, gubadia, katykly salma, chak-chak ( wedding dish). From horse meat (the favorite meat of many groups) they prepare dried sausage - kazylyk or kazy. Dried goose (kaklagan kaz) is considered a delicacy. Dairy products - katyk (a special kind of sour milk), sour cream, cottage cheese. Drinks - tea, airan (tan) - a mixture of katyk with water (used mainly in summer).

Tatars have always taken an active part in all defensive and liberation wars. In terms of the number of "Heroes of the Soviet Union", the Tatars are in fourth place, and in terms of the percentage of heroes for the entire nation, they are first. According to the number of Heroes of Russia, the Tatars have the second place.

From the Tatars advanced such military leaders as General of the Army M.A. Gareev, Colonel Generals P.S. Akchurin and F.Kh. Churakov, Vice Admiral M.D. Iskanderov, Rear Admirals Z.G. Lyapin, A.I. Bichurin and others. Outstanding scientists - academicians R.Z.Sagdeev (physical chemist), K.A.Valiev (physicist), R.A.Syunyaev (astrophysicist), and others.

Tatar literature is one of the most ancient in the Russian Federation. The most ancient literary monument is the poem "The Tale of Yusuf" by the Bulgarian poet Kul Gali, written in 1236. Among the famous poets of the past are M. Sarai-Gulistani (XIV century), M. Mukhammadyar (1496/97-1552), G. Utyz-Imyani (1754-1834), G. Kandaly (1797-1860). From the poets and writers of the 20th century - the classics of Tatar literature Gabdullu Tukay, Fatih Amirkhan, the writers of the Soviet period - Galimzyan Ibragimov, Hadi Taktash, Majit Gafuri, Hasan Tufan, the patriotic poet, Hero of the Soviet Union Musa Jalil, Sibgat Hakim and many other talented poets and writers.

One of the first among the Turkic peoples, the Tatars developed theatrical art. The most outstanding artists are: Abdulla Kariev, actor and playwright Karim Tinchurin, Khalil Abjalilov, Gabdulla Shamukov, actors: Chulpan Khamatova, Marat Basharov Renata Litvinova, actor and director Sergei Shakurov, director Marcel Salimzhanov, opera singers - Khaidar Bigichev and Zilya Sungatullina, folk singers Ilgam Shakirov and Alfiya Afzalova, popular performers - Rinat Ibragimov, Zemfira Ramazanova, Salavat Fatkhutdinov, Aidar Galimov, Malika Razakova, young poet and musician Rustam Alyautdinov.

Fine art of the Tatars: First of all, this is the artist-patriarch Baki Urmanche, and many other prominent Tatar artists.

The sports achievements of the Tatars also constantly make themselves felt:
Wrestling - Shazam Safin, champion of the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki in Greco-Roman wrestling.
Rhythmic gymnastics - Olympic champion and multiple world champion Alina Kabaeva, world champions Amina Zaripova and Laysan Utyasheva.
Football - Rinat Dasaev, goalkeeper No. 1 in the world in 1988, goalkeeper of the Spartak team, members of the 2002 World Cup football team, attacking midfielder of the Russian national team Marat Izmailov (Lokomotiv Moscow), winner of the Russian Cup 2000/01; silver medalist of the Russian Championship in 2001, and goalkeeper of the Russian national team, KAMAZ (Naberezhnye Chelny); "Spartak Moscow); Lokomotiv (Moscow); "Verona" (Italy) Ruslan Nigmatullin, Hockey - Irek Gimaev, Sergei Gimaev, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, Tennis World Champion Marat Safin, and many many others.

Famous Russians come from Tatar families

Many famous noble families of Russia have Tatar roots. Apraksins, Arakcheevs, Dashkovs, Derzhavins, Yermolovs, Sheremetevs, Bulgakovs, Gogols, Golitsyns, Milyukovs, Godunovs, Kochubeys, Stroganovs, Bunins, Kurakins, Saltykovs, Saburovs, Mansurovs, Tarbeevs, Godunovs, Yusupovs - it’s impossible to list them all. By the way, the origin of the Counts Sheremetevs, in addition to the surname, is also confirmed by the family coat of arms, on which there is a silver crescent. The nobles Ermolovs, for example, where General Alexei Petrovich Ermolov came from, the pedigree begins like this: "The ancestor of this family Arslan-Murza-Yermola, and by baptism named John, as shown in the presented pedigree, in 1506 went to Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich from the Golden Horde ." Rus' was fabulously enriched at the expense of the Tatar people, talents flowed like a river. The princes Kurakins appeared in Rus' under Ivan III, this family comes from Ondrey Kurak, who was the offspring of the Horde Khan Bulgak, the recognized ancestor of the Great Russian princes Kurakins and Golitsyns, as well as the noble family of Bulgakovs. Chancellor Alexander Gorchakov, whose family was descended from the Tatar ambassador Karach-Murza. The nobles of the Dashkovs are also from the Horde. And the Saburovs, Mansurovs, Tarbeevs, Godunovs (from Murza Chet, who left the Horde in 1330), Glinskys (from Mamai), Kolokoltsevs, Talyzins (from Murza Kuchuk Tagaldyzin) ... A separate conversation is desirable about each clan - a lot, a lot they did for Russia. Every Russian patriot has heard about Admiral Ushakov, and only a few know that he is a Turk. This clan comes from the Horde Khan Redeg. The princes of Cherkasy are descended from the khan's family of Inal. “As a sign of allegiance,” it is written in their genealogy, “he sent his son Saltman and daughter Princess Maria to the sovereign, who later was married to Tsar John Vasilyevich, and Saltman was named Mikhail by baptism and was granted a boyar.”

But even by the named surnames it is clear that the Tatar blood greatly influenced the gene pool of the Russian people. Among the Russian nobility there are more than 120 famous Tatar families. In the sixteenth century, Tatars dominated among the nobles. Even by the end of the nineteenth century in Russia, there were approximately 70 thousand nobles with Tatar roots. This amounted to more than 5 percent of the total number of nobles throughout the Russian Empire.

A lot of Tatar nobility disappeared forever for their people. This is well told by the genealogical books of the Russian nobility: "The General Heraldry of the Noble Clans of the All-Russian Empire", begun in 1797, or "The History of the Clans of the Russian Nobility", or "The Russian Genealogical Book". Historical novels pale before them.

The Yushkovs, Suvorovs, Apraksins (from Salakhmir), Davydovs, Yusupovs, Arakcheevs, Golenishchev-Kutuzovs, Bibikovs, Chirikovs... The Chirikovs, for example, came from the clan of Khan Berke, brother of Batu. Polivanovs, Kochubeys, Kozakovs...

Kopylovs, Aksakovs (aksak means "lame"), Musins-Pushkins, Ogarkovs (the first from the Golden Horde came in 1397, Lev Ogar, "a man of great stature and a brave warrior"). The Baranovs... In their pedigree it is written as follows: "The ancestor of the Baranov family, Murza Zhdan, nicknamed Baran, and named Daniel by baptism, came in 1430 from the Crimea."

Karaulovs, Ogarevs, Akhmatovs, Bakaevs, Gogol, Berdyaevs, Turgenevs ... "The ancestor of the Turgenev family, Murza Lev Turgen, and by baptism named John, went to Grand Duke Vasily Ioannovich from the Golden Horde ..." This family belonged to the aristocratic Horde tukhum , as well as the Ogarev family (their Russian ancestor is "Murza with an honest name Kutlamamet, nicknamed Ogar").

Karamzins (from Kara-Murza, a Crimean), Almazovs (from Almazy, named Erifei by baptism, he came from the Horde in 1638), Urusovs, Tukhachevskys (their ancestor in Russia was Indris, a native of the Golden Horde), Kozhevnikovs (coming from Murza Kozhaya, since 1509 in Russia), Bykovs, Ievlevs, Kobyakovs, Shubins, Taneevs, Shuklins, Timiryazevs (there was such Ibragim Timiryazev, who came to Russia in 1408 from the Golden Horde).

Chaadaevs, Tarakanovs... and it will take a long time to continue. Dozens of so-called "Russian clans" were founded by the Tatars.

The Moscow bureaucracy grew. Power was gathering in her hands, Moscow really did not have enough educated people. Is it any wonder that the Tatars also became carriers of more than three hundred simple Russian surnames. In Russia, at least half of the Russians are genetic Tatars.

In the 18th century, the rulers of Russia tailored the current ethnographic map, tailored it in their own way, as they wanted: they recorded entire provinces as "Slavic". So Russia became the one about which the Kipchak from the Tukhum (clan) Turgen said: "Russia is thousands of miles around."

Then, in the XVIII century - only two hundred years ago - the inhabitants of Tambov, Tula, Oryol, Ryazan, Bryansk, Voronezh, Saratov and other regions were called "Tatars". This is the former population of the Golden Horde. Therefore, the ancient cemeteries in Ryazan, Orel or Tula are still called Tatar.

Defenders of the Fatherland

Tatar warriors honestly served Russia. “Be not only the son of your father, but also be the son of your Fatherland,” says a Tatar folk proverb. The fact that Tatars and Russians supposedly always opposed each other religiously is a myth invented by our common enemies. During the war of 1812, 28 Tatar-Bashkir regiments were formed in the Kazan province. It was these regiments under the command of Kutuzov's son-in-law, the Tatar prince Kudashev, an active participant in the Battle of Borodino, that terrified the Napoleonic soldiers. The Tatar regiments, together with the Russian people, liberated the European peoples from the occupation of the Napoleonic troops.

In the army, due to the national and religious characteristics of the Tatars, a number of indulgences were made, based on respect for the religion they professed. The Tatars were not given pork, they were not subjected to corporal punishment, they were not drilled. In the Navy, Russian sailors were given a glass of vodka, and Tatars - for the same amount - tea and sweets. They were not forbidden to bathe several times a day, as is customary among Muslims before each prayer. Their colleagues were strictly forbidden to mock the Tatars and say bad things about Islam.

Great scientists and writers

Tatars faithfully served the Fatherland, not only fighting for it in countless wars. In peaceful life, they gave him many famous people - scientists, writers, artists. Suffice it to name such scientists as Mendeleev, Mechnikov, Pavlov and Timiryazev, researchers of the North Chelyuskin and Chirikov. In literature, these are Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Yazykov, Bulgakov, Kuprin. In the field of art - ballerinas Anna Pavlova, Galina Ulanova, Olga Spesivtseva, Rudolf Nureyev, as well as composers Skryabin and Taneyev. All of them are Russians of Tatar origin.