How did the Tatars appear? Origin of the Tatar people. History of the origin of the Tatars

“Scratch any Russian, you will find a Tatar there,” says a popular saying, hinting at a 300-year-old Tatar-Mongol yoke, who ruled Russia. But what's interesting is genetic research recent years have shown that there are practically no Asian or Ural markers in the Russian gene pool. Either the yoke was somehow unreal, or the Tatars did not come to Rus' from Mongolia at all. What kind of mysterious people are these and why is the origin of the second largest ethnic group in Russia the subject of fierce debate among numerous scientists for many years?

Descendants of the Bulgarians

Today there are three theories about the origin of the Tatar people. And they all absolutely exclude each other, while each having their own armies of fans. Some historians identify the Kazan Tatars with those Mongol-Tatars who conquered Rus' and other countries in the 13th century of Eastern Europe. Other historians argue that the current Tatars are a conglomerate of Turko-Finnish tribes of the Middle Volga region and the Mongol 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 last theory has the most evidence. In the 19th century, the Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedia wrote: “The Volga Bulgars are a people of Turkic origin, which was later joined by Finnish and even Slavic elements. From these three elements along the Volga and Kama a powerful and cultural state was formed. Until the 10th century, the dominant religion of 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 “Bulgar”, from which “Bulgar”, “Balkar”, “Malkar”, etc. is derived, is unknown. Existing interpretations of the etymology of this word are very 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 “person”, “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 the days when they lived in the North Caucasus, the Azov region, and the Don region. It was 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 brought this name to the banks of the Kama, to the Middle Volga region, which, as a self-name, remained there for many hundreds of years and lives in the minds of the people to this day, even despite the persistent desire to call them Tatars for more than 500 years. In the middle of the last century, Soviet scientists, based on an analysis of numerous archaeological monuments, 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 Mongol admixture, “that the Mongols, having passed 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 language of the Bulgars. Outstanding Turkic 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 Bulgarian principality, did not leave here, was not exterminated by anyone and lives to this day; we can truly say with confidence that ethnic composition The Tatars are made up of the ancient Bulgars, who included new elements that were still poorly examined, and only later received the name Tatars.” So almost 100 years ago, scientists were inclined to believe that 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 had been resolved at all levels and aspects, and in the future the incorrect use of this ethnonym would be forever put an end to. However, the habitual 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. “But 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 derive the etymology of this word from “mountain resident,” where “tat” supposedly means “mountain,” and “ar” means “resident.” With this etymology, it seems that the ethnonym “Tatar” is of Turkic origin. There are attempts to explain the etymology of “Tatars” from the Tungusic word “ta-ta” in the meaning of “archer”, “drag”, “pull”. IN Greek mythology“tartar” means “other world, hell”, and “tartar” means “inhabitant of hell, underground kingdom" Western European peoples perceive the name “Tatars” precisely in the sense of “Tartar”. Many authors trace the origin of the word “Tatar” to 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 and barbarians. Later, Chinese historians extended this name, which they presented as barbaric, 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 the contemptuous “barbarians”, “savages”, penetrated into Arab and Persian sources, and then into Europe. Genghis Khan, for the insults inflicted on his Tatami tribe, stated: “For a long time, the Tatar people destroyed our fathers and grandfathers. We will take revenge for our fathers and grandfathers.” And gathering all his strength, he physically destroyed this tribe. Soviet historian-Mongolian E.I. In this regard, Kychanov writes: “This is how the Tatar tribe perished, which, even before the rise of the Mongols, gave its name as a common noun to all Tatar-Mongol tribes. And when in distant auls and villages in the West, twenty to thirty years after that massacre, alarming cries of “Tatars!” were heard, there were few real Tatars among the advancing 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 become so widespread in Asia and Europe, right up to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, that such administrative measures could not erase it from the memory of peoples.

Great and terrible

The Mongol Empire collapsed in the 15th century, but Western historians and Jesuit missionaries, even in the 18th century, continued to call all eastern peoples “Tartars,” “spreading 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, and painted them as bow-legged and cannibals. In medieval Western European literature, Russians were identified with the Tatars, and Muscovy was simultaneously called “Tartaria.” In such “favorable” conditions, it was not difficult for priests, official ideologists and historians to present the Tatars as barbarians, savages, descendants of the Mongol conquerors, which led to confusion in one name various peoples. The consequence of this is, first of all, a distorted idea of ​​the origin of modern Tatars. All that has been said, ultimately, 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 when did their language become Tatar? In Rus', and after the annexation of the Kazan Khanate, their inhabitants were known for a long time as Bulgars or were called Kazanians, clearly distinguished from the “Tatars.” From time immemorial, friendly, good neighborly relations, relations of mutual assistance and support existed between the Kazan Bulgars and the Russians. The chronicles tell that in the hungry, lean years in Rus', the Bulgars always rushed to help their neighbors - they brought Bulgar bread to the starving Russian people on dozens of ships, Bulgar craftsmen built wonderful buildings and churches in Russian cities. But at moments of aggravation of relations between the authorities of Kazan and Moscow, Russian princes and churchmen began to call Kazan residents “Tatars,” thereby expressing their dissatisfaction with them. The Kazan people did not agree to voluntary Christianization and, after the liquidation of their state independence, stubbornly resisted the assimilationist policy for centuries. Under these conditions, in addition to the widespread accusation of pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism on the Tatars, Kazan residents are beginning to be portrayed as the descendants of the Mongol conquerors, the former Mongol hordes that ravaged the Russian lands and kept the people oppressed for hundreds of years. In retrospect, the Polovtsians, who inhabited the southern Russian steppes and part of Kievan Rus even before the invasion of the Mongols, who fought hand in hand with the Russians against the Mongol conquerors, were also included in the “Tatars.”

Modern genetic data characterizing the populations of Eurasia have shown that the presence of any characteristics among the Tatars that could be attributed to traces of " titular nation» Golden Horde, not identified. According to genetic data, Tatars as a whole are a typical population 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 formation of Eastern Europe that did not have a noticeable influence 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 origins of the Tatars, we can conclude that the thoroughly complicated history of this people can present many more amazing discoveries.

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Scratch a Tatar and you will find a Russian
Multinational Russia

There are many stranger nations in our country. It is not right. We should not be strangers to each other. I'll start with Tatars are the second largest ethnic group in Russia, there are almost 6 million of them.

Still from the film "Mongol"

At the beginning of the 13th 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, Moscow 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 emergence of the Ulus Jochi on the banks of the Volga was an important milestone in the history of the Tatars. During the era of Genghisids, Tatar history became truly global. The system has reached perfection government controlled and finance, postal (Yamskaya) service, inherited by Moscow. More than 150 cities arose where the endless Polovtsian steppes recently stretched. Their names alone sound like 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.

During the era of the Golden Horde, there was a huge potential for reproduction Tatar culture. But the Kazan Khanate continued this path for the most part 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. Situated on the banks of the Volga, among dense forests The Muslim state was a curious phenomenon. As a state entity, the Kazan Khanate arose in the 30s of the 15th century and during the short period of its existence managed to demonstrate its cultural identity in the Islamic world.

The 120-year neighborhood between Moscow and Kazan was marked by 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.

August 20, 1552 50,000th Russian army camped under the walls of Kazan. The city was defended by 35 thousand selected soldiers. About ten thousand more Tatar horsemen were hiding in the surrounding forests and alarming the Russians with sudden raids from the rear.

The siege of Kazan lasted five weeks. After the sudden attacks of the Tatars from the direction of the forest, the cold autumn rains annoyed the Russian army most of all. The thoroughly wet warriors even thought that the bad weather was being sent to them by Kazan sorcerers, who, according to the testimony of Prince Kurbsky, went out onto the wall at sunrise and performed all sorts of spells. All this time, a tunnel was being built under one of the Kazan towers. On the night of October 1, the work was completed. 48 barrels of gunpowder were placed in the tunnel. At dawn there was a monstrous explosion. It was terrible to see, the chronicler wrote, many tortured corpses and mutilated people flying in the air at a terrible height.

The Russian army rushed to attack. The royal banners were already fluttering on the city walls when Ivan the Terrible himself rode up to the city with his guards regiments. The presence of the Tsar gave new strength to the Moscow warriors. Despite the desperate resistance of the Tatars, Kazan fell a few hours later. There were so many killed on both sides that in some places the piles of bodies lay level with the city walls.

The death of the Kazan Khanate, of course, did not mean the death of the Tatar people. On the contrary, it is

As a part of Russia, in fact, the Tatar nation emerged, which finally received its truly national-state formation - the Republic of Tatarstan.

Ivan the Terrible's Moscow seemed to Western Europeans to be an Asian city not only for its unusual architecture and buildings, but also for the number of Muslims living in it. One English traveler, who visited Moscow in 1557 and was invited to the royal feast, noted that the tsar himself sat at the first table with his sons and the Kazan kings, at the second table sat Metropolitan Macarius with the Orthodox clergy, and the third table was entirely allocated to the Circassian princes. In addition, another two thousand noble Tatars were feasting in other chambers. They were not given the last place in the government service. Subsequently, the Tatar clans gave Russia a huge number of intellectuals, prominent military and social and political figures.

Over the centuries, the culture of the Tatars was also absorbed by Russia, and now many native Tatar words, household items, and culinary dishes have entered the consciousness of Russian people as if they were their own. According to Valishevsky, when going out into the street, a Russian person put on a shoe, an army coat, a zipun, a caftan, a bashlyk, and a cap. In a fight, he used his fist. Being a judge, he ordered to put shackles on the convicted person and give him a whip. Setting off on a long journey, he sat in the sleigh with the coachman. And getting up from the mail sleigh, he went into a tavern, which replaced the ancient Russian tavern.

After the capture of Kazan in 1552, the culture of the Tatar people was preserved, first of all, thanks to Islam. Islam (in its Sunni version) is the traditional religion of the Tatars. The exception is a small group of them, which was converted to Orthodoxy in the 16th-18th centuries. 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 the “Islamic revolution” of Khan Uzbek, who in early XIV century made Islam the state religion of the Golden Horde (by the way, contrary to the laws of Genghis Khan on the equality of religions). As a result, the Kazan Khanate became the northernmost stronghold of world Islam.

In Russian-Tatar history there was a sad period of acute religious confrontation. The first decades after the capture of Kazan were marked by persecution of Islam and the forced introduction of Christianity among the Tatars. Only the reforms of Catherine II fully legalized the Muslim clergy. In 1788, the Orenburg Spiritual Assembly was opened - a governing body of Muslims, with its center in Ufa.

But what can be said about the “orphan of Kazan” or about uninvited guests? Russians have long said that “the old proverb is said for a reason” and therefore “there is no trial or punishment for the proverb.” Silencing inconvenient proverbs is not the best way to achieve interethnic understanding.

So, " Dictionary Russian language" Ushakova explains the origin of the expression "Kazan orphan" as follows. Initially, this was said “about the Tatar mirzas (princes), who, after the conquest of the Kazan Khanate by Ivan the Terrible, tried to receive all kinds of concessions from the Russian tsars, complaining about their bitter fate.”

Indeed, the Moscow sovereigns considered it their duty to win over the Tatar Murzas, especially if they decided to change their faith. According to documents, such “Kazan orphans” received about a thousand rubles in annual salaries. Whereas, for example, a Russian doctor was entitled to only 30 rubles a year. Naturally, this state of affairs gave rise to envy among Russian service people. Later, the idiom “Kazan orphan” lost its historical and ethnic connotation - this is how they began to talk about anyone who just pretends to be unhappy, trying to evoke sympathy.

Now about the Tatar and the guest: which of them is “worse” and which is “better”. The Tatars of the Golden Horde, if they happened to come to a subordinate country, behaved in it like gentlemen. Our chronicles are full of stories about oppression by the Tatar Baskaks and the greed of the Khan's courtiers. It was then that they began to say: “A guest in the yard - and trouble in the yard”; “And the guests did not know how the owner was tied up”; “The edge is not big, but the devil brings a guest and takes away the last one.” Well, and - “an uninvited guest is worse than a Tatar.” When times changed, the Tatars, in turn, learned what the Russian “uninvited guest” was like. The Tatars also have a lot of 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.

It is well known that the conceptual apparatus is the main language of any science, as well as a means of reflecting the level of development of the science itself. Since such concepts as people, nationality, nation, ethnic group, diaspora are applied to the Tatars in science, let us pay attention here to the interpretation of their content, then we will give an explanation of our own position.

The concept of people has several aspects. One of them is based on the general civil community and refers to the concept of “population of the country” (or territory, for example, the people of Tatarstan, Tatarstan people, Tatar people).

Another meaning of this concept is synonymous with ethnic group or nationality (for example, Kazakhs, Tatars, Russians, etc.). IN in this case Tatar people are a group of people who share common name and elements of culture, has an idea of ​​common origin, common historical memory

and associates itself with a certain territory, has a feeling of solidarity.

There is no scientific definition of the term “nationality” in Western scientific literature. K. Marx, F. Engels and V. Lenin considered this category rather ambiguous and did not give its exact definition. Soviet scientists identified 2 types of ethnic communities: “demos” and “nationality”. During the period of perestroika, they again put forward nationality as one of the main types of ethnos, which is formed as a result of the decomposition of tribal relations on the basis of a common language, territory and a developing commonality of economic life and culture. Judging by individual publications, nationalities still exist today. According to a number of scientists, the Republic of Kazakhstan, formed in December 1991, is home to more than 30 nationalities, usually numbering up to 100 thousand people. These are Avars, Balkars, Dungans, Karachais, Kumyks, Laks, Lezgins, Tabasarans, Gypsies, etc. . The number of Tatars in Kazakhstan is over 248 thousand people, and therefore we do not classify them as nationalities. The term "

nation "was used in ancient and medieval times. Then it meant large groups of people connected by common origin, as well as economic and political interests. After the Great French Revolution, the definition of a nation was given by E. Renan. " Nation people to live together, preserve the inheritance received from previous generations, and strive for a common goal.” At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. 2 more theories of the nation were put forward. The Austrian O. Bauer considered the nation “a community of culture and character that arose on the basis of a common destiny.” Researcher K. Kautsky considered language and territory to be the main characteristics of a nation. V. Lenin criticized the theory of O. Bauer and gave preference to the theory of K. Kautsky. At the same time, V. Lenin never fully defined the term “nation”. In the Soviet historical science The definition of “nation” given by J.V. Stalin was established. He believed that a nation is formed “... on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life and psychological makeup, manifested in a common culture.” But since the mid-80s of the twentieth century. Scientists began to criticize and clarify this definition. They began to pay more attention to the social and ethnosocial characteristics of the nation, distinguishing it from the nationality that historically preceded it. IN Lately

The theory of the nation has spread among political scientists and social scientists, according to which it is a type of ethnic group characteristic only of a developed society. Ethnicity is a word of Greek origin.

Literally translated it means: in the singular - “tribe, people”; in the plural - “tribes”, peoples.” Any ethnic group has its own ethnic core - that part of the people that lives compactly in the territory where the nation was born. But an ethnos, as a rule, has other constituent groups of people who, for various reasons, do not live on the territory of their people. Such ethnic groups in the literature are presented either as the ethnic periphery of a particular people, or as an ethnic diaspora. Diaspora is a word of Greek origin.

Literally translated it means “scattering”, i.e. settlement of people, applied to peoples from the 6th century. BC. Diaspora is those parts of the people who live outside the birth of their own people, outside their historical homeland. This was the original interpretation for many centuries of the meaning of the word “diaspora”. In 1992 N.A. Pecherskikh in the article “ Diaspora and ethnogenesis"

Close in meaning to the judgments about classical diasporas given in the article by N.A. Pecherskikh, a definition was found in the work of Doctor of Sciences G.M. Mendikulova. In its formulation, a diaspora is “an ethnic minority group that has migrated, lives and operates in its host country, but also has strong sentimental and material ties to its party of origin.” The diaspora, according to G.M. Mendikulova, is created by migrants who have changed their place of residence permanently or temporarily, but for a sufficiently long period.

Victor Shnirelman in 1999, in the article “Myths of the Diaspora,” argues that the diaspora is “not any resettlement outside the original ethnic area, but only what happened forcedly, under the pressure of some unfavorable circumstances (war, famine, forced deportation, etc.)". We partly agree that representatives of the Tatar diaspora left their native land in search of a better life, hiding from the tsarist authorities. But what about the Tatars who came to Kazakhstan in Soviet times at the call of the party and Komsomol to participate in the construction of industrial enterprises and the development of virgin lands? Many of them remained on the hospitable Kazakh land, finding their second homeland here. In our opinion, taking into account only the unfavorable circumstances of the resettlement of a people to the territory of another state in this case will not be entirely accurate.

Having analyzed the views of the above-mentioned scientists, we believe that the diaspora is a national minority formed on the territory of another state (union republic) as a result of population migration, not necessarily caused by negative living conditions in its historical homeland. As part of the Soviet Union, which united 15 union republics, the Tatars living on the territory of the KazSSR were an internal diaspora in relation to the Tatars of the Russian Federation. But after the collapse of the USSR and with the formation of the independent Republic of Kazakhstan, the Tatar diaspora living on its territory is now an external diaspora in relation to the Tatars of Russia.

Based on the above definitions, we also believe that the concept of “Tatar diaspora” relates mainly to countries of the near and far abroad, i.e. and to Kazakhstan too. But in relation to the Saratov, Astrakhan, Volgograd, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod regions and

In Siberia, this concept cannot be used, since in these regions the Tatars are the indigenous inhabitants.

Summarizing everything that has been said about the concepts applied to the internal gradation of any people, we emphasize: of all the definitions on this matter, the least controversial today are those that reveal the essence of the concepts “ethnicity” and “diaspora”.

The history of the ethnogenesis of any people is inseparable from the etymology of its ethnonym. The question of the origin of the ethnonym “Tatars” has been considered more than once in pre-Soviet and Soviet historiography. Even scientists of the pre-revolutionary period P. Rychkov, V. Grigoriev, G. Alisov, outstanding Russian historians N.M. Karamzin, S.M. Soloviev and V.O. Klyuchevsky wrote that the Bulgar people were called Tatars as a result of a historical misunderstanding. The Russian revolutionary-democrat N.G. Chernyshevsky, who knew the Tatar language well, studied the history of the Tatar people in their native language. As a result, he came to the conclusion that the descendants of those tribes who lived on the territory of the Crimean, Kazan, As-trakhan and Siberian khanates were conquered by Batu just like the Russians, and that the Tatars are Bulgars and it is wrong to mix them with the Mongols.

This opinion was also expressed by foreign scientists - Sigismund Herberstein (XVI century), Adam Olearius (XVII century) and Alexander Humboldt (XIX century).

In Soviet times, the question of the etymology of the name of the people “Tatars” was more than once brought up for discussion by scientists - historians and linguists. In April 1946, at a scientific session at the USSR Academy of Sciences, the issue of the ethnogenesis of the peoples of the USSR, incl. and Tatars. The result of the discussion among scientists was the idea that modern Tatars have nothing to do with the Mongols. They are direct descendants of the Bulgars. And the ethnonym “Tatars” in relation to them is a mistake.

IN last years This question has also been raised more than once by scientists. Their views on the origin of the name of the people “Tatars” are different.

Some believe that the word “tat” is a mountain, and ar means inhabitants, which means Tatars are inhabitants of mountains (A. Sukharev), others translate the word “tat-dat-yat” as alien, and “er-ar- ir" - "person", people, i.e. strangers, people of another tribe. Some derive this word from "tepter" (Persian word defter), which means "written down in a list", i.e. colonist (O. Belozerskaya). There are attempts to explain the origin of the name of the people “Tatars” from the Tungusic word ta-ta, which means “archery”, pull.

And yet, some scientists believe that there is nothing in common in the etymology of the words “Tatar”, “tiptyar” and “ta-ta”. Most scholars agree that the word “Tatar” comes from the Chinese word ta-ta or da-da. And since some Chinese tribes had a sonorant sound “r”, they pronounced this word as “tar-tar” or “ta-tar”. The Chinese used this word to describe the warlike tribes that lived north of their territory.

Of all the tribal names of the Mongols who participated in Batu’s campaigns against Russia and Europe, as the Kazakh scientist M. Tynyshpayev argued (in the 20s of the 20th century), the word “Tatar” was etched into the memory of Europeans, which they converted into “Tartar”. From here a legend spread across Europe that the terrible Mongols with their flat faces and narrow eyes came from Tartarus, the underground kingdom. And with the light hand of the French king, this name lasted in Europe until the 17th century. .

The Mongols themselves did not accept the name “Tatars”, placing themselves above others. Eyewitnesses testify to this in their memoirs: the Hungarian missionary monk Julian and the Flemish traveler Guillaume Rubruk, who personally visited the Mongol Empire.

As a result of the collapse of the Mongol Empire under Khan Berke (1255-1266), the Golden Horde became an independent state. The main population of the Khanate were Bulgars, Khazars, Kipchaks and other Turks. And only the khans and part of the aristocracy were Mongols. Due to the fact that the main inhabitants of the Khanate were Turks, in the first part of the name of the state they used the word Turko-... And due to the fact that the ancestor Great Empire was from the clan of Kara-Tatars, then in the second part of the name of the Khanate of the Golden Horde they used the word “Tatar” or “Mongolian”. Thus, the name of the dynasty passed on to the name of the people of the Golden Horde.

After the collapse of the Golden Horde, the feudal elite, military service groups and the bureaucratic class, who came mainly from the Golden Horde Tatars of Kipchak-Nogai origin, began to call themselves Tatars. It was they who played a significant role in the spread of the ethnonym “Tatars”. After the fall of the khanates, this term was gradually transferred from the feudal elite to the common people. But this term was difficult to establish, since it was unpopular among the Golden Horde themselves. The Russians began to call the population of the Volga-Kama region Tatars after the brilliant victories of the Kazan Khanate over them. Thus, the Kazan Tatars overshadowed the Tatars of the Golden Horde, and the Russians transferred their previous attitude towards it to the Kazan Khanate and its population. Kazan residents considered this name an offensive nickname. From the XVIII-XIX centuries. in Russian and Western European sources almost everyone was called Tatars non-Russian peoples

, who lived in the East of the Russian Empire. Professor Vambery in the “History of Bukhara” at the beginning of the twentieth century. called Tatars and Turkestanis. Without reason, the Russians called the Altai Turks, who had no connections with the Tatars, Tatars. Thus, they expressed their disdain for all the peoples living to the east of them. In the second half of the 15th century. along with the ethnonym " Tatars "the name of the people was often used. « "Bulgars" and "Bessermen"» — « Bessermen Busurmans

" is a distorted form of the word Muslim-mane, since the Tatars were of the Muslim faith. In Tatar sources of that time, Tatars were often called “Muslims,” but this is not an ethnonym, but a kind of religious term used in opposition to non-believers.

In the Volga-Ural region, the Finnish tribes living there continued to call the Tatars “Bulgars,” the Mari “Suas,” and the Votyags “Bigers,” i.e., Bulgarians. Until the second half XIX century among the Volga Tatars, numerous local ethnonyms still functioned: among the Volga-Ural Tatars - Misher, Tipter, Kereshen, Nagaybek, etc.; among the Astrakhan Tatars - yurt tatarlary, iugai, karagash, etc.; at— seber tatarlary (seberek), tobollyk turaly, bokharly, etc.; among the Crimean Tatars - Nugai, Tat, Crimea Tatarlars (Krymly); Lithuanian Tatars have Lithuania Tatarlars, Moslims. And only in the second half of the 19th century, as a result of the growth of national self-awareness and awareness of their unity, there was a rejection of local self-names in the name of acquiring a common ethnonym “Tatars”. This ethnonym was the most common, and therefore was taken as a basis. But also at the beginning of the twentieth century. this process was still not completed. Among some of the Siberian Tatars there was an ethnonym “Bukharians”, and among the Astrakhan Tatars - “Nogais”. And among the Volga-Ural Tatars, according to the 1926 population census, 88% of the population of Europe, which was generally considered to be Tatars, considered themselves Tatars. The main reason This was due to the incompleteness of consolidation processes among the Tatars during that period.

In the development of any ethnic group, including the Tatar one, several stages of its ethnogenesis can be distinguished. The first is when the formation of ethnic communities took place under the conditions of a primitive communal system; the second - when, in the conditions of transition from a pre-class society to a class society, the formation of a nationality occurs; and the third - when, in the conditions of a developed class society, as a result of the interaction of several, predominantly established ethnic groups or their parts, the formation of a new community occurs.

The ancestors of modern Turks, including Tatars, are the ancient Turks. Shakarim Kudaiberdiuly, a highly educated person for his time, in his works uses data from Chinese chronicles, the work of scientists V.V. Radlov, N.Ya. Aristov and others. Studying the genealogy of the Türks, he came to the conclusion that the ancestors of the Türks descended from the “So” or “Set” tribe, which subsequently divided into 4 branches. The first branch settled on the river. Kukubandy (in Russian - Koman), the second - in the area between the Apu and Gann (Abakan and Yenisei) rivers, the third - remained on the Chu River, and the fourth settled in the upper reaches of the river. Chu. The Chinese called them tukyu. Having subjugated other tribes, in the 6th century. they created the Turkic Khaganate, which stretched from Altai to Crimea. Over time, the Turkic Kaganate split into Eastern and Western. Alone Turkic tribes submitted to the Eastern Turkic khans, and the Chuys and Teles became subject to the Western Turkic khans and became part of 5 Dulu aimags. The Principality of Bulgaria originated from the Dulo family.

In the VI century. in the Azov region and in the interfluves of the lower reaches of the Volga and Don rivers, a strong alliance of Bulgar tribes was created, whose military campaigns disturbed even the powerful Byzantine Empire. But already in the 1st half of the 7th century. the union fell apart. Part of the Bulgars, under pressure from the Khazars, went to the Danube. Subsequently they gave the name Slavic state

Bulgaria. The other part of the Bulgars went north and occupied the territory of the Middle Volga region and the Caspian region. Mixing with local tribes, they laid the foundation for a new state - Volga Bulgaria.

In addition to the Bulgars (the ethnonym means “river people”), the ancient Kangars - Pechenegs, Huns, Khazars - also took part in the formation of the Tatar people. They also included other ancient Turkic tribes: Chuvash-Vedas, Turkified Mari, Mordovians and Udmurts.

However, special mention must be made of the Tatar component, which came to the Volga from Central Asia along with the Mongols, became part of the Bulgaro-Tatar people, but due to its small numbers was quickly assimilated among the local population. The Tatars belong to the Turkic-speaking group of the Altai family. Turkic people, organized in state uniform

, known 200 years before Christ. Unions of ancient Tatar tribes called “Oguz-Tatars” and “Tokuz-Tatars” are known from Orkhon-Yenisei runic writings on gravestones of the 7th-8th centuries. The Oguz Tatars were first mentioned at the funeral of the founder of the Turkic Khaganate, Bumyn Khagan, and one of his successors, Istemi Khagan, who in the second half of the 7th century. fought battles against the Tyu-Gyu (Turgesh) under the leadership of Ilteris Kagan. All this is written on the monument to the commander - Prince Kul-Tegin, who died in 731. Son of Ilteris Kagan Bilge Kagan in 722-723. waged wars against the Oghuz and Tokuz Tatars. This is known from the inscriptions on the gravestone of Bilge Kagan, brother of Kul-Tegin, who died in 734. In the 8th century. The ancient Tatars were defeated in the war with the Uyghurs. One part of them remained in Central Asia (Chinese sources write about them in the 9th century, calling them “ta-tan” or more “dada”), and the other went to the west, becoming part of the Eastern Turkic Kaganate. In the 8th century the army of this Turkic Khaganate numbered about 30 thousand Tatars.

The northeastern part of modern Mongolia and the adjacent regions of the steppe Transbaikalia were divided between the Tatars and Mongols. Until the 12th century. a whole group of 30 large clans was called Tatars, by this time this nation had strengthened and occupied a dominant position throughout Eastern Mongolia. Therefore, Chinese geographers began to call all Central Asian nomads, including the Mongols, Tatars.

In the Middle Ages, Tatars, as L.N. Gumilev notes, were divided into “white”, “black” and “wild”.

“White” Tatars roamed south of the Gobi Desert and served as border guards there. Most of them were Turkic-speaking Onguts and Mongol-speaking Khitans. “Black” Tatars, including Keraits and Naimans, lived in the Steppe, were engaged in cattle breeding and constantly fought with neighboring tribes. “Wild” Tatars lived by hunting and fishing in Southern Siberia. Between the “black” and “wild” Tatars the Mongols lived as a transitional link between them.

“White” Tatars were more “subtle” in appearance, polite and respected their parents, and they were sincere in their interactions with people. And the “wild” and “black” Tatars had wide faces and large cheekbones. Eyes without eyelashes, sparse beard. In a word, the latter were more Mongoloid in appearance.

The Chinese historian Myn-Gong, who lived in the 13th century, believes that they all spoke different languages: white Tatars - in Turkic, black - in Mongolian, and wild or water Tatars - in Manchurian, which, in our opinion, does not allow us to classify them as one people.

In ancient times, the relationship between the Mongols and the Tatars was complex and over time turned into a blood feud. The reason for this was the death of Yesugei the Bogatura, the father of Genghis, who was killed by the Tatars (however, this issue has not been fully clarified). The “Great Khan” became the blood enemy of the Tatars and constantly sought to destroy, subjugate and assimilate them. Genghis Khan was the leader of the Mongols. Carrying out their plans of conquest, the Mongols included the Tatars in the vanguard and, without sparing them, placed them in the most dangerous places.

The first khan of the Golden Horde was the grandson of Genghis Khan Batu. His 600,000-strong army, with which he came to Eastern Europe, consisted mainly of Turks. And only a 10th part of it is from the Mongols. They included the peoples they conquered into their army and forced them to be called by the hated name “Tatars.”

In subsequent centuries, the national self-awareness of the Bulgaro-Tatars grew. They repeatedly won brilliant victories in wars with Moscow. But numerous wars played a certain role in weakening the Kazan Khanate and disrupting stability in it. In addition, the government of Ivan the Terrible deliberately caused confusion among the Kazan nobility. Suyumbike's proposals for peace did not find support from the Russian principality. As a result, the Kazan Khanate was defeated and in 1552 became part of the Russian Empire. The subsequent Russian policy aimed at destroying the Bulgaro-Tatar people, as well as the forced Christianization of the Tatars, only led to the unification and strengthening of the spirit of the Tatar people. The same thing happened with the Tatars living on the territory of the Astrakhan and Siberian Khanates, which also became part of the Russian state. The Tatar population that survived and did not move from these lands to the east gradually began to restore the economy. Over time, the Russian government began to allow local feudal lords to enter the lower levels civil service, allowed the Bulgaro-Tatars to engage in trade. In conditions of national oppression by Russian feudal lords, the Tatar people managed to preserve their language, their national culture and customs. All this led to the formation of the Tatar nation in the era of the developed and late Middle Ages (at the beginning of the 18th century).

The formation of the Tatar nation begins in the second half of the 19th century, and ends mainly at the beginning of the 20th century, as a result of the consolidation of the Middle Volga - Ural, Astrakhan and Siberian Tatars. Consolidation of these local-territorial groups of Tatars into one nation

occurred due to their early entry into the Russian state, the proximity of ethnic territories, ethnic mixing, linguistic and cultural convergence and the assimilation of a common Tatar identity. The leading position among them, due to their numbers, was occupied by the Middle Volga-Ural Tatars. Some scientists today dispute the identification of the Tatars as a single ethnic group.

Thus, we think that even today there is a process of consolidation of the Tatars of these territories (except for the Crimean Tatars) into a single nation. This process occurs more intensively among the Volga and Siberian Tatars. In general, however, the Tatar nation is a fully formed ethnic group. As for the Crimean Tatars, their consolidation with the Volga Tatars, due to the fact that they live as part of another state, will drag on for a long time.

Let us now turn to the Tatar diasporas. But not to the internal ones (Crimean - in Ukraine, Volga-Siberian - in the Russian Federation), but to the classical ones - external.

Classic Tatar diasporas exist in many countries of the world. According to the Tatar historian D.M. Iskhakov, their number reaches 100 thousand people. According to him, at the beginning of the 90s of the twentieth century. up to 35 thousand people lived in Romania, about 20 thousand people in Turkey (without Crimean Tatars, of whom there are about 1 million), in Poland - 5.5 thousand, in Bulgaria - 5 thousand, in China - 4 .2 thousand, in the USA - about 1 thousand, in Finland - 950 people, in Australia - 0.5 thousand, in Denmark - 150 people, in Sweden - 80 people, in Japan - 30 families. Small groups of Tatars live in Germany, France, Austria, Norway, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Afghanistan, etc. . At the beginning of the new 21st century, according to the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the World Congress of Tatars Rinat Zakirov, the majority of Tatars living abroad still live in countries such as Romania (23 thousand people), Turkey (20 thousand people), China (10 thousand people), Poland (5.5 thousand people), Bulgaria (5 thousand people). In total, more than 67.5 thousand Tatars live in foreign countries, according to the World Congress. Abroad, they live, forming communities, trying to preserve their language and culture, establishing close ties between Tatar communities in different countries and with their compatriots in the former Soviet Union. Foreign diasporas of Tatars were formed in different time. In some countries they are long-time residents, in others they appeared in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The history of the Lithuanian, Polish and Romanian Tatars began in the 14th-15th centuries. At the end of the 14th century. Lithuanian Prince Vytautas invited 600 of the best Tatar warriors from the Golden Horde to join his guard. Detachments of the Tatar cavalry helped the prince win the Battle of Grunwald.

In gratitude for this, Prince Vytautas granted many of them noble titles and lands. By the end of Vytautas’s reign, there were up to 40 thousand Tatar warriors in Lithuania, not counting their families. Then famine and disease in the 30s of the 15th century. forced some of the Tatars to move to Lithuania again. By 1558, the number of Tatars in Lithuania and Poland became more than 200 thousand people. They lived extremely dispersedly and actually did not have a single territory of residence. Over the course of many centuries, the Lithuanian-Polish Tatars lost the Tatar language, but retained their religion—Islam and Tatar ethnic self-identification. They could be classified as a very urbanized group of the population, since 49% of Lithuanian Tatars lived in cities. In the 19th century Tatars lived mainly in the territory of Vilna, Minsk, Slonim, Grodno, Kovno, Podolsk, Volyn, Augustow and Lublin provinces. By the end of the 19th century. The Tatars found themselves on the territory of 3 states - Lithuania, Belarus and Poland. Many of them doubted which group of the population they belonged to: Muslims or gentry. But with the growing interest in their history and culture during the population censuses of the early 20th century. many of them considered themselves Tatars. At the beginning of the 20th century. from 10 to 11 thousand Lithuanian Tatars retained their ethnic self-identification. The number of Lithuanian Tatars at the beginning of the 80s of the XX century. is not known exactly, since this ethnic group was not noted separately in the materials of the 1979 All-Union Population Census. But L.N. Cherenkov in the article “From ethnic history

Lithuanian Tatars” believes that about 7-8 thousand Lithuanian Tatars lived on the territory of the Belarusian SSR and the Lithuanian SSR in the early 80s.

In the 20-30s of the 14th century, partly earlier, a fairly large number of Tatars, having left the Golden Horde, went to Romania through the Moldavian lands.

Over the course of several centuries, the Tatar diaspora was formed in China. Tatar merchants settled in the lands bordering Kazakhstan and traded with China. The entrepreneur and merchant, one of the founders of the Altai Shirkati trading company, Allahyari (Aldagarov) Fatykh (1885-1966), became widely known among them for his assistance in the development of education and culture of the Tatar community of Gulja. Aldagarov Fatykh was the initiator and organizer of the construction of the Tatar town “Nugai Gurd” in the city of Gulja. After the October Revolution, during the civil war, and then in the early 20s and early 30s of the XX century. Together with the Kazakhs, the Tatars also left the Kazakh land. Tatar communities also emerged in the cities of Urumqi and Chuguchak. Tatars also live in other regions of China. At the foot of the Altai Mountains, the former territory of Eastern Turkestan, there is the village of Nugaiskoye, the founders of which a century and a half ago were natives of the Volga-Ural region, who hid here from conscription into the tsarist army. A fairly large group of Tatars lives in Manchuria. The builders of the Chinese Eastern Railway, as well as merchants, founded the Tatar community here. But after the activation of Chinese revolutionary movement

many Tatars left China and settled in Japan, Turkey and other countries. According to the Fourth All-China Population Census of 1990, representatives of 48 nationalities lived on the territory of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which borders 1,718 km with the Republic of Kazakhstan, including about 4 thousand people of Tatar nationality, or 80% of all Tatars of China. The Tatars are not the largest diaspora living on the territory bordering Kazakhstan. In terms of their numbers, they are only in 13th place. According to statistical data from 1998, the number of people of Tatar nationality in Xinjiang remained virtually unchanged (4,668 people), they mainly lived in the Altai District, Changji-Hui Autonomous Region and in the city of Tacheng. The Tatars, like all Chinese citizens, took an active part in the development and formation of the PRC. Thus, Burkhan Shahidi, born in 1894 in Russia, returned with his parents to Xinjiang in 1912. After finishing his studies in Urumqi (Dihua), he worked at customs. In the 30s, Burkhan Shahidi took the post of Chinese consul in the USSR (Zaisan). In the 40s, he was appointed chairman of the government of Xinjiang province. Shahidi died in 1989 in Beijing. After 1905-1907 many Tatar prisoners of war remained in China. Later, as noted above, Tatars from Manchuria moved to Japan and traders of Tatar nationality also settled in the land of the rising sun. The cities of Kobe, Tokyo, and others were places of compact residence of Tatars in Japan.

In 1954, the first Tatar family appeared in Australia (Adelaide). A few years later, at their invitation, other Tatars from China came to Australia.

Tsarist Russia always pursued a policy of pressure on the Muslim population. And after Russian government in 1890, it allowed Muslims to travel abroad, thousands of Tatars from the Volga-Ural region moved to Turkey. At the end of the 20th century. in Turkey there were 6 Tatar villages, a large number of people of Tatar nationality live in the cities of Izmir, Istanbul, Ankara, etc. It was believed that in 1970, 36% of the Tatars living in Turkey were natives of Russia, and 46% of China.

The position of those Tatar diasporas turned out to be very peculiar, various reasons and in different periods stories took shape on the territory of Tsarist Russia, then within the USSR. From a formal point of view, all such Tatar diasporas were internal (created within a single state). But, in essence, most of them (with the exception of the Crimean, Volga-West Siberian) were “classical external” (created outside the territory of birth of their ethnic group). The Kazakh diaspora of the modern Tatar ethnic group, being both an internal and external diaspora within the Russian Empire and the USSR, has undoubtedly become a “classical external diaspora” since December 1991 (since the birth of the sovereign Republic of Kazakhstan). Since 1997, it has acquired that internal gradation into local diasporas, which continue to develop to this day (in the cities of Astana, Almaty, in 14 regions of modern Kazakhstan).

So, the modern Tatar people, having ancient Asian roots in their ancestry, as an ethnos formed on the territory of Eastern Europe and Western Siberia (where the Volga region and the city of Kazan played a special role). Its classic diasporas, which first appeared no later than the 14th century, are now found in many countries of the world, including in sovereign Kazakhstan.

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Tatars are a Turkic people living in the central part of European Russia, as well as in the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia, the Far East, the Crimea, as well as in Kazakhstan, the states of Central Asia and the Chinese Autonomous Republic of Xinjiang. About 5.3 million people of Tatar nationality live in the Russian Federation, which is 4% of the total population of the country; they rank second in number after Russians; 37% of all Tatars in Russia live in the Republic of Tatarstan in the capital of the Volga region federal district with its capital in the city of Kazan and make up the majority (53%) of the republic’s population. The national language is Tatar (group of Altai languages, Turkic group, Kipchak subgroup), has several dialects. The majority of Tatars are Sunni Muslims; there are also Orthodox and those who do not identify themselves with specific religious movements.

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 the Russians only in that they did not have a canopy and the common room was divided into women's and men's halves, 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. Many bright, rich colors and shades were used to decorate the house and surrounding area; the interior rooms were richly decorated with embroidery, since Islam prohibits depicting humans and animals; embroidered towels, bedspreads and other things were mostly 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, marriage and other rituals.

A traditional Tatar wedding is characterized by the obligatory Muslim ritual of Nikah, which takes place at home or in a mosque in the presence of a mullah, festive table consist exclusively of Tatar national dishes: chak-chak, kort, katyk, kosh-tele, peremyachi, kaymak, etc., guests do not eat pork and do not drink alcoholic beverages. The male groom puts on a skullcap, the female bride wears a long dress with closed sleeves, and a scarf is required on her head.

Tatar wedding ceremonies 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 mandatory to have large quantity 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.

Every nation has its own distinctive features, which make it possible to determine a person’s nationality almost without errors. It is worth noting that Asian peoples are very similar to each other, since they are all descendants of the Mongoloid race. How can you identify a Tatar? How do Tatars look different?

Uniqueness

Without a doubt, every person is unique, regardless of nationality. And yet there are some common features, which bring together representatives of a race or nationality. Tatars are usually classified as members of the so-called Altai family. This is a Turkic group. The ancestors of the Tatars were known as farmers. Unlike other representatives of the Mongoloid race, Tatars do not have pronounced appearance features.

The appearance of the Tatars and the changes that are now manifested in them are largely caused by assimilation with Slavic peoples. Indeed, among the Tatars they sometimes find fair-haired, sometimes even red-haired representatives. This, for example, cannot be said about the Uzbeks, Mongols or Tajiks. Do Tatar eyes have any special characteristics? They do not necessarily have narrow eyes and dark skin. Are there any common features of the appearance of Tatars?

Description of the Tatars: a little history

The Tatars are among the most ancient and populous ethnic groups. In the Middle Ages, mentions of them excited everyone around: in the east from the shores of the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic coast. A variety of scientists included references to this people in their works. The mood of these notes was clearly polar: some wrote with rapture and admiration, while other scientists showed fear. But one thing united everyone - no one remained indifferent. It is quite obvious that it was the Tatars who had a huge influence on the course of development of Eurasia. They managed to create a distinctive civilization that influenced a variety of cultures.

The history of the Tatar people has had both ups and downs. Periods of peace were followed by brutal times of bloodshed. The ancestors of modern Tatars took part in the creation of several strong states at once. Despite all the vicissitudes of fate, they managed to preserve both their people and their identity.

Ethnic groups

Thanks to the works of anthropologists, it became known that the ancestors of the Tatars were not only representatives of the Mongoloid race, but also Europeans. It was this factor that determined the diversity in appearance. Moreover, the Tatars themselves are usually divided into groups: Crimean, Ural, Volga-Siberian, South Kama. The Volga-Siberian Tatars, whose facial features have the greatest characteristics of the Mongoloid race, are distinguished by the following characteristics: dark hair, pronounced cheekbones, brown eyes, a wide nose, a fold above the upper eyelid. Representatives of this type are few in number.

The face of the Volga Tatars is oblong, the cheekbones are not too pronounced. The eyes are large and gray (or brown). Nose with a hump, oriental type. The physique is correct. In general, the men of this group are quite tall and hardy. Their skin is not dark. This is the appearance of the Tatars from the Volga region.

Kazan Tatars: appearance and customs

The appearance of the Kazan Tatars is described as follows: a strongly built, strong man. The Mongols have a wide oval face and a slightly narrowed eye shape. The neck is short and strong. Men rarely wear a thick beard. Such features are explained by the fusion of Tatar blood with various Finnish nationalities.

The marriage ceremony is not like a religious event. From religiosity - only reading the first chapter of the Koran and a special prayer. After marriage, a young girl does not immediately move into her husband’s house: she will live with her family for another year. It is curious that her newly-made husband comes to her as a guest. Tatar girls are ready to wait for their lover.

Only a few have two wives. And in cases where this happens, there are reasons: for example, when the first one is already old, and the second one, younger, now runs the household.

The most common Tatars are of the European type - owners of light brown hair and light eyes. The nose is narrow, aquiline or hump-shaped. Height is short - women are about 165 cm.

Peculiarities

Some features were noticed in the character of a Tatar man: hard work, cleanliness and hospitality border on stubbornness, pride and indifference. Respect for elders is what especially distinguishes the Tatars. It was noted that representatives of this people tend to be guided by reason, adapt to the situation, and are law-abiding. In general, the synthesis of all these qualities, especially hard work and perseverance, makes a Tatar man very purposeful. Such people are able to achieve success in their careers. They finish their work and have a habit of getting their way.

A purebred Tatar strives to acquire new knowledge, showing enviable perseverance and responsibility. Crimean Tatars have a special indifference and calmness in stressful situations. Tatars are very curious and talkative, but during work they remain stubbornly silent, apparently so as not to lose concentration.

One of the characteristic features is self-esteem. It manifests itself in the fact that the Tatar considers himself special. As a result, there is a certain arrogance and even arrogance.

Cleanliness sets Tatars apart. They do not tolerate disorder and dirt in their homes. Moreover, this does not depend on financial capabilities - both rich and poor Tatars zealously monitor cleanliness.

My home is your home

Tatars are very hospitable people. We are ready to host a person, regardless of his status, faith or nationality. Even with modest incomes, they show warm hospitality, ready to share a modest dinner with a guest.

Tatar women are distinguished by their great curiosity. They are attracted to beautiful clothes, they watch with interest people of other nationalities and follow fashion. Tatar women are very attached to their home and devote themselves to raising children.

Tatar women

What an amazing creation - Tatar woman! In her heart lies immeasurable, deepest love for her loved ones, for her children. Its purpose is to bring peace to people, to serve as a model of peacefulness and morality. A Tatar woman is distinguished by a sense of harmony and special musicality. She radiates a certain spirituality and nobility of soul. Inner world Tatars are full of riches!

Tatar girls from a young age are aimed at a strong, long-lasting marriage. After all, they want to love their husband and raise future children behind solid walls of reliability and trust. No wonder the Tatar proverb says: “A woman without a husband is like a horse without a bridle!” Her husband’s word is law for her. Although witty Tatar women complement - for any law, however, there is an amendment! And yet these are devoted women who sacredly honor traditions and customs. However, don’t expect to see a Tatar woman in a black burqa - this is a stylish lady who has a sense of self-esteem.

The appearance of the Tatars is very well-groomed. Fashionistas have stylized items in their wardrobe that highlight their nationality. For example, there are shoes that imitate chitek - national leather boots worn by Tatar girls. Another example is appliques, where patterns convey the stunning beauty of the earth's flora.

What's on the table?

A Tatar woman is a wonderful hostess, loving and hospitable. By the way, a little about the kitchen. The national cuisine of the Tatars is quite predictable in that the basis of the main dishes is often dough and fat. Even a lot of dough, a lot of fat! Of course, this is far from the healthiest diet, although guests are usually offered exotic dishes: kazylyk (or dried horse meat), gubadia (a layer cake with a wide variety of fillings, from cottage cheese to meat), talkysh-kalev (an incredibly high-calorie dessert from flour, butter and honey). You can wash down all this rich treat with ayran (a mixture of katyk and water) or traditional tea.

Like Tatar men, women are distinguished by their determination and perseverance in achieving their goals. Overcoming difficulties, they show ingenuity and resourcefulness. All this is complemented by great modesty, generosity and kindness. Truly, a Tatar woman is a wonderful gift from above!