A message on the topic of the Bashkir people. The Bashkirs are closer to the Khanty and Proto-Hungarians, the Tatars are closer to the Europeans

Bashkirs, Bashkort (self-name), people in Russia, indigenous population of Bashkiria (Bashkortostan). There are over 30 versions of the origin of the ethnonym Bashkort. Many researchers consider the ethnonym as a word consisting of two Turkic stems: bash - “head”, “chief”, “leader” + court, kurt “wolf”, i.e. bash kurt - “wolf leader” - like the totem of the Bashkirs, from which they could get their name. Their habitat is fragmented. In most regions of Bashkiria they live mixed with Tatars and Russians. The highest percentage of the Bashkir population is in the northeastern and eastern regions of the republic. They also live in the Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Perm, Sverdlovsk, Kurgan, and Tyumen regions. Most of the Bashkirs of the Chelyabinsk region live in the Argayashsky and Kunashaksky districts.

Studying the geography, origin, anthropological characteristics, economic traditions and culture of this people is important, because 4.6 percent of the population of our region are Bashkirs.

The long life together of the Bashkirs with the Russians had a great influence on their economy and life. The rural settlements of the Bashkirs are almost no different from the Russians: the same log houses under a plank or iron roof, forming wide streets; almost the same internal structure of the house with modern furniture.

Geography: place of origin and habitat

Bashkirs (self-name Bashkort), indigenous people of the Republic of Bashkortostan. Number according to the 1989 census, in the republic 863.8 thousand people, in the Russian Federation - 1345.3 thousand, in the former USSR - 1449.2 thousand.

Territorial groups of Bashkirs (their settlement coincides with the borders of the historical and ethnographic regions of Bashkiria):

1) southeastern;

2) north-eastern with subgroups: northern (Aisk-Yuryuzan), Trans-Ural and mountainous;

3) southwestern with subgroups: Dem and southern (Orenburg, Saratov and Samara Bashkirs);

4) northwestern with subgroups: northern, Nizhny Belsky and Iksky.

The first mentions of the ethnonym in the form “Bashgird”, “Bashkird”, “Bashjirt”, “Bajgar” were recorded in the 1st half of the 9th century during Sallam Tarjeman’s trip to the country of the Bashkirs, also mentioned in the stories of Masudi (10th century) and Gardizi (11th century). century). By the turn of the 9th-10th centuries. The information from al-Balkhi and Ibn-Rust dates back to the beginning of the 10th century. – Ibn Fadlan, by the 13th-14th centuries. – Plano Carpini (“baskart”), Willem Rubruk (“pascatir”), Rashid ad-din. From the 15th-16th centuries. Mentions of the Bashkirs in Russian sources, mainly chronicles, become regular. Throughout the 18th-20th centuries. About 40 interpretations of the ethnonym “Bashkort” have been put forward. Almost all of them agree that the word is complex and of Turkic origin. The 1st part of the term is interpreted as “head”, “main” (in the form “bash”), “separate”, “isolated” (“bashka”), “gray, gray” (“buz”), and the 2nd part - as “worm”, “bee”, “wolf” (“kort”), “settlement”, “country” (“yort”) or “horde” (“urza”). Nowadays, the point of view has become widespread according to which the word “Bashkort” is etymologized as “wolf-leader”, “wolf-leader”, but it was originally the name of a specific person, the leader of the tribes united under his leadership into a military-political union (an early form of state education), and then became the general name of this association.

On the problem of the ethnogenesis of the Bashkirs, for a long time there were two parallel hypotheses: Ugro-Magyar (V.N. Tatishchev, D. Shletser, D. Mesarosh, S.A. Tokarev and others) and Turkic (V.M. Florinsky, V.V. Velyaminov-Zernov, V.N. Vitevsky, P.S. Nazarov, D.N. Sokolov, S.I. Rudenko). In the 20th century The research of Rudenko, R.G. Kuzeev, N.K. Dmitriev, J.G. Kiekbaev and others substantiates the point of view according to which the Turkic tribes of South Siberian-Central Asian origin played a decisive role in the origin and formation of their ethnocultural appearance with the participation of local (Ural) population: Finno-Ugric (including Ugro-Magyar), Sarmatian-Alan (ancient Iranian). The ancient Turkic ancestors of the Bashkirs, who experienced the influence of the Mongols and Tungus-Manchus in their ancestral home, before coming to the Southern Urals, wandered in the south of Western Siberia, in Kazakhstan, then in the Aral-Syr Darya steppes, coming into contact with the Pecheneg-Oguz and Kimak-Kypchak tribes. From the end of the 9th to the beginning of the 10th century, the Bashkirs lived in the Southern Urals with steppe and forest-steppe spaces adjacent to the West, South and East. From the 9th century The ethnonym “Bashkort” becomes known. According to many researchers, it originates from the name of the military leader Bashgird, known from written sources, under whose leadership the Bashkirs united into a military-political union and then began to develop modern settlement territories. Another name for the Bashkirs (“ishtek” or “istek”) was presumably also an anthroponym. In the Southern Urals, the Bashkirs partly displaced, partly assimilated the aboriginal (Finno-Ugric, Iranian) population, came into contact with the Kama-Volga Bulgarians, settled tribes of the Ural-Volga region and Western Siberia. In the 10th century, Islam began to penetrate the Bashkirs, which became the dominant religion in the 14th century. By the time of the Tatar-Mongol invasion (13th century), the process of formation of the Bashkir ethnic group was basically completed, thanks to which the Bashkirs, under the difficult conditions of the rule of the Golden Horde, retained their ethnocultural identity and ethnic self-awareness.

According to the 1989 All-Union Population Census, 1,345 thousand people live in the Russian Federation. The main ethnic territory of the Bashkirs is the Republic of Bashkortostan with the capital city of Ufa, they also live in other regions: Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Perm, Sverdlovsk, Kurgan, Tyumen, in addition - in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan.

The Chelyabinsk region is the second region in Russia in terms of the number of Bashkirs after Bashkortostan itself: according to the 2002 census, 166 thousand Bashkirs live here, this is 4.6 percent of the region's population. Bashkirs live compactly in Argayashsky, Kunashaksky, Sosnovsky and other districts of the Chelyabinsk region.

Anthropological type of Bashkirs

Anthropology, the science of human origin and evolution, the formation of human races, and variations in human physical structure. Main branches of anthropology: morphology, anthropogenesis, racial studies. Methods of anthropology - anthropooscopy (descriptive technique), anthropometry (measurement technique), craniology (study of the skull), osteology (study of the bone skeleton), odontology (study of the dental system), dermatoglyphics (study of skin relief), plastic reconstruction (reconstruction of a person’s face based on the skull ), blood testing, microanatomy, etc. The study of the anthropological type of Bashkirs began in the 2nd half of the 19th century. The first anthropological work about the Bashkirs, “Anthropological sketch of the Bashkirs,” was written by N.M. Maliev in 1876.

Anthropological types of Bashkirs

Based on a study of 40 Bashkirs of the Ufa province based on 32 characteristics, he identified 2 of their types - forest and steppe, as well as a number of transitional forms and types. The same types were subsequently identified by P.S. Nazarov, D.P. Nikolsky, A.N. Abramov, V.M. Florinsky. In 1912-13 S.I. Rudenko, based on anthropological measurements of 1847 people, identified three regions on the territory of Bashkiria: eastern, northwestern and southwestern, the population of which is sharply different from each other. He considered the original type of Bashkirs to be the ancient Caucasian population of the Southern Urals at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. In 1928, Rudenko organized an expedition for the anthropological study of the Bashkirs and other peoples of the region. The lack of a clear racial classification of the peoples of Russia did not allow the scientist to give their typological characteristics. In 1963-65, M.S. Akimova examined about 1,500 Bashkirs of the republic and the Chelyabinsk region under several programs: anthropometry, dermatoglyphics, blood studies, etc. She identified 4 anthropological types among the Bashkirs: Pontic, or dark-pigmented Caucasoid, South Siberian, Subural and light Caucasian. Akimova considered the most ancient racial types of the local population to be Pontic and Subural, and the most recent was South Siberian, which penetrated into the Southern Urals during the period of the Golden Horde. In the summer of 1983, a Soviet-Finnish medical-anthropological expedition led by prof. A.A. Zubova conducted research on the Bashkirs of the Sterlibashevsky, Arkhangelsk and Ilishevsky districts of the BASSR. In these same districts, craniological materials were obtained about the Bashkirs of the 18th - early. 20th centuries Research has led to the conclusion: the Bashkirs are a mixed-race population. In almost all respects, they occupy an intermediate position between the peoples of the Volga region, Siberia and Altai. The conclusions of Akimova's expedition about the territorial variations of the anthropological type of the Bashkirs were confirmed: the South Siberian racial type is characteristic of the northeastern and trans-Ural regions of the republic, the suburalian - for the northwestern regions, the light Caucasoid - for the northern and central regions, the Pontic - for the southwestern and mountainous regions. forest areas. In addition, in the southeastern regions signs of the Pamir-Fergana racial type can be traced. The heterogeneity of the anthropological composition of the Bashkirs, the presence of similar anthropological types among the surrounding peoples indicate the complexity of the processes of racial genesis in the Southern Urals and the ethnic history of the Bashkir people.

Bashkir language. Morphological and linguistic features.

The Bashkir language belongs to the Kipchak-Bulgar subgroup of the Kipchak group of Turkic languages, which together with the Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu languages ​​form the Altai family. The total number of Bashkirs - native speakers of the Bashkir language (according to the 1989 census) is 1,449,157 people, living in Bashkiria, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Samara, Saratov, Kurgan, Sverdlovsk, Perm, Tyumen regions and the Republic of Tatarstan. Bashkir-speaking diasporas are also represented in Yakutia (Sakha), the Komi Republic, the Chita region, the republics of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, etc.

The Bashkir language was formed as a result of the interaction of many tribal languages ​​(Turkic, Iranian, Finno-Ugric, Mongolian). The vocabulary contains fully assimilated Russian words due to long-standing close communication with Slavs. peoples (“burene” - “log”, “kershek” - “pot”) and Arab. words that penetrated after the adoption of Islam by the Bashkirs (“khalyk” - “people”, “kitap” - “book”, “ezebiet” - “literature”). According to the main lexico-grammatical and phonetic features, the Bashkir language belongs to the Kipchak languages, however, it also has common features with the Oguz languages ​​(the use of words with initial y; the commonality of Dem and other dialects with the Turkmen language in terms of sounds [z, s]). The Bashkir spoken language consists of 3 dialects.

The modern Bashkir literary language has a single standardized system of sounds. Vowels are characterized by the following features: wide back nonlabial – a; wide nonlabial anterior row – e; semi-narrow posterior labials - o, u, s; semi-narrow labials of the anterior row - e, e; narrow labial anterior row – y; narrow nonlabial anterior row – i. Consonants: by method of formation - fricatives (u, f, v, z, s, sh, zh, j, g, F, h), plosives (p, b, t, d, k, k), affricates (ts, h), nasal (m, n), lateral (l), tremulous (r); by place of formation - labial (u, p, b, m, f, c), lingual (s, h, c, n, l, r, w, g, h, j, g, k, k, n), laryngeal (h); according to the acoustic characteristics - noisy (u, f, v, z, s, w, g, j, g, F, h, p, b, t, d, k, k, c, h), sonorous (m, n , l, r).

According to its morphological type, the Bashkir language belongs to the languages ​​of the agglutinative structure, i.e. the nature of lexemes and types of syntactic connections are determined mainly by affixation. The Bashkir root of the word is etymologically monosyllabic; polysyllabic roots appeared only as a result of historical development. Word formation is carried out using synthetic and analytical methods. There are simple and complex sentences. Complex sentences consist of two or more one-part or two-part simple sentences, which are connected to each other by intonation or using conjunctions and allied words.

The Bashkir language, like Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Tatar languages, is one of the ancient written languages. Since the 118th century. Bashkirs used Arabic writing. The earliest written monuments date back to the 14th century. From the mid-16th century, after the annexation of Bashkiria to the Russian state, the language of these monuments served as the official written language. The Bashkir national language was formed at the end of the 19th century. The functions of the Bashkir language in various spheres of people's life were constantly changing depending on socio-historical conditions, the degree of ethnic mixture and general language policy. In Bashkortostan, Bashkir-Russian bilingualism (Bilingualism) has become widely developed.

Traditions of the economic and cultural life of the Bashkirs

The traditional type of economy of the Bashkirs is semi-nomadic cattle breeding (mainly horses, but also sheep, cattle, and camels in the southern and eastern regions). They also engaged in hunting and fishing, beekeeping, and collecting fruits and plant roots. There was agriculture (millet, barley, spelt, wheat, hemp). Agricultural tools - a wooden plow (saban) on wheels, later a plow (khuka), a frame harrow (tyrma).

Since the 17th century, semi-nomadic cattle breeding gradually lost its importance, the role of agriculture increased, and apiary beekeeping developed on the basis of beekeeping. In the northwestern regions, already in the 18th century, agriculture became the main occupation of the population, but in the south and east nomadism survived in some places until the 20th century. However, here too by that time the transition to integrated farming was completed. The plantings of winter rye and industrial crops - flax, are increasing, especially in the northern regions. Vegetable gardening appears. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, factory plows and the first agricultural machines came into use.

Home processing of animal raw materials, hand weaving, and wood processing were developed. The Bashkirs knew the blacksmith's craft, and in some places they mined silver ore; Jewelry was made from silver.

In the first half of the 18th century, industrial exploitation of the region’s ore deposits began; By the end of the 18th century, the Urals became the main center of metallurgy. However, the Bashkirs were mainly employed in auxiliary and seasonal work.

In the modern period, a diversified industry has been created in Bashkiria. Agriculture is complex, agricultural and livestock raising: in the South-East and in the Trans-Urals, horse breeding remains important. Beekeeping is developed.

After joining the Russian state, the social structure of the Bashkirs was determined by the interweaving of commodity-money relations in the remnants of patriarchal tribal life. Based on the tribal division (there were about 40 tribes and tribal groups: Burzyan, Usergan, Tamyan, Yurmat, Tabyn, Kipchak, Katai, Ming, Elan, Yeney, Bulyar, Salyut and others, many of which were fragments of ancient tribal and ethnological associations of the Eurasian steppes) volosts were formed. The volosts, large in size, had some attributes of political organization; were divided into clan divisions that united groups of related families (aimak, tyuba, ara), which inherited from the clan community the customs of exogamy, mutual assistance, and others. The volost was headed by a hereditary (elected after 1736) foreman (biy). In the affairs of volosts and aimaks, the leading role was played by tarkhans (a class exempt from taxes), batyrs, and clergy; The nobility complained to individual families. In 1798-1865 there was a paramilitary cantonal system of government; the Bashkirs were turned into a military service class.

The ancient Bashkirs had a large family community. In the 16th-19th centuries, both large and small families existed in parallel, the latter gradually establishing themselves as predominant. In the inheritance of family property, the minority principle was generally followed. Polygamy existed among the rich Bashkirs. In marriage relations, the customs of liverat and the betrothal of young children were preserved. Marriages were carried out through matchmaking, but bride kidnapping also took place (which exempted the payment of dowry), sometimes by mutual agreement. In wedding rituals, the customs of hiding brides stand out; on the day of the wedding feast (tui), wrestling competitions and horse racing were held in the bride's house. There was a custom for a daughter-in-law to avoid her father-in-law. The family life of the Bashkirs was based on the subordination of elders. Nowadays, especially in cities, family rituals have become simpler. In recent years, there has been some revival of Muslim rituals.

The traditional type of settlement is an aul located on the banks of a river or lake. In conditions of nomadic life, each village had several places of settlement: winter, spring, summer, autumn. Permanent settlements arose with the transition to sedentary life, as a rule, on the sites of winter roads. Initially, a cumulus arrangement of dwellings was common; close relatives settled compactly, often behind a common fence. In the 18th and 19th centuries, street layouts began to predominate, with each kin group forming separate "ends" or streets and neighborhoods.

The traditional dwelling of the Bashkirs is a felt yurt with a prefabricated lattice frame, of the Turkic (with a hemispherical top) or Mongolian (with a conical top) type. In the steppe zone they built adobe, slab, adobe houses, in the forest-steppe zone - log huts with canopies, houses with communications (hut - canopy - hut) and five-walled houses, and occasionally (among the wealthy) cross and two-story houses were found. Conifers, aspen, linden, and oak were used for log houses. Plank sheds, wicker huts, and huts served as temporary dwellings and summer kitchens. The construction technology of the Bashkirs was greatly influenced by the Russians and neighboring peoples of the Ural-Volga region. Bashkirs build modern rural dwellings from logs, using log-timber technology, brick, cinder concrete, and concrete blocks. The interior retains traditional features: division into household and guest halves.

The folk clothing of the Bashkirs combines the traditions of steppe nomads and, in some places, sedentary tribes. The basis of women's clothing was a long dress cut at the waist with frills, an apron, a camisole, decorated with braid and silver coins. Young women wore breast ornaments made of coral and coins. The women's headdress is a cap made of coral mesh with silver pendants and coins, with a long blade going down the back, embroidered with beads and cowrie shells; girlish - a helmet-shaped cap, also covered with coins; caps and scarves were also worn. Young women wore brightly colored head coverings. Outerwear - swinging kaftans and chekmeni made of colored cloth, trimmed with braiding, embroidery, and coins. Jewelry - various kinds of earrings, bracelets, rings, braids, clasps - were made of silver, corals, beads, silver coins, with inserts of turquoise, carnelian, and colored glass.

Men's clothing - shirts and trousers with wide leg, light robes (straight back and flared), camisoles, sheepskin coats. Headdresses - skullcaps, round fur hats, malakhai covering the ears and neck, hats. Women also wore hats made from animal fur. Boots, leather boots, shoe covers, and in the Urals - bast shoes were widespread.

Meat and dairy foods predominated; they consumed products of hunting, fishing, honey, berries and herbs. Traditional dishes are finely chopped horse meat or lamb with broth (bishbarmak, kullama), dried sausage made from horse meat and fat (kazy), various types of cottage cheese, cheese (kori), millet porridge, barley, spelled and wheat groats, oatmeal. Noodles with meat or milk broth and cereal soups are popular. Unleavened bread (flatbread) was consumed in the 18th and 19th centuries. sour bread became widespread, and potatoes and vegetables became part of the diet. Low-alcohol drinks: kumis (made from mare's milk), buza (from sprouted grains of barley, spelt), bal (a relatively strong drink made from honey and sugar); They also drank diluted sour milk ayran.

The main folk holidays were celebrated in spring and summer.

After the arrival of the rooks, a kargatuy (rook festival) was held. On the eve of spring field work, and in some places after it, a plow festival (sabantuy) was held, including a common meal, wrestling, horse racing, running competitions, archery, and competitions with a humorous effect. The holiday was accompanied by prayers at the local cemetery. In the middle of summer, jin (yiyyn) took place, a holiday common to several villages, and in more distant times - volosts, tribes. In the summer, girls’ games take place in the lap of nature, the “cuckoo tea” ritual, in which only women participate. In dry times, they performed a ritual of making rain with sacrifices and prayers. Pouring water on each other.

Song and musical creativity has been developed: epic, lyrical and everyday (ritual, satirical, humorous) songs, ditties (takmak). Various dance melodies. The dances are characterized by narrative, many (“Cuckoo”, “The Crow Pacer”, “Baik”, “Perovsky”) have a complex structure and contain elements of pantomime.

Traditional musical instruments - kurai (a type of pipe), domra, kumyz (kobyz, harp: wooden - in the form of an oblong plate and metal - in the form of a bow with a tongue). In the past, there was a bowed instrument called kyl kumyz.

The Bashkirs retained elements of traditional beliefs: veneration of objects (rivers, lakes, mountains, forests, etc.) and phenomena (winds, snowstorms) of nature, heavenly bodies, animals and birds (bear, wolf, horse, dog, snake, swan, crane, golden eagle, falcon and others; the cult of rooks was associated with the cult of ancestors, dying and reviving nature). Among the numerous host spirits (eye), a special place is occupied by the brownie (yort eyyahe) and the water spirit (hyu eyyahe). The supreme heavenly deity Tenre subsequently merged with the Muslim Allah. The forest spirit shurale and brownie are endowed with the features of Muslim shaitans, Iblis, and genies. The demonic characters bisura and albasty are syncretic. The interweaving of traditions and Muslim beliefs is also observed in rituals, especially homeland and funeral and memorial ones.

Frolova I.V.

List of used literature:

1. Bashkirs: A brief ethnohistorical reference book. Ufa, 1995.
2. Great Soviet Encyclopedia. M., 1970.
3. Ageeva R.A. What kind of tribe are we? M., 2000.
4. Dmitriev N.K. Grammar of the Bashkir language. M.-L., 1948.
5. Kuzeev R.G. Origin of the Bashkir people. M., 1974.
6. Rudenko S.I. Bashkirs: historical and ethnographic essays. M.-L., 1955.
7. Tishkov V.A. Peoples and religions of the world. Encyclopedia. M., 1999.
8. Grammar of the modern Bashkir literary language. Ed. A.A. Yuldasheva. M., 1981.

Bashkirs (Bashk. Bashorttar) are a Turkic-speaking people living on the territory of the Republic of Bashkortostan and the historical region of the same name. Autochthonous (indigenous) people of the Southern Urals and the Urals.

The number in the world is about 2 million people.

According to the 2010 All-Russian Population Census, 1,584,554 Bashkirs live in Russia. The national language is Bashkir.

Traditional religion is Sunni Islam.

Bashkirs

There are several interpretations of the ethnonym Bashҡort:

According to 18th century researchers V.N. Tatishchev, P.I. Rychkov, I.G. Georgi, the word bashort means “main wolf.” In 1847, local historian V.S. Yumatov wrote that bashҡort means “beekeeper, owner of bees.” According to the “Historical Note on the Area of ​​the Former Ufa Province, Where There Was the Center of Ancient Bashkiria,” published in St. Petersburg in 1867, the word bashҡort means “head of the Urals.”

Russian historian and ethnographer A.E. Alektorov in 1885 put forward a version according to which bashҡort means “separate people.” According to D. M. Dunlop (English) Russian. The ethnonym Bashҡort goes back to the forms beshgur, bashgur, that is, “five tribes, five Ugrians.” Since Sh in the modern language corresponds to L in Bulgar, therefore, according to Dunlop, the ethnonyms Bashgur and Bulgar are equivalent. The Bashkir historian R. G. Kuzeev gave a definition of the ethnonym bashҡort in the meaning of bash - “main, main” and ҡor(t) - “clan, tribe”.

According to the ethnographer N.V. Bikbulatov, the ethnonym Bashkart originates from the name of the legendary military leader Bashgird, known from written reports from Gardizi (11th century), who lived between the Khazars and Kimaks in the Yaik River basin. Anthropologist and ethnologist R. M. Yusupov believed that the ethnonym Bashkart, interpreted in most cases as “main wolf” on a Turkic basis, in earlier times had an Iranian-language basis in the form bachagurg, where bacha is “descendant, child, child,” and gurg - "wolf". Another variant of the etymology of the ethnonym bashort, according to R. M. Yusupov, is also associated with the Iranian phrase bachagurd, and is translated as “descendant, child of heroes, knights.”

In this case, bacha is translated in the same way as “child, child, descendant,” and gurd is “hero, knight.” After the era of the Huns, the ethnonym could change to its modern state as follows: bachagurd - bachgurd - bachgord - bashord - bashort. Bashkirs
EARLY HISTORY OF BASHKIR

The Soviet philologist and historian of antiquity S. Ya. Lurie believed that the “predecessors of modern Bashkirs” were mentioned in the 5th century BC. e. in Herodotus's History under the name of the Argippaeans. “The Father of History” Herodotus reported that the Argippaeans live “at the foot of the high mountains.” Describing the way of life of the Argippaeans, Herodotus wrote: “...They speak a special language, dress in Scythian style, and eat tree fruits. The name of the tree whose fruits they eat is pontic, ... its fruit is similar to a legume, but with a seed inside. The ripe fruit is squeezed through a cloth, and black juice called “askhi” flows out of it. They drink this juice, mixing it with milk. They make flat cakes from the thickets of the askha.” S. Ya. Lurie correlated the word “askhi” with the Turkic “achi” - “sour”. According to the Bashkir linguist J.G. Kiekbaev, the word “askhi” resembles the Bashkir “asse hyuy” - “sour liquid”.

Herodotus wrote about the mentality of the Argippaeans: “...They settle the disputes of their neighbors, and if any exile finds refuge with them, then no one dares to offend him.” The famous orientalist Zaki Validi suggested that the Bashkirs are mentioned in the work of Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century AD) under the name of the Scythian family of Pasirtai. Interesting information about the Bashkirs is also found in the Chinese chronicles of the Sui house. So, in Sui Shu (English) Russian. (VII century) the “Tale of the Body” lists 45 tribes, called by the compilers Teles, and among them the Alan and Bashukili tribes are mentioned.

Bashukili are identified with the ethnonym Bashҡort, that is, with the Bashkirs. In light of the fact that the ancestors of the Tele were the ethnic heirs of the Huns, the message from Chinese sources about the “descendants of the old Huns” in the Volga basin in the 8th-9th centuries is also of interest. Among these tribes are listed Bo-khan and Bei-din, which are presumably identified, respectively, with the Volga Bulgars and Bashkirs. A major specialist in the history of the Turks, M.I. Artamonov, believed that the Bashkirs were also mentioned in the “Armenian Geography” of the 7th century under the name of Bushks. The first written information about the Bashkirs by Arab authors dates back to the 9th century. Sallam at-Tarjuman (9th century), Ibn Fadlan (10th century), Al-Masudi (10th century), Al-Balkhi (10th century), al-Andalusi (12th century), Idrisi (12th century). ), Ibn Said (XIII century), Yakut al-Hamawi (XIII century), Kazvini (XIII century), Dimashki (XIV century), Abulfred (XIV century) and others wrote about the Bashkirs. The first message from Arabic written sources about the Bashkirs belongs to the traveler Sallam at-Tarjuman.

Around 840, he visited the country of the Bashkirs and indicated its approximate limits. Ibn Ruste (903) reported that the Bashkirs are “an independent people who occupied the territory on both sides of the Ural ridge between the Volga, Kama, Tobol and the upper reaches of the Yaik.” For the first time, an ethnographic description of the Bashkirs was given by Ibn Fadlan, the ambassador of the Baghdad caliph al Muktadir to the ruler of the Volga Bulgars. He visited the Bashkirs in 922. The Bashkirs, according to Ibn Fadlan, were warlike and powerful, whom he and his companions (a total of “five thousand people,” including military guards) “beware... with the greatest danger.” They were engaged in cattle breeding.

The Bashkirs revered twelve gods: winter, summer, rain, wind, trees, people, horses, water, night, day, death, earth and sky, among which the main one was the sky god, who united everyone and was with the rest “in agreement and each one of them approves of what his comrade does.” Some Bashkirs deified snakes, fish and cranes. Along with totemism, Ibn Fadlan notes shamanism among the Bashkirs. Apparently, Islam is beginning to spread among the Bashkirs.

The embassy included one Bashkir of Muslim faith. According to Ibn Fadlan, the Bashkirs are Turks, live on the southern slopes of the Urals and occupy a vast territory up to the Volga, their neighbors in the southeast were the Pechenegs, in the west - the Bulgars, in the south - the Oguzes. Another Arab author, Al-Masudi (died approximately 956), talking about wars near the Aral Sea, mentioned the Bashkirs among the warring peoples. The medieval geographer Sharif Idrisi (died in 1162) reported that the Bashkirs lived at the sources of the Kama and Ural. He spoke about the city of Nemzhan, located in the upper reaches of the Lik. The Bashkirs there smelted copper in furnaces, mined fox and beaver furs, and valuable stones.

In another city, Gurkhan, located in the northern part of the Agidel River, the Bashkirs made art objects, saddles and weapons. Other authors: Yakut, Kazvini and Dimashki reported “about the Bashkir mountain range located in the seventh climate,” by which they, like other authors, meant the Ural Mountains. “The land of Bashkard lies in the seventh climate,” wrote Ibn Said. Rashid ad-Din (died in 1318) mentions the Bashkirs 3 times and always among the large nations. “In the same way, the peoples, who from ancient times to the present day were and are called Turks, lived in the steppes..., in the mountains and forests of the regions of Desht-i-Kipchak, Rus, Circassians, Bashkirs of Talas and Sairam, Ibir and Siberia, Bular and the river Ankara".

Mahmud al-Kashgari in his encyclopedic “Dictionary of Turkic Languages” (1073/1074) under the heading “on the characteristics of Turkic languages” listed the Bashkirs among the twenty “main” Turkic peoples. “And the language of the Bashkirs,” he wrote, “is very close to Kipchak, Oguz, Kyrgyz and others, that is, Turkic.”

Foreman of a Bashkir village

Bashkirs in Hungary

In the 9th century, together with the ancient Magyars, the clan divisions of several ancient Bashkir clans, such as Yurmaty, Yeney, Kese and several others, left the foothills of the Urals. They became part of the ancient Hungarian confederation of tribes, which was located in the country of Levedia, between the Don and Dnieper rivers. At the beginning of the 10th century, the Hungarians, together with the Bashkirs, under the leadership of Prince Arpad, crossed the Carpathian Mountains and conquered the territory of Pannonia, founding the Kingdom of Hungary.

In the 10th century, the first written information about the Bashkirs of Hungary is found in the book of the Arab scientist Al-Masudi “Muruj az-zahab”. He calls both Hungarians and Bashkirs Bashgirds or Bajgirds. According to the famous Turkologist Ahmad-Zaki Validi, the numerical dominance of the Bashkirs in the Hungarian army and the transfer of political power in Hungary into the hands of the top of the Bashkir tribes of Yurmat and Yeney in the 12th century. led to the fact that the ethnonym “Bashgird” (Bashkir) in medieval Arabic sources began to serve to designate the entire population of the Hungarian kingdom. In the 13th century, Ibn Said al-Maghribi, in his book “Kitab bast al-ard,” divides the inhabitants of Hungary into two peoples: the Bashkirs (Bashgird) - Turkic-speaking Muslims who live south of the Danube River, and the Hungarians (Hunkar), who profess Christianity.

He writes that these peoples have different languages. The capital of the Bashkir country was the city of Kerat, located in the south of Hungary. Abul-Fida in his work “Takvim al-buldan” writes that in Hungary the Bashkirs lived on the banks of the Danube next to the Germans. They served in the famous Hungarian cavalry, which terrified all of medieval Europe. The medieval geographer Zakariyya ibn Muhammad al-Qazwini (1203-1283) writes that the Bashkirs live between Constantinople and Bulgaria. He describes the Bashkirs this way: “One of the Muslim theologians of the Bashkirs says that the Bashkirs are a very large people and that most of them use Christianity; but among them there are also Muslims who must pay tribute to Christians, just as our Christians pay tribute to Muslims. Bashkirs live in huts and do not have fortresses.

Each place was given as fief to a noble person; when the king noticed that these fief possessions gave rise to many disputes between the owners, he took these possessions away from them and assigned a certain salary from state funds. When the king of the Bashkirs, during the Tatar raid, called these gentlemen to war, they replied that they would obey, only on the condition that these possessions be returned to them. The king refused them this and said: by entering this war, you are protecting yourself and your children. The magnates did not listen to the king and dispersed. Then the Tatars attacked and devastated the country with sword and fire, finding no resistance anywhere.”

Bashkirs

MONGOL INVASION

The first battle of the Bashkirs with the Mongols took place in 1219-1220, when Genghis Khan, at the head of a huge army, spent the summer on the Irtysh, where the Bashkirs had summer pastures. The confrontation between the two peoples continued for a long time. From 1220 to 1234, the Bashkirs continuously fought with the Mongols, in fact, holding back the onslaught of the Mongol invasion to the west. L. N. Gumilyov in the book “Ancient Rus' and the Great Steppe” wrote: “The Mongol-Bashkir war lasted 14 years, that is, much longer than the war with the Khorezm Sultanate and the Great Western Campaign...

The Bashkirs repeatedly won battles and finally concluded a treaty of friendship and alliance, after which the Mongols united with the Bashkirs for further conquests...” The Bashkirs receive the right to kill (labels), that is, in fact, territorial autonomy within the empire of Genghis Khan. In the legal hierarchy of the Mongol Empire, the Bashkirs occupied a privileged position as a people obliged to the Khagans primarily for military service, and preserving their own tribal system and administration. In legal terms, it is possible to talk only about suzerainty-vassalage relations, and not “allied” ones. Bashkir cavalry regiments took part in Batu Khan's raids on the northeastern and southwestern Russian principalities in 1237–1238 and 1239–1240, as well as in the Western Campaign of 1241–1242.

As part of the Golden Horde In the XIII-XIV centuries, the entire territory of settlement of the Bashkirs was part of the Golden Horde. On June 18, 1391, the “Battle of the Nations” took place near the Kondurcha River. In the battle, the armies of two world powers of that time collided: Khan of the Golden Horde Tokhtamysh, on whose side the Bashkirs were, and Emir of Samarkand Timur (Tamerlane). The battle ended with the defeat of the Golden Horde. After the collapse of the Golden Horde, the territory of historical Bashkortostan was part of the Kazan, Siberian Khanates and the Nogai Horde.

The annexation of Bashkortostan to Russia The establishment of Moscow suzerainty over the Bashkirs was not a one-time act. The first (in the winter of 1554) to accept Moscow citizenship were the western and northwestern Bashkirs, previously subject to the Kazan Khan.

Following them (in 1554-1557), connections with Ivan the Terrible were established by the Bashkirs of central, southern and southeastern Bashkiria, who then coexisted on the same territory with the Nogai Horde. The Trans-Ural Bashkirs were forced to come to an agreement with Moscow in the 80-90s of the 16th century, after the collapse of the Siberian Khanate. Having defeated Kazan, Ivan the Terrible turned to the Bashkir people with an appeal to voluntarily come under his highest hand. The Bashkirs responded and at popular meetings of the clans they decided to come under Moscow vassalage on the basis of an equal agreement with the tsar.

This was the second case in their centuries-old history. The first was a treaty with the Mongols (XIII century). The terms and conditions were clearly stated in the agreement. The Moscow sovereign retained all their lands for the Bashkirs and recognized the patrimonial right to them (it is noteworthy that, apart from the Bashkirs, not a single people who accepted Russian citizenship had a patrimonial right to the land). The Moscow Tsar also promised to preserve local self-government and not to oppress the Muslim religion (“... they gave their word and swore that the Bashkirs professing Islam would never force them into another religion...”). Thus, Moscow made serious concessions to the Bashkirs, which, naturally, met its global interests. The Bashkirs, in turn, pledged to perform military service at their own expense and pay the treasury yasak - land tax.

The voluntary accession to Russia and the receipt of letters of grant by the Bashkirs is also spoken of in the chronicle of foreman Kidras Mullakaev, reported to P.I. Rychkov and then published in his book “Orenburg History”: “... not only those lands where they lived before their citizenship ... but namely, beyond the Kama River and near the Belaya Voloshka (which was named after the White River), they, the Bashkirs, were confirmed, but in addition, they were granted by many others, where they now live, as evidenced by the letters of grant, which many still have " Rychkov in the book “Topography of Orenburg” wrote: “The Bashkir people came into Russian citizenship.” The exclusiveness of relations between the Bashkirs and Russia is reflected in the “Cathedral Code” of 1649, where the Bashkirs, under pain of confiscation of property and disgrace from the sovereign, prohibited “... boyars, okolnichy, and Duma people, and stolniks, and attorneys and nobles from Moscow and from the cities, nobles and boyar children and Russian local people of all ranks should not buy or exchange any land, and should not have it as a mortgage, or by rent, or for rent for many years.”

From 1557 to 1798 - for more than 200 years - Bashkir cavalry regiments fought in the ranks of the Russian army; being part of the militia of Minin and Pozharsky, Bashkir detachments took part in the liberation of Moscow from Polish invaders in 1612.

Bashkir uprisings During the life of Ivan the Terrible, the terms of the agreement were still observed, and he, despite his cruelty, remained in the memory of the Bashkir people as a kind, “white king” (Bashk. Aҡ batsha). With the rise of the House of Romanov to power in the 17th century, the policy of tsarism in Bashkortostan immediately began to change for the worse. In words, the authorities assured the Bashkirs of their loyalty to the terms of the agreement, but in reality they took the path of violating them. This was expressed, first of all, in the theft of Bashkir patrimonial lands and the construction of outposts, forts, settlements, Christian monasteries, and lines on them. Seeing the massive theft of their lands, violation of ancestral rights and freedoms, the Bashkirs rebelled in 1645, 1662-1664, 1681-1684, 1704-11/25.

The tsarist authorities were forced to satisfy many of the rebels' demands. After the Bashkir uprising of 1662-1664. The government once again officially confirmed the patrimonial right of the Bashkirs to the land. During the uprising of 1681-1684. - freedom to practice Islam. After the uprising of 1704-11. (the embassy from the Bashkirs swore allegiance to the emperor again only in 1725) - confirmed the patrimonial rights and special status of the Bashkirs and conducted a trial that ended with the conviction for abuse of power and the execution of government “profit-makers” Sergeev, Dokhov and Zhikharev, who demanded taxes from the Bashkirs, not provided for by law, which was one of the reasons for the uprising.

During the uprisings, Bashkir detachments reached Samara, Saratov, Astrakhan, Vyatka, Tobolsk, Kazan (1708) and the Caucasus mountains (in an unsuccessful assault by their allies - the Caucasian highlanders and Russian schismatic Cossacks, the Tersky town, one of them was captured and later executed leaders of the Bashkir uprising of 1704-11, Sultan Murat). Human and material losses were enormous. The heaviest loss for the Bashkirs themselves was the uprising of 1735-1740, during which Khan Sultan-Girey (Karasakal) was elected. During this uprising, many inherited lands of the Bashkirs were taken away and transferred to the serving Meshcheryaks. According to the calculations of the American historian A.S. Donnelly, every fourth person died from the Bashkirs.

The next uprising broke out in 1755-1756. The reason was rumors of religious persecution and the abolition of light yasak (the only tax on the Bashkirs; yasak was taken only from the land and confirmed their status as patrimonial landowners) while simultaneously prohibiting free salt production, which the Bashkirs considered their privilege. The uprising was brilliantly planned, but failed due to the spontaneous premature action of the Bashkirs of the Burzyan clan, who killed a petty official - bribe-taker and rapist Bragin. Because of this absurd and tragic accident, plans for the simultaneous action of the Bashkirs of all 4 roads, this time in alliance with the Mishars, and, possibly, the Tatars and Kazakhs, were thwarted.

The most famous ideologist of this movement was the Akhun of the Siberian Road of Bashkortostan, Mishar Gabdulla Galiev (Batyrsha). In captivity, Mullah Batyrsha wrote his famous “Letter to Empress Elizaveta Petrovna,” which has survived to this day as an interesting example of an analysis of the causes of the Bashkir uprisings by their participant.

When the uprising was suppressed, a number of those who participated in the uprising emigrated to the Kyrgyz-Kaisak Horde. The last Bashkir uprising is considered to be participation in the Peasant War of 1773-1775. Emelyan Pugacheva: one of the leaders of this uprising, Salavat Yulaev, also remained in people’s memory and is considered a Bashkir national hero.

Bashkir army The most significant of the reforms towards the Bashkirs carried out by the tsarist government in the 18th century was the introduction of a cantonal system of government, which operated with some changes until 1865.

By decree of April 10, 1798, the Bashkir and Mishar population of the region were transferred to the military service class and were obliged to carry out border service on the eastern borders of Russia. Administratively, cantons were created.

The Trans-Ural Bashkirs found themselves part of the 2nd (Ekaterinburg and Shadrinsk districts), 3rd (Troitsky district) and 4th (Chelyabinsk district) cantons. The 2nd canton was located in Perm, the 3rd and 4th in the Orenburg provinces. In 1802-1803. The Bashkirs of Shadrinsky district were allocated to an independent 3rd canton. In this regard, the serial numbers of the cantons also changed. The former 3rd canton (Troitsky district) became 4th, and the former 4th (Chelyabinsk district) became 5th. Major changes to the cantonal administration system were undertaken in the 30s of the 19th century. From the Bashkir and Mishar population of the region, the Bashkir-Meshcheryak army was formed, which included 17 cantons. The latter were united into trustees.

The Bashkirs and Mishars of the 2nd (Ekaterinburg and Krasnoufimsk districts) and 3rd (Shadrinsk district) cantons were included in the first, 4th (Troitsky district) and 5th (Chelyabinsk district) - in the second trusteeship with centers in Krasnoufimsk and Chelyabinsk. By the Law “On the annexation of Teptyars and Bobyls to the Bashkir-Meshcheryak Army” of February 22, 1855, the Teptyar regiments were included in the canton system of the Bashkir-Meshcheryak Army.

Later, the name was changed to the Bashkir Army by the Law “On the future naming of the Bashkir-Meshcheryak army as the Bashkir army.” October 31, 1855" With the annexation of the Kazakh lands to Russia in 1731, Bashkortostan became one of the many internal regions of the empire, and the need to attract Bashkirs, Mishars and Teptyars to the border service disappeared.

During the reforms of the 1860-1870s. in 1864-1865 the canton system was abolished, and control of the Bashkirs and their followers passed into the hands of rural and volost (yurt) societies, similar to Russian societies. True, the Bashkirs retained advantages in the field of land use: the standard for the Bashkirs was 60 dessiatines per capita, with 15 dessiatines for former serfs.

Alexander 1 and Napoleon, representatives of the Bashkirs nearby

Participation of the Bashkirs in the Patriotic War of 1812 Total in the War of 1812 and foreign campaigns of 1813-1814. 28 five hundred Bashkir regiments took part.

In addition, the Bashkir population of the Southern Urals allocated 4,139 horses and 500,000 rubles for the army. During a foreign campaign as part of the Russian army in Germany, in the city of Weimer, the great German poet Goethe met with Bashkir warriors, to whom the Bashkirs presented a bow and arrows. Nine Bashkir regiments entered Paris. The French called the Bashkir warriors “Northern Cupids”.

In the memory of the Bashkir people, the War of 1812 was preserved in the folk songs “Baik”, “Kutuzov”, “Squadron”, “Kakhym Turya”, “Lubizar”. The last song is based on a true fact, when the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, M. I. Kutuzov, thanked the Bashkir soldiers for the courage they showed in battle with the words: “well done.” There is data on some soldiers awarded silver medals “For the capture of Paris on March 19, 1814” and “In memory of the war of 1812-1814” - Rakhmangul Barakov (village of Bikkulovo), Saifutdin Kadyrgalin (village of Bayramgulovo), Nurali Zubairov ( village of Kuluevo), Kunduzbay Kuldavletov (village of Subkhangulovo - Abdyrovo).

Monument to the Bashkirs who participated in the War of 1812

Bashkir national movement

After the revolutions of 1917, All-Bashkir kurultai (congresses) were held at which a decision was made on the need to create a national republic within federal Russia. As a result, on November 15, 1917, the Bashkir regional (central) shuro (council) proclaimed the creation of the territorial-national autonomy of Bashkurdistan in the territories with a predominantly Bashkir population of the Orenburg, Perm, Samara, and Ufa provinces.

In December 1917, delegates of the III All-Bashkir (founding) Congress, representing the interests of the region's population of all nationalities, unanimously voted to approve the resolution (Farmana No. 2) of the Bashkir Regional Shuro on the proclamation of the national-territorial autonomy (republic) of Bashkurdistan. At the congress, the government of Bashkortostan, the pre-parliament - Kese-Kurultai and other government and administrative bodies were formed, and decisions were made on further actions. In March 1919, on the basis of the Agreement of the Russian Workers' and Peasants' Government with the Bashkir Government, the Autonomous Bashkir Soviet Republic was formed.

Formation of the Republic of Bashkortostan On October 11, 1990, the Supreme Council of the Republic proclaimed the Declaration of State Sovereignty. On March 31, 1992, Bashkortostan signed a federal agreement on the delimitation of powers and subjects of jurisdiction between the state authorities of the Russian Federation and the authorities of the sovereign republics within it and the Appendix to it from the Republic of Bashkortostan, which determined the contractual nature of relations between the Republic of Bashkortostan and the Russian Federation.

Ethnogenesis of the Bashkirs

The ethnogenesis of the Bashkirs is extremely complex. The Southern Urals and the adjacent steppes, where the formation of the people took place, have long been an arena of active interaction between different tribes and cultures. In the literature about the ethnogenesis of the Bashkirs, one can see that there are three main hypotheses of the origin of the Bashkir people: Turkic Finno-Ugric Iranian

Perm Bashkirs
The anthropological composition of the Bashkirs is heterogeneous; it is a mixture of Caucasoid and Mongoloid characteristics. M. S. Akimova identified four main anthropological types among the Bashkirs: Suburalian Pontic light Caucasian South Siberian

The most ancient racial types of Bashkirs are considered light Caucasoid, Pontic and Subural, and the most recent is South Siberian. The South Siberian anthropological type among the Bashkirs appeared quite late and is closely related to the Turkic tribes of the 9th-12th centuries and the Kipchaks of the 13th-14th centuries.

The Pamir-Fergana and Trans-Caspian racial types, also present among the Bashkirs, are associated with the Indo-Iranian and Turkic nomads of Eurasia.

Bashkir culture

Traditional occupations and crafts The main occupation of the Bashkirs in the past was semi-nomadic (yailyazh) cattle breeding. Agriculture, hunting, beekeeping, beekeeping, poultry farming, fishing, and gathering were widespread. Crafts include weaving, felt making, production of lint-free carpets, shawls, embroidery, leather processing (leatherworking), wood and metal processing. The Bashkirs were engaged in the production of arrowheads, spears, knives, and elements of iron horse harnesses. Bullets and shot for guns were cast from lead.

The Bashkirs had their own blacksmiths and jewelers. Pendants, plaques, and decorations for women's breastplates and headdresses were made from silver. Metalworking was based on local raw materials. Metallurgy and blacksmithing were banned after the uprisings. Russian historian M.D. Chulkov in his work “Historical Description of Russian Commerce” (1781-1788) noted: “In previous years, the Bashkirs smelted the best steel from this ore in hand furnaces, which after the riot that took place in 1735 was no longer allowed." It is noteworthy that the mining school in St. Petersburg, the first higher mining and technical educational institution in Russia, was proposed to be created by the Bashkir ore industrialist Ismagil Tasimov. Housing and life House of the Bashkir (Yakhya). Photo by S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky, 1910

In the 17th-19th centuries, the Bashkirs completely switched from semi-nomadic farming to agriculture and settled life, since many lands were occupied by immigrants from central Russia and the Volga region. Among the Eastern Bashkirs, a semi-nomadic way of life was still partially preserved. The last, single trips of villages to summer camps (summer nomadic camps) were noted in the 20s of the 20th century.

The types of dwellings among the Bashkirs are varied; log houses (wooden), wattle and adobe (adobe) predominate; among the eastern Bashkirs, a felt yurt (tirmә) was also common at summer camps. Bashkir cuisine The semi-nomadic way of life contributed to the formation of the distinctive culture, traditions and cuisine of the Bashkirs: wintering in villages and living on summer nomads brought variety to the diet and cooking possibilities.

The traditional Bashkir dish bishbarmak is prepared from boiled meat and salma, generously sprinkled with herbs and onions and flavored with kurut. This is another noticeable feature of Bashkir cuisine: dairy products are often served with dishes - a rare feast is complete without kurut or sour cream. Most Bashkir dishes are easy to prepare and nutritious.

Dishes such as ayran, kumis, buza, kazy, basturma, pilaf, manti, and many others are considered national dishes of many peoples from the Ural Mountains to the Middle East.

Bashkir national costume

The traditional clothing of the Bashkirs is very variable depending on age and the specific region. Clothes were made from sheepskin, homespun and purchased fabrics. Various women's jewelry made of corals, beads, shells, and coins were widespread. These are bibs (yаға, һаҡал), cross-shoulder decorations-belts (emeyҙek, dәғүәt), backrests (ѣһәlek), various pendants, braids, bracelets, earrings. Women's headdresses in the past were very diverse, including a cap-shaped khashmau, a girl's cap takiya, a fur kama burek, a multi-component kalapush, a towel-shaped tatar, often richly decorated with embroidery. A very colorfully decorated head cover ҡushyaulyҡ.

Among men's: fur hats with earflaps (ҡolaҡsyn), fox hats (tөlkө ҡolaҡsyn), hood (kөlәpәrә) made of white cloth, skull caps (tүbәtәy), felt hats. The shoes of the Eastern Bashkirs are original: khata and saryk, leather heads and cloth shafts, ties with tassels. The qata and women's “saryks” were decorated with appliques on the back. Boots (itek, sitek) and bast shoes (sabata) were widespread (with the exception of a number of southern and eastern regions). Pants with wide legs were a mandatory attribute of men's and women's clothing. Women's outerwear is very elegant.

These are often richly decorated with coins, braids, appliques and a little embroidery, a robe elen, ak saman (which also often served as a head cover), sleeveless “kamsuls”, decorated with bright embroidery, and edged with coins. Men's Cossacks and chekmeni (saҡman), half-caftans (bishmat). The Bashkir men's shirt and women's dresses differed sharply in cut from those of the Russians, although they were also decorated with embroidery and ribbons (dresses).

It was also common for Eastern Bashkir women to decorate dresses along the hem with appliques. Belts were an exclusively male item of clothing. The belts were woven wool (up to 2.5 m in length), belts, fabric ones and sashes with copper or silver buckles. A large rectangular leather bag (ҡaptyrga or ҡalta) was always hung on the belt on the right side, and on the left side there was a knife in a wooden sheath trimmed with leather (bysaҡ ҡyny).

Bashkir folk customs,

Wedding customs of the Bashkirs In addition to the wedding celebration (tuy), religious (Muslim) ones are known: Eid al-Fitr (Uraҙa Bayramy), Kurban Bayram (ҡorban Bayramy), Mawlid (Mәүlid Bayramy), and others, as well as folk holidays - the holiday of the end of the spring field works - sabantuy (khabantuy) and kargatuy (kargatuy).

National sports The national sports of the Bashkirs include: kuresh wrestling, archery, javelin and hunting dagger throwing, horse racing and racing, tug of war (lasso) and others. Among equestrian sports, the following are popular: baiga, horseback riding, and horse racing.

Equestrian folk games are popular in Bashkortostan: auzarysh, cat-alyu, kuk-bure, kyz kyuyu. Sports games and competitions are an integral part of the physical education of Bashkirs, and have been included in the program of folk holidays for many centuries. Oral folk art Bashkir folk art was diverse and rich. It is represented by various genres, including heroic epics, fairy tales and songs.

One of the ancient types of oral poetry was kubair (ҡobayyr). Among the Bashkirs there were often singers-improvisers - sesens (sәsan), combining the gifts of a poet and a composer. Among the song genres there were folk songs (yyrҙar), ritual songs (senlәү).

Depending on the melody, Bashkir songs were divided into drawn-out (on koy) and short (ҡyҫҡa kөy), in which dance songs (beyeү koy) and ditties (taҡmaҡ) stood out. The Bashkirs had a tradition of throat singing - uzlyau (өзләү; also һоҙҙау, ҡайҙау, тумаҡ ҡруаы). Along with song creativity, the Bashkirs developed music. WITH

Among the musical instruments, the most common were kubyz (ҡumyҙ) and kurai (ҡuray). In some places there was a three-string musical instrument called dumbyra.

The dances of the Bashkirs were distinguished by their originality. Dances were always performed to the sounds of a song or kurai with a frequent rhythm. Those present beat the beat with their palms and from time to time exclaimed “Hey!”

Bashkir epic

A number of epic works of the Bashkirs called “Ural-Batyr”, “Akbuzat” preserved layers of the ancient mythology of the Indo-Iranians and ancient Turks, and has parallels with the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Rigveda, and the Avesta. Thus, the epic “Ural Batyr”, according to researchers, contains three layers: archaic Sumerian, Indo-Iranian and ancient Turkic pagan. Some epic works of the Bashkirs, such as “Alpamysha” and “Kuzykurpyas and Mayankhylu,” are also found among other Turkic peoples.

Bashkir literature Bashkir literature has its roots in ancient times. The origins go back to ancient Turkic runic and written monuments such as the Orkhon-Yenisei inscriptions, to handwritten works of the 11th century in the Turkic language and ancient Bulgarian poetic monuments (Kul Gali and others). In the 13th-14th centuries, Bashkir literature developed as an oriental type.

Traditional genres prevailed in poetry - ghazal, madhiya, qasida, dastan, canonized poetics. The most characteristic thing in the development of Bashkir poetry is its close interaction with folklore.

From the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century, the development of Bashkir literature is associated with the name and work of Baik Aidar (1710-1814), Shamsetdin Zaki (1822-1865), Gali Sokoroy (1826-1889), Miftakhetdin Akmulla (1831-1895), Mazhit Gafuri ( 1880-1934), Safuan Yakshigulov (1871-1931), Dauta Yulty (1893-1938), Shaykhzada Babich (1895-1919) and many others.

Theater arts and cinema

At the beginning of the 20th century in Bashkortostan there were only amateur theater groups. The first professional theater opened in 1919 almost simultaneously with the formation of the Bashkir ASSR. It was the current Bashkir State Academic Drama Theater named after. M. Gafuri. In the 30s, several more theaters appeared in Ufa - a puppet theater, an opera and ballet theater. Later, state theaters opened in other cities of Bashkortostan.

Bashkir enlightenment and science The period that covers historical time from the 60s of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century can be called the era of Bashkir enlightenment. The most famous figures of the Bashkir enlightenment of that period were M. Bekchurin, A. Kuvatov, G. Kiikov, B. Yuluev, G. Sokoroy, M. Umetbaev, Akmulla, M.-G. Kurbangaliev, R. Fakhretdinov, M. Baishev, Yu. Bikbov, S. Yakshigulov and others.

At the beginning of the 20th century, such figures of Bashkir culture as Akhmetzaki Validi Togan, Abdulkadir Inan, Galimyan Tagan, Mukhametsha Burangulov were formed.

Religion Mosque in the Bashkir village of Yahya. Photo by S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky, 1910
By religious affiliation, the Bashkirs are Sunni Muslims.

Since the 10th century, Islam has been spreading among the Bashkirs. The Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan met a Bashkir professing Islam back in 921. As Islam established itself in Volga Bulgaria (in 922), Islam spread among the Bashkirs. In the shezher of the Bashkirs of the Min tribe living along the Dema River, it is said that they “send nine people from their people to Bulgaria to find out what the Mohammedan faith is.”

The legend about the cure of the khan’s daughter says that the Bulgars “sent their Tabigin students to the Bashkirs. This is how Islam spread among the Bashkirs in the Belaya, Ika, Dema, Tanyp valleys.” Zaki Validi quoted the message of the Arab geographer Yakut al-Hamawi that in Halba he met a Bashkir who had arrived to study. The final establishment of Islam among the Bashkirs occurred in the 20-30s of the 14th century and is associated with the name of the Golden Horde Khan Uzbek, who established Islam as the state religion of the Golden Horde. The Hungarian monk Ioganka, who visited the Bashkirs in the 1320s, wrote about the Bashkir khan, fanatically devoted to Islam.

The oldest evidence of the introduction of Islam in Bashkortostan includes the ruins of a monument near the village of Chishmy, inside of which lies a stone with an Arabic inscription stating that Hussein-Bek, the son of Izmer-Bek, who died on the 7th day of the month of Muharrem 739 AH, that is, in 1339, rests here year. There is also evidence that Islam penetrated into the Southern Urals from Central Asia. For example, in the Bashkir Trans-Urals, on Mount Aushtau in the vicinity of the village of Starobairamgulovo (Aushkul) (now in the Uchalinsky district), the burials of two ancient Muslim missionaries dating back to the 13th century have been preserved. The spread of Islam among the Bashkirs took several centuries and ended in the XIV-XV centuries.

Bashkir language, Bashkir writing The national language is Bashkir.

Belongs to the Kipchak group of Turkic languages. Main dialects: southern, eastern and northwestern. Distributed in the territory of historical Bashkortostan. According to the 2010 All-Russian Population Census, the Bashkir language is the native language of 1,133,339 Bashkirs (71.7% of the total number of Bashkirs who indicated their native languages).

230,846 Bashkirs (14.6%) called the Tatar language their native language. Russian is the native language of 216,066 Bashkirs (13.7%).

Settlement of the Bashkirs The number of Bashkirs in the world is about 2 million people. According to the 2010 census, 1,584,554 Bashkirs live in Russia, of which 1,172,287 live in Bashkortostan.

Bashkirs make up 29.5% of the population of the Republic of Bashkortostan. In addition to the Republic of Bashkortostan itself, Bashkirs live in all constituent entities of the Russian Federation, as well as in countries near and far abroad.

Up to a third of all Bashkirs currently live outside the Republic of Bashkortostan.

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SOURCE OF INFORMATION AND PHOTO:

Bashkirs // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional ones). - St. Petersburg, 1890-1907.

Kuzeev R. G. Bashkirs: Historical and ethnographic essay / R. Kuzeev, S. N. Shitova. — Ufa: Institute of History, language. and lit., 1963. - 151 p. — 700 copies. (in translation) Kuzeev R. G.

Origin of the Bashkir people. Ethnic composition, history of settlement. - M.: Nauka, 1974. - 571 p. — 2400 copies. Rudenko S. I.

Bashkirs: historical and ethnographic essays. - Ufa: Kitap, 2006. - 376 p. Kuzeev R. G.

Origin of the Bashkir people. M., Nauka, 1974, P. 428. Yanguzin R.3.

Ethnography of the Bashkirs (history of study). - Ufa: Kitap, 2002. - 192 p.

History of Bashkortostan from ancient times to the 16th century [Text] / Mazhitov N. A., Sultanova A. N. - Ufa: Kitap, 1994. - 359 p. : ill. — Bibliography in the notes at the end of the chapters. — ISBN 5-295-01491-6

Ibn Fadlan's journey to the Volga. Translation, commentary and editing by academician I. Yu. Krachkovsky. M.; L., 1939 Zaki Validi Togan.

History of the Bashkirs Rashid ad-Din “Collection of Chronicles” (Vol. 1. Book 1. M.; Leningrad, 1952) “Devon is being treated by a Turk.” Volume 1 Tashkent. P. 66 b Nasyrov I. “Bashkirs” in Pannonia // Islam. - M., 2004. - No. 2 (9). pp. 36-39.

History of the Bashkirs. Article on the website “Bashkortostan 450” L. N. Gumilyov.

“Ancient Rus' and the Great Steppe” (135. Diagram of the course of events)

Rychkov Pyotr Ivanovich: “Topography of Orenburg” St. Petersburg, 1762 p. 67 Salavat Yulaev in the Brief Encyclopedia

Bashkortostan Bashkir encyclopedia. In 7 volumes / Ch. editor M. A. Ilgamov. T.1: A-B. Ufa: Bashkir Encyclopedia, 2005. Akimova M. S.

Anthropological research in Bashkiria // Anthropology and genogeography. M., 1974 R. M. Yusupov “Bashkirs: ethnic history and traditional culture”

SITE Wikipedia.

2) The origin of the Bashkir people.

3) First information about the Bashkirs.

4) Sakas, Scythians, Sarmatians.

5) Ancient Turks.

6) Polovtsy.

7) Genghis Khan.

8) Bashkortostan as part of the Golden Horde.

10) Ivan the Terrible.

11) Accession of the Bashkirs to the Russian state.

12) Bashkir uprisings.

13) Bashkir tribes.

14) Belief of the ancient Bashkirs.

16) Acceptance of Islam.

17) Writing among the Bashkirs and the first schools.

17) The emergence of Bashkir villages.

18) The emergence of cities.

19) Hunting and fishing.

20) Agriculture.

21) Beekeeping.

22) The influence of the Civil War on the economic and social life of Bashkiria

1) Origin of the Bashkir people. The formation and formation of a people does not occur immediately, but gradually. In the eighth century BC, Ananyin tribes lived in the Southern Urals, who gradually settled in other territories. Scientists believe that the Ananyin tribes are the direct ancestors of the Komi-Permyaks, Udmurts, Mari, and the descendants of the Ananyin people took part in the origin of the Chuvash, Volga Tatars, Bashkirs and other peoples of the Urals and Volga region.
The Bashkirs as a people did not migrate from anywhere, but were formed as a result of a very complex and long-term historical development on the ground of indigenous tribes, in the process of contacts and crossing them with alien tribes of Turkic origin. These are the Sauromatians, Huns, ancient Turks, Pechenegs, Cumans and Mongolian tribes.
The process of formation of the Bashkir people was completed completely at the end of the 15th - in the first half of the 16th century.

2) First information about the Bashkirs.

The first written evidence about the Bashkirs dates back to the 9th - 10th centuries. The testimony of the Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan is especially important. According to his description, the embassy traveled for a long time through the country of the Oguz-Kypchaks (the Aral Sea steppes), and then, in the area of ​​​​the present city of Uralsk, it crossed the Yaik River and immediately entered the “country of the Bashkirs from among the Turks.”
In it, the Arabs crossed rivers such as Kinel, Tok, Sarai, and beyond the Bolshoi Cheremshan River the borders of the state of Volga Bulgaria began.
The closest neighbors of the Bashkirs in the west were the Bulgars, and in the south and east were the formidable nomadic tribes of the Guz and Kipchaks. The Bashkirs conducted active trade with China, with the states of Southern Siberia, Central Asia and Iran. They sold their furs, iron products, livestock and honey to merchants. In exchange they received silks, silver and gold jewelry, and dishes. Merchants and diplomats passing through the country of the Bashkirs left stories about it. These stories mention that the cities of the Bashkirs consisted of above-ground log houses. Bulgar neighbors staged frequent raids on Bashkir settlements. But the warlike Bashkirs tried to meet their enemies at the border and did not let them close to their villages.

3) Sakas, Scythians, Sarmatians.

2800 - 2900 years ago, a strong, powerful people appeared in the Southern Urals - the Saki. Their main wealth was horses. The famous Saka cavalry with swift rushes captured fertile pastures for their numerous herds. Gradually, the steppes of Eastern Europe from the Southern Urals to the shores of the Caspian and Aral seas and southern Kazakhstan became Saki.
Among the Sakas there were especially wealthy families, who had several thousand horses in their herds. Rich families subjugated their poor relatives and elected a king. This is how the Saka state arose.

All Sakas were considered slaves of the king, and all their wealth was his property. It was believed that even after death, he became the King, but only in another world. Kings were buried in large, deep graves. Log cabins - houses - were lowered into the pits; weapons, dishes with food, expensive clothes and other things were placed inside. Everything was made of gold and silver, so that in the underworld no one would doubt the royal origin of the person buried.
For a whole millennium, the Sakas and their descendants dominated the wide expanses of the steppe. They then split into several separate groups of tribes and began to live separately.

The Scythians were a nomadic people of the steppes, vast grasslands that stretched across Asia from Manchuria to Russia. The Scythians lived by raising animals (sheep, cattle and horses) and partly engaged in hunting. The Chinese and Greeks described the Scythians as ferocious warriors who were one with their fleet-footed, short horses. Armed with bows and arrows, the Scythians fought on horseback. According to one description, they scalped their enemies and kept them as trophies.
The rich Scythians were covered with elaborate tattoos. A tattoo was evidence that a person belonged to a noble family, and its absence was a sign of a commoner. A person with patterns applied to his body turned into a “walking” work of art.
When a leader died, his wife and servants were killed and buried with him. His horses were also buried along with the leader. Many very beautiful gold items found in burials speak of the wealth of the Scythians.

Wandering along the borders of the Trans-Ural forest-steppe, the Sakas came into contact with the semi-nomadic tribes who lived there. According to many modern researchers, these were Finno-Ugric tribes - the ancestors of the Mari, Udmurts, Komi-Permyaks and, possibly, the Hungarian-Magyars. The interaction between the Sakas and Ugrians ended in the 4th century BC with the appearance of the Sarmatians on the historical arena.
In the second century BC, the Sarmatians conquered Scythia and devastated it. Some of the Scythians were exterminated or captured, others were subjugated and merged with the Sakas.
The famous historian N.M. Karamzin wrote about the Sarmatians. “Rome was not ashamed to buy the friendship of the Sarmatians with gold.”
The Scythians, Saks and Sarmatians spoke Iranian. The Bashkir language has the most ancient Iranianisms, that is, words that entered the vocabulary of the Bashkirs from the Iranian language: kyyar (cucumber), kamyr (dough), takta (board), byala (glass), bakta (wool - shedding), hike (bunks) , shishme (spring, stream).

4) Ancient Turks.

In the 6th - 7th centuries, new hordes of nomads gradually moved west from the steppes of Central Asia. The Turks created a huge empire from the Pacific Ocean in the east to the northern Caucasus in the west, from the forest-steppe regions of Siberia in the north to the borders of China and Central Asia in the south. In 558, the Southern Urals were already part of the Turkic state.

The supreme deity of the Turks was the Sun (according to other versions - the sky). He was called Tengre. Tengra was subject to the gods of water, wind, forests, mountains and other deities. Fire, as the ancient Turks believed, cleansed a person from all sins and bad thoughts. Fires burned around the Khan's yurt both day and night. No one dared to approach the khan until he passed through the fiery corridor.
The Turks left a deep mark on the history of the peoples of the Southern Urals. Under their influence, new tribal unions were formed, which gradually moved to a sedentary lifestyle.

5) In the second half of the 9th century, a new wave of Turkic-speaking nomads - the Pechenegs - passed through the steppes of the Southern Urals and Trans-Volga region. They were forced out of Central Asia and the Aral region after being defeated in the wars for the possession of the oases of the Syr Darya and the Northern Aral region. At the end of the 9th century, the Pechenegs and related tribes became the de facto masters of the steppes of Eastern Europe. The Pechenegs who lived in the steppes of the Volga and Southern Urals also included Bashkir tribes. Being an organic part of the Trans-Volga Pechenegs, the Bashkirs of the 9th - 11th centuries apparently did not differ from the Pechenegs in either their way of life or culture.

The Polovtsians are nomadic Turks who appeared in the mid-11th century in the steppes of the Urals and Volga. The Polovtsians themselves called themselves Kipchaks. They approached the borders of Rus'. Over the course of their domination, the steppe began to be called Deshti-Kypchak, Polovtsian steppe. There are sculptures about the times of the domination of the Polovtsians - stone “women” standing on steppe mounds. Although these statues are called “women,” they are dominated by images of warrior-heroes - the ancestors of the Polovtsian tribes.
The Polovtsians acted as allies of Byzantium against the Pechenegs and expelled them from the Black Sea region. The Polovtsians were both allies and enemies of the Russian tribes. Many of the Polovtsians became relatives of Russian princes. So, Andrei Bogolyubsky was the son of a Polovtsian woman, the daughter of Khan Aepa. Prince Igor, the hero of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” before his 1185 campaign against the Polovtsians, he himself invited the Polovtsians to take part in military raids on Rus'.
In the XIII - XIV centuries, the territory of the Urals and Trans-Urals was inhabited by Kipchaks. They entered into family ties with other tribes inhabiting the area.

6) Genghis Khan was the son of the leader of a small Mongol tribe. At the age of eight he was left an orphan. When Genghis Khan's father saw a large birthmark on the baby's palm, he considered it a sign that his son would become a great warrior.
Genghis Khan's real name is Temujin. His merit was that he united nomadic tribes with few connections with each other into one intertribal union. He devoted his entire life to creating an empire. War was the instrument of this construction. There were no foot soldiers in the Mongol army: each had two horses, one for himself, the other for luggage. They lived by feeding off the conquered population.

Cities, if their population resisted, were mercilessly destroyed along with all their inhabitants. True, if they surrendered without a fight, mercy could await them. Genghis Khan and his army became so famous for their cruelty that many chose to surrender to him without a fight.
Genghis Khan's troops overcame the Great Wall of China and soon captured all of China. In 1215, Beijing was captured and all of China became part of the great Mongol empire.
In the 20s of the 13th century, Genghis Khan and his horde approached the outlying cities of Rus'. Although the Russian cities were well fortified, they could not withstand the onslaught of the Mongols. Having defeated the combined forces of the Russian and Cuman princes in 1223 at the Battle of Kalka, the Mongol army devastated the territory between the Don and Dnieper north of the Sea of ​​Azov.

In the thirteenth century, numerous troops of the formidable Genghis Khan approached the Southern Urals. The forces were unequal; in several battles the Bashkirs were defeated. As a sign of reconciliation, the Bashkir leader Muitan Khan, the son of Tuksob Khan, arrived at the headquarters of the Mongol Khan. He brought with him expensive gifts, including thousands of heads of cattle. Genghis Khan was pleased with the expensive gifts and awarded the khan a charter for the eternal possession of the lands through which the Belaya River flows for him and his descendants. The vast lands given under the rule of Muitan Khan completely coincide with the territory of settlement of the Bashkir tribes of the 9th - 12th centuries.
But the broad masses of the Bashkirs did not reconcile themselves with the loss of independence and repeatedly went to war against the new masters. The theme of the Bashkirs’ struggle against the Mongols is most fully reflected in the legend “The Last of the Sartai Family,” which tells about the tragic fate of the Bashkir Khan Dzhalyk, who in the war against the Mongols lost his two sons, his entire family, but remained unconquered to the end.

Self-name - Bashkort, people in Russia, indigenous population of Bashkiria (Bashkortostan). According to the 2010 All-Russian Population Census, 1,584,554 Bashkirs live in Russia, including 7,290 people in the Samara region. They live in the southeast of the Samara region, mainly in the Bolshechernigovsky and Bolsheglunitsky districts. Due to the fact that the main area of ​​traditional settlement of local Bashkirs is located in the valley of the Bolshoi Irgiz River, in historiography they are often called “Irgiz Bashkirs.” Some Bashkirs are settled in the cities of the Samara region, primarily in Samara and Tolyatti.

They speak the Bashkir language of the Turkic group of the Altai family. Russian and Tatar languages ​​are widespread. Writing based on the Russian alphabet. Believing Bashkirs are Sunni Muslims.

In the formation of the Bashkirs, a decisive role was played by Turkic cattle-breeding tribes of South Siberian-Central Asian origin, who, before coming to the Southern Urals, roamed for a significant time in the Aral-Syr Darya steppes, coming into contact with the Pecheneg-Oguz and Kimak-Kypchak tribes; here they are recorded in written sources in the 9th century. From the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th centuries. lived in the Southern Urals and adjacent steppe and forest-steppe areas.

In the X - early XIII centuries. the Bashkirs were under the political influence of Volga-Kama Bulgaria. In 1236 they were conquered by the Mongol-Tatars and annexed to the Golden Horde. In the 14th century they converted to Islam. After the fall of Kazan (1552), the Bashkirs accepted Russian citizenship (1552-1557) and stipulated the right to own their lands on a patrimonial basis, live according to their customs and religion.

The traditional type of economy of the Bashkirs is semi-nomadic cattle breeding (mainly horses, but also sheep, cattle, and camels in the southern and eastern regions). They also engaged in hunting and fishing, beekeeping, and collecting fruits and plant roots. There was agriculture (millet, barley, spelt, wheat, hemp). Agricultural tools - a wooden plow (saban) on wheels, later a plow (khuka), a frame harrow (tyrma).

Since the 17th century, semi-nomadic cattle breeding gradually lost its importance, the role of agriculture increased, and apiary beekeeping developed on the basis of beekeeping. At the beginning of the 20th century, the transition of the Bashkirs to complex agriculture was completed, and semi-nomadic cattle breeding gave way to pastoralism. Vegetable gardening appears.

Home processing of animal raw materials, hand weaving, and wood processing were developed. The Bashkirs knew blacksmithing, smelted cast iron and iron, and in some places they mined silver ore; Jewelry was made from silver.

After joining the Russian state, the social structure of the Bashkirs was determined by the interweaving of commodity-money relations with the remnants of patriarchal tribal life. Based on the tribal division (there were about 40 tribes and tribal groups: Burzyan, Usergan, Tamyan, Yurmat, Tabyn, Kipchak, Katai, Ming, Elan, Yeney, Bulyar, Salyut, etc., many of which were fragments of ancient tribal and ethnopolitical associations of the Eurasian steppes) volosts were formed, which were divided into clan divisions, uniting groups of related families (aimak, tyuba, ara), which inherited from the clan community the customs of exogamy, mutual assistance, etc.

The ancient Bashkirs had a large family community. In the 16th-19th centuries, both large and small families existed in parallel, the latter gradually establishing themselves as predominant. The family life of the Bashkirs was built on honoring their elders.

The traditional type of settlement is an aul located on the banks of a river or lake. In conditions of nomadic life, each village had several places of settlement: winter, spring, summer, autumn. Permanent settlements arose with the transition to sedentary life, as a rule, on the sites of winter roads.

The traditional home of the Bashkirs is a felt yurt with a prefabricated lattice frame. In the steppe zone, adobe, slab, and adobe houses were erected; in the forest and forest-steppe zones, log huts with canopies were erected. The construction technology of the Bashkirs was greatly influenced by the Russians and neighboring peoples of the Ural-Volga region.

The folk clothing of the Bashkirs unites the traditions of steppe nomads and local sedentary tribes. The basis of women's clothing was a long dress cut at the waist with frills, an apron, a camisole, decorated with braid and silver coins. Young women wore breast ornaments made of coral and coins. The women's headdress is a cap made of coral mesh with silver pendants and coins, with a long blade running down the back, embroidered with beads and cowrie shells; girlish - a helmet-shaped cap, also covered with coins; caps and scarves were also worn. Young women wore brightly colored head coverings. Outerwear - swinging kaftans and chekmeni made of colored cloth, trimmed with braiding, embroidery, and coins. Jewelry - various kinds of earrings, bracelets, rings, braids, clasps - were made of silver, corals, beads, silver coins, with inserts of turquoise, carnelian, and colored glass.

Men's clothing - shirts and trousers with wide leg, light robes (straight back and flared), camisoles, sheepskin coats. Headdresses - skullcaps, round fur hats, malakhai covering the ears and neck, hats. Women also wore hats made from animal fur. Boots, leather shoes, ichigs, shoe covers, and in the Urals - bast shoes were widespread.

The diet was dominated by meat and dairy foods; they consumed products of hunting, fishing, honey, berries and herbs. Traditional dishes are finely chopped horse meat or lamb with broth (bishbarmak, kullama), dried sausage made from horse meat and fat (kazy), various types of cottage cheese, cheese (korot), millet porridge, barley, spelled and wheat groats, oatmeal. Noodles with meat or milk broth and cereal soups are popular. Unleavened bread (flatbread) was consumed in the 18th-19th centuries. sour bread became widespread, and potatoes and vegetables became part of the diet. Low-alcohol drinks: kumis (made from mare's milk), buza (from sprouted grains of barley, spelt), bal (a relatively strong drink made from honey and sugar); They also drank diluted sour milk - ayran. For dessert, strong tea with milk or cream is most often served, and with it - honey, chak-chak, brushwood, baursaks, urami, koshtele.

The main folk holidays were celebrated in spring and summer. After the arrival of the rooks, Karga tui (“rook festival”) was held. On the eve of spring field work, and in some places after it, a plow festival (sabantuy) was held, which included a common meal, wrestling, horse racing, running and archery competitions, and competitions with a humorous effect. The holiday was accompanied by prayers at the local cemetery. In the middle of summer, Yiyyn took place, a holiday common to several villages, and in more distant times - volosts, tribes. In the summer, girls’ games take place in the lap of nature, the “cuckoo tea” ritual, in which only women participate. In dry times, a ritual of making rain was carried out with sacrifices and prayers, pouring water on each other.

The leading place in oral poetic creativity is occupied by the epic (“Ural-batyr”, “Akbuzat”, “Idukai and Muradym”, “Kusyak-bi”, “Urdas-bi with a thousand quivers”, “Alpamysha”, “Kuzy-kurpyas and Mayankhylu", "Zayatulyak and Khyukhylu"). Fairytale folklore is represented by magical, heroic, everyday tales, and tales about animals.

Song and musical creativity has been developed: epic, lyrical and everyday (ritual, satirical, humorous) songs, ditties (takmak). Various dance melodies. The dances are characterized by narrative, many (“Cuckoo”, “Crow Pacer”, “Baik”, “Perovsky”) have a complex structure and contain elements of pantomime.

Traditional musical instruments - kurai (a type of pipe), domra, kumyz (kobyz, harp: wooden - in the form of an oblong plate and metal - in the form of a bow with a tongue). In the past, there was a bowed instrument called kyl kumyz.

The Bashkirs retained elements of traditional beliefs: veneration of objects (rivers, lakes, mountains, forests, etc.) and phenomena (winds, snowstorms) of nature, heavenly bodies, animals and birds (bear, wolf, horse, dog, snake, swan, crane, golden eagle, falcon, etc., the cult of rooks was associated with the cult of ancestors, dying and reviving nature). Among the numerous host spirits (eye), a special place is occupied by the brownie (yort eyyahe) and the water spirit (hyu eyyahe). The supreme heavenly deity Tenre subsequently merged with the Muslim Allah. The forest spirit shurale and brownie are endowed with the features of Muslim shaitans, Iblis, and genies. The interweaving of traditional and Muslim beliefs is observed in rituals, and in epics and fairy tales.

Tatars and Bashkirs belong to Turkic language group. Since ancient times, these peoples have always lived nearby. They have many common characteristics, which include external and internal. These peoples developed and always lived in close contact. However, there are a number of distinctive features. The environment of the Tatar people is also heterogeneous and includes the following branches:

• Crimean.
• Volzhskie.
• Chulymskie.
• Kuznetsky.
• Mountaineers.
• Siberian.
• Nogaiskys, etc.

A brief excursion into history

In order to understand them, you need to take a short trip into the past. Until the late Middle Ages, the Turkic peoples led nomadic lifestyle. They were divided into clans and tribes, one of which were the “Tatars”. This name is found among Europeans who suffered from the invasions of the Mongol khans. A number of domestic ethnographers agree that the Tatars do not have common roots with the Mongols. They assume that the roots of modern Tatars originate from the settlements of the Volga Bulgars. The Bashkirs are considered the indigenous population of the Southern Urals. Their ethnonym was formed around the 9th-10th century.

According to anthropological characteristics, the Bashkirs have incomparably more similarities with the Mongoloid races than the Tatars. The basis for the Bashkir ethnic group was the ancient Turkic tribes, which are genetically related to the ancient people who inhabited the south of Siberia, Central and Central Asia. As they settled in the Southern Urals, the Bashkirs began to enter into close ties with the Finno-Ugric peoples.

The halo of distribution of Tatar nationality begins from the lands of Siberia and ends with the Crimean peninsula. It should be noted that they, of course, differ in many of their characteristics. The population of the Bashkirs covers mainly such territories as the Urals, Southern and Middle Urals. But most of them live within the modern borders of the republics of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan. Large enclaves are found in the Sverdlovsk, Perm, Chelyabinsk, Samara and Orenburg regions.

To subjugate the rebellious and strong Tatars, the Russian tsars had to make a lot of military efforts. An example is the repeated assault on Kazan by Russian troops. The Bashkirs did not resist Ivan the Terrible and voluntarily became part of the Russian Empire. There were no such major battles in the history of the Bashkirs.

Undoubtedly, historians note the periodic struggle for independence of both peoples. Suffice it to recall Salavat Yulaev, Kanzafar Usaev, Bakhtiyar Kankaev, Syuyumbike and others. And if they had not done this, their numbers would most likely have been even smaller. Now the Bashkirs are 4-5 times smaller in number than the Tatars.

Anthropological differences

In persons of Tatar nationality, features of the European race predominate. These signs are more relevant to the Volga-Ural Tatars. Mongoloid features are present among these peoples living on the other side of the Ural Mountains. If we describe in more detail the Volga Tatars, of whom the majority are, then they can be divided into 4 anthropological types:

• Light Caucasian.
• Pontic.
• Sublaponoid.
• Mongoloid.

The study of the racial characteristics of the anthropology of the Bashkirs led to the conclusion of a clear territorial localization, which cannot be said about the Tatars. The majority of Bashkirs have Mongoloid facial features. The majority of representatives of this people have dark skin color.

Divisions of the Bashkirs on anthropological grounds, according to one of the scientists:

• South Siberian species.
• Suburalsky.
• Pontic.

But among the Tatars, European facial features already significantly predominate. Skin colors are lighter.

National clothes

The Tatars have always loved very much bright colors of clothes– red, green, blue.

Bashkirs usually preferred calmer colors - yellow, pink, blue. The clothing of these peoples is consistent with what is prescribed by the laws of Islam - modesty.

Language differences

The differences between the Tatar and Bashkir languages ​​are much smaller than can be found in Russian and Belarusian, British and American. But they still have their own grammatical and phonetic features.

Differences in vocabulary

There are a number of words that, when translated into Russian, have a completely different meaning. For example, the words cat, far, nose, mother.

Differences in phonetics

The Tatar language does not have some specific letters that are characteristic of Bashkir. Because of this, there are slight differences in the spelling of words. For example, the letters “k” and “g” have different pronunciations. Also, many plural nouns have different word endings. Due to phonetic differences, the Bashkir language is perceived softer than Tatar.

Conclusion

In general, the conclusion is that these peoples, of course, have more similarities than differences. Take, for example, the same language spoken, clothing, external anthropological signs and everyday life. The main similarity lies in the historical development of these peoples, namely, in their close interaction in a long process of coexistence. Their traditional religion is Sunni Islam. However, it must be said that Kazan Islam is more fundamental. Despite the fact that religion does not have a clear impact on the consciousness of the Bashkirs, it has nevertheless become a traditional social norm in the lives of many people. The modest life philosophy of devout Muslims has left its mark on the way of life, the attitude towards material values ​​and the relationships between people.