Kazan Tatars and their ancestors. How do Crimean Tatars differ from Kazan Tatars?

Academy of Sciences of the USSR

Department of History and Philosophy

Institute of Language, Literature and History, Kazan Branch

Editorial group:

Chairman academician B. D. Grekov.

Members: Member Correspondent Academician Sciences of the USSR

prof. N. K. Dmitriev,

prof. S. P. Tolstov,

prof. N. I. Vorobyov,

and Art. scientific employee H. G. Gimadi.

Origin of the Kazan Tatars: Materials of the session of the Department of History and Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences, organized jointly with the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Kazan Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, April 25-26, 1946 in Moscow (according to the transcript). - Kazan: Tatgosizdat, 1948. - 160 p.

From the editor

The resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated 9/VIII-1944 “On the state and measures to improve mass-political and ideological work in the Tatar party organization” revealed serious mistakes made by some historians and writers when covering certain issues in the history of Tatarstan. (Idealization of the Golden Horde and the khan-feudal epic about Idegei). Historians were tasked with organizing the scientific development of the history of Tatarstan and eliminating the mistakes made. According to this resolution, the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Kazan branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences is developing the history of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. When writing this work, the team of authors came across a number of problems, without the resolution of which it would have been impossible to develop the history of Tataria. One of the most pressing moments in the history of the Tatar ASSR was the question of the ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars. On this issue, as is known, until recently there was no consensus among historians. Some historians identified the Kazan Tatars with those Mongol-Tatars who conquered Rus' and other countries of Eastern Europe in the 13th century. Other historians argued that the current Tatars are a conglomerate of Turko-Finnish tribes of the Middle Volga region and the conquering Mongols. And finally, there was a theory according to which the Kazan Tatars are direct descendants of the Kama Bulgars, who received only their name “Tatars” from the Mongols.

Considering the importance of the problem, the IYALI KFAN of the USSR addressed the Department of History and Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences with a request to convene a special session on the issue of the ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars. The session took place in Moscow on April 25-26, 1946. Scientists from Moscow, Leningrad and Kazan participated in the session. Historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnographers and linguists made presentations and presentations. The session opened with introductory words by academician. B. D. Grekov, who noted the importance of the problem under discussion in the study of the history of the TASSR.

Presentations at the session were made by A. P. Smirnov - “On the issue of the origin of the Kazan Tatars”, T. A. Trofimova “Ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars of the middle Volga region in the light of anthropological data”, N. I. Vorobyov “The origin of the Kazan Tatars according to ethnography” and L. 3. Zalyai “The origin of the Volga Tatars based on language materials.” Kh. G. Gimadi and N. F. Kalinin made co-reports at the session. Corresponding members of the USSR Academy of Sciences, professors: M. I. Tikhomirov, N. K. Dmitriev, S. E. Malov, A. Yu. Yakubovsky, as well as prof. S. P. Tolstov, prof. V. V. Bogdanov, R. M. Raimov, Sh. I. Tipeev, A. B. Bulatov.

The session summed up the many years of discussion on the ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars. Based on data from linguistics, archaeology, ethnography, anthropology and other related disciplines, the session was able to draw certain conclusions. The main conclusion is that the Kazan Tatars, like any nationality, are the result of long-term communication and relationships with other ethnic groups and peoples. Their formation was decisively influenced by local tribes and Turkic-speaking peoples (Bulgars and others), who, before the arrival of the Mongol conquerors in the region, created the state of the Kama Bulgars. Compared to the nomadic Mongols, the Bulgars stood at a higher level of economic and cultural development.

The Russian people had a huge influence on the development and formation of the Tatar people, with whom the Bulgars already maintained extensive economic and diplomatic ties in the 10th-12th centuries. The reports presented numerous facts of the penetration of more progressive forms of life and economy of the Russian people into the life of the Tatars.

The reports and speeches thoroughly proved the complete inconsistency of the views identifying the Kazan Tatars with the Mongol-Tatars.

In the salary of T. A. Trofimova, on the basis of anthropological data, it is proved that modern Kazan Tatars were formed “on the basis of ancient layers of the local population, which included some later anthropological layers.”

The population living on the territory of Kama Bulgaria as part of the Golden Horde found itself in the position of an enslaved people. It was subject to tribute and was subjected to cruel military-feudal oppression. Like the Russian people, who took on the main burden of the struggle, the Bulgars and other peoples of the Middle Volga region also fought against the Mongol conquerors. This struggle of the people against the conquerors is captured in historical documents and folk epics.

The result was summed up by academician. B. D. Grekov, who noted the fruitfulness of the session. The significance of this scientific session is great. Its materials are a valuable contribution not only to the literature on the history of Tatarstan, but also to the history of other peoples of the Middle Volga region, in particular the Chuvash. At the same time, the session provided a specific program for further scientific work on issues that require in-depth study. Now historians of Tatarstan will be bolder and more confident in developing the history of their republic, because the difficulties that stood in the way of resolving this important task have been largely eliminated.

In the form of a hypothesis, let me express the following considerations. Richly decorated stone slabs with calligraphic font, with texts in Arabic and with words akin to the Kazan-Tatar language, belonged, in my opinion, to the top of the Bulgar feudal society, predominantly even in the capital, largely Arabized and using the literary language of the time, which for the lower and middle Volga region of the 13th-14th centuries, the Turkic-Kipchak language with strong elements of Arabism can be considered.

Among the rest of the population of the Bulgar state there was a layer lower on the social ladder - merchants, artisans, and less noble feudal lords. Their language was different, less affected by the influence of literature and Arab education. Monuments of the writing of this population are the epitaphs of the “second style” widespread in Tatarstan with “Chuvashisms” and with simplified Kufic traditional graphics. It is possible that here we also have a manifestation of a special ethnic group that originally lived in Bulgaria, which can be called Turkic-Chuvash or Suvar, which in earlier centuries had its own political center (the city of Suvar), its own feudal nobility. With the loss of Suvar's previous position, with the rise of the city of Bulgar, and then with the Mongol conquest and a strong reshuffling of the population, in particular the descendants of the Suvar nobility, who had lost political influence, found themselves in the position of the former aristocracy, adhering to old traditions in language and customs. It is possible that the manifestation of these traditions of the “Suvar nobility” are the monuments of the “transitional style” that we described above. Thus, in the Bulgar linguistic monuments presented here we can distinguish at least two dialects and establish a genetic connection between the Bulgars and the Kazan Tatars, which is especially clearly evident from the comparison of the monuments of the 1st style with Kazan monuments of the same nature dating back to the 15th-16th centuries. This line of succession can be drawn further into the 17th and 18th centuries. Without being able to present these materials in detail here, I will limit myself to just a reference to our albums indicated in note 3. Even external similarities reveal continuity. They are more noticeable in the language of the texts.

Kalinin N. F. On the question of the origin of the Kazan Tatars.] // The origin of the Kazan Tatars: Materials of the session of the Department of History and Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences, organized jointly with the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Kazan Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, April 25-26, 1946 in Moscow (according to transcript). - Kazan: Tatgosizdat, 1948. - P. 104.

The Chuvash are associated with local settled tribes, most likely with the Esegel and Suvar (their city of Oshel was taken by the Russians in 1220), which were part of the Bulgarian kingdom. This, in particular, was pointed out by Marr, who associated Suvar with the Chuvash. It seems to me that they were part of the Bulgarian kingdom as one of the tribes.

Smirnov A.P. Final words // Origin of the Kazan Tatars: Materials of the session of the Department of History and Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences, organized jointly with the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Kazan Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, April 25-26, 1946 in Moscow (according to the transcript). - Kazan: Tatgosizdat, 1948. - P. 148.

Characterizing the main national composition of the [Kazan] Khanate, the “Kazan Chronicler” of the 16th century. notes that “there are two Cheremis in the Kazan region, and there are three languages, the fourth language is barbarian, the one who speaks them.”

It is clear from the sources that the Chuvash, Mari, Votyaks, ancestors of modern Udmurts and Kazan Tatars lived on the territory of the Kazan Khanate. In addition to these peoples, part of the Bashkirs and a small group of Ostyaks (“Ishtyak”) lived on the lands subject to the Khanate. The Kazan Tatars, who made up the main population of the Khanate, were formed on the basis of the Turkic-speaking population of Volga Bulgaria. There was no new population that compactly penetrated into the Middle Volga region during the formation of the Kazan Khanate.

A small military detachment of 3,000 people who came to Kazan in 1445 with Ulu-Muhammad probably consisted mainly of Horde feudal lords, who, being close in language to the local population, quickly disappeared into this environment. The feudal elite of the Kazan Khanate, continuing the Golden Horde policy towards Rus' and the local peoples of the Volga-Kama region, sought to impose on the people of the region the name characteristic of the population of the Golden Horde - “Tatars”. The indigenous population of the country resisted this alien name and preferred to call themselves Bulgars or Kazanians. Only after the fall of the Kazan Khanate, in the 17th-18th centuries, was the ethnonym “Tatars” finally established for the local Turkic-speaking population. The Kazan Tatars were formed as a nation on the basis of the indigenous Turkic-speaking population, which penetrated into the Volga-Kama region back in the 1st millennium AD. e. and here, gradually enriched during the period of the Volga Bulgaria and the Kazan Khanate due to new Turkic-speaking inclusions.

In the 15th–16th centuries, that is, during the era of the Kazan Khanate, the necessary conditions developed for the ethnic consolidation of the Kazan Tatars - territorial and economic ties strengthened, and the national self-awareness of the people strengthened. Most of the modern Tatar villages, especially in Predkamie and Zakazanie, apparently arose during the period of the Kazan Khanate, and many of them continued to exist on the sites of settlements of Volga Bulgaria. Archaeologists have recorded the remains of Bulgarian villages on the site of the modern villages of Bolshaya Elga, Khodyashevo, Nyrsy and others. In the cemeteries of many Tatar villages, gravestones of the 14th-16th centuries are preserved.

“History of the Tatar ASSR”, Tatknigoizdat, 1968.

There were Mongols - they became Tatars

In medieval and modern historical literature, the integrated terms “Mongol-Tatar era”, “Mongol-Tatars”, etc. became widespread. Moreover, the ethnonym “Mongols” was often replaced by medieval authors with the name “Tatars”. In the Chinese political and historiographical tradition, starting from the Sung time, the name of the Mongols as Tatars decisively prevailed. Why did the Mongols of Temujin, who defeated the Tatars, begin to be called by the name of the conquered people? The Arab medieval historian Rashid ad-Din gives his explanation: “Their name has been known in the world since ancient times. Numerous branches also separated from them... If, given their large number, they had unanimity with each other, and not enmity, then other peoples from the Chinese and others... would not have been able to resist them.<...>Because of [their] extreme greatness and honorable position, other Turkic clans, with differences in their ranks and names, became known by their name, and all were called Tatars.”

What is the history of this ancient Mongolian people?

For the first time, the Tatars are mentioned under the name Otuz-Tatars (30 Tatars) by the largest known runic inscription - a monument in honor of Kul-Tegin (732). They are mentioned as enemies of Kul-Tegin's father, Ilteres Kagan (d. 691). Then the Tatars supported the Tokuz-Oguz, who fought with the Turks. In 723-724. Tatars (Tokuz-Tatars) together with Tokuz-Oghuzs rebel against Bilge Kagan. Together with the Oguz tribes, the Tatars in the late 40s of the 8th century. rebel against the Uyghur Kagan and are defeated. As part of the Uyghur Khaganate (744-840), the Tatars were one of the vassal tribal unions; according to a 12th century Chinese author. Wang Mingji, then “the Tatars were cow herders for the Uyghurs.” But already in the Uyghur era, the possessions of the Tatars are mentioned not only in Eastern Mongolia, but also in the Western Territory, and in the 10th century. the entire Eastern Turkestan is called “the country of the Toguz and Tatars.” In the pre-Mongol era, at least in the 10th – 12th centuries, the ethnonym “Tatars” was well known not only in the Middle Empire, but also in Central Asia and Iran. Mahmud of Kashgar, a competent source of the 11th century. Calls the vast region between Northern China and Eastern Turkestan the “Tatar Steppe” - in the same way, the southern Russian and Kazakh steppes were then called by Muslim authors “Dasht-i Kipchak” (“Kypchak steppe”). The name “Tatar Steppe” agrees well with other information about the settlement of the Tatars in the 9th-10th centuries. and explains why a century later the Mongols, who occupied the same space, were called Tatars in the Turkic Muslim environment, as in China. This Turkic designation for the Mongols took root not only in Central Asia and the Middle East, but also in Rus' and Western Europe, despite the fact that the Mongols themselves did not call themselves Tatars. The Central Asian Tatars remain largely a mystery. If written sources tell us information, albeit rather meager, about their tribal composition, area of residence, political structure and some historical events, then archaeologically their material culture is still a blank spot, since the materials of excavations (if they were carried out at the Tatar burial grounds) have not yet received widespread coverage in the literature. Nevertheless, the appearance of the Tatars of the 12th century, especially their ruling stratum, can be imagined, and even in quite detail: the fact is that a large number of magnificent Chinese images, very realistic and detailed, have reached us. The Chinese knew the Tatars very well, who roamed along the Great Wall of China and were the closest inhabitants of the Great Steppe to the Celestial Empire.

"Atlas of Tatarstan. Story. Culture. Ethnicity" ("Tartarica"). Section "Tatars of the Great Steppe".

“Kazan Stories”, No. 10-14, 2005

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Story

Early history

Funeral rite

Many facts about the funeral rites of the Kazan Tatars show complete continuity from the Bulgars; today, most of the rites of the Kazan Tatars are associated with their Muslim religion.

Location. The city necropolises of the Golden Horde were located within the city, as were the burial grounds of the Kazan Khanate period. Cemeteries of Kazan Tatars of the 18th-19th centuries. were located outside the villages, not far from the villages, if possible - across the river.

Grave structures. From the descriptions of ethnographers it follows that the Kazan Tatars had the custom of planting one or more trees on the grave. The graves were almost always surrounded by a fence, sometimes a stone was placed on the grave, small log houses were made without a roof, in which birch trees were planted and stones were placed, and sometimes monuments were erected in the form of pillars.

Burial method. The Bulgars of all periods are characterized by the ritual of inhumation (deposition of a corpse). The pagan Bulgars were buried with their heads to the west, on their backs, with their arms along the body. A distinctive feature of the burial grounds of the X-XI centuries. is the period of formation of a new ritual in Volga Bulgaria, hence the lack of strict uniformity in individual details of the ritual, in particular, in the position of the body, hands and face of the buried. Along with observing the qibla, in the vast majority of cases there are individual burials facing upward or even to the north. There are burials of the dead on the right side. The position of the hands is especially varied during this period. For necropolises of the XII-XIII centuries. The ritual details are unified: strict adherence to the qibla, the face facing Mecca, a uniform position of the deceased with a slight turn to the right side, with the right hand extended along the body and the left hand slightly bent and placed on the pelvis. On average, 90% of burials give this stable combination of features versus 40-50% in early burial grounds. During the Golden Horde period, all burials were performed according to the rite of inhumation, the body was stretched out on the back, sometimes with a turn on the right side, head to the west, face to the south. During the period of the Kazan Khanate, the funeral rite did not change. According to the descriptions of ethnographers, the deceased was lowered into the grave, then laid in the side lining, facing Mecca. The hole was filled with bricks or boards. The spread of Islam among the Volga Bulgars already in pre-Mongol times was very clearly manifested in the rite of the Bulgars of the 12th-13th centuries, during the period of the Golden Horde, and later in the funeral rite of the Kazan Tatars.

National clothes

The clothing of men and women consisted of trousers with a wide step and a shirt (for women it was complemented by an embroidered bib), on which a sleeveless camisole was worn. Outerwear was a Cossack coat, and in winter a quilted beshmet or fur coat. The men's headdress is a skullcap, and on top of it is a hemispherical hat with fur or a felt hat; for women - an embroidered velvet cap (kalfak) and a scarf. Traditional shoes were leather ichigi with soft soles; outside the home they wore leather galoshes. Women's costumes were characterized by an abundance of metal decorations.

Anthropological types of Kazan Tatars

The most significant in the field of anthropology of the Kazan Tatars are the studies of T. A. Trofimova, conducted in 1929-1932. In particular, in 1932, together with G.F. Debets, she conducted extensive research in Tatarstan. In the Arsky district, 160 Tatars were examined, in the Elabuga district - 146 Tatars, in the Chistopol district - 109 Tatars. Anthropological studies have revealed the presence of four main anthropological types among the Kazan Tatars: Pontic, light Caucasoid, sublaponoid, Mongoloid.

Table 1. Anthropological characteristics of various groups of Kazan Tatars.

Signs	Tatars of the Arsky region	Tatars of Yelabuga region	Tatars of Chistopol region
Number of cases	160	146	109
Height	165,5	163,0	164,1
Longitudinal dia.	189,5	190,3	191,8
Transverse dia.	155,8	154,4	153,3
Altitude dia.	128,0	125,7	126,0
Head decree.	82,3	81,1	80,2
Height-longitudinal	67,0	67,3	65,7
Morphological face height	125,8	124,6	127,0
Zygomatic dia.	142,6	140,9	141,5
Morphological persons pointer	88,2	88,5	90,0
Nasal pointer	65,2	63,3	64,5
Hair color (% black - 27, 4-5)	70,9	58,9	73,2
Eye color (% dark and mixed 1-8 according to Bunak)	83,7	87,7	74,2
Horizontal profile % flat	8,4	2,8	3,7
Average score (1-3)	2,05	2,25	2,20
Epicanthus(% availability)	3,8	5,5	0,9
Eyelid fold	71,7	62,8	51,9
Beard (according to Bunak) % very weak and weak growth (1-2)	67,6	45,5	42,1
Average score (1-5)	2,24	2,44	2,59
Nose height Average score(1-3)	2,04	2,31	2,33
General profile of the nasal dorsum % concave	6,4	9,0	11,9
% convex	5,8	20,1	24,8
Nose tip position % elevated	22,5	15,7	18,4
% omitted	14,4	17,1	33,0

Table 2. Anthropological types of Kazan Tatars, according to T. A. Trofimova

Population groups	Light Caucasian		Pontic		Sublaponoid		Mongoloid
Population groups	N	%	N	%	N	%	N	%
Tatars of the Arsky district of Tatarstan	12	25,5 %	14	29,8 %	11	23,4 %	10	21,3 %
Tatars of the Yelabuga region of Tatarstan	10	16,4 %	25	41,0 %	17	27,9 %	9	14,8 %
Tatars of the Chistopol region of Tatarstan	6	16,7 %	16	44,4 %	5	13,9 %	9	25,0 %
All	28	19,4 %	55	38,2 %	33	22,9 %	28	19,4 %

These types have the following characteristics:

Pontic type- characterized by mesocephaly, dark or mixed pigmentation of hair and eyes, high bridge of the nose, convex bridge of the nose, with a drooping tip and base, significant beard growth. Growth is average with an upward trend.
Light Caucasian type- characterized by subbrachycephaly, light pigmentation of hair and eyes, medium or high bridge of the nose with a straight bridge of the nose, a moderately developed beard, and average height. A number of morphological features - the structure of the nose, the size of the face, pigmentation and a number of others - bring this type closer to the Pontic.
Sublaponoid type(Volga-Kama) - characterized by meso-subbrachycephaly, mixed pigmentation of hair and eyes, wide and low nose bridge, weak beard growth and a low, medium-wide face with a tendency to flattening. Quite often there is a fold of the eyelid with weak development of the epicanthus.
Mongoloid type(South Siberian) - characterized by brachycephaly, dark shades of hair and eyes, a wide and flattened face and a low bridge of the nose, frequent epicanthus and poor beard development. Height, on a Caucasian scale, is average.

Theory of ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars

There are several theories of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars. Three of them are described in the most detail in the scientific literature:

Bulgaro-Tatar theory
Tatar-Mongol theory
Turkic-Tatar theory.

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Notes

Literature

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Drozdova G. I./ abstract of thesis. ... candidate of historical sciences: 07.00.06. - Kazan: Institute of History named after Sh. Mardzhani of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, 2007. - 27 p.
Znamensky P.V.. - Kazan, 1910.
Kaariainen K. (Finnish)Russian, Furman D.E. Tatars and Russians - believers and non-believers, old and young // Questions of Philosophy. - 1999. - No. 11. - P. 68-80.
Kosach G. G. Tatarstan: religion and nationality in the mass consciousness // New churches, old believers - old churches, new believers. Religion in post-Soviet Russia / K. Kaariainen (Finnish)Russian, D. E. Furman (chief editors). - M.:, 2007.
Mukhametshin R. M. Tatars and Islam in the 20th century. (Islam in the social and political life of the Tatars and Tatarstan). - Kazan: Fen, 2003. - 303 p. - ISBN 5754402252.
Tatars / Rep. ed. R. K. Urazmanova, S. V. Cheshko. - M.: Nauka, 2001. - 583 p. - (Peoples and cultures). ()
Trofimova T. A. Ethnogenesis of the Tatars of the Middle Volga region in the light of anthropological data // Origin of the Kazan Tatars. - Kazan, 1948. - P. 30-34.
Urazmanova R.K. Family life of the Tatars in the south-eastern regions of Tatarstan // From the history of culture and life of the Tatar people and their ancestors. - Kazan: Kazan branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1976. - 152 p.
Urazmanova R.K. Modern rituals of the Tatar people: historical and ethnographic studies. - Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, 1984. - 145 p.
Urazmanova R.K. Rituals and holidays of the Tatars of the Volga region and the Urals. Annual cycle. XIX-early XX centuries Historical and ethnographic atlas of the Tatar people. - Kazan: Publishing House PIK "House of Printing", 2001. - 198 p.
Urazmanova R.K.// Ethnographic review. - 2009. - No. 1. - pp. 13-26.

An excerpt characterizing the Kazan Tatars

My dad began to “temporarily” go to a Russian school (Russian and Polish schools were not uncommon in Lithuania), which he really liked and he categorically did not want to leave it, because constant wandering and changing schools affected his studies and, more importantly, – did not allow me to make real friends, without whom it was very difficult for any normal boy to exist. My grandfather found a good job and had the opportunity on weekends to at least somehow “unwind” in his beloved surrounding forest.

And my grandmother at that time had her little newborn son in her arms and dreamed of not moving anywhere for at least a short time, since physically she did not feel too well and was, like her whole family, tired of constant wanderings. Several years passed unnoticed. The war was long over, and life was becoming more normal in all respects. My dad studied perfectly all the time and the teachers denigrated his gold medal (which he received after graduating from the same school).
My grandmother calmly raised her little son, and my grandfather finally found his long-standing dream - the opportunity to “plunge headlong into” the Alytu forest that he loved so much every day.
Thus, everyone was more or less happy and so far no one wanted to leave this truly “God’s corner” and again set out to wander along the main roads. They decided to give dad the opportunity to finish the school he loved so much, and to give his grandmother’s little son Valery the opportunity to grow up as much as possible, so that it would be easier to embark on a long journey.
But the days flew by imperceptibly, months passed, being replaced by years, and the Seryogins still lived in the same place, as if having forgotten about all their promises, which, of course, was not true, but simply helped them get used to the idea that they might not will be able to fulfill the word given to Princess Elena never again... All the Siberian horrors were far behind, life had become everyday familiar, and it sometimes seemed to the Seryogins that this was possible and had never happened, as if it had happened in some long-forgotten, nightmare dream. ..

Vasily grew and matured, becoming a handsome young man, and it increasingly seemed to his adoptive mother that he was her own son, since she truly loved him very much and, as they say, doted on him. My dad called her mother, since he still (according to the general agreement) did not know the truth about his birth, and in return he loved her as much as he would have loved his real mother. This also applied to his grandfather, whom he called his father, and also sincerely, with all his heart, loved.
So everything seemed to be getting better little by little and only occasional conversations about distant France became less and less frequent, until one fine day they stopped completely. There was no hope of getting there, and the Seryogins apparently decided that it would be better if no one reopened this wound...
My dad had already graduated from school at that time, as predicted for him - with a gold medal and entered the literary institute in absentia. To help his family, he worked as a journalist for the Izvestia newspaper, and in his spare time he began writing plays for the Russian Drama Theater in Lithuania.

Everything seemed to be fine, except for one very painful problem - since dad was an excellent speaker (for which, from my memory, he really had a very great talent!), the Komsomol committee of our town did not leave him alone, wanting to get him as their secretary. Dad resisted with all his might, because (even without knowing about his past, which the Seryogins decided not to tell him about for now) he hated revolution and communism with all his soul, with all the consequences arising from these “teachings,” and no “sympathies” for them did not feed... At school, he, naturally, was a pioneer and a Komsomol member, since without this it was impossible in those days to dream of entering any institute, but he categorically did not want to go beyond that. And also, there was one more fact that brought dad into real horror - this was participation in punitive expeditions against the so-called “forest brothers”, who were nothing more than just guys as young as dad, “dispossessed” guys » parents who hid in the forests so as not to be taken to the distant and very frightening Siberia.
For several years after the advent of Soviet power, there was not a family left in Lithuania from which at least one person was not taken to Siberia, and very often the whole family was taken away.
Lithuania was a small but very rich country, with an excellent economy and huge farms, the owners of which in Soviet times began to be called “kulaks”, and the same Soviet government began to very actively “dekulakize” them... And it was precisely for these “punitive expeditions” “The best Komsomol members were selected to show others an “infectious example”... These were friends and acquaintances of the same “forest brothers” who went to the same schools together, played together, went to dances with the girls... And now, on someone’s crazy order, suddenly for some reason they became enemies and had to exterminate each other...
After two such trips, in one of which two of the twenty guys who left returned (and dad turned out to be one of these two), he got half drunk and the next day wrote a statement in which he categorically refused further participation in any such “events” . The first “pleasure” that followed after such a statement was the loss of his job, which at that time he “desperately” needed. But since dad was a truly talented journalist, he was immediately offered a job by another newspaper, Kaunasskaya Pravda, from a neighboring town. But, unfortunately, he didn’t have to stay there for long either, for such a simple reason as a short call “from above”... which instantly deprived dad of the new job he had just received. And dad was once again politely escorted out the door. Thus began his long-term war for the freedom of his personality, which even I remembered very well.
At first he was the secretary of the Komsomol, from which he left several times “of his own free will” and returned at the request of someone else. Later, he was a member of the Communist Party, from which he was also thrown out with a “big bang” and immediately climbed back in, since, again, there were few Russian-speaking, superbly educated people of this level in Lithuania at that time. And dad, as I mentioned earlier, was an excellent lecturer and was gladly invited to different cities. Only there, far from his “employers,” he again gave lectures not quite about what they wanted, and for this he received all the same problems that started this whole “gimmick”...
I remember how at one time (during Andropov’s reign), when I was already a young woman, our men were strictly forbidden to wear long hair, which was considered a “capitalist provocation” and (no matter how wild it may sound today!) the police received the right to detain right on the street and forcibly cutting people with long hair. This happened after one young guy (his name was Kalanta) burned himself alive in the central square of Kaunas, the second largest city in Lithuania (it was where my parents already worked then). It was his protest against the clampdown on individual freedom, which frightened the communist leadership at that time, and it took “strengthened measures” to combat “terrorism,” among which there were stupid “measures” that only increased the discontent of normal people living in the Republic of Lithuania at that time of people...
My dad, as a free artist, who, having changed his profession several times during this time, he was then, came to party meetings with long hair (which, to his credit, he had simply gorgeous!), which infuriated his party bosses, and for the third time he was thrown out of the party, into which, after some time, again, not of his own free will, he “fell” back... I myself was a witness to this, and when I asked my dad why he constantly “runs into trouble” troubles,” he calmly replied:
“This is my life, and it belongs to me.” And only I am responsible for how I want to live it. And no one on this earth has the right to forcefully impose on me beliefs that I do not believe and do not want to believe, since I consider them lies.
This is how I remember my father. And it was precisely this conviction of his full right to his own life that helped me survive thousands of times in the most difficult life circumstances for me. He madly, somehow even manically, loved life! And, nevertheless, he would never agree to do something mean, even if his very life depended on it.
This is how, on the one hand, fighting for his “freedom”, and on the other hand, writing beautiful poems and dreaming of “exploits” (until his death, my dad was an incorrigible romantic at heart!), the days of young Vasily Seregin passed in Lithuania. .who still had no idea who he really was and, apart from some nagging behavior from the local "authorities", was an almost entirely happy young man. He didn’t have a “lady of his heart” yet, which could probably be explained by days that were completely busy with work or the absence of that “one and true” that dad had not yet been able to find...
But finally, fate apparently decided that he had had enough of being a bachelor and turned the wheel of his life towards “feminine charm,” which turned out to be the “real and only” that dad had been so persistently waiting for.

Her name was Anna (or in Lithuanian - She), and she turned out to be the sister of dad’s best friend at that time, Jonas (in Russian - Ivan) Zukauskas, to whom dad was invited to Easter breakfast on that “fateful” day. Dad visited his friend several times, but, by a strange quirk of fate, he had not yet crossed paths with his sister. And he certainly never expected that on this spring Easter morning such a stunning surprise would await him there...
The door was opened for him by a brown-eyed, black-haired girl who, in that one short moment, managed to conquer my father’s romantic heart for the rest of his life...

Star
Snow and cold where I was born
The blue of lakes, in the land where you grew up...
I fell in love with a star as a boy,
Light as early dew.
Maybe in days of grief and bad weather,
Telling her girlish dreams,
Like your girlfriend the same year
Did you fall in love with the star too?..
Was it raining, was there a blizzard in the field,
Late evenings with you,
Knowing nothing about each other
We admired our star.
She was the best in heaven
Brighter than all, brighter and clearer...
Whatever I do, wherever I am,
I never forgot about her.
Its radiant light is everywhere
Warmed my blood with hope.
Young, untouched and pure
I brought you all my love...
The star sang songs to me about you,
Day and night she called me into the distance...
And on a spring evening, in April,
Brought to your window.
I quietly took you by the shoulders,
And he said, not hiding his smile:
“So it was not in vain that I waited for this meeting,
My beloved star...

Mom was completely captivated by dad's poems... And he wrote them to her a lot and brought them to her work every day along with huge posters drawn by his own hand (dad was a great drawer), which he unrolled right on her desktop, and on which , among all kinds of painted flowers, it was written in large letters: “Annushka, my star, I love you!” Naturally, what woman could withstand this for a long time and not give up?.. They never parted again... Using every free minute to spend it together, as if someone could take it away from them. Together they went to the movies, to dances (which they both loved very much), walked in the charming Alytus city park, until one fine day they decided that enough dates were enough and that it was time to look at life a little more seriously. Soon they got married. But only my father’s friend (my mother’s younger brother) Jonas knew about this, since this union did not cause much delight on either my mother’s or my father’s side of the family... My mother’s parents predicted for her a rich neighbor-teacher, whom they really liked, as her groom and, in their opinion, he “suited” his mother perfectly, and in his father’s family at that time there was no time for marriage, since grandfather was sent to prison at that time as an “accomplice of the nobles” (by which, they probably tried to “break” the stubbornly resisting dad), and my grandmother ended up in the hospital from a nervous shock and was very sick. Dad was left with his little brother in his arms and now had to run the entire household alone, which was very difficult, since the Seryogins at that time lived in a large two-story house (in which I later lived), with a huge old garden around. And, naturally, such a farm required good care...
So three long months passed, and my dad and mom, already married, were still going on dates, until my mom accidentally went to my dad’s house one day and found a very touching picture there... Dad stood in the kitchen in front of the stove, looking unhappy “replenishing” the hopelessly growing number of pots of semolina porridge, which at that moment he was cooking for his little brother. But for some reason the “evil” porridge became more and more, and poor dad could not understand what was happening... Mom, trying with all her might to hide a smile so as not to offend the unlucky “cook,” rolled up her sleeves right away began to put this whole “stagnant household mess” in order, starting with the completely occupied, “porridge-filled” pots, the indignantly sizzling stove... Of course, after such an “emergency”, my mother could no longer calmly observe such a “heart-tugging” male helplessness, and decided to immediately move to this territory, which was still completely foreign and unfamiliar to her... And although it was not very easy for her at that time either - she worked at the post office (to support herself), and in the evenings she went to preparatory classes classes for medical school exams.

She, without hesitation, gave all her remaining strength to her exhausted young husband and his family. The house immediately came to life. The kitchen smelled overwhelmingly of delicious Lithuanian zeppelins, which my dad’s little brother adored and, just like dad, who had been sitting on dry food for a long time, he literally gorged himself on them to the “unreasonable” limit. Everything became more or less normal, except for the absence of my grandparents, about whom my poor dad was very worried, and sincerely missed them all this time. But now he already had a young, beautiful wife, who, as best she could, tried in every possible way to brighten up his temporary loss, and looking at my father’s smiling face, it was clear that she succeeded quite well. Dad’s little brother very soon got used to his new aunt and followed her tail, hoping to get something tasty or at least a beautiful “evening fairy tale”, which his mother read to him in great abundance before bed.
Days and then weeks passed so calmly in everyday worries. Grandmother, by that time, had already returned from the hospital and, to her great surprise, found her newly-made daughter-in-law at home... And since it was too late to change anything, they simply tried to get to know each other better, avoiding unwanted conflicts (which inevitably appear with any new, too close acquaintance). More precisely, they were simply getting used to each other, trying to honestly avoid any possible “underwater reefs”... I was always sincerely sorry that my mother and grandmother never fell in love with each other... They were both (or rather, my mother still are) wonderful people, and I loved them both very much. But if my grandmother, throughout our entire life together, somehow tried to adapt to my mother, then my mother, on the contrary, at the end of my grandmother’s life, sometimes too openly showed her her irritation, which deeply hurt me, since I was very attached to both of them and very I didn’t like to fall, as they say, “between two fires” or to forcibly take someone’s side. I could never understand what caused this constant “quiet” war between these two wonderful women, but apparently there were some very good reasons for this, or perhaps my poor mother and grandmother were simply truly “incompatible” , as happens quite often with strangers living together. One way or another, it was a great pity, because, in general, it was a very friendly and faithful family, in which everyone stood up for each other and went through every trouble or misfortune together.
But let's go back to those days when all this was just beginning, and when each member of this new family honestly tried to “live together”, without creating any trouble for the others... Grandfather was already at home, but his health, to the great regret of everyone else , after the days spent in custody, it deteriorated sharply. Apparently, including the difficult days spent in Siberia, all the long ordeals of the Seryogins in unfamiliar cities did not spare the poor, life-torn grandfather’s heart - he began to have recurring micro-infarctions...

I. Introduction.
There are a number of contradictory theories about the origin of our Kazan Tatars, none of which can yet claim to be reliable. According to one of them, and apparently the oldest, the Kazan Tatars are descendants of the Tatar-Mongols, according to another, their ancestors are the Volga-Kama Bulgars, according to the third, they are descendants of the Kipchaks from the Golden Horde, who migrated to the Volga region, and according to the fourth, so far the latest It seems that the Kazan Tatars are the descendants of Turkic-speaking tribes that appeared in the Volga and Urals regions in the 7th-8th centuries and formed the Kazan Tatar nation within the Volga-Kama Bulgaria. The author of this latest hypothesis, head. archaeological department Kazan Institute named after. G. Ibragimova A. Khalikov, although he reasonably rejects the first three theories, still writes about his work that it is only an attempt to summarize new data on the origin of the Volga Tatars and lay the foundation for further research in this area. It seems to us that the reason for such difficulties in resolving the issue of the origin of the Kazan Tatars is that they are looking for their ancestors not where their descendants now live, i.e. not in the Tatar Republic, and in addition, the emergence of the Kazan Tatars is attributed not to the era when this took place, but in all cases to more ancient times.

II. Theory of the Tatar-Mongol origin of the Kazan Tatars
According to this theory, the Kazan Tatars are descendants of the Tatar-Mongols, who conquered many countries in the first half of the 13th century and left among the Russian people the sad memory of the “Tatar yoke.” The Russian people were sure of this when the Moscow army went on a campaign that ended with the annexation of Kazan to Moscow in 1552. This is what we read in “The Tale of Prince Kurbsky about the Conquest of Kazan”:
“And Abiye, with the help of God, resisting the opposition of the Christian army. And against such adversaries, like the great and formidable Ishmaeltetian language, the universe once trembled from the worthlessness, and not only trembled, but was also devastated,” i.e. The Christian army came out against the people, before whom the universe trembled and not only trembled, but by whom it was also devastated.
This theory, based only on the similarity of the names of the ancient and modern peoples, had its supporters, but its fallacy is completely proven by the results of diverse scientific studies, which absolutely do not confirm any connection between the Kazan Tatars and the Tatar-Mongols.

This hypothesis may still be preserved in some places, as a philistine point of view of people who know something from the literature about the “Tatars” of ancient times and who also know that, for example, Kazan Tatars exist now.

III. The theory of the Kipchak-Polovtsian origin of the Kazan Tatars
There is a group of Soviet scientists (M.N. Tikhomirov, M. Saforgaleev, Sh. F. Mukhamedyarov), who, based on the fact that the Tata language is part of the so-called Kipchak group of Turkic languages, consider the Kazan Tatars to be descendants of the Kipchak-Polovtsian tribes , which in the 13th and 14th centuries made up the bulk of the population of the Golden Horde. According to these scientists, the Kipchak tribes, after the Mongol invasion, especially after the collapse of the Golden Horde, moved to the banks of the Kama and Volga, where, with the remnants of the Volga Bulgaria, they formed the basis of the Kazan Tatars.
This theory, based only on the common language, is refuted by archaeological and anthropological materials, which do not confirm any significant changes in either the culture or the ethnic composition of the population of the Kazan Khanate in comparison with the population and culture of the local region of the Golden Horde period.

IV. The theory of the origin of the Kazan Tatars from the Volga-Kama Bulgars
For quite a long time there was controversy between supporters of the origin of the Kazan Tatars or Chuvash from the Volga-Kama Bulgars. The dispute was finally resolved in favor of the latter, and in relation to the Kazan Tatars this issue has now completely disappeared. In resolving this issue, the main role was played by the fact that the Tatar language is so different from the Old Bulgar that it is difficult to identify the ancestors of the Tatars with the Volga-Kama Bulgars. At the same time: “If we compare the language of the Bulgar tombstones with the current Chuvash dialect, then the difference between both turns out to be very insignificant.”1)
Or: “Monuments of the Bulgar language of the 13th century are most closely explained from the modern Chuvash language.”2)

V. “Archaeological” theory of the origin of the Kazan Tatars
In a very respectable work on the history of the Kazan Tatars we read: 3)
“The main ancestors of the Tatars of the Middle Volga and Urals were numerous nomadic and semi-nomadic, mostly Turkic-speaking tribes, which from about the 4th century. AD began to penetrate from the southeast into the forest-steppe part from the Urals to the upper reaches of the Oka River.”
According to the theory clarifying the above position, proposed by the head. sector of archeology of the Kazan Institute of Language, Literature and History of the USSR Academy of Sciences, A. Khalikov, the ancestors of the modern Kazan Tatars, as well as the Bashkirs, should be considered the Turkic-speaking tribes that invaded the Volga region and the Urals in the 6th-8th centuries, speaking the language of the Oguz-Kipchak type. 4)
According to the author, the main population of Volga Bulgaria, even in the pre-Mongol period, probably spoke a language close to the Kipchak-Oguz group of Turkic languages, related to the language of the Volga Tatars and Bashkirs. According to the author, there is reason to believe that in Volga Bulgaria, even in the pre-Mongol period, on the basis of the merger of Turkic-speaking tribes, their assimilation of part of the local Finnish-Ugric population, the process of formation of ethnocultural Volga Tatars was underway. The author concludes that it would not be a big mistake to believe that during this period the foundations of the language, culture and anthropological appearance of the Kazan Tatars took shape, including their adoption of the Muslim religion in the 10th-11th centuries.
Fleeing from the Mongol invasion and raids from the Golden Horde, these ancestors of the Kazan Tatars allegedly moved from Trans-Kama and settled on the banks of the Kazanka and Mesha rivers. During the period of the Kazan Khanate, the main groups of the Volga Tatars - the Kazan Tatars and Mishars - were finally formed from them, and after the annexation of the region to the Russian state, as a result of allegedly forced Christianization, some of the Tatars were allocated to the group of Kryashens.
Let's look at the weaknesses of this theory.
There is a point of view that Turkic-speaking tribes with “Tatar” and “Chuvash” languages lived in the Volga region from time immemorial.

Academician S.E. Malov, for example, says: “Currently, two Turkic peoples live in the Volga region: the Chuvash and the Tatars. Their languages are different, although they are of the same Turkic system. I think that these two linguistic elements were here a very long time ago, several centuries before the new era and almost in the same form as now. If today’s Tatars had met the supposed “ancient Tatar”, a resident of the 5th century BC, they would have had a good understanding with him. The Chuvash are the same.”
Thus, it is not necessary to attribute it only to the VI-VII centuries. the appearance of Turkic tribes of the Kipchak (Tatar) linguistic group in the Volga region.
We will consider the Bulgaro-Chuvash identity indisputably established and agree with the opinion that the ancient Volga Bulgars were known under this name only among other peoples, and they themselves called themselves Chuvash. Thus, the Chuvash language was the language of the Bulgars, a language not only spoken, but also written and accounting.5)
There is also this statement in support: 6)
“The Chuvash language is a purely Turkic dialect, with an admixture of Arabic, Persian and Russian and almost without any admixture of Finnish words” ... “the influence of educated nations is visible in the language.”
So, in ancient Volga Bulgaria, which existed for a historical period of time equal to approximately five centuries, the state language was Chuvash and the bulk of the population most likely consisted of the ancestors of modern Chuvash, and not the Turkic-speaking tribes of the Kipchak language group, as the author of the theory claims . There were no objective reasons for the merger of these tribes into a distinctive nationality with characteristics later characteristic of the Volga Tatars, i.e. to the emergence in those distant times of their ancestors.
Thanks to the multinationality of the Bulgarian state and the equality of all tribes before the authorities, the Turkic-speaking tribes of both language groups in this case would have to have very close relationships with each other, taking into account the very large similarity of languages, and hence the ease of communication. Most likely, in those conditions, the assimilation of the tribes of the Kipchak linguistic group into the Old Chuvash people should have occurred, and not their merging with each other and isolation as a separate nationality with specific characteristics, moreover, in a linguistic, cultural and anthropological sense, coinciding with the characteristics of modern Volga Tatars .
Now a few words about the adoption of the Muslim religion by the supposedly distant ancestors of the Kazan Tatars in the 10th-11th centuries.
This or that new religion, as a rule, was adopted not by the people, but by their rulers for political reasons. Sometimes it took a very long time to wean people from old customs and beliefs and make them followers of the new faith. This was apparently the case in Volga Bulgaria with Islam, which was the religion of the ruling elite, and the common people continued to live according to their old beliefs, perhaps until the time when the elements of the Mongol invasion, and subsequently the raids of the Golden Horde Tatars, forced the survivors to flee from Trans-Kama to the northern bank of the river, regardless of tribes and language.
The author of the theory only briefly mentions such an important historical event for the Kazan Tatars as the emergence of the Kazan Khanate. He writes: “Here in the 13th-14th centuries the Kazan Principality was formed, which grew into the Kazan Khanate in the 15th century.” As if the second is only a simple development of the first, without any qualitative changes. In reality, the Kazan principality was Bulgar with Bulgar princes, and the Kazan Khanate was Tatar, with a Tatar khan at its head.
The Kazan Khanate was created by the former khan of the Golden Horde, Ulu-Magomet, who arrived on the left bank of the Volga in 1437-38. at the head of 3000 of his Tatar warriors and conquered the local tribes.
In Russian chronicles for 1412, for example, there is the following entry:
“A year before, Daniil Borisovich, with a retinue of the Bulgarian princes, defeated Vasiliev’s brother, Pyotr Dmitrievich, in Lyskovo, and Vsevolod Danilovich with the Kazan prince Talych robbed Vladimir.”7)
From 1445, the son of Ulu-Mahomet Mamutyak became the Khan of Kazan, having villainously killed his father and brother, which in those days was a common occurrence during palace coups.
The chronicler writes: “The same autumn, King Mamutyak, Ulu-Mukhamed’s son, took the city of Kazan and killed the patrimony of Kazan, Prince Lebey, and sat down to reign in Kazan.”8)
Also: “In 1446, 700 Tatars of the Mamutyakov squad besieged Ustyug and took a ransom from the city with furs, but when returning they drowned in Vetluga.”9)
In the first case, Bulgarian, i.e. Chuvash princes and Bulgar, i.e. Chuvash Kazan prince, and in the second - 700 Tatars of the Mamutyakov squad. It was Bulgarian, i.e. The Chuvash Kazan principality became the Tatar Kazan Khanate.

What significance did this event have for the population of the local region, how did the historical process go after that, what changes occurred in the ethnic and social composition of the region during the period of the Kazan Khanate, as well as after the annexation of Kazan to Moscow - all these questions are not answered in the proposed theory answer. It is also not clear how the Mishar Tatars ended up in their habitats, given their common origin with the Kazan Tatars. A very elementary explanation was given for the emergence of the Kryashen Tatars “as a result of forced Christianization,” without citing a single historical example. Why did the majority of Kazan Tatars, despite the violence, manage to maintain themselves as Muslims and a relatively small part succumbed to violence and converted to Christianity? The reason for what has been said to some extent must be sought in the fact that, as the author of the article himself points out, up to 52% of the Kryashens belong, according to anthropological data, to their Caucasian type, and among the Kazan Tatars only 25% of them do. Perhaps this can be explained by some difference in origin between the Kazan Tatars and the Kryashens, which also implies their different behavior during “forced” Christianization, if this really happened in the 16th and 17th centuries, which is very doubtful. We must agree with the author of this theory, A. Khalikov, that his article is only an attempt to summarize new data that allows us to once again raise the question of the origin of the Kazan Tatars, and, it must be said, an unsuccessful attempt.

VI. “Chuvash” theory of the origin of the Kazan Tatars
Most historians and ethnographers, just like the authors of the four theories discussed above, are looking for the ancestors of the Kazan Tatars not where these people currently live, but in places far from there. In the same way, their emergence and formation as a distinct nationality is attributed not to the historical era when this took place, but to more ancient times. Therefore, the proposed theories of the origin of the Kazan Tatars turn out to be either erroneous or unconvincing. In fact, there is every reason to believe that the cradle of the Kazan Tatars is their real homeland, i.e. region of the Tatar Republic on the left bank of the Volga between the Kazanka and Kama rivers.

There are also convincing arguments in favor of the fact that the Kazan Tatars arose, took shape as a distinctive people and multiplied during the historical period, the duration of which covers the era from the founding of the Kazan Tatar kingdom of the former. Khan of the Golden Horde Ulu-Magomet in 1437 and flesh until the Revolution of 1917, and their ancestors were not the alien “Tatars”, but local peoples: Chuvash (aka Volga Bulgars), Udmurts, Mari, and perhaps also those who have not survived to the present time, but representatives of other tribes who lived in those parts, including those who spoke a language close to the language of the Kazan Tatars.
All these nationalities and tribes apparently lived in those forested regions since time immemorial, and partly perhaps also moved from Trans-Kama, after the invasion of the Tatar-Mongols and the defeat of Volga Bulgaria. In terms of character and level of culture, as well as way of life, this diverse mass of people, at least before the emergence of the Kazan Khanate, differed little from each other. Likewise, their religions were similar and consisted of the veneration of various spirits and sacred groves - kiremetii - places of prayer with sacrifices. We are convinced of this by the fact that until the revolution of 1917, in the same Tatar Republic, for example, near the village of Kukmor, a village of Udmurts and Maris, which were not touched by either Christianity or Islam, where until recently people lived ancient customs of his tribe. In addition, in the Apastovsky district of the Tatar Republic, at the junction with the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, there are nine Kryashen villages, including the village of Surinskoye and the village of Star. Tyaberdino, where some of the residents, even before the Revolution of 1917, were “unbaptized” Kryashens, thus surviving until the Revolution outside of both the Christian and Muslim religions. And the Chuvash, Mari, Udmurts and Kryashens who converted to Christianity were only formally included in it, but continued to live according to ancient times until recently.
In passing, we note that the existence almost in our time of “unbaptized” Kryashens casts doubt on the very widespread point of view that the Kryashens arose as a result of the forced Christianization of Muslim Tatars.
The above considerations allow us to make the assumption that in the Bulgarian state, the Golden Horde and, to a large extent, the Kazan Khanate, Islam was the religion of the ruling classes and privileged classes, and the common people, or most of them: Chuvash, Mari, Udmurts, etc. lived according to old grandfather's customs.
Now let's see how, under those historical conditions, the Kazan Tatars as we know them at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries could arise and multiply.
In the middle of the 15th century, as already mentioned, on the left bank of the Volga, Khan Ulu-Mahomet, who had been overthrown from the throne and fled from the Golden Horde, appeared with a relatively small detachment of his Tatars. He conquered and subjugated the local Chuvash tribe and created the feudal-serf Kazan Khanate, in which the victors, the Muslim Tatars, were the privileged class, and the conquered Chuvash were the serf common people.
In one pre-revolutionary historical work on this same issue we read this:10)
“The aristocratic kingdom of Kazan was formed, in which the military class consisted of Tatars, the trading class - of the Bulgars, and the agricultural class of the Chuvash-Suvars. The Tsar’s power extended to the foreigners of the region, who began to convert to Mohammedanism,” in other words, to become Tatars. This is very plausible and concrete.
In the latest edition of Bolshoi. Sov. In the encyclopedia we read the following in more detail about the internal structure of the state in its finally formed period: 11)
“Kazan Khanate, a feudal state in the Middle Volga region (1438-1552), formed as a result of the collapse of the Golden Horde on the territory of Volga-Kama Bulgaria. The founder of the dynasty of Kazan khans was Ulu-Muhammad (ruled from 1438-45)
The highest state power belonged to the khan, but was directed by the council of large feudal lords (divan). The top of the feudal nobility consisted of Karachi, representatives of the four most noble families. Next came the sultans, emirs, and below them were the Murzas, lancers and warriors. A major role was played by the Muslim clergy, who owned vast waqf lands. The bulk of the population consisted of “black people”: free peasants who paid yasak and other taxes to the state, feudal-dependent peasants, serfs from prisoners of war and slaves.”
The Tatar nobles (emirs, beks, murzas, etc.) were hardly very merciful to their serfs, who were also foreign and of other faiths. Voluntarily or pursuing goals related to some kind of benefit, but over time, the common people began to adopt their religion from the privileged class, which was associated with the renunciation of their national identity and with a complete change in their way of life and way of life, according to the requirements new “Tatar” faith - Islam. This transition from the Chuvash to Mohammedanism was the beginning of the formation of the Kazan Tatar nation.
The new state that arose on the Volga lasted only about a hundred years, during which raids on the outskirts of the Moscow state almost did not stop. In the internal life of the state, frequent palace coups took place and proteges found themselves on the khan’s throne: either from Turkey (Crimea), then from Moscow, then from the Nogai Horde, etc.
The process of forming the Kazan Tatars in the above-mentioned way from the Chuvash, and partly from other, peoples of the Volga region occurred throughout the entire period of the existence of the Kazan Khanate, did not stop after the annexation of Kazan to the Moscow state and continued until the beginning of the twentieth century, i.e. almost up to our time. The Kazan Tatars grew in number not so much as a result of natural growth, but as a result of the Tatarization of other nationalities of the region.
The Tatarization of the dark masses of the Volga peoples was the result of the energetic and systematic activity among them of the Muslim clergy, who often received theological, and at the same time political training, mainly in Sultanist Turkey. Together with the preaching of the “true” faith, these “theologians” instilled hostility and hostility towards the Russian people among the Tatar people, who remained in darkness and ignorance.
Ultimately, the Tatar people until the 20th century. continued to remain far from European culture, alienated from the Russian people and remained in complete ignorance and darkness.
On the other hand, all the Volga region peoples (Chuvash, Mordovians, Mari, Udmurts and Kryashens) by the middle of the 19th century. found themselves on the verge of complete disappearance from the historical scene as a result of their tartarization and absorption by that same Arab-Muslim culture, frozen at the level of the Middle Ages.
Thus, the formation of the Kazan Tatar nationality began after the emergence of the Kazan Khanate and continued for several centuries, namely, through the Tatarization of mainly the Chuvash, they are also Bulgars, who should be considered primarily the ancestors of the Kazan Tatars. This is confirmed by recent research.
In materials on the history of the Chuvash people we read:12)
“A huge number of left bank Suvars (Chuvash) in the XIII-XIV centuries. and the beginning of the fifteenth century. moved to the northern regions of the left bank of the Volga in Prikazanye.
Despite the tartarization of a significant part of these Chuvash, there were many of them in the Kazan district, even in the 16th-18th centuries.
In the acts of the 16th and early 17th centuries. in the Kazan district I managed to record up to 100 Chuvash villages.”
“The Left Bank Chuvash gradually began to tatar. Archival documents indicate that in the first half of the seventeenth century. in the Kazan district, many Chuvash converted to Islam and began to call themselves Tatars.”13) “The rapid growth in the number of Kazan Tatars was due, first of all, to the Tatarization, mainly of the Chuvash, as well as the Mari, Udmurts, etc.”
Further in the same materials we find the following statements: 14)
“In the sixteenth century. The Tatars were outnumbered by the Chuvash. The number of Tatars subsequently grew, largely due to the Muslimization, mainly of the Chuvash, as well as the Mari, Udmurts, and others.
The large Chuvash population of the Kazan district was absorbed by the Tatars.”
Academician S.E. Malov says: 15)
“...in some districts of the former Kazan province, according to anthropological measurements, the population consisted of Mari. But these anthropological Mari were at the same time, in language and way of life, completely Tatars: in this case we have the Tatarization of the Mari.”
Let us give another rather interesting argument in favor of the Chuvash origin of the Kazan Tatars.
It turns out that the meadow mari now call the Tatars “suas” (S U A S).
From time immemorial, the Meadow Mari were close neighbors with that part of the Chuvash people who lived on the left bank of the Volga and were the first to become Tatars, so that in those places not a single Chuvash village remained for a long time, although according to historical information and scribal records of the Moscow State there were them there a lot of. The Mari did not notice, especially at the beginning, any changes in their neighbors as a result of the appearance of another god among them - Allah, and forever retained the former name for them in their language. But for distant neighbors - the Russians, from the very beginning of the formation of the Kazan kingdom there was no doubt that the Kazan Tatars were the same Tatar-Mongols who left a sad memory of themselves among the Russians.
Throughout the relatively short history of this “Khanate,” continuous raids of “Tatars” on the outskirts of the Moscow state continued, and the first Khan Ulu-Magomet spent the rest of his life in these raids.
These raids were accompanied by the devastation of the region, the robberies of the civilian population and the deportation of them “in full”, i.e. everything happened in the style of the Tatar-Mongols.
So, modern Kazan Tatars originated mainly from the Chuvash people, and the Tatarization of the Chuvash occurred over a long historical period. First of all, the ancestors of the Tatars should be considered that part of the Chuvash people who lived on the left bank of the Volga and were the first to fall under the rule of the Tatars from the Golden Horde, whom Khan Ulu-Magomet brought with him. Then the point of view of some Tatar historians about the origin of the Kazan Tatars from the Volga-Kama Bulgars also finds justification, since the Chuvash are the descendants of this ancient people.
When trying to establish the ancestors of the Kazan Tatars, researchers of the issue were always fundamentally mistaken for the following reasons:
1. They were looking for ancestors in the distant past with the characteristic national characteristics of modern Kazan Tatars.
2. They were not more deeply interested in the progress of the Muslimization of the peoples of the Volga region over the course of several previous centuries.
3. They did not see the difference between assimilation, when any nationality or ethnic group gradually, sometimes over a number of generations, adopts the completely characteristic features of another people, and the Tatarization of the Volga peoples, when individual representatives or groups of the latter immediately, together with Islam, adopted a completely Tatar image life, language, customs, etc., renouncing their nationality.
4. They did not try to become interested in archival documents and literature confirming the transformation of large masses of Volga peoples into Kazan Tatars in a relatively recent, from a historical point of view, time.

conclusions
1. All four theories discussed here about the origin of the Kazan Tatars from the Tatar-Mongols, or from the Volga-Kama Bulgars, or from the Kipchak tribes, or, finally, from a nationality that arose in the pre-Mongol period within the Volga-Kama Bulgaria, as a result of supposedly would be a merger of different Turkic tribes of the Kipchak linguistic group, is untenable and does not stand up to criticism.
2. The Kazan Tatars descended from common ancestors with other Volga region peoples, mainly with the Chuvash, and partly with the Mari, Udmurts, etc., as a result of the Muslimization of these peoples. The participation of Russian “Polonyanniks” in the ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars is not excluded.
3. The spread of Islam with the Tatarization of the mentioned nationalities occurred in a relatively recent historical period of time, starting with the creation of the Kazan Khanate in 1438 by Muslim Tatars who arrived from the Golden Horde and conquered the local tribes of the left bank of the Volga, until the twentieth century. The final period of this process could be observed by the fathers and grandfathers of our contemporaries.
4. The Pyuvolzh peoples, and mainly the Chuvash, are by origin blood brothers of our Kazan Tatars, who in this sense have nothing in common with other Turkic-speaking peoples, for example, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Siberia, etc.
5. Local Turkic tribes with a “Tatar” or similar language can be considered the ancestors of the Kazan Tatars on an equal basis with others only to the extent that they accepted Islam, at the same time abandoning everything that had previously constituted their national peculiarity.
The handful of “unbaptized” Kryashens that survived until the 20th century, which were discussed on another occasion, apparently can give an idea of what these tribes were like before they turned into Kazan Tatars as a result of Muslimization.
6. Kazan Tatars are one of the youngest peoples. Their emergence and formation as a distinctive nationality is the result of the spread of Islam among various local Volga peoples in a relatively recent historical era.

References:
1) N.I. Ashmarin “Bulgars and Chuvashs”, Kazan, 1902
2) S.E. Malov “Materials of the session on history and philosophy Acad. Sciences of the USSR"
3) “Tatars of the Middle Volga and Urals”, ed. “Science”, 1967
4) Newspaper “Soviet Tataria” 1966, July 30, No. 155.
5) “The origin of the Kazan Tatars” A.D. Kuznetsov “Collection of articles”, Cheboksary, 1957
6) V.A. Sboev “Research on foreigners of the Kazan province.” Kazan, 1975
7) N.M. Karamzin, vol. IV, p. 118
8) Also vol.V, p. 172
9) Also vol. V, p. 199
10) A. Speransky “Kazan Tatars”, Kazan, 1914
11) B.S.E., 3rd ed. T.11, p. 140.
12) V.D. Dmitriev, “Collection of articles.” Cheboksary, 1957
13) Scientific notes of the Kazan pedagogue. Institute, vol. VIII Sat. 1., Ya.I. Khanbikov “Social educator. activities and pedagogical views of Galimdzhan Ibragimov” pp. 76,91 and 92.
14) see I.D. Kuznetsov “Collection of articles”, Cheboksary, 1957.
15) see “Materials of the session of the Institute of History and Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences on the origin of the Kazan Tatars.”
16) N.I.Ashmarin. “Bulgarians and Chuvashs”, Kazan, 1902
/I.Maksimov/ 10.V.75

Deputy editor of the magazine “QUESTIONS OF HISTORY”
Comrade Kuzmina A.G.

Dear Apollo Grigorievich.

I am sending for your consideration and publication, if approved, in V. magazine a small work of mine: “Kazan Tatars and their ancestors”, in the hope that it:
1) It will help restore the historical truth in the question of the origin of the Kazan Tatars;
2) will contribute to the further strengthening of friendship between the Kazan Tatars and other peoples of the Volga region;
3) will prevent the emergence of false nationalism among the backward part of the Tatars;
4) will help direct research in this area along the right path.
195271, Leningrad
Mechnikova Avenue 5
cor. 2, apt. 272
Maksimov Ivan Georgievich
home.tel. 40-64-19.

About the article by I. G. Maksimov
“Kazan Tatars and their ancestors.”

I consider the article interesting in essence and worthy of publication - of course, after editing. There are many stylistically unsuccessful places in it, it requires polishing in terms of softening some conclusions, but the formulation of the question seems fair and sober: the formation of the Kazan Tatars is a complex process, largely related to the specific political and state situation.

I. G. Maximov’s recognition of the great role of Islam among the reasons that contributed to the formation of the Tatar people also deserves attention. The article / or, rather, a draft of it / should be shown to specialists familiar with the history and ethnography of the Tatars. They, in particular, must say whether the question of the origin of the Tatars has not yet been fully covered, whether there is really a need to raise the question of a more in-depth study of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars. If experts recognize I. G. Maksimov’s attempt as timely and necessary, I am ready to correct private comments to the author of the article to finalize the text.
The advantage of I. G. Maksimov’s article seems to me to be its orientation against nationalism. The article does not directly say a word about this, but the entire content of the manuscript quite clearly reflects the position of the author.

V. Basilov. (Scientific Secretary of the Institute of Ethnography named after N. I. Miklouho-Maclay of the USSR Academy of Sciences).
5.V.75

Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences
Bromley S.V.

Dear Yulian Vladimirovich.

At the same time, I am sending for your consideration my note on the spread of Islam in the Volga region: “Kazan Tatars and their ancestors.”
It brings clarity to an essentially simple question, but one that was confused and, due to a misunderstanding, studied it from the wrong angle from which it should have been done.
With deep respect /I. Maksimov/
195271 Leningrad, Mechnikova Avenue, 5 building. 2, apt. 272
Maksimov Ivan Georgievich

ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS INSTITUTE OF ETHNOGRAPHY NAMED AFTER N.N. Miklukho-Maclay
Moscow, V-36, st. Dmitry Ulyanov, 19
tel. В 6-94-85 В 6-05-80
No. 14110/040-62 January 31, 1974

Dear Ivan Georgievich!

The conclusion about your manuscripts, written by Doctor of Historical Sciences V.N. Kozlov, was transferred by the Institute of Ethnography to the Science Department of the CPSU Central Committee, from where your works came to us. Since the additional manuscripts you personally sent to me were included in the materials that were sent to the Institute of Ethnography from the CPSU Central Committee, I will not devote this letter to an analysis of your works.

However, I would like to inform you of some private comments that were not included in the certificate intended for the CPSU Central Committee. In their present form, your manuscripts are not ready for publication - they are written too fluently, without involving the proper amount of available sources. At the same time, some of the questions you raised are interesting. In particular, your remark about the relationship between the processes of Christianization and Muslimization in the Volga region is very worthy of attention and deserves more detailed development. Your note could make a useful article. Of course, unnecessarily polemical passages should be removed. Perhaps in the text of this article you will be able to include a note about the true role of Ilminsky, about the correct assessment of his activities.
The question of to what extent the Institute of Ethnography will be able to contribute to the publication of this article of yours, of course, can be resolved after familiarization with its text.
I wish you success in your work.
Sincerely
Director of the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences
S.W. Bromley.

RESEARCH INSTITUTE UNDER THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS OF THE CHUVASH ASSR
Cheboksary, Moskovsky prospect, 29 building 1 tel.
October 30, 1973

Dear Ivan Georgievich!

Your views on the origin of the Kazan Tatars seem correct to us. However, the institute is not able to publish your article. If it is published, its Kazan comrades can say: why the article was published in Cheboksary and not in Kazan. We must try to publish it either in Kazan or in Moscow historical journals (“Soviet ethnography”, “History of the USSR”, “Questions of History”).
We are not familiar with the state of the issue about the Kryashens, so we cannot judge this issue.
We return the texts of your articles “A reliable hypothesis about the origin of the Kazan Tatars”, “The Kryashens”, “The origin of the Kryashens (old-baptized Tatars)”, “On one consultation regarding the “reunification” of the Kryashens with the Tatars” (along with a copy of the advisory letter).
With best wishes, director of the institute (V. Dimitriev).

From an article by Peter Znamensky about the Kazan Tatars:

The Kazan Tatar is well-built, well-built, strong and healthy. The features of his Mongolian origin are for the most part barely noticeable in the widening of the personal oval, in the slightly protruding cheekbones, in the slight narrowing of the gap in the eyes, in the long ears somewhat lagging behind the head, in the thickness and shortness of the neck; This can also partly be attributed to the fact that he rarely grows a large and thick beard. This modification of the Mongolian type among the Kazan Tatars can be explained in no other way than by the merger of the Tatar people with the Turkic and various Finnish peoples of the former Bulgar kingdom, because the admixture of another national blood, Russian, with the Tatar blood was long ago eliminated by the mutual religious alienation of the Russians and the Tatars. The Tatars themselves sometimes call themselves Bulgars (bulgarlyk), thus placing themselves in the most direct connection with this vanished nation. The Bashkir and Circassian types that occasionally occur between them are obviously of random origin and are not noticeable among the masses.

In the Kazan province, the Tatars (Muslims and baptized together) constitute the most populous foreign group, extending to 772,700 souls of both sexes, which is more than 31°/0 of the entire population of the province (Russians make up less than 40°/0), and are distributed throughout its entire territory, with the exception of the districts of Yadrinsk and Kozmodemyansk, inhabited by Chuvash and Cheremis. The densest Tatar population is located in the northeast and south of the province, mainly on the left side of the Volga. When they first settled in this area, the Tatars obviously did not climb deep into the forests, on the right side of the Volga and in the north on the left, where foreigners of the Finnish tribe lived, and out of the habit of living in open meadow areas, the main mass settled to the east of the Volga, having it in front of them with a fence from attacks from the west, and then, when the Russian colonization of the Kazan region began, occupying the river banks and the main roads of the area everywhere, they had to give up these places to the Russians and push to the northeast, as well as to the right and left of the Volga banks in the south . The southeastern settlements of the Kazan Tatars inextricably merge with the settlements of the Simbirsk Tatars, who form the same tribe as the Kazan ones.

Tatar language
Tatar dialects (Tatar language)
Zakazansky (Vysokogorsky, Mamadyshsky, Laishevsky, Baltasinsky districts of Tatarstan)

Tarkhansky (Buinsky, Tetyushsky districts of Tatarstan)
Levoberezhny - Gorny (left bank of the Volga of Tatarstan, Urmara district of Chuvashia)
Kryashen dialects (Tatarstan, Bashkortostan see Kryashens)
Nogaibaksky (Chelyabinsk region)
Menzelinsky (Agryzsky, Bugulminsky, Zainsky, Aznakaevsky, Menzelinsky, Sarmanovsky, Bavlinsky, Muslyumovsky, Almetyevsky, Aktanyshsky districts of Tatarstan; Udmurtia; Alsheevsky, Bizhbulyaksky, Blagovarsky, Buraevsky, Belebeevsky, Dyurtyulinsky, Ilishevsky, Karmaskalinsky, Krasnokamsky, Kushnarenkovsky , Miyakinsky, Meleuzovsky, Sterlibashevsky, Sterlitamaksky, Tuymazinsky, Fedorovsky, Chekmagushevsky, Chishminsky, Sharansky, Yanaulsky districts of Bashkortostan)
Buraevsky (Buraevsky, Kaltasinsky, Baltachevsky, Yanaulsky, Tatyshlinsky, Mishkinsky, Karaidelsky districts of Bashkortostan)
Kasimovsky (Ryazan region see Kasimov Tatars)
Nokratsky (Kirov region, Udmurtia)
Perm (Perm region)
Zlatoustovsky (Salavatsky, Kiginsky, Duvansky, Belokataysky districts of Bashkortostan)
Krasnoufimsky (Sverdlovsk region)
Ichkinsky (Kurgan region)
Buguruslansky (Buguruslansky district of the Orenburg region)
Turbaslinsky (Iglinsky and Nurimanovsky districts of Bashkortostan)
Tepekinsky (Gafuriysky, Sterlitamaksky districts of Bashkortostan)
Safakulsky (Kurgan region)
Astrakhan (Kazan Tatars of the Astrakhan region)

History of the Kazan Tatars

Volga Bulgaria (Volga Bulgaria, Volga-Kama Bulgaria, Silver Bulgaria, Tat. Idel Bulgarians, Chuvash. Atӑlçi Polkhar) - a state that existed in the 10th-13th centuries in the middle Volga region and the Kama basin.
One of the hordes, consisting mainly of Kutrigur tribes, under the leadership of Kotrag, moved from the territory of Great Bulgaria to the north and settled (VII-VIII centuries) in the region of the middle Volga and Kama, where the state of Volga Bulgaria was subsequently formed.
This legend is not supported by archaeological evidence. The Bulgars came from Khazaria at the end of the 8th century. The second large wave of migration from Khazaria occurred at the beginning of the 10th century.
At the beginning of the 10th century, the Bulgarian Baltavar Almush converted to Hanifid Islam under the name Jafar ibn Abdallah, as evidenced by silver coins minted in Bulgaria. Coins were issued in Bolgar and Suvar throughout the 10th century, the last of which dates back to the year 387 according to the Muslim calendar (997/998).
In 922, Baltavar, seeking military support against the Khazars, whose rulers professed Judaism, invited an embassy from Baghdad, officially declared Hanifid Islam as the state religion and accepted the title of emir.

Kazan Tatars, Tatarlar

However, the “people” (subordinate tribe, clan) of Sawan (śśuvanä... “a title received by a person two steps below hakan = Turkic Yabgu”), led by “king Virag” (apparently this is a Hungarian name (like Almush) , means “flower”, common in Hungary) probably expressed dissatisfaction with this matter (“refused”), as a result the Bulgarian aristocracy was divided into two parties (the second was headed by “Tsar Askal”). After threats from Almush (to hit with a sword), the first party also obeyed. Obviously, “Tsar” Virag with the title Sawan was the second person (the second step below the Khakan) in Volga Bulgaria after the Baltavar Almush (the first step below the Khakan). In addition, it is known that “King Almush” with his tribe had “four subordinate kings” with their subordinate tribes, which corresponds to the structure of the state and the name Bulgars - “five tribes”.

Ancient Bulgars

These events and facts were described in the notes of Ahmed Ibn Fadlan, a participant in the Baghdad embassy to the Volga.
After Almush, his son Mikail ibn Jagfar ruled, and then his grandson Abdullah ibn Mikail.
In 965, after the fall of the Khazar Kaganate, Bulgaria, previously its vassal, became completely independent, but it also became a victim of the eastern campaign of the Kyiv prince Svyatoslav Igorevich in those years (964-969).
In 985, Prince Vladimir of Kiev, in alliance with the Torci, conducted a military campaign against Bulgaria and concluded a peace treaty with it.

the most famous modern Tatars

Early history of the Kazan Tatars
After the conquest of Volga Bulgaria by the Mongols in 1236 and a series of Bulgar uprisings in 1237 and 1240, Volga Bulgaria became part of the Golden Horde. Later, after the collapse of the Golden Horde and the emergence of a number of independent khanates in its place, the Kazan Khanate was formed on the Bulgarian lands. As a result of the consolidation of part of the Bulgars with another Kipchak, as well as partly with the Finno-Ugric population of the region, the people of the Kazan Tatars were formed.

Kazan Tatars

The Kazan Khanate (Tat. Kazan Khanlygy, Qazan Xanlığı, قازان خانليغى‎) is a feudal state in the Middle Volga region (1438-1552), formed as a result of the collapse of the Golden Horde on the territory of the Kazan ulus. The main city is Kazan. The founder of the dynasty of Kazan khans was Ulug-Muhammad (ruled 1438-1445).
The Kazan Khanate became isolated on the territory of the Kazan ulus (former territory of Volga Bulgaria). During its heyday (in the second half of the 15th century), the territory of the Kazan Khanate reached the Sura River basin in the west, the Belaya River in the east, the Upper Kama region in the north, and Samarskaya Luka in the south.

Administrative structure
The Kazan Khanate consisted of four darugs (districts) - Alat, Arsk, Galician, Zureisk. Later, a fifth daruga was added to them - Nogai. Darugs were divided into uluses, which united the lands of several settlements.
The major cities were Kazan (Kazan), Alat, Archa, Bolgar, Dzhuketau, Kashan, Iske-Kazan, Zyuri, Laesh and Tetyushi.
In 1552, Tsar Ivan IV captured Kazan and annexed the territories of the Khanate to the Russian Empire.

Formation of the Kazan Tatars

In the XV-XVI centuries, the formation of the Kazan Tatars took place. The Kazan Tatars, being the most numerous and having a more developed economy and culture, by the end of the 19th century had developed into a bourgeois nation.
The bulk of the Kazan Tatars were engaged in agriculture; jewelry art, descended from the Bulgar, was highly developed among the Kazan Tatars, as well as leather, woodworking crafts and many others.
A significant part of the Tatars were employed in various handicraft industries. The material culture of the Tatars, which was formed over a long period of time from elements of the culture of the Bulgars and local tribes, was also influenced by the cultures of the peoples of Central Asia and other regions, and from the end of the 16th century - by Russian culture.

[Kazan and Orenburg Tatars]
From the time the Kazan kingdom was defeated by Russian force and annexed to the Russian state, many Tatars dispersed during this war, and the rest moved in crowds to the then undefeated Tatar regions: this is why much more changes were made in the Kazan kingdom, than in other conquered places...
Under this [Russian] rule, many Kazan Tatars, with his permission, moved from their previous places to live in other countries that seemed more free to them: this is why the number of scattered villages and villages of these Tatars in the provinces bordering on Kazan increased, namely in Orenburg, Tobolsk, and partly also in Voronezh, and in some others... however, in their everyday rituals of faith they are consistent with the Kazan Tatars: that’s why I won’t use, when speaking about them, to refer to these.
The Orenburg Kazan Tatars should by no means be confused with the hordes that migrated to this [Orenburg] province, such as the Kyrgyz, and in part the Ufa Tatars. Direct Orenburg Tatars live in Orenburg and along the fortresses of the Orenburg line along the Ural River, partly scattered, and partly in special settlements, in their own settlements and the town of Kargale on the Sakmara River, 18 versts from Orenburg... The Ufa city and village Tatars are ancient Kazan fugitives, and they are crowded. In the Orenburg Isesh province there has been a settlement for more than a hundred years, consisting of some villages, and is called after the Ichkinsky stream...
All the Orenburg Kazan Tatars outnumber the real Kazan Tatars, and there are no fewer others living in the dispersion than the Kazan Tatars. The Kazan Tatars got their name from the main city of Kazan... In other words, according to their own legends, they were not a special tribe, but originated from different generations of warriors who remained here [in Kazan] in the settlement and from foreigners attracted to Kazan, and especially the Nogai Tatars, who all through united into a single society they formed a special people.
(author: Miller Karl Wilhelm. “Description of all the peoples living in the Russian state...” Part two. About the peoples of the Tatar tribe. St. Petersburg, 1776. Translated from German).

Culture of the Kazan Tatars

Wedding ceremonies of Kazan Tatars

The Kazan Tatars had unique ways of acquiring a bride, as a remnant of ancient times in the Volga region. Both the methods of acquiring a bride and the wedding customs of the Kazan Tatars are sharply different from the customs and rituals of their other tribesmen and are very similar to the rituals of neighboring foreigners (Chuvash, Cheremis, Mordovians and Votyaks), which indicates their close proximity from ancient times and mutual influence. The Kazan Tatars had three ways of acquiring a bride: 1) Abduction by force, that is, against the will of both the girl herself and her relatives;
2) The voluntary departure of a girl from her parental home to her groom - by mutual agreement with him, but without the knowledge and consent of the parents of the parties;
3) In the order of ordinary matchmaking, by the will and preliminary agreement of the parents of the parties. All these methods are also practiced by other peoples of the Volga region.

Funeral rite of the Kazan Tatars
Many facts about the funeral rites of the Kazan Tatars show complete continuity from the Bulgars; today, most of the rites of the Kazan Tatars are associated with their Muslim religion.
Location. The city necropolises of the Golden Horde were located within the city, as were the burial grounds of the Kazan Khanate period. Cemeteries of Kazan Tatars of the 18th-19th centuries. They were located outside the villages, not far from the villages, and, if possible, across the river.
Grave buildings. From the descriptions of ethnographers it follows that the Kazan Tatars had the custom of planting one or more trees on the grave. The graves were almost always surrounded by a fence, sometimes a stone was placed on the grave, small log houses were made without a roof, in which birch trees were planted and stones were placed, and sometimes monuments were erected in the form of pillars.
Method of burial. The Bulgars of all periods are characterized by the ritual of inhumation (deposition of a corpse). The pagan Bulgars were buried with their heads to the west, on their backs, with their arms along the body. A distinctive feature of the burial grounds of the X-XI centuries. is the period of formation of a new ritual in Volga Bulgaria, hence the lack of strict uniformity in individual details of the ritual, in particular, in the position of the body, hands and face of the buried. Along with observing the qibla, in the vast majority of cases there are individual burials facing upward or even to the north. There are burials of the dead on the right side. The position of the hands is especially varied during this period. For necropolises of the XII-XIII centuries. The ritual details are unified: strict adherence to the qibla, the face facing Mecca, a uniform position of the deceased with a slight turn to the right side, with the right hand extended along the body and the left hand slightly bent and placed on the pelvis. On average, 90% of burials give this stable combination of features versus 40-50% in early burial grounds. During the Golden Horde period, all burials were performed according to the rite of inhumation, the body was stretched out on the back, sometimes with a turn on the right side, head to the west, face to the south. During the period of the Kazan Khanate, the funeral rite did not change. According to the descriptions of ethnographers, the deceased was lowered into the grave, then laid in the side lining, facing Mecca. The hole was filled with bricks or boards. The spread of Islam among the Volga Bulgars already in pre-Mongol times was very clearly manifested in the rite of the Bulgars of the 12th-13th centuries, during the period of the Golden Horde, and later in the funeral rite of the Kazan Tatars.

National clothes of the Kazan Tatars

Anthropological types of Kazan Tatars

These types have the following characteristics:
Pontian type - characterized by mesocephaly, dark or mixed pigmentation of hair and eyes, a high bridge of the nose, a convex bridge of the nose, with a drooping tip and base, and significant beard growth. Growth is average with an upward trend.
Light Caucasian type - characterized by subbrachycephaly, light pigmentation of hair and eyes, medium or high bridge of the nose with a straight bridge of the nose, a moderately developed beard, and average height. A number of morphological features - the structure of the nose, the size of the face, pigmentation and a number of others - bring this type closer to the Pontic type.
Sublaponoid type (Volga-Kama) - characterized by meso-subbrachycephaly, mixed pigmentation of hair and eyes, wide and low nose bridge, weak beard growth and a low, medium-wide face with a tendency to flattening. Quite often there is a fold of the eyelid with weak development of the epicanthus.
Mongoloid type (South Siberian) - characterized by brachycephaly, dark shades of hair and eyes, a wide and flattened face and a low bridge of the nose, frequent epicanthus and poor beard development. Height, on a Caucasian scale, is average.

Theory of ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars
There are several theories of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars.
Three of them are described in the most detail in the scientific literature:
Bulgaro-Tatar theory
Tatar-Mongol theory
Turkic-Tatar theory.

Bulgaro-Tatar theory

Within the framework of the theory of the Bulgar-Tatar origin of the Tatars, the key moment in the ethnogenesis of the Tatar people is considered to be the period of the existence of Volga Bulgaria, when the Bulgar ethnic group, which began to take shape in the Middle Volga and Urals region since the 8th century, formed the main ethnocultural features of modern Tatars. According to supporters of the theory, subsequent periods (the period of the Golden Horde, the Kazan Khanate, the Russian period) did not have a significant impact on the language and culture of the Bulgaro-Tatar people, and, during the period of the Kazan Khanate, the Bulgar (“Bulgaro-Kazan”) ethnicity strengthened the ethnocultural features characteristic of the pre-Mongol period and retained them (along with the self-name “Bulgars”) until the 20s of the 20th century.

Theory of Tatar-Mongol origin
Within the framework of the theory of the Tatar-Mongol origin of the Tatars, the key moment of ethnogenesis is considered to be the migration of nomadic Tatar-Mongol tribes to Eastern Europe. Having mixed with the Kipchaks and adopted Islam during the Golden Horde, these tribes created the basis of the Tatar ethnic group, its culture and statehood. As a rule, supporters of the theory tend to either downplay or deny the significance of Volga Bulgaria in the history of the Kazan Tatars.
The origins of the theory of the Tatar-Mongol origin of the Tatars should be sought from Western European researchers. True, in their understanding of the ethnonym Tatars, they included the population of all Chingizid states, including the population of the Dzhuchiev ulus, considering them the descendants of the Mongol-Tatar conquerors. Russian scientists, having a broader idea of the Jochi Empire, that is, the Golden Horde, and calling all the Golden Horde Tatars, also, in turn, considered them the descendants of the Mongol-Tatar conquerors. And it is no coincidence that, among other things, they referred to the so-called “Kazan history”, the reliability of which, however, raises serious doubts and in which a certain nameless Russian chronicler traces the origin of the Kazan Tatars from the Tatars of the Golden Horde, thus justifying the necessity and justice of the conquest of the Kazan land by the Moscow state : “I began to go to the king... from various countries; from the Golden Horde, from Astrakhan, and from Azov and from the Crimea. And when the Great Horde began to weaken, it strengthened the Golden Horde, and Kazan became a new Horde instead of the Golden Horde...” The greatness of the powers founded by the Mongolian and Golden Horde khans is spoken of in the legends of Genghis Khan, Aksak-Timur, and the epic of Idegei.

mosque and madrasah in Novo-Tatarskaya Sloboda, Kazan

Turkic-Tatar theory
The Turkic-Tatar concept of the origin of the Tatars is developed in the works of G. S. Gubaidullin, A. N. Kurat, N. A. Baskakov, Sh. F. Mukhamedyarov, R. G. Kuzeev, M. A. Usmanov, R. G. Fakhrutdinov , A.G. Mukhamadieva, N. Davleta, D.M. Iskhakova, Y. Shamiloglu and others. Proponents of this theory believe that it best reflects the rather complex internal structure of the Tatar ethnic group (characteristic, however, for all large ethnic groups), combines the best achievements of other theories. Initially, the theory was developed by foreign authors. In addition, there is an opinion that M. G. Safargaliev was one of the first to point out the complex nature of ethnogenesis, which cannot be reduced to a single ancestor, in 1951. After the late 1980s. The unspoken ban on the publication of works that went beyond the decisions of the 1946 session of the USSR Academy of Sciences lost its relevance, and accusations of the “non-Marxism” of the multicomponent approach to ethnogenesis ceased to be used; this theory was replenished by many domestic publications.
Proponents of the theory identify several stages in the formation of an ethnic group.
The stage of formation of the main ethnic components (mid-VI - mid-XIII centuries). The important role of the Volga Bulgaria, the Khazar Kaganate and the Kipchak-Kimak state associations in the ethnogenesis of the Tatar people is noted. At this stage, the formation of the main components occurred, which were combined at the next stage. The great role of Volga Bulgaria was that it founded the Islamic tradition, urban culture and writing based on Arabic script (after the 10th century), which replaced the most ancient writing - the Turkic runic. Ethnic identity remained local.
The stage of the medieval Tatar ethnopolitical community (mid-XIII - first quarter of the 15th centuries).

Tatar nationalists, Azatlyk, true Tatars

KAZAN TATARS
Petr Vasilievich Znamensky

During the era of the Mongol-Tatar invasion, Bulgar rule in the Volga-Kama region was replaced by Tatar rule. At the end of the 20s and in the 30s of the 13th century, the Tatars took possession of all the Bulgar land and became the dominant people here, but at the same time, as always happens when a more civilized people conquers a less civilized people, they themselves had to believe in the civilization of the one they defeated ancient, rich and well-organized kingdom, borrowed from it the settled way of life, city life, commercial enterprise, Mohammedanism and various features of the people’s character, which contributed greatly to the softening of their former steppe morals. The gradual merging of the victors with the vanquished through mutual marriages over time led here to the formation of even a special and strong Tatar race, significantly different from the Tatar groups in other areas of Russia.

Tatars are Muslims everywhere, including in Kazan itself, and live separately from the Russians. The Russians themselves pushed them away from themselves from the very beginning after the conquest of the Kazan kingdom from reprobate species. As a result, a unique semi-eastern way of life is still preserved in Tatar villages. The Tatar village has something wild about it. The houses, built mostly without order, are hidden inside the courtyard, and fences and sheds overlook the street; This type of arrangement of dwellings is found even in villages already located according to plan. From under the locked gates and along the street there are many angry dogs, barking frantically when a new person appears in the village, and at night filling the area with wild howls. In the middle of the village, in a small square, there is a wooden mosque, the minaret of which rises above all the philistine buildings. Somewhere to the sides of the village there is a sad cemetery (mazarki), filled with wooden posts, small log houses and stone slabs instead of crosses, under which the faithful dead lie in anticipation of a future life, where the Russians will be their slaves. The Tatar settlements in Kazan itself, in terms of the nature of the buildings and the location of the streets, are now quite similar to the rest of the city. The only differences they have are mosques instead of churches, some oriental originality in the painting of houses, a lot of dogs, constantly locked gates and curtained windows with jars of balsam, a favorite Tatar flower.

In terms of their location, Tatar houses in common areas are similar to Russian ones. Every decent, not poor village house is divided into two parts, the front living area and the back working or back room, between which there is a large vestibule. The residential hut, in addition, is, in turn, divided by a partition into two sections, male and female, with special doors for each. The doors open not to the outside, like in Russian houses, but to the inside of the hut. The women's department is a necessary accessory to the Tatar home; Even in a small shack, which can never be divided in two, there is certainly at least a small corner behind the stove, covered with a curtain, for the owner’s wife, where she is hidden from the eyes of prying men. The stove, like the Russians, is placed at the entrance to the hut; smeared into it. a cauldron for cooking, and for many it also serves for washing clothes. On the stove or behind it there are tin or copper kumgans - jugs with narrow necks and long noses, used for religious ablutions, one for the husband, the other for the wife, because it is forbidden by law for them to wash from the same vessel. Behind the stove you can always find a large copper basin, also for washing, and two towels, one for the hands, the other for the feet. The front wall of the hut is occupied by wide bunks for sleeping, so that something like a Russian front corner cannot be found in a Tatar house. The table that occupies this honorable corner among us is placed on the side of the Tatars, at the side window of the hut. Scattered on the bunks are soft down jackets, feather beds, which are only replaced by felt among the poor, and pillows - it is clear that the Tatar likes to sleep softly and comfortably, and not on a sheepskin coat rolled into a hard ball, like a Russian. Most of the huts have samovars and brightly painted tea utensils, usually placed in the most visible place. Among the features of Tatar utensils are red or green chests—the wealthy have several of them. upholstered with colorfully painted tin—and carpets, or at least mats, with which the floors are covered.

Due to the reclusiveness of the Tatar woman, the groom does not see his bride before marriage, or at least it is assumed that he does not. Therefore, the engagement is arranged by their parents or through matchmakers; These same representatives of the parties also agree on the amount of dowry. After the engagement, the groom does not go to the bride, but sends her only gifts from items of women’s clothing; at the same time, the cost of the donated things is not taken into their own account, but is deducted from the bride’s next kalym. Seven days before the wedding, wedding feasts begin, for which guests gather alternately in the groom's house, then in the bride's house, and separately - men on one day, women on the other, all with different gifts. The last feast, after which the marriage ceremony is performed, occurs with the participation of men in the bride's house. Neither the groom nor the bride are present at it, the first waits for its end outside the door, and the bride hides in the bedroom prepared for the wedding night. After the feast, having eaten honey and melted butter with bread—a ritual dish—the guests put money on the tablecloth as a gift to the bride, who takes it to her bedroom. After this, the mullah, an indispensable guest of this feast, begins to perform the marriage ceremony.

The marriage ceremony is not at all like a religious ritual. The only religious thing here is that the reading of the first chapter of the Koran, the marriage prayer, which has the meaning of an ordinary prayer at the beginning and completion of any business, and the pronouncement of the marriage khutba - a praise to God who established marriage and said: “Take as many wives as you please, - two, three, four." The essential side of the ritual is the attestation of a purely civil agreement between the parties on the amount of dowry, with the mullah playing the role not of a clergyman, but of a simple notary. Marriage issues are proposed not to the spouses, but to their parents or other representatives of their families; father The mullah asks the bride if he agrees to marry his daughter to NN and for such and such a bride price, and if he agrees to the groom's father, to take her for this bride price as a wife to his son. The contract thus certified is handed over to the bride's side. Already after the entire ceremony, the groom is called. The matchmaker takes him to the bedroom, where the newlyweds are locked away for 3 or 4 days to get used to each other.

After marriage, the young woman does not suddenly move into her husband’s house, but remains for a year or more in her family. The husband goes to her as a guest, and in the meantime arranges for her reception everything that is needed for family life.

Mohammedan polygamy did not take hold among the Tatars, most likely due to economic difficulties in maintaining multiple wives together and due to the family discord inevitable with polygamy.

Only very few have two wives, and then another wife is taken when the first one becomes obsolete; With a young wife, she usually becomes the main mistress of the house.

Tatar cuisine

A woman, as we know, is humiliated even in the religious view of Islam, as a creature of a lower breed. She is almost completely freed from performing religious rituals, she does not go to the mosque, except occasionally in her old age, she does not even know what will happen to her in the next world, because the prophet did not reveal this, while busy describing the bliss of the faithful in paradise with some others women or divas, houris, in whose presence earthly wives are obviously already superfluous. In family life, she is the complete property of her husband, a creature completely without rights before him, which he can drive away from himself at the first whim. All her thoughts therefore focus on retaining his love, on decorating herself with whitewash, rouge, clothes, on satisfying his sensual instincts, etc. The usual way to treat your wife is to be proud, contemptuous and stern; showing her affection in public is considered reprehensible

As in the entire Nahometan world, among the Tatars there is, to a certain extent, seclusion of women. The richer the Tatar, the more he shelters his wife. In the everyday life of poor, working people, both urban and rural, such concealment of a woman is, of course, impossible; but even a poor woman of this class, when meeting a man, is obliged to cover her face or at least turn away from him during a conversation - an exception is allowed only when meeting with Russians, before whom, like infidels, it is perhaps not worth hiding. More liberal urban Tatars now allow their wives to openly visit Russians, to public meetings, walks and to the theater. But not very long ago, special boxes were purposely built for the Tatars in the theater, covered with curtains, behind which the rich Tatar women hid. Traces of this concealment are now sometimes revealed only in the fact that the Tatar women are placed in the depths of the box, and their husbands occupy the front part of it; This, however, can also express the high dominance of the male half of the family; When a Tatar family goes or walks somewhere, the man also always walks ahead, and his wife minces behind him, surrounded by her Tatars, not daring to catch up with him, much less overtake him.

The dominant food of the Tatars is everything floury and oily, especially in wealthy families, where various types of butter and puff pastries, dumplings, fatty noodles, thick cream (kaimak), etc. are consumed in large quantities. Common dishes among common people include: toslan or mash, cooked from flour and water with salt, salma from balls of dough in water, buckwheat flatbreads in quick butter; For taste, salma and tolkan are sometimes whitened with milk. On holidays, the table is served with meat stew and roast lamb or horse meat. Tatars do not eat much meat at all, because it is expensive for them. An animal intended for food must certainly be slaughtered by a Tatar and with a well-known prayer; That is why the Tatars cannot use the supplies of the ordinary meat market and at the ordinary price. An important help for them could be the meat of horses that is allowed for food, but they use it little, because, being usually obtained from old, no longer good horses, it is very harsh and tasteless, and to chop healthy foals and young horses for it - expensive. The most common and, one might say, national meat among the Tatars is lamb. Pig meat, so common in Russian villages, is positively prohibited by the Koran and is an object of the same disgust for the Tatars as mare meat is for the Russians.

General Dmitry Karbyshev

Another prohibition of the Koran regarding wine is not observed as strictly as one might think, especially among the working class in cities and among villagers living adjacent to Russian villages, in which the tavern is, as is known, a necessary accessory. The more conscientious Tatars disguise their opposition to the commandments of the prophet by consuming lesin instead of vodka, some tinctures, balsam and sweet vodka. Tea and beer are considered completely harmless drinks and are consumed by the Tatars in incredible quantities. Urban Tatars love to drink beer, as well as tea, especially in taverns and taverns, which perhaps expresses the well-known passion of eastern residents for coffee houses. In Kazan there are several specially Tatar taverns and taverns, where you can always meet both tea-drinking and tipsy Tatar friends. Some Tatar virtuoso or several of them are playing violins in the corner, imitating some Polish or Cossack girl from the ear and in a completely Tatar manner, and at the tables, over the emptied dishes, sit tipsy pairs of friends and, staring closely at each other with their faces, staring at each other red eyes at each other, trying to outshout each other, sensitively singing some kind of whiny and blissful song. which in character has not the slightest relation to the immediately ear-piercing violin polka. For some reason, the violin managed to become the favorite instrument of the Tatars and even other foreigners of the Kazan province. The national character of the Tatars is more lively and receptive than the Russian. The Tatar is lively, intelligent and enterprising, sociable, talkative, will smother a guest with tea and food, but at the same time he is deceitful, boastful and deceitful, loves to deceive, especially Russians, touchy and hot-tempered, loves to sue, despite all his enterprise and dexterity, he is lazy and unstable. in the matter of labor systematic). The Tatar laborer gets to work at first very ardently and promptly and seems much better and more profitable than the Russian worker, who at the beginning usually spends a long time just swaying and adjusting to the work, but does little work; but then the Tatar begins to quickly weaken both in strength and in zeal, when the Russians have just entered into the full force of their work, and the overall results of the total amount of work done often turn out to be in favor of the latter, not the former. In agricultural work, which requires not so much agility as patience and perseverance, the Tatars are inferior not only to the Russians, but also to other foreigners of the Kazan region, so that they even arouse general ridicule against themselves. The Tatar field is always worse than others; Other aspects of their agriculture have been neglected in the same way. In many villages, the Tatars have even given up farming altogether and are renting out the land to the Russians, Chuvash and Votyaks. By nature, a Tatar loves to make a penny in some easier way: petty trade, profiteering, even simply fraud. Trade seems to be his natural vocation - he is a true descendant of the ancient Bulgars. As a boy, he walked the streets of Kazan, rummaging through heaps of garbage in courtyards, looking for hair and rags to sell in factories, or selling bars of soap, matches, oranges and lemons. For the Kazan region, in terms of trade and farming, the Tatars are almost the same as the Jews for the western region. They are engaged in all kinds of sales and resale, from the sale of robes and old clothes to large-scale trade in tea, from the wandering trade in whitewash, rouge, beads and all sorts of rubbish in Tatar villages to very respectable trade deals with Bukhara, Persia and China. Large merchants conduct their business quite rationally and honestly, but the majority firmly adhere to zealous methods of deception, fooling buyers with an honest appearance, false ambition, oaths and requests for four and five times the real price of the goods. In addition to trade, the Tatars are also engaged in tanning, which they also inherited from the Bulgars, soap making, and the preparation of felt products; production of bast, cart and cooperage crafts. In the Kazan province they own more than 1/3 of all factories and factories. Many hands are busy driving; Among the cab drivers (mostly draymen) and coachmen of the entire Tatar province, they make up a full half. They love and keep their horses well. Tatar horses and coachmen are considered the best in the region. Due to the poor state of agriculture in the Tatar villages, thousands of villagers go annually to various waste trades in the surrounding Volga cities and on the Volga. In Kazan, poor Tatars take on the work of janitors, porters on the piers, guards, day laborers and water carriers; Others simply indulge in poverty, which is extremely developed especially among the female half of the Tatar population, or even in theft and horse stealing.

Staro-Tatarskaya Sloboda, Kazan, Nasyri street

By religion, the Tatars are all Mohammedans, with the exception of a small number - up to 42,660 people who were baptized into Orthodoxy, and are distinguished by their ardent and strong adherence to Islam. The latter lies at the basis of their entire worldview and their entire moral make-up and constitutes the main difference between their very nationality, which both they and the Russians conceive of in no other way than in a religious form. Foreigners who have been converted to Islam at the same time become Tatars. To accept Mohammedanism means to “join the Tatars.” The Mohammedanism professed by them is of the Sunni persuasion and does not represent any peculiarities against the general system of this persuasion either in doctrine or in rituals: the Tatars have the same dogmas, the same five-time prayers, fasts (uraza) , holidays (bayram), etc., like all other Sunni Muslims. The Tatars are for the most part very pious, even fanatical and firmly adhere to the rituals of their faith. Every task begins and ends with a short prayer: “Bismillagi rrahmani rrahim,” in the name of the merciful and merciful God. Namaz is performed carefully by almost all Tatars, with the exception of unskilled workers or some liberal intellectuals, even while traveling, for example, on a ship on the Volga. To determine the qibla (the side where Mecca lies and where you need to turn your face in prayer), rich Tatars deliberately carry small compasses with them. During the most important and long fast of Ramadan, which lasts for a whole month, even laborers do not eat or drink anything every day throughout the day until the night, despite the fact that they suffer terribly from this abstinence during work, especially from thirst, when this passing Fasting occurs in the summer heat. Having caught some sinner violating Ramadan, the Tatars smear soot on his face and sometimes beat him brutally. Among pious people in great respect is the hajj, travel to Mecca, from where pilgrims or hajis return with various shrines, sacred rosaries, amulets, talismans, wonderful stories about the Kaaba, a stone hanging in the air or the tomb of the prophet, etc. and then use it all their lives special respect between his fellow believers.

The most important holidays of the Tatars, common to all confessors of Islam, are Bayram in honor of the giving of the Koran, preceded by the fast of Ramadan, and Kurban Bayram 2 months after the first in honor of the sacrifice of Abraham, both transferable. In places between simple Tatars in villages, various public and private, family Kurmans have been preserved - sacrifices of pagan origin, but very few. The remnants of the old paganism in large numbers and purity survived mainly among the old-baptized Tatars; among the unbaptized, the old folk faith has almost everywhere been completely supplanted by Mohammedanism. Of the ancient folk holidays, only two holidays have survived between them, Saban and Jiin.

Low education (literacy), however, is significantly common among all Tatars, not excluding women. It is obtained in schools at mosques, lower - mektebs and higher - madrasahs. Each mullah is engaged in teaching the boys of his parish, and his wife usually teaches girls (for which she is called ustabika - madam mistress). In addition, many children are taught by their fathers and mothers. For studying at school there is a very small fee (khair) either in money - 2, 3, 5, many 10 kopecks per week or in meat, milk, flour, oats and other products. The mullah teaches poor children without any khair, for free, because it is considered extremely soul-saving work. Teaching takes place in all schools only in winter, from the beginning of November to the 1st of May, every day, except for the weekday - Friday, in the mornings, from 6 o'clock or at dawn. The initial course of literacy in mektebs consists of studying the primer with warehouses, with the necessary prayers (niats) and the forty duties of a Muslim (kalimats), which lasts for 2 years or more due to extremely imperfect, most primitive teaching methods, then in chanting selected passages of the Koran or the seventh part The Koran, Gavtiak, as this book is called, and the Koran itself, which lasts from 3 to 7 years, without any understanding of what is being read, because the Koran is read in Arabic. At the same time, some Tatar books of moral and religious content are read or, more precisely, learned by heart: Byaduam (about the duties of the law), Bakyrgan (moral poem), a book about Yusuf (Joseph the Beautiful), etc. This ends the education of all girls and more parts of boys. For further education, boys enter madrasahs.

A madrasah is usually built next to a mosque with donations from wealthier Tatars and is maintained using collected funds. Donating to a madrasah is considered one of the most charitable deeds. In terms of its external structure, the madrasah is a more or less extensive hut with a somewhat raised floor; Between the floor and the threshold a pit is left, unlined with boards, in which galoshes are removed, washing is performed, all rubbish is removed from the floor, and all school rubbish and dirt are collected. Along the walls and on the floor there are partitions or screens, forming around something like cabinets in which students are placed with all their property; On the wall of each such compartment hang clothes and shelves with books, and on the floor there are beds, chests, dishes, food supplies, etc. Students (shakirds), except those who come, must always be in the madrasah; They are allowed home only on Fridays from Thursday evening to Saturday morning. That’s why they study here and run their entire household. Since women are not allowed into madrasahs, the boys themselves must take turns cooking for themselves, washing their clothes, sewing up various holes, and mending their shoes, which takes up a lot of time from their studies. All shakirds should serve as an example of careful observance of all prayers, ablutions and fasts, and in general their entire education is based on strictly religious principles. Learning takes place in the morning, from 6 to 10 and 11; At the same time, all the youth sit down with their legs tucked under them on the floor and begin, in a plaintive ritual, to chant their lessons from the Koran and other books or write, holding a paper on their left palm above their raised knee. On Thursday, all the successes for the week are checked and reprisals are given to unsuccessful students, as was done in our old schools on Saturdays; those who fail are punished by imprisonment or flogging. In the summer, students go home; Many of them indulge in petty trading at this time, selling lemons and oranges, for which they even go to Nizhny, and some go to the Kyrgyz villages to read the Koran, which also earns money for themselves.

It is remarkable that all of the current Muslim education in Kazan owes its prosperity to the Russian government and did not rise earlier than the beginning of the 19th century. Until this time, the Tatar population of the region was in the darkest ignorance regarding their faith. Teachers were rare, because they could only be educated by sending young people to the remote regions of the East, to Bukhara or Istanbul; All the necessary books were also obtained from there. In 1802, by the will of Emperor Alexander I, at the request of the Tatars, the first Tatar printing house was finally opened in Kazan at the gymnasium, and in just three years it managed to print 11,000 Tatar alphabets, 7,000 copies. Gavtiak, 3,000 Korans and up to 10,200 other religious books. After this, literacy began to rapidly spread among the Tatars, and printed books began to be sold in enormous quantities. Since 1813, when the activities of the Bible Society opened in Kazan, the Tatar printing house further strengthened its publishing work directly in opposition to the Society. At the end of 1828, she joined the rich university printing house, and the university, in addition to its own knowledge, became some kind of center of religious Muslim civilization for almost the entire Tatar population of the Empire, because Mohammedan books from its printing house through Tatar booksellers, through Nizhny Novgorod and Irbit fairs began to spread to all parts of Russia, wherever there were Mohammedans - to Siberia, Crimea, the Caucasus, Khiva and Bukhara. The number of these publications reaches amazing proportions and far exceeds the number of Russian publications of the same printing house. According to information for 1855-1864, during these 10 years she published up to 1,084,320 copies of Mohammedan books, including 147,600 Gavtiak, 90,000 Koran, etc. To this we must also add the same huge number of Korans, various small books and pamphlets , issued from private Tatar and other printing houses. The number of all publications reaches 2,000,000 copies per year. All these publications are sold at extremely cheap prices.

It is no wonder that, thanks to their numerous schools and the press, the Tatar population is now almost entirely literate and looks with contempt at the Russian peasants who suffer from illiteracy, and by the way, at all Russian education in general. There is a strong belief among the Tatars that there is no end to Muslim books, but there is an end to Russian books, and that when the Russians read to this end, they will turn to Muslim books and themselves will become Muslims. Due to his habit of reading, a Tatar learns Russian literacy quite easily, as was observed in the regiments: Tatar soldiers become literate rather than literate. It is curious that in the university printing house the Tatars were always considered one of the best workers for the local scientific journals of the university and theological academy.

The Tatars are generally the strongest of the nationalities of the eastern foreign region, not susceptible to any influence from the dominant nationality. They treat Russians with extreme suspicion, fearing on their part any attempts to convert the Tatars to Christianity and teach them Russians. For three hundred years they have lived together with the Russians and under Russian rule, and not only have they not become Russified like other foreigners, but they themselves have developed a huge influence on the neighboring foreigners, converting them to Mohammedanism and gradually turning them into Tatars. They live apart from the Russians; many, especially women, do not know the Russian language at all, they are even afraid of it, despite the fact that they cannot help but need to study it at every step. Of course, the Russians themselves are largely to blame for this due to their extremely repulsive attitude towards them, from which even a conversion to Christianity does not save the Tatar. “Tatar shovel, dog” are the most common nicknames for Tatars from the mouths of Russian people, which can be heard constantly. The common people consider them some kind of filthy creatures and would rather give food in their dishes to a dog than to a Tatar. Because of this, Tatars often come to Russians for work with their dishes, knowing in advance that otherwise they would have nothing to even drink water from. Of course, they themselves do not remain in debt to the Russians, for example, they do not consider it a sin to deceive, rob or beat them up on occasion, and the same in turn, they are called dogs, kafirs (infidels), chukyngans (pigs), etc. However, one should not lose sight of the fact that Russians have formed such attitudes only towards the Tatars; Russians treat other foreigners rather leniently , allowing only good-natured jokes and jokes about them. Obviously, the Tatar is directly antipathetic to him. The reasons for this antipathy can be found in the history of all their mutual relations; there are many of them even now, and perhaps the main reason lies in the very strength of the Tatar people. The Tatar is sincerely proud of his origin, his education, his moral qualities, his religion, for which he stands firmly to the point of fanaticism, and everything about himself in general, despising the Russian no less than he despises him.

Sennaya Mosque in Staro-Tatarskaya Sloboda

The Tatar intelligentsia is, of course, not at all more tolerant of Russians. She speaks Russian perfectly and does not hesitate to send her younger generation to study in Russian educational institutions, male and female gymnasiums, and at the university. Some young people even receive education abroad, and not only in Istanbul or Cairo, but also in Paris. Wider education is inevitably accompanied by a weakening of religious fanaticism and even the very religiosity of the prophet’s fans, but this no longer contributes to bringing them closer to the Christian worldview and the Russian people. Their fake discord with the Russian people is abundantly replaced by nationalistic discord. A Tatar invariably remains a Tatar, regardless of education, devoted to his nationality and, to one degree or another, an ardent separatist. In the name of nationalism, these intellectuals stand firmly for their national religion, without which the unity and strength of the nation is unthinkable. They diligently participate in the construction of mosques, in supporting confessional schools within them, in the development of religious Muslim literature, book trade, propaganda of Islam and the Tatarization of neighboring foreigners, Cheremis, Votyaks, Chuvash, in various petitions and resolutions of Muslim congresses in favor of Islam, on its autonomous status in Russia, about the autonomy of Muslim censorship and the press, about the prohibition of the activities of missionaries among the Tatars and the freedom of Muslim propaganda, about the cessation of some kind of religious persecution of Muslims, etc.

adoption of Islam in ancient Bulgar

In the last 20-30 years, a particularly lively movement has been noticeable in the Tatar world, aimed at the revival of Islam and strongly flavored with the ideas of pan-Islamism. Islam is gathering strength for a stubborn struggle with Christian civilization wherever it exists, and everywhere it has begun to take care of correcting the shortcomings of its ancient established way of life and developing its educational means. This movement spread to the Tatar Volga region. Old Testament mullahs and teachers are gradually being replaced by new progressive and nationalist ones. In fact, this is noticeably penetrating even into the masses. New madrasahs are opening, in which, although the old confessional education remains, it is now supplemented with new secular and scientific elements, the study of physics, mathematics, chemistry, and European languages. New trends are reflected in the old mektebs and madrasahs, their programs are expanded to the size of Russian primary schools and new and better teaching methods are introduced. But it is remarkable that Russian influence on education in all these schools is being carefully eliminated. They are jealously guarded from the supervision of officials of the Ministry of Public Education; the Russian classes do not take root under them and do not enjoy the sympathy of the Tatars; Government schools are spreading extremely slowly among the Mohammedans.

After the publication of the manifesto on October 17, 1905, the described movement among the Russian Tatars intensified to the highest degree, and during the subsequent state disruption from the war and the so-called liberation movement, it managed to organize itself to such an extent that it has to be taken very seriously not only by the Orthodox the church, but also the state. There can now be no talk of any kind of Russification of the Tatars. The Christian mission among Mohammedans is completely paralyzed. The Orthodox Church has to, at least for a while, abandon any offensive struggle against Islam and confine itself to only a defensive struggle, saving from Muslim propaganda and apostasy from Orthodoxy at least the small number of its children that it managed to acquire during the previous long time, with more favorable circumstances.

Christian enlightenment was very difficult to graft onto the Tatars in the past, much less than to all other foreigners in Russia who professed pagan faiths. The Tatar faith, as we call Mohammedanism, firmly withstood all the pressures of the Christian mission on it, sacrificing the Russian faith only with the smallest number of its confessors. The most important eras of the Christian mission among the Kazan foreigners were: the time of the first Russian rule established between them in the second half of the 16th century. and then in the 18th century. the reign of Empress Elizabeth. The first holy figures of the Christian mission, the famous Kazan miracle workers of the 16th century, Gury, Barsanuphius and Herman, left behind entire villages of the so-called old-baptized foreigners, including quite a few Tatar villages. Islam was not yet so strong among the Tatars, who were still experiencing a period of dual faith, the struggle against the Mohammedanism of old pagan beliefs. Unfortunately, the work of the mission then stopped only at the initial conversion of these old baptized people to Christianity; St. The Kazan miracle workers, with all their efforts, did not manage to impart Christian enlightenment to this mass of converts, and their successors did not support their good beginnings. Already at the beginning of the 18th century. The spiritual and civil governments again paid attention to foreigners, started talking about their baptism and, most importantly, about establishing schools among them with a missionary character. In the 1740s, such schools were indeed established in Sviyazhsk, Elabuga and Tsarevokokshaisk, then in 1753 a large central school arose from them in Kazan itself. But even now it was not the school that had to stand in the foreground in solving a foreign issue, but again only the mission. In 1740, in Sviyazhsk, at the Bogoroditsky Monastery, a new baptism office was established, which paid all its attention to the baptism of foreigners in as many numbers as possible. The Kazan apxiepe, who was considered the enlightener of the Kazan region, Luka Konashevich, who energetically assisted her, was most concerned about the same thing. The pious reign of Empress Elizabeth, as much as possible, contributed to the, one might say, universal baptism of foreigners that began then by missionaries. From 1741 to 1756, up to 430,000 souls of various foreigners were baptized, who have since received the name newly baptized. Tatars were baptized least often. During all this time, only about 8,000 of them were baptized, and even those were ready at the first opportunity to fall away from the church and return to their former Tatar faith. With their stubbornness against all the efforts of missionaries and authorities, the Tatars even brought upon themselves real persecution, about the disasters of which they have embittered traditions even to this day. Bishop Luka forcibly took their children into his schools, destroyed their mosques, built two churches in their settlement in Kazan and established religious processions in these churches, in the village of Uspenskoye he dismantled the remains of Bulgar buildings respected by the Tatars and from their ruins he built a church, monastery cellars, etc. . The government, for its part, while assigning various benefits to the baptized, adopted repressive peace against Islam, prohibited the construction of new mosques, destroyed some old ones, aggravated the stubborn Mohammedans by increasing fees and duties and relocating to other places. The result of all these measures was a terrible embitterment of the rest of the Tatar population, which reached the point that in 1756 the government itself considered it necessary to moderate its zeal for the faith and immediately transfer Bishop Luke to another diocese. The unrest that arose in the foreign world did not subside for a long time after this and even in the 1770s had a bitter response for the Russians in the Pugachev region.

ancient tombstones (Kara pulat, Bolgar)

Under Empress Catherine II, the New Baptism office was finally closed (in 1764). At the same time, under the influence of the then fashionable idea of religious tolerance, the collection of taxes from unbaptized foreigners for baptized ones was abolished, the broadest possible permission was given to the Tatars to build mosques, and the clergy was forbidden to interfere in any matters concerning non-Christians and their houses of worship and to send missionary preachers to them. In the last years of her reign, Catherine even arranged for the Mohammedans special centers for their religious administration in the person of two mufis, one in Ufa, the other in the Crimea, and thus gave Mohammedanism a special and legitimate religious organization. In addition, the Koran was printed in St. Petersburg in the amount of 3,000 copies for distribution to the provinces populated by Tatars. The Christian mission among foreigners was completely undermined, and by the end of the 18th century. Newly baptized schools, the only source of education for the newly baptized, also closed. Meanwhile, Mohammedanism revived and developed strong propaganda for its part among the converted Tatars, again attracting them to its side, and, in addition, among other foreigners who professed shamanism, the Kirghiz and Bashkirs. There were rumors that the government itself stood for the Tatar faith, that it would soon build mosques for the Tatars at its own expense, and that a decree had been issued allowing the newly baptized to return to Islam again. The establishment of the Tatar printing house at the beginning of the 19th century finally strengthened the position of Mohammedanism in Rome, strengthening its schools and developing literacy among its confessors. The results of all this were not slow to emerge and were revealed precisely after as much time as was necessary for the younger generation to grow up, educated in the new schools.

In 1802 and 1803 the baptized Tatars began to fall away. Concerned by this, the government began to take measures to educate them Christianly. In 1802, a decree was issued on the translation of short catechisms and more necessary prayers into foreign languages. The Bible Society then began to distribute translations of St. scriptures. The Kazan apxbishop Ambrose Protasov proposed translating liturgical books into these languages, but this idea did not find sympathy at the time. At theological educational institutions in dioceses with a foreign population, they began to open classes for local foreign languages, because there was an extreme need for clergy who knew these languages. But the mission’s work had already been neglected to such an extent that it could not be corrected for a long time. During the reign of Alexander I and Nicholas I, many cases were carried out about the apostasies in Kazan and neighboring eparchies, and more and more about the Tatars. In 1827, the first mass defection of baptized Tatars to Mohammedanism began. Petitions for return to Islam were submitted to the Highest Name from 138 villages; in the petitions of these Tatars they explained that their ancestors had always been Muslims, that they came to Christianity, no one knows how or when, but were not at all trained in the Christian faith and did not know it at all; in support of their requests they referred to the decree of 1764 on the closure of the newly baptized office that baptized them forcibly. This reference is not justified by the meaning of the decree of 1764, but it clearly shows from what time and for what reason Mohammedanism began to raise its head after the blows of the Elizabethan reign. This fall away from the baptized Tatars was followed by a number of others. To weaken these apostasies, the authorities took various measures, corporal punishment, exile, dissolution of marriages between baptized and unbaptized, forced baptism of children in apostate families, etc. In 1830, missionaries were newly established in the Kazan diocese, but without any benefit. In 1847, at the Kazan Academy, by order of the Highest, a Tatar translation of sacred and liturgical books was undertaken, but the language for these translations, as well as for teaching in schools, was adopted, unfortunately, not a living folk language, but a book language, understandable only educated Tatars. The greatest fall of the Tatars occurred in 1866, during the era of the reforms of Alexander II.

prayer in Ancient Bulgar Kazan Tatars

With all these apostasies, the same story was repeated everywhere: rumors spread about a certain royal decree, supposedly allowing apostasy, petitions were submitted to the Highest Name for a return to the old faith, and in anticipation of their results, the apostates threw out their images from their houses, threw off their belts, put skull caps on their heads and went to the mosque instead of church. The authorities began to judge them, dragged them to the consistory for admonition, flogged them, resettled them in Russian villages, even exiled them to Siberia; but it did not, and could not, extend beyond these purely external measures. The local clergy turned out to be completely unprepared to enlighten the Tatar flock, because they did not know either their language or their old Mohammedan beliefs. Every time the consistory needed capable people to exhort those who had fallen away, there was not a single priest in the diocese who knew the Tatar language and the Mohammedan doctrine. The theological school, immersed in the study of Latin and in the refutation of the ancient heretics of the Byzantine Empire, did not convey any idea of what was under its nose, about local foreign languages and beliefs.

It is remarkable that apostasies were found mainly among newly baptized Tatars, and not among old baptized ones. The reason is clear: although both of them were joined to the church in the same external way only, three centuries had already passed since the latter joined, which could not but strengthen in them at least the habit of being considered Christians. In fact, they cannot be called completely Christians; This is some kind of special inter-mental, albeit very interesting tribe, representing in its beliefs and habits some kind of mixture of Christianity with Mohammedanism and paganism and worthy of special study by ethnographers and historians. There are very few of them left now. These are the remnants of the Tatars of ancient times, when the Tatar people, having adopted Mohammedanism, did not part with the old pagan beliefs and experienced their period of dual faith. Christianity, into which they were baptized by the Kazan miracle workers, constituted the third faith among them, it must be said, the weakest. They preserved this mixture of three faiths as a curious monument of antiquity, which in some remote places has almost entirely reached us from the 16th century, and as a sad evidence of the weakness of Russian influence on them.

water - su anasy

Christianity was grafted onto the old baptized only to a very weak extent. The identity of the Savior is known to them only from Mohammedan sources, as the identity of one of the prophets. The dogmas about His deity, about the Trinity, about the incarnation, under the influence of Mohammedan monotheism, are positively rejected by them and serve as a constant temptation regarding Christianity, as well as Christian icon veneration, which they identify with pagan idolatry. At the same time, they profess with all their might the symbol of Islam: “There is no God but God; Mohammed is His prophet." Only some, closer to Christianity, consider Mohammed simply a saint. The veneration of Tatar saints is developed among them almost to the same extent as among indigenous Muslims. Beliefs regarding the future life and the afterlife also remain purely Mohammedan. Many Koranic legends about the prophets Adam, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, etc., and about Mohammed himself, his moral qualities, prophecies and miracles, constitute the same widespread mass of religious knowledge among the old-baptized as apocryphal legends created on a biblical basis constitute for the Russian common people, which directly shows that the root source of the religious worldview for them was not the Bible, but the Koran. The old baptized is indifferent to the rituals of the church: he does not go to church, and if he ever appears in it, he does not pray; you also do not perform home prayer, unless in the presence of Russians, but if he sometimes prays, it is in Tatar, raising his hands up and reading Tatar prayers, which they call “making amen”; before starting a task or before eating, instead of “Lord have mercy,” he says “bismillah”; does not observe either Tatar or Russian fasts; confession and communion are accepted only when necessary, before the wedding and before death. The result of this oscillatory state between different faiths must necessarily have been religious indifferentism among the old-baptized; Between them you can constantly hear the well-known argument that God gave both this and this faith, that everyone is saved by his own faith, and that it is not even known which faith is better.

Due to the extreme weakness of Russian influence on the Tatars, Mohammedanism turned out to be much stronger in exterminating the remnants of paganism than Christianity, which is why they now constitute the almost exclusive affiliation of the old-baptized. His influence on the education of the Tatars in general turned out to be stronger than the Christian influence. While Mohammedanism established its schools everywhere, almost all of its confessors learned to read books, through this it gave strong support for the national religion and exterminated old superstitions, baptized Tatars, but at least until the end of the 1860s, before the spread of fraternity schools among them St. Guria, remained in the darkest ignorance, having neither schools nor teachers. If some of them began to study, for example, for better management of trade affairs, then they turned for this directly to Tatar schools, to the mullahs, where they lost the last glimpses of Christianity. The Orthodox clergy, for their part, could not compete with the mullahs, because they were purely folk teachers, and they did not even speak the Tatar language. One could certainly not expect any religious influence from the Russian population; unless sometimes some schismatic zealot decides to talk to a Tatar about two fingers or seven prosphoras at the liturgy, but this, of course, enlightened the old baptized man very little, who had absolutely no interest in Christian worship, which was incomprehensible to him. In addition, the Russians themselves alienated their Tatar co-religionists, treating them with the same national disgust as they treated the unbaptized Tatars. It is remarkable that marriages between Russians and baptized Tatars are still quite rare and are even considered humiliating for Russians, both for boys and girls. It is very natural that the baptized should constantly gravitate not to the Russians, but to their unbaptized fellow tribesmen, to look for moral poverty not in Christianity, but in Islam, which they had not forgotten. It is clear how strongly Mohammedan propaganda must have affected them; it must be said that it was very energetic and had great resources in their native language, in many mullahs, mosques and schools.

clothing of Kazan Tatars

After the publication of the manifesto on freedom of conscience on October 17, 1905, a new period of apostasy from the church began among the baptized Tatar population. Tatar propaganda of Islam has intensified to extreme tension, although Tatar newspapers deny this, presenting Mohammedanism as the most peace-loving religion and averse to any proselytism, unlike Orthodoxy, which has always cruelly persecuted the faithful. Demanding through its leaders not to allow Orthodox missionaries into their villages, who themselves do not look there because of serious fears even for their very lives (“sekim head”), Mohammedanism sends crowds of its mullahs, shakirds and simple zealots to baptized and pagan foreign villages - preachers of Islam, who hang around here in native and familiar houses and bazaars, using all sorts of means to persuade the population to Mohammedanism, slandering the Russian faith, deceptive assurances with references to the Tsar’s manifesto that the Tsar ordered all foreigners to be brought to Mohammedanism and will soon convert to Mohammedanism him, that in Russia there will be only two faiths - Russian and Tatar, that whoever does not want to be in the Russian faith would rather convert to Mohammedanism, otherwise they will soon be forcibly baptized, and so on.
The richer and more influential Mohammedans and apostates attract the baptized to apostasy with affection, material benefits and help. Having collected two or three dozen seduced people in the Epiphany village, they rush to quickly establish a mosque and a school in it, even if directly against the law and contrary to the wishes of the local Epiphany population, who make up the majority of the inhabitants. Where the majority and strength are on the side of the apostates, the inhabitants who are firm in Orthodoxy cannot survive from all sorts of insults, ridicule, oppression, nagging, etc., so that, having strengthened themselves as much as they have patience, they involuntarily convert to Islam themselves. Newly baptized Tatars can no longer remain in Tatar or apostate villages at all, out of fear for their very lives, and have to move somewhere else. The propaganda of Islam has recently become too bold and even violent.

Muslim literature is also doing its job of propagation, revived and also extremely emboldened after the 1905 manifesto on freedom of conscience. In seven Kazan Tatar newspapers and in tens of thousands of books and brochures published in Kazan, the religious question, praise of Islam, exaggerated news of its successes and censure of Christianity occupy a very large place. These publications are sold at the cheapest price in all rural bazaars and in Tatar bookstores where foreigners frequent. It is remarkable that religious books and brochures in foreign languages, Russian editions, cannot be found in any such village bazaar. An important drawback of book propaganda of Islam was that Tatar publications were printed exclusively in the Arabic alphabet, which baptized Tatars and other foreigners do not know; The Tatars even considered it a sin to print their books in the more common Russian alphabet. Now they decided to take this sin upon their souls and began to print the books they needed for propaganda, either together with a Russian translation or in one Russian font. Publications of this kind are published by them obviously for the edification of the baptized, who know only the Russian alphabet. In 1906, a wonderful brochure in the Tatar language with a Russian transcript “Islyam deni” (The Faith of Islam) was published from the Kazan printing house of the Karimov brothers; she is dismantled by the priest. S. Bagin (missionary) in the Orthodox Church. Interlocutor 1909

Gabdulla Tukay Museum, Tukay-Kyrlay

The title page says that this brochure was printed on the basis of the Supreme Manifesto on Freedom of Faith dated October 17. 1905. The first pages contain a convincing appeal to the baptized Tatars about the return of their fathers and grandfathers to their former native faith. “This book is for our ancient relatives, who in the past were forcibly removed from the teachings of Islam, about whose beloved faith this book speaks. These relatives of ours were not given the opportunity to live in Islam: they were forced into church, icons were placed in their houses by force, they were forced to celebrate Easter, on the holiday of red eggs the priests forcibly entered their houses, etc. It is described what kind of violence they endured, What kind of tortures - lashes, exile to Siberia, hard labor - they were subjected to because even after converting to Christianity they did not forget the creed of Islam and remained faithful to it.
On the day of the general judgment, they will appear with bright faces in front of all Muslims and the prophets themselves. The nations will ask: “What kind of Muslims are these with bright faces?” Then the angels will answer: “They suffered great oppression in the world for their faith,” and so on. Then, in case the baptized return to their old folk faith, instructions are given on what to do when building a mosque and school for themselves, on inviting a shakird to teach the faith, a mullah, etc. The content of the brochure consists of a presentation of the doctrine and rituals of Islam. Among the baptized, as one would expect, it has become widespread, although it is kept in great secrecy. In the same printing house and obviously for the same purpose of promoting Islam, the manifesto of October 17 was printed in Russian and Tatar. 1905 and the regulations of the Committee of Ministers on April 17, 1905, and completely ready-made forms of petitions addressed to the governor for conversion to Islam, in which petitioners only have to enter their names.

Among the Tatar population, the memory of the former greatness of the Tatar kingdom still lingers and faith in its future has been restored. It expects this restoration from the assistance of the Sultan, who enjoys reverent respect among him as the only king of the faithful throughout the world. Muslim sympathies draw the Tatars not to St. Petersburg or Moscow, but to Mecca, Cairo and Istanbul, these holy cities of Islam. There are various wonderful legends about them, like among our common people about St. places The end of the world is believed to be associated with the capture of Istanbul by the cyapirs. The Turks, in the imagination of the Tatar common people, before his personal acquaintance with them, when they were taken captives through the Kazan province in the last war of 1877, were presented as angels of gigantic proportions, just as the Koran depicts angels. The prisoners, despite their usual witchcraft image, were nevertheless greeted in the Tatar villages with extraordinary enthusiasm, as befits one to greet older brothers in Islam.

During the Crimean War, the Tatars, as is known, showed very unpleasant coldness towards their fatherland. Their recruits, with the assistance of the rich, fled from military service in such large numbers that, for example, up to 200 fugitives were counted in Mamadysh district alone. In general, the Tatars said then that their conscience forbade them to fight against the Turks of the same faith. The confidence then spread throughout the Kazan region that the Sultan would soon appear and free them from the power of the Russians. After the conclusion of peace, when the Crimean Tatars began to move to Turkey, several families of the Kazan Tatars also expressed a desire to follow their example. After 20 years, the same phenomena were repeated during the war of 1877. Russian peasants and priests in places had to hear very frank boasts and warnings from the Tatars that soon “the Sultan will come, he will kill the Russians.” People who liked them, they They reassured us: “You are a good person, we will quietly kill you.” We also heard about cases of treason by Tatar soldiers in the army. Portraits of the Sultan and his generals could be found everywhere in Tatar houses. In continuation of the protracted negotiations about peace after the war, persistent rumors spread through the Tatar villages that the Sultan demanded that the Tsar give him all Muslim Tatars, and the Tsar, in order to evade this demand, ordered that all the Tatars be baptized as soon as possible: “then I’ll tell the Sultan that this not yours, but our people." These rumors were of no small importance in the subsequent Tatar unrest in different places of the Kazan, Simbirsk and Samara provinces.

As luck would have it, by this time some orders from the local spiritual and civil administration arrived, which, against the will of the authorities themselves, confirmed these rumors in the eyes of the already suspicious and excited Tatars. The Samara diocesan authorities ordered a more correct registration of baptized Tatars by parish; The unbaptized took this innocent order personally, since many of them live together with the baptized, and became agitated, thinking that they wanted to force them into the church. At the same time, the Kazan administration sent out circulars to the rural police authorities with orders to monitor, among other things, cleanliness around churches, to take precautions against fires, to hang alarm bells on tall buildings, etc. These Tatars also interpreted the rules in the sense of their stubborn suspicions, since the Russian villages in the circular were not separated by a special clause from the Tatar Muslim ones; they started talking about how they wanted to force them to hang bells on mosques and take care of churches, in other words, to force them to baptize. The word itself, the circular, was translated in its own way: churches (lyar is the plural ending), then, without listening to the paper itself, by its name alone they were convinced that it was really about churches. The unrest was stopped by the usual measures and very quickly, but it greatly and permanently damaged the Russian cause in all the troubled areas.

The same unrest throughout the Tatar world was aroused in 1897 by a general census of the population of the empire, which met with strong opposition among the Tatars and gave rise to various absurd suspicions regarding religious violence on the part of the government. There were several more Tatar unrest at different times, in different places and on different occasions (for example, due to the introduction of the Russian language into Tatar schools) of a less general nature.

The general attraction of Muslims towards Istanbul and the Turkish Sultan, which was noticed during our previous wars with Turkey, continued uninterruptedly. In peacetime, it could not be revealed with such frankness as then, but among the Tatar people and among the Tatar foreigners, restless rumors did not cease to circulate about the strength of Turkey and its significance for the faithful. According to Tatar newspapers, the reading of which is widely spread even among the Tatar common people, the Tatars followed and are following with great interest all the events taking place in Turkey and Persia. The news of the concentration of Turkish troops on the Caucasian border in 1907 created a particularly great sensation between them. In Tatar villages and villages of Tatar foreigners, rumors are still circulating that the Turks will soon defeat the Russians and conquer Russia, after which they will force everyone to accept the Mohammedan religion. According to other rumors, the Tatars themselves will soon separate from Russia and will choose a king for themselves.

The recently intensified pilgrimage of young Tatars to Istanbul for science and their close acquaintance with Turkey had an effect on them far from being in favor of Turkey and the Sultan. They saw with their own eyes the obvious signs of the disintegration of the Turkish Empire and the decline in the power of the Sultan and were convinced that he could not become some kind of general pan-Islamic padishah. Added to this was their close acquaintance with the Young Turks, whom they willingly joined in a party way. The science of Istanbul itself turned out to be far lower than the science of Cairo with its European knowledge and secular direction. Recently, young people have begun to head more to Cairo than to Istanbul. Upon returning from there, these young people began to spread the new science at home; educational institutions of a new type in Kazan now attract a lot of students - it is clear that they appeal to the young Tatar generation. The new movement is not against Islam as a necessary nationalist element of life, but it, of course, should significantly weaken the old narrow religious direction of this life. The old, moribund generation of Tatars, with their fanatical mullahs and old-method madrassas, are noticeably lagging behind and are fading in the face of the new demands of the century. Pan-Islamism itself in its original form, together with its initiator and leader Gasprinsky, lags behind the new trend of life; his ideal of uniting all Muslims near Istanbul and a common padishah begins to be replaced by other, more liberal ideals in the new generation.

The new people are almost entirely of the extreme left wing of their political views. Like the pan-Islamists, they firmly stand for the independence of the Muslim nationality and for the worldwide fraternal unity of all its tribes, but no longer around a single padishah and under a single state power, but through only one religion and a single Muslim culture and in the form of a free federation of these related tribes , as special state units, with each of them retaining complete independence and all kinds of freedoms. How should such a movement respond to the life of the states among which Muslims live as citizens? Will they limit themselves to the desire to acquire only a certain degree of autonomy, or will their ideal federation, gradually developing and strengthening, show a number of active actions towards acquiring complete state independence? for its members, it is impossible to guess in advance. But the prudent policy of England has long been keeping a keen eye on both the old and the new Muslim movements in India.

Source of information and photos:
Team Nomads.
Tatar folk dialects. Bayazitova F.S., Khairutdinova T.H. - Kazan: Magarif, 2008,
Peter Znamensky. Kazan Tatars.
http://kitap.net.ru/
Gainutdin Akhmarov. Wedding ceremonies of Kazan Tatars.
Kosach G. G. Tatarstan: religion and nationality in the mass consciousness // Kaariainen K., Furman D. E. (responsible editors).
Wikipedia website.
Origin of the Kazan Tatars: Materials of the session of the Department of History and Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences, organized jointly with the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Kazan Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, April 25-26, 1946 in Moscow. Kazan: Tatgosizdat, 1948, P.4.
Tatars. - M.: Nauka, 2001. - 43 p.
This chronicle is also known as the “Kazan Chronicler” or “The History of the Kazan Kingdom”.
Kazan history. - M.-L.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1954, P.53.
Gubaidullin G.S. On the issue of the origin of the Tatars // VNOT. Kazan, 1928, No. 8.
http://artcyclopedia.ru/