Bashkirs


The Bashkirs are a Turkic ethnic group, indigenous to Bashkortostan and the historical region of Badzhgard. This area extends both sides of the Ural Mountains where Eastern Europe meets North Asia. Smaller communities of Bashkirs also live in the Republic of Tatarstan, Perm Krai, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Tyumen, Sverdlovsk, Kurgan Oblasts and other regions of Russia. Bashkirs also reside in Kazakhstan and other countries.
Most Bashkirs speak the Bashkir language, closely related to the Tatar and Kazakh languages which belong to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages. Cultural affinities are shared with the broader Turkic peoples. Religiously, the Bashkirs are mainly Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab faith.
, 1814
The Bashkir people are subject to systematic Russification and discrimination. They lack the opportunity to study in their native language at school as well as at university. The Bashkir language is included in the list of endangered languages.

Ethnonym

The etymology and indeed meaning of the endonym Bashqort is without consensus. The following theories of origin and definition have been advanced:

Origins

The Bashkirs are considered to have some cultural similarities to Iranian tribes who formerly existed in modern Bashkortostan, such as the Bušxk', and may have descended from them. Alternatively, Mikhail Artamonov suggested Bashkirs are descended from the Bušxk', a Scythian tribe that became culturally "Turkified", during the Turkic migrations of the first millennium AD.

Middle ages

The first report about Bashkirs might have been found in the Chinese chronicle Book of Sui: around 40 Turkic Tiele tribes were named in "A Narration about the Tiele people"; Bashkirs might have included within that narration: if the tribal name 比干 were read as 比千, according to Chinese scholar Rui Chuanming
In the 7th century, Bashkirs are also mentioned in "Ashkharatsuyts".
From the 9th century, the first Arab and Persian written reports about Bashkirs commence. These include reports by:: Sallam al-Tardzhuman.
10th-century authors on the Bashkir were: Ahmad ibn Fadlan, Al-Masudi, and Abu Zayd al-Balkhi.
In the 12th century, Said Al-Andalusi and Muhammad al-Idrisi mentioned the Bashkirs. The 13th-century authors Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi, Yaqut al-Hamawi and Qazvini and the 14th-century authors Al-Dimashqi and Abu'l-Fida wrote about Bashkirs.
The traveller Sallam an at-Tardzhuman visited Bashkir lands and wrote in circa 840 the first written Arab source on the Bashkirs and a rough description of its borders. In the 10th century, Persian Abu Zayd al-Balkhi described Bashkirs as a people divided into two groups: one inhabiting the Southern Urals, the other living on the Danube plain near the boundaries of Byzantium. Ibn Rustah, a contemporary of Abu Zayd al-Balkhi, observed that Bashkirs were an independent people occupying territories on both sides of the Ural mountains ridge between Volga, Kama, and Tobol Rivers and upstream of the Yaik river.
Ahmad ibn Fadlan, ambassador of the Baghdad Caliph Al-Muqtadir to the governor of Volga Bulgaria, wrote the first ethnographic description of the Bashkir in 922. The Bashkirs, according to Ibn Fadlan, were a warlike and powerful people, which he and his companions "bewared... with the greatest threat". They were described as engaged in cattle breeding. According to ibn Fadlan, the Bashkirs worshipped twelve gods: winter, summer, rain, wind, trees, people, horses, water, night, day, death, heaven and earth, and the most prominent, the sky god. Apparently, Islam had already begun to spread among the Bashkirs, as one of the ambassadors was a Muslim Bashkir. According to the testimony of Ibn Fadlan, the Bashkirs were Turks, living on the southern slopes of the Urals, and occupying a vast territory up to the river Volga. They were bordered by Oghuz Turks on the south, Pechenegs to the south-east and Bulgars on the west.
The first European sources to mention the Bashkirs were the works of Joannes de Plano Carpini and William of Rubruquis of the 13th century.
By 1236, Genghis Khan had incorporated the lands of Bashkortostan were incorporated into his empire. During the 13th and 14th centuries, all of Bashkortostan was a component of the Golden Horde. The brother of Batu-Khan, Sheibani, received the Bashkir lands east of the Ural Mountains.
After the disintegration of the Mongol Empire, the Bashkirs were divided among the Nogai Horde, the Khanate of Kazan and the Khanate of Sibir, founded in the 15th century.

Early modern period

In the middle of the 16th century, Bashkirs were gradually conquered by the Tsardom of Russia. Primary documents pertaining to the Bashkirs during this period have been lost, although some are mentioned in the shezhere of the Bashkir.
During the Russian Imperial period, Russians and Tatars began to migrate to Bashkortostan which led to eventual demographic changes in the region. The recruitment of Bashkirs into the Russian army and having to pay steep taxes pressured many Bashkirs to adopt a more settled lifestyle and to slowly abandon their ancient nomadic pastoralist past.
In the late 16th and early 19th centuries, Bashkirs occupied the territory from the river Sylva in the north; to the river heads of Tobol in the east; the mid-stream of the river Yaik in the south; in the Middle and Southern Urals, the Cis-Urals including Volga territory and Trans-Uralsto; and the eastern bank of the river Volga on the south-west.

Bashkir rebellions of the 17th–18th centuries

The Bashkirs participated in the 1662–64, 1681–84 and 1704–11 Rebellions. In 1676, the Bashkirs rebelled under a leader named Seyid Sadir or 'Seit Sadurov', and the Russian army had great difficulties in ending the rebellion. The Bashkirs rose again in 1707, under Aldar and Kûsyom, due to perceived ill-treatment by Imperial Russian officials.
At the founding of Orenburg in 1735, the fourth insurrection occurred in 1735 and lasted six years. Russians had discussed from the times of Peter the Great a desire to expand Russian sovereignty south-east toward Persia and India. :ru:Иван Андреевич|Ivan Kirillov formed a plan to build the fort to be called Orenburg at Orsk at the confluence of the Or River and the Ural River, south-east of the Urals where the Bashkir, Kalmyk and Kazakh lands met. Work on Fort Orenburg commenced at Orsk in 1735. However, by 1743 'Orenburg' was moved a further 250 km west to its current location. The next planned construction was to be a fort on the Aral Sea. The consequence of the Aral Sea fort would involve crossing Bashkir and the Kazakh Lesser Horde lands, some of whom had recently offered a nominal submission to the Russia Crown.
Kirillov's plan was approved on May 1, 1734 and he was placed in command. Although Kirillov was warned that this may provoke a Bashkir rebellion, the warnings were ignored. Kirillov left Ufa with 2,500 men in 1735.
Warfare commenced on the first of July, 1735. The war consisted of many small raids and complex troop movements, so it cannot be easily summarized.
For example: In the spring of 1736, Kirillov burned 200 villages, killed 700 in battle and executed 158. An expedition of 773 men left Orenburg in November and lost 500 from cold and hunger. At Seiantusa the Bashkir planned to massacre sleeping Russians, however, the ambush failed. In retaliation, one thousand villagers, including women and children, were put to the sword and another 500 driven into a storehouse and burned to death. Raiding parties then went out and burned about 50 villages and killed another 2,000. Eight thousand Bashkirs attacked a Russian camp and killed 158, losing 40 killed and three Bashkir prisoners were promptly hanged by the Russians. Rebellious Bashkirs raided loyal Bashkirs. Leaders who submitted were sometimes fined one horse per household and on other occasions, hanged. Kirillov died of disease during the war and there were several changes of commander. The Baskir War occurred during the reign of Empress Anna of Russia and the Russo-Turkish War.
Although the history of the 1735 Bashkir War cannot be easily summarized, its results can be.
Next major rebellion occurred in 1755–56. In its suppression, 36,000 Russian regular troops were involved. The number of rebels was about 50,000. The rebellion was cruelly crushed.
Later, in 1774, the Bashkirs, under the leadership of Salavat Yulayev, supported Pugachev's Rebellion. In 1786, the Bashkirs achieved tax-free status; and in 1798 Russia formed an irregular Bashkir army from among them. Residual land ownership disputes continued.
There are many museums in the Republic where you can get acquainted with the history of the region. The National Museum of the Republic of Bashkortostan, the Bashkir Nesterov Art Museum, the Museum of Archeology and Ethnography are the largest of them.

Napoleonic Wars

During the Napoleonic Wars, many Kalmyks and Bashkirs served in the Russian army to defend the Russian nation from the French invaders during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Many Bashkir regiments served in Battle of Paris and the subsequent occupation of France by the coalition forces.

The establishment of the Republic of Bashkortostan

After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the All-Bashkir Qoroltays concluded that it was necessary to form a national federal Bashkir republic within Russia. As a result, on 15 November 1917, the Bashkir Regional Shuro proclaimed the establishment of the Bashkir republic in areas of predominantly Bashkir population: Orenburg, Perm, Samara, Ufa provinces and the autonomous entity Bashkurdistan.
In December 1917, delegates to the All-Bashkir Congress, representing the interests of the population edge of all nationalities, voted unanimously for the Resolution of the Bashkir regional Shuro on the proclamation of national-territorial autonomy Bashkurdistan. From the Congress, the government of Bashkurdistan, the Pre-parliament – Kese-Qoroltay and other bodies of power and administration, were formed and decisions made on how next to proceed.
In March 1919, the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was formed based on agreements of the Russian Government.
On October 11, 1990 Declaration of State Sovereignty by the Supreme Council of the Republic was proclaimed. On March 31, 1992 Bashkortostan signed a federal agreement on the delimitation of powers and areas of jurisdiction and the nature of contractual relations between the authorities of the Russian Federation and the authorities of the sovereign republics in its composition including the Republic of Bashkortostan.

Great Patriotic War

During World War II, Bashkir soldiers served in the Red Army to defend the Soviet Union and fought against the Germans during the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

Genetics

The modern Bashkirs have an average of approximately 60% "West-Eurasian/European" and 40% "Siberian/East-Asian" genetic material.
Genetic studies have revealed Y-DNA haplogroups the dominant frequency for Bashkir males is the haplogroup R1b which is, on average, 47.6%. The Y-DNA haplogroup R-M269 R-M269 is the most common European haplogroup, greatly increasing in frequency on a West to East its prevalence in Wales at 92.3% to Poland estimated at 22.7%.
The second most dominant is the haplogroup R1a at an average frequency of 26,5%, and third the haplogroup N1c at 17%. Despite the Bashkirs being considered a Turkic peoples, DNA haplogroups R1a and R1b are majority shared with Indo-Europeans.
Haplogroups J2, C, O, E1b, G2a, L, N1b, I, T.were found at lower incidences.
Most mtDNA haplogroups of the Bashkirs consist of the haplogroups G, D, С, Z and F; which are lineages characteristic of East-Eurasian populations. On the other hand, mtDNA haplogroups characteristic of European and Near Eastern populations were found in significant amounts. Immunogeneticist Suslova commented in 2015 that:
The Bashkirs are characterized by East-Asian admixture, which dates from the 13th century, according to an analysis of the identical-by-descent segments.
A group of Bashkirs from the Burzyansky and Abzelilovsky districts of the Republic of Bashkortostan in the Volga-Ural region who belong to the R1a subclade R-SUR51 are the closest kin of the Hungarian Árpád dynasty, from which got separated 2000 years ago.

Language

is a Turkic language of the Kypchak group. It has three main dialects: Southern, Eastern and North-Western located in the territory of Historical Bashkortostan.
The Russian census of 2010 recorded 1,152,404 Bashkir speakers in the Russian Federation. Bashkir language is native to 1 133 339 Bashkirs. The Tatar language was reported as native tongue to 230,846 Bashkirs. and Russian language reported as native tongue to 216 066 Bashkir. Most Bashkirs are bilingual in Bashkir and Russian.
The Bashkir tribes of pre-Islamic conversion used the Old Turkic alphabet. After the adoption of Islam, which began in the 10th century and lasted for several centuries, the Bashkirs began to use the Arabic alphabet. From the mid-18th-century Bashkir national literature began to be formulated. In 1923, Bashkir alphabet was based on the Arabic alphabet. In 1929 a Latin alphabet form of transcribing Bashkir was formulated. In 1940, writing Bashkir in Cyrillic alphabet was formulated. The modern Bashkir alphabet consists of 42 letters.
The Bashkir language was considered endangered but recent Bashkir nationalism has made many develop an interest in it. The combination of encouragement by local authorities and renewed Bashkir language interest among Bashkirs have greatly assisted the language to stay relevant.

Demographics

The ethnic Bashkir population is estimated at roughly 2 million people. The 2010 Russian census recorded 1,584,554 ethnic Bashkirs in Russia, of which 1,172,287 Bashkirs live in Bashkortostan.

Culture

The Bashkirs traditionally practiced agriculture, cattle-rearing and bee-keeping. The half-nomadic Bashkirs wandered either the mountains or the steppes, herding cattle. Wild-hive beekeeping can be named as a separate component of the most ancient culture which is practiced in the same Burzyansky District near to the Kapova Cave.
Traditional Bashkir dish bishbarmaq is prepared from boiled meat and halma, sprinkled with herbs flavored with onions and some :wikt:ҡорот|qorot. This is another notable feature of the Bashkir cuisine: dishes often served dairy products — rare party without qorot or :wikt:ҡаймаҡ|qaymaq. Most of the dishes Bashkir cuisine is nutritious and easy to prepare.
A series of epic Bashkir works called Ural-batyr and Akbuzat keeps layers of ancient mythology and have parallels with the Epic of Gilgamesh, Rigveda, and Avesta. Their plots concern the struggle of heroes against demonic forces. A peculiarity of them is that events and ceremonies described there may reference a specific geographical place; the Shulgan-Tash cave and its vicinity.

Religion

In the pre-Islamic period the Bashkirs were followers of Animism, Shamanism and Tengrianism.
Bashkirs began converting to Islam in the 10th century. Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan in 921 met some of the Bashkirs, who were already Muslims. The final assertion of Islam among the Bashkirs occurred in the 1320s and 1330s during the Golden Horde period. The mausoleum of Hussein-Bek, the burial place of the first Imam of Historical Bashkortostan, is preserved in Bashkortostan. The mausoleum is a 14th-century building. Catherine the Great established the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly in 1788 in Ufa, which was the first Muslim administrative center in Russia.
Religious revival among the Bashkirs began in the early 1990s. According to Talgat Tadzhuddin there were more than 1,000 mosques in Bashkortostan in 2010.
The Bashkirs are predominantly Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab.

Notable Bashkirs