Religion of the Tatars. Turkic origin of the ethnonym. My home is your home

Republic of Tatarstan - religion unites a multinational population. And this is true without exaggeration. One of the most multinational republics in the territory Russian Federation is Tatarstan. About 3.8 million people living in the territory are represented by more than 115 nationalities, the vast majority of which are Tatars. Religion (Islam) is one of the most basic. About 52.9% of the total population of Tatarstan are Muslims, which determined the predominance of Sunni Islam in this wonderful republic.

The main Tatar religion, Sunni Islam, considers, of course, the Koran as its fundamental basis, as well as the Sunnah, the so-called words of the Prophet Muhammad. Sunni Tatars, whose religion does not recognize the possibility of mediation between the common people and Allah after the Prophet Muhammad meets his death, in their communities conduct a kind of election of governors - caliphs, who carry out the connection between Muslims and the Supreme Deity.

Muslim traditions and customs are, of course, observed by all Tatars. The religion of Islam implies:

Firstly, the recognition of the Prophet Muhammad as the Messenger of Allah, as well as unquestioning submission and worship of the Supreme God;

Secondly, reading daily prayer salad;

Thirdly, the submission of “zakat” by every Muslim - a tax in the amount of 2.5% of the total capital accumulated over 12 months in favor of the needy and poor;

Fourthly, observing the sacred fast “saum”, which lasts throughout the month of Ramadan;

Fifthly, pilgrimage to Mecca. It is believed that a true Muslim must perform Hajj at least once in his life.

Some of the most revered are Uraza Bayram and Kurban Bayram. Eid al-Fitr (or Uraza Bayram) is a celebration dedicated to the end of the sacred. On this day, all relatives gather in one house, in a cozy atmosphere, as there is a belief that it is on this day that the souls of all relatives who have left this world return to their loved ones .

Kurban Bayram (Eid al Adha) is a holiday when all Muslims of the world perform sacrifices to praise the Almighty God Allah. Sacrificing an animal is not obligatory, but is counted by the Deity and is rewarded in the future with material wealth, which is equal to the number of hairs growing on the body of the sacrificed animal.

The second religion in terms of the number of believers is Orthodoxy. About 40% are adherents of this denomination. A large number of temples and churches are concentrated in the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan. To the main Orthodox holidays, such as Easter, Epiphany and many others, churches are crowded with believers.

In addition to Orthodoxy and Islam, on the territory of the Republic of Tatarstan you can find a fairly large number of believers professing Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Confucianism. This is evidenced, firstly, by the fact that as of 2008, about 1,400 and secondly, 1,400 religious buildings were officially registered in the Republic of Tatarstan. Moreover, Muslim mosques occupy the vast majority - 1,150 buildings. Orthodox churches, temples, cathedrals and chapels, there are 200 buildings. The remaining 50 places of worship belong to other religious denominations.

The Tatars, whose religion is divided into a colossal number of branches, are very peaceful and friendly people. According to local residents, despite religion, all people walk under one God, therefore, oppressing someone because of his religious views is wrong and should be punishable by law. The most important quality that is characteristic of the Tatar people is tolerance and religious tolerance.

Let me put it in part cut out by SiP from the text “How can we settle the Tatars” about religion:

In Kazakhstan Tatars According to the 2009 census, there were an impressive 204 thousand Tatars, spread throughout the country. The religious situation turned out to be this:

As you can see, in Muslim Kazakhstan, where even Russian Muslims counted 1.4%, and Koreans - 5.2%, every fifth Tatar is not a Mohammedan. Over 10% are Christians (Kazakhstan did not divide Christians into denominations, but, obviously, we are talking about Orthodox Christians) and 8% are atheists.

In Estonia There were two orders of magnitude less Tatars, and among these couple of thousand the situation is radically different:

Over 40% of Tatars are atheists and agnostics, Orthodox - 12%, while 42% are Muslims - i.e. over 20% from religious Tatars.

In more religious Lithuania, and the Tatars turned out to be more devout:

Half of the three thousand-strong community are Muslims, with 17% non-believers and 14% Christians. It is worth noting that the Tatars in Lithuania are not Soviet settlers, but an indigenous people, the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars, who have lived in the region for over six centuries - these are the descendants of service members of the Horde, invited by the rulers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

An ancient Tatar wooden mosque in the Lithuanian village of Nemezis.

As for Russia, then we only have data from the Atlas of Religions and Nationalities of Russia of the Sreda Research Service - large-scale research 2012:

First of all, the data shows the blatant religious illiteracy of Russian Tatars. Being non-Sunni and non-Shiite is like being “just a Christian.” In fact, almost all mosques in the Russian Federation are Sunni, belonging to Sunni muftiates. This, I repeat, is like Russians not knowing which church they go to - Orthodox or Catholic. Like, it turns out that they are somehow different?

Proportion Christians and Muslims 6% to 59% is surprising (IMHO, there are more Christians), like 2% of pagans. In general, “Wednesday” is in its repertoire. To understand how well the measurements correspond to reality, it is enough to compare the top 10 regions according to the number of Tatars reported by Sreda and according to the actual census figures:

Sredovsky accountants received such percentages that, according to their data, there should be almost equal numbers of Tatars in Bashkiria and Tatarstan (in reality, the difference is 2 times). And in the Orenburg region there are 2.6 times more Tatars than in the Ulyanovsk region (in reality there are fewer of them there). So, to what extent do the data on religions correspond to reality? big question.

In general, it is clear that the Tatar = Muslim mantra is much further from the truth than the popular Russian = Orthodox mantra. And if, indeed, Orthodoxy dominates absolutely among Russian believers, then among religious Tatars, no matter how you count, it turns out that there are from 9% to 25% Christians, which is very high and cannot be explained by the Kryashens alone.

Who are they? – and these are the same Christianized “ethnic Muslims”, purebred and Russian-Tatar mestizos, with characteristic Tatar names. How many are there in the Russian Federation? If we subtract the Kryashens from the 5.3 million Tatars, but leave the assigned Muslim ethnic groups, then we get roughly 5 million Tatars. According to my estimates, the proportions of religious groups among them are approximately Kazakhstani: 75-80% Muslims, 10-15% Orthodox and 10% atheists.

And at the same time there is also an indicative table of the dynamics of the number of Tatars by region of the Russian Federation:

In Kuban, obviously, the Crimean Tatars who came in large numbers increased their numbers in the 1990s.

And so it is clear that in the Republic of Tatarstan the growth was abnormally high in the 1990s- and this cannot be explained by migration alone - just like the zero growth in the 2000s. In fact, there is a high proportion of paper Tatars.

After all, there is a constant influx of Tatars in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug - but the growth figures there are more modest, although in the districts the natural increase is higher and the Tatar population is younger.

In addition to the districts, the Republic of Tatarstan, the “swing” of Bashkiria and the Moscow region, regions are divided into two groups:

1. Where the decline has been going on continuously since the 1980s. The Perm region was especially surprising here. There, too, the Bashkirs have a complete collapse.

2. Where there was growth in the 1990s, but a decline began in the 2000s. Obviously, a significant factor in such a swing is mestizos. After the collapse of the USSR, being Russian was as unprestigious as possible. Only the Mordovians and Karelians have become Russified anyway. Hence the six-digit numbers of ethnic Cossacks in 2002 and much more.
And in the 2000s, Russian self-awareness came out of the hole and the reverse process began. And after the Russian Spring of 2014, this is unlikely to be stopped, as the results of the micro-census showed.

Assimilation is underway, Tatarstan is based on ethnocracy and codicils at least somehow. So 50% of the Tatars of the Russian Federation living in Tatarstan (versus 38% now and 32% in 1989) is a near future, which can only be delayed by a normal recount in the region, which we are unlikely to see in 2020, when the next Census is scheduled.

People in the Russian Federation. The number in the Russian Federation is 5,522,096 people. The colloquial Tatar language of the Kipchak group of the Turkic language is divided into three dialects.

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

There are several peoples in Russia who call themselves Tatars. Astrakhan Tatars live near Astrakhan, Siberian Tatars live in Western Siberia, Kasimov Tatars live near the city of Kasimov on the Oka River (in the territory where serving Tatar princes lived several centuries ago). And finally, the Kazan Tatars are named after the capital of Tatarstan - the city of Kazan. These are all different, although close to each other, peoples. However, only those from Kazan should simply be called Tatars.

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

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

The Turks came to the regions of the Middle Volga and Kama region from the steppes of Central Asia and from North Caucasus, pressed by tribes that were moving from Asia to Europe. The resettlement continued for several centuries. At the end of the 9th-10th centuries. a prosperous state arose in the Middle Volga, Volga Bulgaria. The people who lived in this state were called Bulgars. Volga Bulgaria existed for two and a half centuries. Agriculture and cattle breeding, crafts developed here, and trade took place with Russia and with the countries of Europe and Asia.

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

The names of remarkable poets, philosophers, and scientists of Bulgaria, whose works are included in the treasury of the peoples of the East, have survived to our time. This is Khoja Ahmed Bulgari (11th century) - scientist and theologian, expert on the moral precepts of Islam; Suleiman ibn Daoud al-Saksini-Suvari (XII century) - author of philosophical treatises with very poetic titles: “The light of rays - the truthfulness of secrets”, “A flower of the garden that delights sick souls”. And the poet Kul Gali (XII-XIII centuries) wrote “The Poem about Yusuf”, which is considered a classic Turkic-language a work of art pre-Mongol period.

In the middle of the 13th century. Volga Bulgaria was conquered by the Tatar-Mongols and became part of the Golden Horde. After the fall of the Horde in the 15th century. a new state emerges in the Middle Volga region - Khanate of Kazan. The main backbone of its population is formed by the same Bulgars, who by that time had already experienced the strong influence of their neighbors - the Finno-Ugric peoples (Mordovians, Mari, Udmurts) who lived next to them in the Volga basin, as well as the Mongols, who made up the majority of the ruling class Golden Horde.

Where did the name “Tatars” come from? There are several versions on this matter. According to the most common one, one of the Central Asian tribes conquered by the Mongols was called “Tatan”, “Tatabi”. In Rus', this word turned into “Tatars”, and everyone began to be called by it: both the Mongols and the Turkic population of the Golden Horde, subject to the Mongols, which was far from being monoethnic in composition. With the collapse of the Horde, the word “Tatars” did not disappear; they continued to collectively refer to the Turkic-speaking peoples in the southern and eastern borders Rus'. Over time, its meaning narrowed to the name of one people living on the territory of the Kazan Khanate.

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

Tatars succeeded in different types economic activity. They were excellent farmers (they grew rye, barley, millet, peas, and lentils) and excellent cattle breeders. Of all types of livestock, special preference was given to sheep and horses.

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

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

Already at the beginning of the 10th century. the ancestors of the Tatars converted to Islam, and since then their culture has developed within the framework of the Islamic world. This was facilitated by the spread of writing based on Arabic script and the construction of a large number of mosques. Schools were created at the mosques - mektebe and madrasah, where children (and not only from noble families) learned to read the Koran in Arabic.

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

We all know that our country is a multinational state. Of course, the bulk of the population is Russian, but, as you know, the Tatars are the second largest ethnic group and the largest people of Muslim culture in Russia. We should not forget that the Tatar ethnic group arose in parallel with the Russian one.

Today, Tatars make up a little more than half of the population national republic- Tatarstan. At the same time, a considerable number of Tatars live outside the Republic of Tatarstan - in Bashkortostan -1.12 million, in Udmurtia -110.5 thousand, in Mordovia - 47.3 thousand, in Mari El - 43.8 thousand, Chuvashia - 35.7 thousand. In addition, Tatars also live in the regions of the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia.

Where did the name of the ethnic group “Tatars” come from? This question is considered very relevant at the present time, since there are many different interpretations of this ethnonym. We will present the most interesting ones.

Many historians and researchers believe that the name “Tatars” comes from the name of the large influential family “Tata”, from which many Turkic-speaking military leaders of the “Golden Horde” came.

But the famous Turkologist D.E. Eremev believes that the origin of the word “Tatars” is somehow connected with the ancient Turkic word and people. “Tat”, according to the ancient Turkic chronicler Mahmud Kashgari, is the name of an ancient Iranian family. Kashgari said that the Turks called “tatam” those who spoke Farsi, that is, the Iranian language. Thus, it turns out that the original meaning of the word “tat” was probably “Persian,” but then in Rus' this word began to designate all eastern and Asian peoples.

Despite their disagreements, historians agree on one thing - the ethnonym “Tatars” is certainly of ancient origin, but it was adopted as the name of modern Tatars only in the 19th century. The current Tatars (Kazan, Western, Siberian, Crimean) are not direct descendants of the ancient Tatars who came to Europe along with the troops of Genghis Khan. They formed into a single nation only after European peoples gave them the name “Tatars”.

Thus, it turns out that a complete deciphering of the ethnonym “Tatars” is still waiting for its researcher. Who knows, maybe you will one day give an accurate explanation of the origin of this ethnonym. Well, for now let's talk about the culture of the Tatars.

It is impossible to ignore the fact that the Tatar ethnic group has an ancient and colorful history.
The original culture of the Tatars, without a doubt, has entered the treasury of world culture and civilization. Judge for yourself, we find traces of this culture in the traditions and language of the Russians, Mordovians, Mari, Udmurts, Bashkirs, Chuvashs, and the national Tatar culture synthesizes everything best achievements Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Indo-Iranian peoples. How did this happen?

The thing is that the Tatars are one of the most mobile peoples. Landlessness, frequent crop failures in their homeland and the traditional desire for trade led to the fact that even before 1917 they began to move to various regions Russian Empire. During the years of Soviet rule, this migration process only intensified. That is why, at present, in Russia there is practically not a single subject of the federation, no matter where representatives live Tatar ethnic group.

Tatar diasporas have formed in many countries around the world. In the pre-revolutionary period, Tatar national communities were formed in countries such as Finland, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and China. After the collapse of the USSR, Tatars who lived in the former Soviet republics also ended up abroad - in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and the Baltic countries. Later, in the middle of the 20th century, Tatar national diasporas were formed in the USA, Japan, Australia, and Sweden.

According to most historians, the Tatar people themselves, with a single literary and practically common spoken language developed during the existence of such a Turkic state as Golden Horde. The literary language in this state was the so-called “idel terkise”, that is, Old Tatar, based on the Kipchak-Bulgar language and incorporating elements of Central Asian literary languages. The modern literary language arose in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries on the basis of the middle dialect.

The development of writing among the Tatars was also gradual. Archaeological finds in the Urals and Middle Volga region indicate that in ancient times the Turkic ancestors of the Tatars used runic writing. From the moment of the voluntary adoption of Islam by the Volga-Kama Bulgars - the Tatars - they used Arabic writing, later, in 1929 - 1939 - Latin script, and since 1939 they have used the traditional Cyrillic alphabet with additional characters.

The modern Tatar language belongs to the Kipchak-Bulgar subgroup of the Kipchak group of the Turkic language family. It is divided into four main dialects: middle (Kazan Tatar), western (Mishar), eastern (language of the Siberian Tatars) and Crimean (language of the Crimean Tatars). Don’t forget that almost every district, every village has its own special mini-dialect. However, despite dialectal and territorial differences, the Tatars are one nation with a single literary language, a single culture - folklore, literature, music, religion, national spirit, traditions and rituals. It is noteworthy that the Tatar nation occupied one of the leading places in the Russian Empire in terms of literacy even before the 1917 coup. I would like to believe that the traditional thirst for knowledge has been preserved in the current generation.

The leading group of the Tatar ethnic group is the Kazan Tatars. And now few people doubt that their ancestors were the Bulgars. How did it happen that the Bulgars became Tatars? The versions of the origin of this ethnonym are very interesting.

Turkic origin of the ethnonym

For the first time, the name “Tatar” was found in the 8th century in the inscription on the monument to the famous commander Kül-tegin, which was erected during the Second Turkic Khaganate - a Turkic state located on the territory of modern Mongolia, but with a larger area. The inscription mentions the tribal unions "Otuz-Tatars" and "Tokuz-Tatars".

In the X-XII centuries, the ethnonym “Tatars” spread in China, Central Asia and Iran. The 11th century scientist Mahmud Kashgari in his writings called the space between Northern China and Eastern Turkestan “Tatar steppe”.

Perhaps that is why at the beginning of the 13th century the Mongols began to be called that way, who by this time had defeated the Tatar tribes and seized their lands.

Turkic-Persian origin

The learned anthropologist Aleksey Sukharev, in his work “Kazan Tatars,” published in St. Petersburg in 1902, noted that the ethnonym Tatars comes from the Turkic word “tat,” which means nothing more than mountains, and the word of Persian origin “ar” or “ ir”, which means person, man, inhabitant. This word is found among many peoples: Bulgarians, Magyars, Khazars. It is also found among the Turks.

Persian origin

Soviet researcher Olga Belozerskaya associated the origin of the ethnonym with the Persian word “tepter” or “defter”, which is interpreted as “colonist”. However, it is noted that the ethnonym “Tiptyar” is of later origin. Most likely, it arose in the 16th-17th centuries, when the Bulgars who moved from their lands to the Urals or Bashkiria began to be called this.

Old Persian origin

There is a hypothesis that the name “Tatars” comes from the ancient Persian word “tat” - this is how the Persians were called in ancient times. Researchers refer to the 11th century scientist Mahmut Kashgari, who wrote that “the Turks call those who speak Farsi tatami.”

However, the Turks also called the Chinese and even the Uyghurs tatami. And it could well be that tat meant “foreigner,” “foreign-speaking.” However, one does not contradict the other. After all, the Turks could first call Iranian-speaking people tatami, and then the name could spread to other strangers.
By the way, Russian word“thief” may also have been borrowed from the Persians.

Greek origin

We all know that among the ancient Greeks the word “tartar” meant other world, hell Thus, “Tartarine” was an inhabitant of the underground depths. This name arose even before the invasion of Batu’s army in Europe. Perhaps it was brought here by travelers and merchants, but even then the word “Tatars” was associated by Europeans with eastern barbarians.
After the invasion of Batu Khan, Europeans began to perceive them exclusively as a people who came out of hell and brought the horrors of war and death. Ludwig IX was nicknamed a saint because he prayed himself and called on his people to pray to avoid Batu's invasion. As we remember, Khan Udegey died at this time. The Mongols turned back. This convinced the Europeans that they were right.

From now on, among the peoples of Europe, the Tatars became a generalization of all barbarian peoples living in the east.

To be fair, it must be said that on some old maps of Europe, Tartary began just beyond the Russian border. The Mongol Empire collapsed in the 15th century, but European historians until the 18th century continued to call all eastern peoples from the Volga to China Tatars.
By the way, the Tatar Strait, separating Sakhalin Island from the mainland, is called that because “Tatars” - Orochi and Udege - also lived on its shores. In any case, this was the opinion of Jean François La Perouse, who gave the name to the strait.

Chinese origin

Some scientists believe that the ethnonym “Tatars” is of Chinese origin. Back in the 5th century, in the northeast of Mongolia and Manchuria there lived a tribe that the Chinese called “ta-ta”, “da-da” or “tatan”. And in some dialects of Chinese the name sounded exactly like “Tatar” or “tartar” due to the nasal diphthong.
The tribe was warlike and constantly disturbed its neighbors. Perhaps later the name Tartar spread to other peoples who were unfriendly to the Chinese.

Most likely, it was from China that the name “Tatars” penetrated into Arab and Persian literary sources.

According to legend, the warlike tribe itself was destroyed by Genghis Khan. Here is what Mongol expert Evgeniy Kychanov wrote about this: “This is how the Tatar tribe perished, which, even before the rise of the Mongols, gave its name as a common noun to all Tatar-Mongol tribes. And when in distant auls and villages in the West, twenty to thirty years after that massacre, alarming cries were heard: “Tatars!”, there were few real Tatars among the advancing conquerors, only their formidable name remained, and they themselves had long been lying in the land of their native ulus.” (“The Life of Temujin, Who Thought to Conquer the World”).
Genghis Khan himself categorically forbade calling the Mongols Tatars.
By the way, there is a version that the name of the tribe could also come from the Tungus word “ta-ta” - to pull the bowstring.

Tocharian origin

The origin of the name could also be associated with the Tocharians (Tagars, Tugars), who lived in Central Asia starting from the 3rd century BC.
The Tochars defeated the great Bactria, which was once a great state, and founded Tokharistan, which was located in the south of modern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and in the north of Afghanistan. From the 1st to the 4th centuries AD. Tokharistan was part of the Kushan kingdom, and later broke up into separate possessions.

At the beginning of the 7th century, Tokharistan consisted of 27 principalities that were subordinate to the Turks. Most likely, the local population mixed with them.

The same Mahmud Kashgari called the huge region between Northern China and Eastern Turkestan the Tatar steppe.
For the Mongols, the Tokhars were strangers, “Tatars.” Perhaps, after some time, the meaning of the words “Tochars” and “Tatars” merged, and a large group of peoples began to be called that way. The peoples conquered by the Mongols adopted the name of their kindred aliens, the Tokhars.
So the ethnonym Tatars could also be transferred to the Volga Bulgars.