Mythologies of the Bashkir People

The Bashkirs or Bashkurts (Bashkir: Башҡорттар, romanized: Başqorttar, IPA: [bɑʂ.qʊɾt.ˈtaɾ]; Russian: Башкиры, pronounced [bɐʂˈkʲirɨ]) are a Kipchak Turkic ethnic group indigenous to Russia. They are concentrated in Bashkortostan, a republic of the Russian Federation and in the broader historical region of Badzhgard, which spans both sides of the Ural Mountains, where Eastern Europe meets North Asia. Smaller communities of Bashkirs also live in the Republic of Tatarstan, the oblasts of Perm Krai, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Tyumen, Sverdlovsk and Kurgan and other regions in Russia; sizable minorities exist in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Most Bashkirs speak the Bashkir language, closely related to the Tatar and Kazakh languages, which belong to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages; they share historical and cultural affinities with the broader Turkic peoples. Bashkirs are mainly Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab, or school of jurisprudence, and follow the Jadid doctrine. Previously nomadic and fiercely independent, the Bashkirs gradually came under Russian rule beginning in the 16th century; they have since played a major role through the history of Russia, culminating in their autonomous status within the Russian Empire, Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia.

Bashkir, member of a Turkic people, numbering more than 1,070,000 in the late 20th century, settled in the eastern part of European Russia, between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains, and beyond the Urals. Their main territory is Bashkortostan, where they are far outnumbered by Russians. The Bashkirs settled their land under the Mongol khanate of Kipchak from the 13th to the 15th century. In 1552 the area passed into the hands of the Russians, who founded Ufa in 1574 and thereafter began colonization of the area, dispossessing the Bashkirs. This led to many Bashkir uprisings, which were severely repressed. In 1919 the Bashkir Autonomous Republic was set up, among the first such republics in the Soviet Union. The Bashkirs were originally nomadic pastoralists, like other Turks, and their stock consisted of horses, sheep, and, to a lesser extent, cattle and goats. Mare’s milk was made into koumiss, a fermented drink; sheep were raised for wool, skins, and meat; and cattle were milked. At one time the Bashkirs bred camels. During the 19th century, through pressure by Russian colonists and colonial policy, the Bashkirs settled, gave up nomadic life, and developed a primary dependence on agriculture for support. This is the case today; pastoralism plays a subordinate role in their economy. In settling down they established themselves in fixed villages with houses of earth, sun-dried brick, or logs. They were formerly divided into patrilineal clans and tribes. These groups bore names that are remembered today but have lost most of their social significance. Formerly the Bashkirs were organized, reckoned kinship, ran their affairs, sought help, and regulated disputes within these clan and tribal structures. The village is the key social structure today. The religions of the Bashkir are Islām and the Eastern Orthodox rite.

The Bashkirs, a Turkic people, live in Russia, mostly in the Central Asian republic of Bashkortostan, an oil rich territory. A significant number of Bashkirs also live in the republic of Tatarstan, as well as in Perm Krai and Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Kurgan, Sverdlovsk, Samara, and Saratov Oblasts of Russia. To trace the story of this largely (60 percent) Muslim people is to trace the story of how, over many centuries, a people and a culture developed an identity and a sense of nationhood that eventually found expression in what the first political entity to reflect their name, Bashkortostran, in 1917. This process appears to have started sometime in the tenth century, when an Arab writer describes the Bashkirs as a war-like and idolatrous people. It was about then that Bashkirs started to convert to Islam. In the thirteenth century, they were incorporated into the great Mongol Empire and in the fifteenth century they were ruled by the Khanate of Kazan. When that polity collapsed in 1552, they found themselves under Russian rule. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Bashkortostran was the first to be granted autonomy (in 1919). The Republic continues within the Russian Federation as a democratic, sovereign state although there has been tension between its regional identity, and the role of the greater Russian polity. Some see the Federation as a continuation of an imperial policy elevating the rights of the center over those of the periphery, denying regions’ legitimate aspiration to become independent states. Bashkirs are concentrated on the slopes and confines of the southern Ural Mountains and the neighboring plains. They speak the Kypchak-based Bashkir language, a close relative of the Tatar language. Most Bashkirs also speak Russian: some as a second language, and some as their first language, regarding Bashkir as a language spoken by their grandparents.

The history of Bashkortostan or Bashkiria covers the region in and around the Southern Urals, historically inhabited by Bashkirs. The region has been known by several names, including al-Bashgird, Bashgirdia, Bascardia, Fiyafi Bashqurt (The Bashqurt steppes), Pascatir and similar variants. As with previous names, the modern federal subject of Bashkortostan was named after the native Bashkir people. The first known settlements in the territory of modern Bashkortostan date from the early Paleolithic period. Major expansion, however, occurred during the Bronze Age with the arrival of people from the Abashevo culture. They possessed skills in manufacturing bronze tools, weapons and decorations, and became the first to establish permanent settlements in the region. The name Bashkir is recorded at the beginning of the tenth century in the writings of the Arab writer, ibn Fadlan, who, in describing his travels among the Volga Bulgarians, mentions the Bashkirs as a warlike and idolatrous race. According to ibn Fadlan, the Bashkirs worshipped phallic idols. At that time, Bashkirs lived as nomadic cattle breeders. Until the thirteenth century they occupied the territories between Volga and Kama Rivers and the Urals. According to a Russian source, “the first written records of individual tribes of the Bashkir people are found in the works of Herodotus (fifth century B.C.E.).” The “The twelfth-century geographer Idrisi referred to Inner Bashkir, Outer Bashkir, and the Bashkirian cities of Nemzhan, Gurkhan, Karakiya, Kasra, and Masra.”

The Bashkirs are a Turkic Muslim people living within the Russian Federation. Bashkirs first appear in historical sources in the 10th century ad, as the inhabitants of the southern Ural mountains, the area which they still occupy today. The origins of the Bashkirs are obscure. Although today the Bashkirs speak a Turkic language, some historians consider them to have originally been Hungarian speakers who remained in the Ural mountains when the ancestors of modern Hungarians began the migration that eventually led them to settle in Central Europe. Whether or not this is the case, there can be little doubt that there was always a strong Turkic ethnic element among the Bashkirs and that this element became dominant before the end of the Middle Ages. Traditionally, the Bashkirs were a pastoral nomadic people, leading their herds of sheep, cattle, horses, and camels along fixed migration routes, but under Russian rule the Bashkirs increasingly practiced agriculture. Politically, the Bashkirs have always been subjects of more powerful neighbors. The earliest sources identify them as subjects of the Volga Bulgarian state, centered in the middle Volga region. Before their subjection to Russia in the 16th century, the Bashkirs found themselves subjects of various steppe polities. These include the Mongol World Empire, the Golden Horde, the Noghay Horde, and the Kazan Khanate. Following the Russian conquest of the Kazan Khanate in 1552, the Bash-kir leaders likewise became subjects of Russia. Until the late 17th century, subjection to Russia was a largely formal affair, but Russian influence gradually increased in Bashkir lands as a result of Russian peasant and military colonization and increased taxation. Despite a series of violent Bashkir rebellions, over the course of the 18th century, the Bashkirs and their lands became increasingly integrated into the Russian state.

Bashkortostan is a constituent republic of the Russian Federation, located between the Middle Volga and the Ural mountains, with its capital at Ufa. The Bashkirs are the official indigenous nationality of the republic, although they made up only 21.9 percent of its population in 1989 (compared to 39.3 percent Russians and 28.4 percent Tatars). There were 1,449,157 Bashkirs in the former Soviet Union in 1989, with close to 60 percent (863,808) living in Bashkortostan proper and most of the remainder in neighboring provinces. The Bashkir language belongs to the Kipchak group of the Turkic language family. Despite some modest efforts around the turn of the twentieth century, Bashkir was developed as a literary language only after 1917. The Arabic script was used until Latinization in 1929, followed by adoption of the Cyrillic alphabet in 1939. Most Bashkirs are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi legal school. Throughout history the hills and plains of Bashkortostan have been closely linked to the great Eurasian steppe to the south. Successive settlement by Finns, Ugrians, Sarmatians, Alans, Magyars, and Turkic Bulgars had already created a complex situation before the arrival of the Turkic badzhgard and burdzhan nomadic unions of Pechenegs in the ninth century c.e. At this point these groups began to coalesce into a nomadic tribal confederation headed by the Turkic Bashkirs (bashkort). Later arrivals of Oguz and Kipchak Turks further Turkified the early Bashkir people.

The Bashkirs are a Sunni Muslim ethnic group, the majority of which lives in a constituent republic of the Russian Federation, Bashkortostan. Today the republic occupies territories from the Middle Volga to the Ural Mountains, with its capital at Ufa. The Bashkir language originates from the Kipchak language, a northwestern Turkic branch of the Altaic family. It has two dialects: the Kuvakan, which is spoken in the northern, forested regions of the republic and Yurmatin, which is spoken in the southern steppes (Olson, 85). There is a continuing debate about over the origins of the Bashkir people among ethnographers and demographers. Some earlier scholars maintained that Bashkirs are the people of the Finno-Ugric tribes, whereas for others they come from Turkic Bulgars (Brokgauz and Efron, 225-240). Linguistic and other ethnographic similarities to Tatars support the theory that Bashkirs stem from Turkic tribes. Some support for this argument is that the Bashkir and Tatar languages are related and “mutually intelligible”. Bashkirs are settled people like Russian peasants. They have permanent villages but during the summer they usually stay in the fields with herds of sheep and horses or in the woods with the beehives, much like Russian settlers did during the sowing and harvesting seasons. They are not nomadic in nature, but rather find it impractical to go home every night as these fields and forests are a good distance from the main settlement. Bashkirs specialize mostly in horses, sheep and in some areas in cows and camels. They also practice wild-hive beekeeping and some agriculture. Bashkir cuisine is based on the things that they produce: meat, milk and grain with most dishes being a variation of boiled dough stuffed with meat, as well as various recipes of cured milk.

Much of the Bashkir tribe's social significance has been lost. Today, the village itself is regarded as the key to their social structure. Some of the Bashkir groups in Russia have lost all memory of their tribal clan origin. Nevertheless, they still express their sense of kinship and loyalty to kinsmen. About half of the Bashkirs in Russia live in cities, the other half live in rural areas. Those in farming areas farm and raise livestock for their livelihood. They raise horses and sheep along with some cattle and goats. The sheep are raised for their wool, skins, and meat. They enjoy a fermented drink, called koumiss, that is made from horses' milk. They cultivate wheat, oats, sunflower, corn, cucumbers, tomatoes, and potatoes with modern equipment.
Bashkir marriage ceremonies usually take place in their homes. However, a mullah (Muslim leader) usually participates in the marriage agreement. Young newlyweds live with the husband's parents until they are ready to form their own family. Polygyny (the practice of having more than one wife at a time) is a thing of the past, having been prohibited by the Family Code of the Russian. Quite a number of the Bashkir live in colonies that are located outside their territory in southwestern Russia. There, they are dominated by Russian schools, newspapers and cultural practices while their culture erodes. Bashkir rural dwellers have managed to preserve their national identity, but those living in the urban colonies have been absorbed into the Russian way of life. Although using "folk remedies" is still common, Soviet-style medicines and clinics are used to cure more serious illnesses. Health services are free of charge, which has led to improved health among the Bashkirs. Today, people are living longer, and fewer babies are dying than in previous times. Each summer the Bashkirs and Tatars in Russia celebrate the Sabantuy Festival in Moscow. Pole climbing, horseracing, wrestling, and sack racing are all part of the fun. This celebration dates back to rural Bashkir communities during the Middle Ages. Bashkir cuisine is heavy on dairy products. Their traditional dish is bishbarmaq, with includes boiled meat and a type of noodle covered with herbs, onions, and cheese. The Bashkirs love their folklore, which is usually about their early history. It includes aspects of worldly wisdom, morals and social aspirations. These are in the form of mythology, fairy tales and legends. They are especially fond of poetry.

The natural and cultural complex "Bashkir Ural" is located on the western macroslope of the Southern Urals within the limits of the mountain forest zone of Bashkortostan. "Bashkir Ural" occupies the territory of approximately 45 thousand hectares (450 km2). The main part of the complex "Bashkir Ural" is slightly affected by the man-induced changes (the standard residential population density makes up 2,3 people per square meter) and consists of a specifically protected state wilderness area "Shulgan-Tash" and a part of a state entomological wildlife reserve "Altyn Solok". The eastern part of the complex "Bashkir Ural" is located at the junction of two massive wood biomes of European-type broadleaved forests and light-coniferous and Siberia-type parvifoliate hemiboreal forests with grass layer. About 90% of the complex territory is covered with woods. The land area of "Bashkir Ural" comprises a high diversity of wild landscapes: mountain rivers gorges, plateau-like summated szyrts, steep-sloped ranges, bottom-lands and water storage basins. Low anthropogenic effect, variety of land forms within the complex territory and the convergence of European and Siberian floristic and faunal assemblages made conditions for a particularly high biodiversity of the complex. All of the above mentioned points have, in its turn, been making the given area attractive for a man to live since ancient times and defined the natural management culture and traditions. The famous cave Shulgan-Tash (Kapova) belongs to the unique phenomena - it is one of the largest coves in the Southern Urals with more than 150 Paleolithic cave drawings of global importance having been discovered (drawings of mammoths, horses, rhinoceroses, bulls and abstract characters in red ochre). The radiochemical analysis testifies that Shulgan-Tash drawings are not less than 13-14 thousands years old. Such antique cave art can be found only in France and Spain. Discovery of the Paleolithic art in the Southern Urals within the distance of 4 thousand kilometers from Pyrenees gives evidence to the existence of the Ural center of the Paleolithic culture.

The Bashkir people live in Bashkortostan, a Central Asian constituent republic of Russia. They are known to be Turkic people who settled in the eastern part of Russia, where their territories lie from the Middle Volga to the Ural Mountains and beyond. There has been a long-standing debate about the Bashkir ethnic group’s origin. Understanding those different perspectives is an excellent start to learning more about their people. We may know more about the Bashkir people’s languages and connect them to various civilizations and even ethnographic relations. The majority of the Bashkirs speak a language that originated from the Kipchak language, a northwestern Turkic branch of the Altaic family. With this knowledge, studies of the language may help us get a glimpse of Central Asian and Eastern European culture. This similarity also helps in ending the long-standing debate about the Bashkir people’s origin. The Bashkir language of the communities has two major dialects: Yurmatin, spoken in the southern territories, and Kuvakan, used in the northern regions. The alphabet is made up of Cyrillic letters. Continuous study of the language has revealed that Bashkir is a close relative of the Tatar language. In addition, the speakers of the Bashkir language are not only limited to those people who settled in Bashkortostan. Many people who live in Orenburg, Udmurtia, Perm Krai, and other close regions also use this language to communicate. However, many members of the Bashkir ethnic group also speak Russian as their second language and even as their first language. It seems that the traditional Bashkir language is somehow considered as the medium of the older generations instead.