Mythologies of the Karachay-Balkar Tribe

The Karachay-Balkar tribe are a Turkic people of the Caucasus region, predominantly Muslims. "The situation is greatly aggravated by peculiarities of national traditions and customs. For example, the mandatory offer of condolences and overcrowding during funeral rites and memorials", Amina Kubanova told us. From a material point of view, the population of Karachai-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkarian republics has found itself in a difficult financial situation. Since there is a large percentage of self-employed people among them, many are financially affected. Some members of the community can rely on their savings, while others have to take advantage of the presence of the natural economy in form of gardens and fields with agricultural production. In these trying times, the role of mutual assistance is great, as well as the provision of free of charge assistance to the needy and old people. According to „Bars El“ , a huge number of volunteers from the Karachay-Balkar people are involved in this process, both young people and the older generations.

Balkars (Karachay-Balkar: малкъарлыла, romanized: malqarlıla or аланла, romanized: alanla or таулула, romanized: tawlula, lit. 'mountaineers') are a Turkic ethnic group in the North Caucasus region, one of the titular populations of Kabardino-Balk. Their Karachay-Balkar language is of the Ponto-Caspian subgroup of the Northwestern (Kipchak) group of Turkic languages. The modern Balkars are a Turkic-Caucasian people, who share their language with the Karachays from Karachay-Cherkessia and have strong lingual similarities with Kumyks from Dagestan. Balkars and Karachays are referred to as a single ethnicity. While acknowledging contributions by Bulgars and Kipchaks (among many others), Tavkul (2015) locates the ethnogenesis of Balkars-Karachays and other peoples of the Caucasus inside the Caucasus, not outside. During the 14th century, Alania was destroyed by Timur. Many of the Alans, Cumans, and Kipchaks migrated westward into Europe. While the majority of remaining Alans fled south, deep into the mountains. Timur's incursion into the North Caucasus introduced the remaining to Islam and the process of intermixing and Ethnogenesis. Most Balkars adopted Islam in the eighteenth century due to contact with the Kumyks,^[12] Circassians, Nogais, and Crimean Tatars. The Balkars are considered deeply religious. The Sufi Qadiriya order has a strong presence in the region.

The origins of the Balkar people have not yet been definitively established: various hypotheses have associated them with the Huns, the Khazars, the Bulgars, the Alans, the Zikhs, the Brukhs, the Kipchaks (Qïpchaqs, Polovtsians), the Vengrians, the Chekhs, the Mongol Tatars, the Crimean Tatars, and Turkicized Japhetic groups. Some contemporary scholars attribute their origin to a cultural conglomeration of northern Caucasian tribes with the Iranian-speaking Alans and with Turkish-speaking tribes, among which the most significant were probably the Black Bulgars and the Western Kipchaks. Elements of Balkar culture indicate a long association with the Near East, the Mediterranean, the rest of the Caucasus, and Russia. In the pre-Mongol period (before the thirteenth century) the Balkars were part of the Alan union of tribes, but after the Mongol invasion they retreated into the canyons of the central Caucasus. According to native ethnogenetic traditions, the Balkars originally settled in the basin of the main Balkar canyon, where the hunter Malkar found success and called his companions Misaka and Basiat of Majar (or Madyar) to join him. The oldest written information about this canyon dates from the fourteenth century and can be found in a Georgian epigraph on a golden cross in the Cathedral of the Assumption in Tskhovati, South Ossetia: the text refers to the canyon in question as "Basianian." In more recent times, in Russian sources, the Balkar population is also referred to as "Basian" and "Balxar." Legends and chronicles describe the irruption into the fastnesses of Tamerlane's men, who intended to ascend the heights of Mount. Elbrus. The Balkars are mentioned in west European and Turkish chronicles at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Balkars together with the Kabardians mounted a resistance to the Crimean Gireys and maintained relations with Georgia and Russia. In 1827 the Balkars finally became Russian citizens, fixing their loyalty through the institution of amanat (with hostages). Since that time the Balkars have avoided the various tumultuous Russian-Caucasian events of the last century. Only a few persons from leading families took part on the side of the Russian armies in the Crimean War (1854-1856), the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), and the Russo-Japanese War (1905). At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a small segment of the Balkars (Chegems and Basians) emigrated to Turkey and Syria. After the civil war and the establishment of Soviet power in 1920, the Balkars were integrated into the structure of the USSR and assigned their own national-territorial unit. In early 1944 the Balkars were subjected to a mass deportation to parts of Central Asia, especially Kazakhstan. At the beginning of 1957 the Balkar territory was reestablished and most Balkars returned to their native localities.

The Balkars or Malkars are designated by other peoples in over a dozen ways, including Alan, Asi (Osi), Asiat, Balqar, Basiani, Basman, Belkyur, Bulgar, Malkan, Malqar, Musavi, Osson, Ovsi, and Saviar. Their most general self-designation is "Taulu" (i.e., mountaineer). The term "Malkar" (or Balkar) in the past was used only for the inhabitants of the ravine on the East Cherek River. Russian documents on the Balkars call them "Mountain Tatars" or refer to the "mountain communes of Kabardia." The Balkars or Taulus are a constituent population of the former USSR, administratively part of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, which is part of the Russian Republic. A small number of Balkars live in Central Asia and Kazakhstan. The northern part of the population is located in the highest mountain strip of the central Caucasus. Most of the Balkars live in the mountains and foothills of the southwestern part of Kabardino-Balkaria. Over 80 percent of Balkar territory lies more than 2,000 meters above sea level. The main Caucasus chain includes the mountains Elbrus (5,633 meters), Shkhara (5,200 meters), Dykhtau (5,198 meters), Koshtau (5,145 meters), and others. The river valleys are cut deep into the mountains, forming gorges, pits, and canyons, the majority of which are very eroded. Avalanches and mountain torrents follow the courses or channels of these formations. The canyons afford protection from the cold northern winds in winter and from the heat of the flatlands in summer; the climate in these valleys is temperate-continental. The vegetative zones are made up of strips of forest brakes and yellow rhododendron, changing to conifers as the elevation increases, then to subalpine meadows with thickets of Caucasian rhododendron and low-lying alpine grasses, which in turn yield to lichenous scree. The mountain fauna include various birds, most noticeably the indigenous Caucasian ular. But the most characteristic animals of the high mountains are the varieties of Caucasian mountain goats: the chegemo-bezengli, the balkar, and the sugam. Also inhabiting this region are wolves, brown bears, stags, wild boars, and—rarely—lynx and leopards.

Balkar (also spelled Balcar or Balkarly) is a term used to describe the Turkic peoples who lived in the North Caucasus region, particularly in the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic and Karachay-Cherkessia Republic of Russia. The Balkars are an ethnic group that speaks a Turkic language and have a distinct cultural identity. The history of the Balkars can be traced back to the 16th century when they were part of the Crimean Khanate. In the 19th century, the Balkars were subject to forced assimilation by the Russian Empire, which led to the suppression of their language and culture. During World War II, the Balkars were forcibly deported to Central Asia by the Soviet authorities, and many of them died during the journey or in exile. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Balkars began to reclaim their cultural heritage and seek recognition as an indigenous people. Today, the Balkars continue to face challenges in preserving their language and culture, particularly in the face of Russian and other influences. However, they have made significant progress in recent years in revitalizing their traditions and promoting their rights as an indigenous people.

The Balkars are a small tribe that live on the slopes of Mt. Elbrus in the central Caucasus Mountains. There are about 71,000 of them, most of them in Kabardino-Balkaria. They are related to the Karachays. Eighty percent of their territory is above 2,000 meters. The Balkars, also known as the Malkars, are mostly Muslims and speak the Karachay-Balkar language, a member of the Altaic-Turkic family of languages. The Balkars are Sunni Muslims but they converted very late, in some cases not until the end of the 19th century. Traditional beliefs that have endured include the ritual of dressing up dolls as frogs and dousing them in water to bring rain; protecting homes from the evil eye with horse’s skulls; placing a horse at the entrance of a home for good luck; giving amulets to their animals; and banging on pans during a lunar eclipses to prevent the monster Jelmauuz from consuming the moon. The Balkars also maintain beliefs in their traditional gods. According to legend the Balkarian people were sent by their gods to earth from the constellation known as the She-Bear to communicate with the mountains.

The collective name all Karachay-Balkars use to refer to themselves is tavlu ‘mountaineer, highlander’. Their more specific names come from the valleys they live in, thus they have Karachay, Bashan, Chegem, Kholam, Bizingi and Balkar groups. In tsarist Russia this tribal alliance of people of identical ethnic roots, culture and language living in five different valleys was referred to as piat gorskih obshchestv ‘five mountainous peoples’ (Kudashev 1991: 155). By uniting the mountain dwellers living in the Basham, Chegem, Holam, Bizingi and Balkar valleys under the name Balkar, the Soviet power created an artificial ethnicity. What is more, they forced the mountain people into one autonomous republic with the Kabards. The Karachays are some of the most beautiful people in the Caucasus. Their skin is white, their eyes are black they have finely cut features and excellent physique. The flat face and oblique eyes typical of nomadic Turks and Noghays are unknown among them. They did not mix with the Mongoloids but rather resemble the Georgians. Unlike the neighbouring Cherkesses (Adyghes) and Abkhazes, the Karachays do not rob or plunder. Stealing and cheating are rare words among them. They are generous and industrious. It can certainly be declared in general that they are the most highly cultured people among the Caucasian groups. They adhere to their lords with unconditional loyalty and are generous to those in poverty. The rich do not despise the poor and even lend their oxen to them. The weapons they use now include the rifle, pistol, sword and dagger. Earlier they also used a shield and a bayonet in the muzzle of the rifle, as well as a lance called muzhura. The Orusbiy tribe, who wandered from the Baksan (Baskhan) to the top of the Djalpak Mountain are also Karachays. The tribe of 150 families is controlled by the Kabard prince Misost. In addition to descendants of families who had lived in Karachay for a long time, a family or two from Derbend also settled in that village. Their ancestors used to live somewhere around Endrey. The Chegem group of the Cherkesses call Chegem Kushha ‘Chegem mountain people’ consists of 400 families. They live above the highest snow-capped mountains along the upper stretches of the Chegem and Savdan rivers. Their society consists of princes biy, freemen özden and servants chagar. The freemen are not obliged to serve the princes, but they are all subordinated to the Kabard princes to whom they pay tribute. But whenever they have a chance, they refuse to obey these overlords. They have innumerable herds of sheep and small horses that are ill suited to carry large load but perfectly fit for mountain paths. They usually sell their horses to the Imeretyalis and Mingrels. The area they use jointly with the Balkars is called Bassiya by the Georgians. Seeing their old stone churches and ruins in the mountains one can’t help imagining that once they were far more numerous. They have their village called Ullu El on top of a high mountain by the Chegem river; its church used to be built on a huge rock. The path cut into the cliffs winds its way to the village with a rail fastened to the rock with iron clamps. Pallas had come across sheets of ancient holy books here. On one the New Testament could be read in old Greek, the rest were orthodox ecclesiastic books. At feasts the place is usually teeming with sacrificial animals; pregnant women offer up sacrifices so that their delivery will be felicitous.