Why are Tatars called "Tatars". Tatars What is the name of the Tatar

How do modern Tatars call themselves? It follows from this statement that the people known today under this name gave themselves this name themselves or adopted this name as a self-name, at their own discretion and desire, as an ethnonym that answers and reflects their ethnic origin. It turns out that "Tatars" are the true ethnonym of this people. How such a statement corresponds to the truth, the actual state of affairs, can be found out by referring to the facts of history, to the primary sources, as well as to the memory of the people themselves. The country of the Bulgars was called the Volga Bulgaria. Under this name, the country and its people were known not only in Russia, but also in the Far East, in the southern countries, in Europe. Despite the fact that they are now called Tatars, many peoples still know them not as Tatars, but under other names, for example, the Udmurts, their neighbors, and now they call them "bigers" - i.e. Bulgars, and the Kazakhs "nugays" ”or the northern Kipchaks. The Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan, who visited the Volga Bulgaria in 922, writes that poets and scientists lived here, who added to their names, as a surname, the name of their country - Bulgari. According to Ibn Fadlan and other Eastern travelers, historians Yakub ibn Nogman al-Bulgari, Ahmed al-Bulgari, philosopher Hamid ibn Kharis al-Bulgari and others worked here in those days. faradis” (written in 1357) by Mahmud ibn Gali Bulgari. The author of the historical work "Tavarikhi Bulgaria" (History of the Volga Bulgaria), written in the 18th century, was also Khisametdin Muslimi al-Bulgari. The poet of the same era, Mavlya Kuli, had the pseudonym Bulgari. In the 19th century, when the printing of Tatar books was widely developed in Kazan, the works of Tatar authors appeared one after another, many of whom call themselves Bulgari. This phenomenon continues into the early 20th century. During this period, textbooks, dictionaries, alphabets of the native language began to be published, which are already called works on the “Turkic” language, although, along with this, we also encounter the use of the name “Tatar language”. The fact is that the authors of their works, addressed to the Russian reader, the so-called self-instruction books, dictionaries of the native language, are forced to call them “Tatar” because the Russians had already forgotten the names “Bulgars” by that time, they already knew them as “Tatars”. A prominent Tatar educator of the second half of the 19th century, Kayum Nasyri, also calls his textbooks on his native language "Tatar" precisely on the basis of this situation, and in his historical, ethnographic, archaeological works he says that the "Tatars" are direct descendants of the Bulgars, and their origin is by genealogy brings his ancestors out of the Bulgars. Forced to reckon with the name "Tatars" common among Russians, many authors, against their will, used this name in their works, while noting that this name does not correspond to their self-name, their origin. The Bulgars had an unwritten law - to know orally their ancestors, the pedigree up to the ninth generation. Many families also kept such a pedigree in writing, passed down from generation to generation. These genealogies, compiled systematically, show the direct connection of modern Tatars with the Bulgars. “The name “Bulgar”, “Bulgari”, “Bulgarlyk” was used from the 12th to the 19th centuries (we would say: from the 8th-9th centuries. - A.K.) - hundreds of Old Tatar authors, which could be proved on the basis of a dozen of approved documents” - genealogies that speak more clearly about the people’s conscious understanding of their origin and self-name (M. A. Usmanov. Tatar historical sources of the 17th-18th centuries. Kazan, 1972, p. 139-140). The fact that the people clearly distinguished themselves from the Mongols, whom the Bulgars, like other peoples, knew as "Tatars", and did not confuse themselves with them, is vividly evidenced both in the memory of the people and in their poetic oral creativity. In the folklore of modern Tatars, proverbs and sayings have been preserved and live to this day, in which their attitude towards the Mongols, i.e. "Tatars", is extremely clearly expressed. Here are some of them: "Tatar atasyn satar" - "The Tatar will sell his own father"; “Tatar ture bulsa, chabatassh turge ele” - “If a Tatar becomes an official, he will hang his bast shoes in a red corner (in a conspicuous place)”; “Tatar atka mense, atasyn tanymas” - “A Tatar on a horse has no father (Sitting on a horse, a Tatar does not notice his father)”; "Tatar akyly teshten son" - "The mind of a Tatar awakens in hindsight"; “Tatar ashar da kachar” - “The Tatar will get drunk and leave, and he won’t say thanks”; “Tatar belan kaberen, yaneshe bulmasyn” - “Get rid of the neighborhood with the Tatar and in the next world”, etc. It is unlikely that history knows examples of people being able to ridicule themselves so evilly, sharply and invent such “flattering” proverbs about themselves and sayings. It would be unnatural. This assessment, given in oral folk art to the "Tatars", more and more clearly than any scientific treatises, characterizes the attitude of the people towards the "Tatars". After that, to assert that the name "Tatars" is a self-name, the true ethnonym of modern Tatars, at least, would be ignorant. In Tatar folk tales, myths and legends, songs, we often come across the image of Mount Kaf (Caucasian Mountains), in which these mountains are presented as a place of hostile forces and evil spirits, a place of battles. In our opinion, this is also a trace in the memory of the people about their distant past, experienced by them in the regions of the North Caucasus before their resettlement in the Middle Volga region. Russian scientists who were directly involved in the study of the past of the "Tatars" clearly saw that identifying them with the Mongols was a mistake. The 18th-century historian P. Rychkov, the author of The Experience of the Kazan History of the Ancient and Middle Ages (St. Petersburg, 1767), wrote that Kazanians are not Tatars, that this name in relation to them is a historical misunderstanding. This work, written according to Russian chronicles, was the first attempt to establish the truth about the origin of the people, an attempt to put an end to the identification of the Tatars with the Mongols, which began to receive citizenship in Russian historiography. In his work, he gives many examples to prove his position, among them is the following fact: “The well-known Bashkir rebel Batyrsha, inciting the Bashkirs to rebellion, in his letter called all the local Mohammedans the Bulgarian people” (P. Rychkov. Decree, work., p. 18-19). The well-known Russian orientalist, a major Turkologist V. V. Grigoriev, who highly appreciated the ethnographic research of Kayum Nasyri, also emphasized in 1836 that “the current Kazan and Siberian Tatars, carrying robes along the streets of Russian cities, call themselves “Bulgarlyk”, “Bulgarism” (V. Grigoriev. The Volga Tatars "Library for Reading", 1836, vol. XIX, part III, p. 24), i.e., they are proud of their origin and know their ethnicity. In 1909, on the pages of Russian Thought, G. Alisov, giving an answer to the growing fabrications about the origin of the Tatars, noted that if you ask a Tatar "about his nationality, he will not call himself a Tatar and ethnographically he will be partly right, since this name is a historical misunderstanding" (G. Alisov. The Muslim Question in Russia. - Russian Thought, 1909, No. 7, p. 39). Russian scientists, who were interested in the origin of modern Tatars according to primary sources, never confused them with the conquerors. We could cite the statements and observations of many of these scientists, but we will confine ourselves to only one observation and conclusion. The great Russian revolutionary democrat N. G. Chernyshevsky, who knew the history, culture, life, customs of the Tatars well, knew the Tatar language and writing, studied their history from Tatar sources, emphasized that “out of the current Crimean, Kazan and Orenburg Tatars, there is hardly one person who came from Batu warriors that the current Tatars are the descendants of those tribes that lived in these places and were conquered by Batu, as the Russians were conquered. (N. G. Chernyshevsky. The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy. - In the book: Selected Philosophical Works. T. 3, M., 1951, p. 245-246), And Western European scientists who knew the Tatars not only from literature, but directly, they emphasize that the views on the origin of the Tatars that prevail in their countries have nothing to do with the actual state of affairs, that they are Bulgars, a people of Turkic root. The German scientist and traveler Adam Olearius, who visited the Volga region in the 30s of the 17th century, calls them "Bulgarian Tatars" (A. Olearius. Description of the journey to Muscovy and through Muscovy to Persia and back. St. Petersburg, 1905, p. 408). Sigismund Herberstein, a Polish diplomat who knew the Tatars personally even before the annexation of the Kazan Khanate to the Muscovite state, wrote: “If anyone wants to describe the Tatars, he needs to describe many tribes. For they bear this name by faith: and these are different tribes, far from each other ”(S. Herberstein. Notes on Moscow Affairs. St. Petersburg. 1908, p. 138). The great Alexander Humboldt, who visited Russia at the beginning of the 19th century, was also interested in the origin of the Tatars. He had conversations about this with the Tatars themselves. I became friends with the Tatar scientist, geographer S. Seifullin, whose works and observations I used in describing the eastern outskirts of Russia. In his work, Humboldt emphasizes that, using the name "Tatars", he follows only the traditions of Western literature, and "under the Tatars" means, "like the Russians, not the Mongols, but the people of the great Turkish (Turkic - A. K.) tribe" (A. Humboldt. Journey of Baron Alexander Humboldt, St. Petersburg, 1837, p. 18-19). Unlike such scholars who visited the Tatars and knew them personally, other Western European authors, knowing about the Tatars only from literature, identify them with the Mongols, consider them to be fragments of the Mongols. Unfortunately, assertions of this kind also dominate Russian pre-revolutionary "official-patriotic" literature. Unlike Western-phile authors, prominent Russian historians Karamzin, Solovyov, Klyuchevsky and others do not confuse "Tatars" with the Mongols, they consider them descendants of the Bulgars. We see the same thing in the works of Russian Turkic linguists and historians who studied the language, culture, and ethnography of the "Tatars" directly. Thus, in the “Russian Encyclopedic Dictionary” (Volume with letters “S - P - T”), which summarizes the results of the study of Russian Turkologists, it is clearly emphasized that “there is no Mongolian element in the current remnants of the Turkish (Turkic - A.K.) tribes and trace." Another encyclopedia also says: “Tatars. (Historical). This term, as the name of a people, has a historical rather than an ethnographic meaning. Tatars, as a separate people, do not exist. (Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron. St. Petersburg, 1901, v. 64, p. 671). "Turkic-Tatars" or Turkish-Tatar peoples, the term is synonymous with the word. "Turks"... Until now, especially in the West, the word "Tatars" or "Tartars" is understood as a totality of peoples completely different in language and racial characteristics. Further we read: “In science, up to the present time, the name of the Tatars has been completely refuted when applied to the Mongols and Tunguz and is left only to those Turkic peoples in language, which are now almost entirely part of the Russian Empire, for which it has been preserved due to a historical misunderstanding, unlike others Turkic peoples bearing an independent historical name (Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Sarts, Uzbeks, etc.) "(Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron. St. Petersburg, 1902, v. 67, p. 347). The beginning of the conscious identification of the Tatars with the Mongols in Russian historical literature acquires citizenship especially from the 18th century and intensifies in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. All this began to bear fruit. Under these conditions, Tatar scientists tried to explain the falsity of such a statement by appealing to the facts of the history of their people. But much of what was written did not see the light of day because of the persecution of tsarist censorship. In the 19th century, the tsarist censorship missed, one might say, the only work on this issue, namely the work of the Tatar scientist-encyclopedist Shigabutdin Marjani, and even then because it was written, one might say, in Arabic, which was not available to the censor. Sh. Marjani is the author of a six-volume folio of the historical and bibliographic dictionary of almost all the outstanding figures of the Muslim East from the time of the emergence of Islam until the middle of the 19th century. This is a major work, constituting an encyclopedia of the East, written on the basis of a study of a huge number of oriental manuscripts stored in Central Asia, Arab countries, Turkey, and Kazan. He is also the author of many monographic studies on the history of the Uighurs, Seljuks, Khorezmians, and other Turkic peoples. A deep knowledge of the history of the Eastern peoples, scrupulous thoroughness and scientific conscientiousness of this scientist make his works a valuable source on the history of many peoples of the Volga region, Central Asia, Anatolia, and the Arab countries. Academician V. V. Radlov, who personally knew the author, was familiar with his works, at the IV archaeological congress in Kazan in 1877 personally outlined the results of one of the works of Sh. Marjani and called this study a new step in truthful coverage of the history of the “Tatars”. Sh. Marjani gave a detailed analysis of the history of the Bulgars, showed on a huge amount of factual material the direct, immediate succession of the modern Tatars with the ancient Bulgars. In one of his works devoted to the history of the Volga Bulgaria and the Kazan Khanate - "Moetafadel akhber fi ehvali Kazan ve Bulgar" (In 2 volumes. Volume I, Kazan, 1885) based on the study of ancient eastern sources and in the light of new ethnographic and other documents, Marjani showed the direct continuity of the culture, language, ethnic group of modern Tatars with the Bulgars. (Unfortunately, many of the scientist’s works to this day remain only in manuscript. And the published part of his works is practically inaccessible to historians who do not speak Arabic and the high-style language of the Tatar language of the past.) An outstanding historian of our days, who is subject to both domestic and Eastern and Western sources, L. N. Gumilyov, speaking about the roots of the kinship of the peoples of Russia, touched upon the issue of the relationship between ancient Russia and the Bulgar Turks and the origin of the name "Tatars", which are fully consistent with the provisions we set forth here. He writes that “a thousand years ago, the two largest states of Eastern Europe - Kievan Rus and Volga Bulgaria signed a peace treaty, which, despite the fact that the Slavs adopted the Christian faith, and the Turks still honored Islam, had a beneficial effect on relations between peoples almost 250 years, up to Batyev defeat. By the way, the descendants of these Bulgarians, who make up a significant part of the population of the Middle Volga region, are ironically called the name “Tatars”, and their language is Tatar” (emphasized by us - A.K.). Although this is nothing more than camouflage!” (L. Gumilyov. The roots of our relationship. - Izvestia, 1988, April 13). At the beginning of the 20th century, especially after the first Russian revolution, new works on the history of the “Tatars” began to appear, which had previously been practically impossible to publish, because the tsarist censorship considered any work on the history of the Turkic peoples to be harmful, leading to the awakening of the national self-consciousness of the oppressed peoples. Among the works of this period, we point to the "History of the Bulgar people" (Bolgar tarihi. Kazan, 1910) by the democratic historian Gainutdin Akhmerov, where the history of the origin of modern Tatars is specially considered. Based on a comparative analysis of life, language, beliefs, rituals, ornaments, art, new archaeological and paleographic monuments, the author once again proves the complete continuity of the Bulgar ethnos with the "Tatars". The strengthening in Russian semi-official literature of identifications of "Tatars" with the Mongol conquerors caused a lively discussion of scientists in the Tatar periodical press about the origin of the people, especially on the pages of the Shura magazine, partially Ang and others. The overwhelming majority of the participants in the discussion, based on materials, facts and sources, testimonies of specialists, once again proved the reliability of Sh. Marjani's views on the origin of modern Tatars and raised the issue of the need to abandon the name Tatars imposed on them and accept the self-name "Bulgars". Another part of the historians, fully supporting the origin of the "Tatars" from the Bulgars, but proceeding from the fact that the name "Bulgars" resembles the ethnonym of the Danube Bulgarians, proposed to take the ethnonym "Türks" for the self-name (not to be confused with the ethnonym "Turks", as sometimes happens with individual authors). The adoption of the name "Turks", in their opinion, is justified, because this name emphasizes the proximity, kinship of the "Tatars" with the Turkic peoples and the term "Turks" is more understandable to other peoples than the name "Bulgars". Among the participants in the discussion there were also individuals who sought to find the Mongolian origins in the formation of the modern Tatar people and, at the same time, as evidence of their “theories”, referred to Russian official historical literature, where Tatars are identified and considered descendants of the Mongols. Supporters of such views were bourgeois nationalists, who, defending the name "Tatars", sought to "exalt" themselves by the deeds of the Mongol conquerors. These proposals, reeking of overt nationalism, built on sand, did not find any significant support. And the petty-bourgeois historians themselves did not have unanimity on the question of the origin of the Tatars. One of them, Khadi Atlasi, in his book on the history of Kazan (X. Atlasi. Kazan tarihi. Kazan, 1910) wrote that “Tatars are those invaders who destroyed the Volga Bulgaria”, that “Tatars (Kazan - A.K. .) they always called themselves Bulgars, in extreme cases, the Turkic people" or "on a religious basis - Muslims" (p, 15), so that they would not be identified with "Tatars", thus opposing the adoption of the name "Tatars".

1. Turkic origin of the ethnonym

The first time the name "Tatars" occurs in the VIII century in the inscription on the monument to the famous commander Kul-tegin, which was established during the Second Turkic Khaganate - the state of the Turks, located on the territory of modern Mongolia, but having 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 “Tatar steppe” the space between Northern China and Eastern Turkestan.
Perhaps that is why at the beginning of the 13th century the Mongols also began to be called that, who by this time had defeated the Tatar tribes and seized their lands.

2. Turko-Persian origin

The scientific anthropologist Alexei Sukharev in his work "Kazan Tatars", published from St. Petersburg in 1902, wrote that the ethnonym Tatars comes from the Turkic word "tat", which means nothing more than mountains, and the words of Persian origin "ar" or " ir", which means a person, a man, a resident. This word is found among many peoples: Bulgarians, Magyars, Khazars. It is also found among the Turks.

3. Persian origin

The Soviet researcher Olga Belozerskaya connected 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 that.

4. Ancient 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 the old days. 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 Uighurs tatami. And it could well be that tat meant "foreigner", "foreigner". However, one does not contradict the other. After all, the Turks could first call Iranian speakers tatami, and then the name could spread to other strangers.
By the way, the Russian word "thief" may also have been borrowed from the Persians.

5. Greek origin

We all know that among the ancient Greeks the word "tartar" meant the other world, hell. Thus, the "tartarine" was an inhabitant of the underground depths. This name arose even before the invasion of Batu's troops on Europe. Perhaps it was brought here by travelers and merchants, but even then the word "Tatars" was associated among 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 called a saint because he prayed himself and called on his people to pray in order to avoid the invasion of Batu. As we remember, Khan Udegei died at that time and the Mongols turned back. This only assured the Europeans that they were right.
From now on, among the peoples of Europe, the Tatars became a generalization of all the barbarian peoples living in the east.
In fairness, it must be said that on some old maps of Europe, Tataria began immediately beyond the Russian border. The Mongol Empire collapsed in the 15th century, but European historians continued to call Tatars all the eastern peoples from the Volga to China until the 18th century.
By the way, the Tatar Strait, which separates the island of Sakhalin from the mainland, is called so because "Tatars" also lived on its shores - Orochs and Udeges. In any case, Jean-Francois La Perouse, who gave the name to the strait, thought so.

6. Chinese origin

Some scholars believe that the ethnonym "Tatars" is of Chinese origin. Back in the 5th century, a tribe lived in the northeast of Mongolia and Manchuria, which the Chinese called "ta-ta", "da-da" or "tatan". And in some dialects of Chinese, the name sounded exactly like “Tatar” or “Tartar” because of the nasal diphthong.
The tribe was warlike and constantly disturbed the neighbors. Perhaps later the name tartars spread to other peoples who were unfriendly to the Chinese. Most likely, it was from China that the name "Tatars" penetrated into Arabic and Persian literary sources.
According to legend, the warlike tribe itself was destroyed by Genghis Khan. Here is what the Mongolian scholar Yevgeny Kychanov wrote about this: “So the Tatar tribe died, even before the rise of the Mongols, which gave its name as a common noun to all Tatar-Mongolian tribes. And when, twenty to thirty years after that massacre, alarming cries of “Tatars!” were heard in distant villages and villages in the West, there were few real Tatars among the impending 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 formidable tribe could also come from the Tungus word "ta-ta" - to pull the bowstring.

7. Tocharian origin

The origin of the name could also be associated with the people of the Tokhars (Tagars, Tugars), who lived in Central Asia, starting from the 3rd century BC.
The Tokhars 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, which were subject to the Turks. Most likely, the local population mixed with them. All the same Mahmud Kashgari called the vast 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 so they began to call a large group of peoples. The peoples conquered by the Mongols took the name of their kindred strangers - Tochars.
So the ethnonym Tatars could also pass to the Volga Bulgars.

”, the ethnonym “Tatars” comes from the name of the river of the same name:

“There is a certain land among the countries of the East, which was mentioned above and which is called Mongal. This land once had four peoples: one was called Yeka-Mongal, that is, the great Mongals, the second was called Su-Mongal, that is, the water Mongals, but they called themselves Tatars from a certain river that flows through their country and is called Tatars; the third people called themselves Merkit, the fourth - Mekrit. All these peoples had one face shape and one language, although they were divided among themselves by regions and sovereigns.

The version of another Franciscan, Benedict, contains additional information:

“Moal [in Tartar] - land, Mongols - means [name] of the inhabitants of the land. However, [they] themselves call themselves Tartars from the [name] of a large and swift river that crosses their land and is called Tatars. For tata in their language means [in Latin] "to drag", and tartar means "pulling".

The use of the ethnonym

According to the most common version, the old Chinese name 鞑靼, that is, Dada or Dadan, is interpreted as the first mention of the ethnonym "Tatars". The Song book testifies that another name for the Rourans is "Tatars", who are also called "Tartar" and are one of the aimaks of the Xiongnu. The Chinese character with the modern pronunciation “datan” marks the word “Tatar”, and the word “tartar” is written with the character “tantan”. Historians believe that the name of the Mongols as Tatars (Tartar) comes from the name of the Khan of the Tatars of the Zhuzhans (414-429). These two names, Tatar-Khan and Tatar (Mongol), are written in the same hieroglyphs. Therefore, from the time of the Juzhan Khaganate, the Mongols began to be called Mongols, Tatars, Tatar-Mongols or Mongol-Tatars.

In the period from the XII century, the ethnonym "Tatars" acquires an expansive meaning. In particular, the Chinese began to call Tatars ( yes-tribute) all nomads of the eastern part of the Great Steppe, regardless of their actual ethnicity. In other words, the ethnonym acquires the concomitant meaning of a political and cultural term. At the same time, according to Wang Guowei, in the Khitan Liao Empire, the term "Tatars" was considered pejorative. Instead, the word " zubu" (according to Wittfogel comes from the Tibetan " coz-by» - shepherds, nomads) .

The use of the ethnonym Polovtsy

The Turkic people, known in Russian historiography as the Polovtsy, who participated in the ethnogenesis, in particular, the Crimean and Volga Tatars, used the ethnonym "Tatars" as a self-name in the Golden Horde era. In addition, in the only surviving monument of the Polovtsian language (1303), their language is called Tatar ( Tatar tili) .

The use of the ethnonym in the Russian Empire

The use of the ethnonym in Western Europe

In Western Europe, the “Tatars” were already talked about at the First Council of Lyons (1245). From then until the 18th century, and sometimes even later, Western Europeans collectively called all Asian nomadic and semi-nomadic Turkic and Mongolian peoples "Tatars" (lat. Tartari, fr. Tartares).

Until the middle of the 17th century, Europeans knew little about Manchuria and its inhabitants, but when the Manchus conquered China in the 1640s, the Jesuits who were there also ranked them among the Tatars. The most famous book that informed contemporaries about the victory of the Manchus over Ming China was written by Martino Martini. De bello Tartarico historia(“History of the Tatar War”) (1654).

Notes

1. John de Plano Carpini, Archbishop of Antivari, History of the Mongols, called by us Tatars
2. Christendom and the "Great Mongol Empire". Materials of the Franciscan Mission of 1245. M. Eurasia. 2002
3. Book of Song, chapter "Ruuzhan, p. 39
4. Vasiliev A. A. Decree. op. Chapter IV. The Mongols and the Mongol Conquest. Mongolia in the first half of the 12th century.
5. Wei Zheng. History of the Sui Dynasty. ch. 84
6. Gumilyov L. N. Ss. 98-99.
7. Gumilyov L. N. Ss. 99-100.
8. Genghisian: a collection of testimonies of contemporaries / Transl., Comp. and comment. A. Melekhin. - M. : Eksmo, 2009. - 728 p. - ISBN 978-5-699-32049-3.
9. Gumilyov L. N. S. 102
10. Peng Da-i, Xu Ting. Brief information about the black Tatars: "The state of the black Tatars ... is called Great Mongolia"
11. Crimean Tatars - Encyclopedia "Around the World" (indefinite)
12. Tatars - Encyclopedia "Around the World" (indefinite) . www.vokrugsveta.ru. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
13. Garkavets A. N. Kypchak languages. - Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1987. - S. 18.
14. see Codex Cumanicus
15. , With. 69-70.
16. Géza Lajos László József Kuun, Budapest Magyar Tudományos Academy. Codex cumanicus, Bibliothecae ad templum divi Marci Venetiarum primum ex integro editit prolegomenis notis et compluribus glossariis instruxit comes Géza Kuun. - Budapestini Scient. Academiae Hung, 1880. - 556 p.

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

Turkic origin of the ethnonym

The first time the name "Tatars" occurs in the VIII century in the inscription on the monument to the famous commander Kul-tegin, which was established during the Second Turkic Khaganate - the state of the Turks, located on the territory of modern Mongolia, but had 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 “Tatar steppe” the space between Northern China and Eastern Turkestan.

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

Turko-Persian origin

The scientific anthropologist Alexei Sukharev in his work "Kazan Tatars", published from St. Petersburg in 1902, noticed that the ethnonym Tatars comes from the Turkic word "tat", which means nothing more than mountains, and the words of Persian origin "ar" or " ir", which means a person, a man, a resident. This word is found among many peoples: Bulgarians, Magyars, Khazars. It is also found among the Turks.

Persian origin

The Soviet researcher Olga Belozerskaya connected 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 that.

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Ancient 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 the old days. Researchers refer to the 11th century scientist Mahmut Kashgari, who wrote that"Tatami Turks call those who speak Farsi."

However, the Turks also called the Chinese and even the Uighurs tatami. And it could well be that tat meant "foreigner", "foreigner". However, one does not contradict the other. After all, the Turks could first call Iranian-speakers tatami, and then the name could spread to other strangers.

By the way, the 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 the other world, hell. Thus, the "tartarine" was an inhabitant of the underground depths. This name arose even before the invasion of Batu's troops on Europe. Perhaps it was brought here by travelers and merchants, but even then the word "Tatars" was associated among 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 called a saint because he prayed himself and called on his people to pray in order to avoid the invasion of Batu. As we remember, Khan Udegei died at that time. The Mongols turned back. This assured the Europeans that they were right.

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

In fairness, it must be said that on some old maps of Europe, Tataria began immediately beyond the Russian border. The Mongol Empire collapsed in the 15th century, but European historians continued to call Tatars all the eastern peoples from the Volga to China until the 18th century.

By the way, the Tatar Strait, which separates the island of Sakhalin from the mainland, is called so, because "Tatars" also lived on its shores - Orochs and Udeges. In any case, Jean-Francois La Perouse, who gave the name to the strait, thought so.

Chinese origin

Some scholars believe that the ethnonym "Tatars" is of Chinese origin. Back in the 5th century, a tribe lived in the northeast of Mongolia and Manchuria, which the Chinese called "ta-ta", "da-da" or "tatan". And in some dialects of Chinese, the name sounded exactly like “Tatar” or “Tartar” because of the nasal diphthong.

The tribe was warlike and constantly disturbed the neighbors. Perhaps later the name tartars spread to other peoples who were unfriendly to the Chinese.

Most likely, it was from China that the name "Tatars" penetrated into Arabic and Persian literary sources.

According to legend, the warlike tribe itself was destroyed by Genghis Khan. Here is what the Mongolian scholar Yevgeny Kychanov wrote about this: “So the Tatar tribe died, even before the rise of the Mongols, which gave its name as a common noun to all Tatar-Mongolian tribes. And when in distant villages and villages in the West, twenty or thirty years after that massacre, alarming cries were heard: "Tatars!" ("The life of Temujin, who thought to conquer the world").

Did it happen that you went to the Republic of Tatarstan on vacation or for work? Then you are in luck, Tatarstan, this is a wonderful place where you can relax even during a business trip. The incredible landscapes with which this republic is filled cannot but sink into the soul and please the eye. Arriving at work or on vacation, for example, in Kazan, you can visit one of the 7 theaters, one or more museums, there are 388 of them throughout the republic, or admire the wonderful Volga and Kama rivers.

Undoubtedly, in big cities, the local population knows Russian well, but what if you need to communicate with the inhabitants of the outback? In this case, our Russian-Tatar phrasebook, which consists of several useful topics, will help you.

Appeals

The language barrier

Numerals

Properties

Colors

Character traits

Time

Pronunciation

Acquaintance

Appeal

Congratulation

Invitation

Parting

Thanks, please

Apology, consent, refusal

In hotel

At the barbershop

Dream

In the town

Travel

In transport

In a restaurant, cafe

mail, phone

Meeting, greeting, acquaintance - here you will find the right words to get to know a person, say hello or make an appointment, and all this in the Tatar language.

Language - words that will help you better understand what the interlocutor is saying.

Account - translation and correct sounding of the account in the Tatar language, from 1 to a billion.

Properties - words and phrases that will help you characterize a person according to his external and psychological characteristics.

Colors - pronunciation and translation of colors and shades.

Character traits - with the help of the words that are presented here, you can describe the character traits of any person or your own.

Time is a translation of words that are directly related to time.

Pronunciation - phrases and words that will help you find out from the locals whether your pronunciation of Tatar is correct, you can also ask to write this or that word on a piece of paper or explain how to pronounce the words you are interested in correctly.

Acquaintance - a list of phrases, thanks to which you can start an acquaintance.

Appeal - words that will help start a conversation or call someone.

Congratulations - all that is needed for congratulations in the Tatar language.

Invitation - words that will help you invite a person to visit.

Farewell - a list of farewell words and phrases.

Gratitude, request - if you need to thank a person or ask for something, in this section you will find the right words.

Apology, consent, refusal are words that will help you agree in some way with the interlocutor, refuse him or ask for an apology for something.

Hotel - if you arrived in Tatarstan for a long time, you will probably have to rent a hotel room, this section will help you cope with this task and throughout your stay.

Hairdresser - words with which you can explain what kind of haircut you prefer.

Sleep - phrases that sometimes have to be used before going to bed.

City - a list of phrases that will help you find everything you need in the city, asking passers-by where to go or where this or that building is located.

Travel - If you are traveling in Tatarstan, this list of words will definitely come in handy more than once. With the help of them, you will find out where it is better to go, what is the history of this or that building or monument, and so on.

Transport - words related to the rental of transport, travel by bus, train and other means of transport.

Restaurant - if you are hungry, you will want to have a hearty meal, but without knowing the Tatar language, you will not even be able to call the waiter and order a dish. For such cases created this topic.

Mail, phone - do you need to top up your phone card, send a parcel, or just find out something at the post office? Then open this section, and you will definitely find the right words.