Ethnogenesis of the Turkic peoples. Languages, peoples, migrations, customs

© Andrey Tikhomirov, 2020

ISBN 978-5-4498-2385-4

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Migration of Turkic peoples

In the process of development of Turkic languages and peoples – their carriers, dialects and languages were formed, characterized, on the one hand, by similarities – as a result of the unity of their origin, and on the other – by differences, which are explained by the collapse of the common Turkic base language, first into dialects, and then into separate languages and groups of languages. Turkic peoples are formed on a vast space in the Altai Mountains and interact with other language groups of peoples: Mongolian, Tunguso-Manchu and Tibetan-Chinese. The word “Altai” itself goes back to the Turkic word “altyn” – “gold”, in Mongolian “alt”. “Altan tobchi” or “Altan tovch” (“golden button” or “golden vault”) is the Mongolian annals of the 17th century. Since ancient times, Altai is famous for its rich deposits of polymetals, iron ore, mercury, as well as gold.

The Turki of Altai subjugated tribes and peoples of various origins, including non-Turkic. Authority, as written sources indicate, was concentrated in the hands of the tribal nobility, which had accumulated huge herds of cattle, looted property and had slaves in its economy. At the head of this feudal-patriarchal association was the kagan. However, among the Altai Turks and peoples subordinate to them the tribal tribe, in many respects still primitive social organization, remained and classes in the modern sense did not exist yet. The state was just an unstable association of related tribes with the same development of the economy.

History of Altai Turks of the 1st millennium A.D. e. known mainly by archaeological and written sources. The main archaeological sources are burials and things discovered in them. At this time, the tradition of burying a person along with a horse and harness for riding is spreading. In the valleys of the Altai Mountains, small stone mounds have been excavated, under which there are quadrangular soil pits. They were put in these pits stretched out on the back of the buried. A horse was buried near the buried. Sometimes graves are marked on the surface only with a ring of stones. In the center of the burial ground there was usually a grave of a noble man, and around there were graves of soldiers or slaves buried with him. The poverty of the latter sharply emphasizes the wealth of the central grave. Along with this, there are large mounds. Burials in them are distinguished by the wealth of inventory and the complexity of the funeral ritual. A quiver with arrows, an iron knife, richly decorated belts, silver vessels with ancient Turkic inscriptions were put in the grave. Skeletons of horses rested behind partitions. Such mounds were discovered in Altai near the village of Katanda, in Tuyakhta and on the Ur river in Kuzbass.

Penetration of cattle breeders – the Turkic-speaking ancestors of the Yakuts to the territory of modern Yakutia came from the Baikal region for a long time, starting from the VI – X centuries. n e., when the Kurykans lived on the Angara and Lena (this is the so-called Kurumchin culture). However, there was a pre-Turkic population of these places. The oldest settlement of the Iron Age found on the river. Yuuke below Yakutsk. The original culture of the early Iron Age of Yakutia is represented by settlements near the village. Mukhtuya above Olekminsk and Siktyakh in the lower reaches of the Lena. The population was engaged in hunting and fishing. The Yakut people formed on the Lena River as a result of the absorption of local tribes by the southern Turkic-speaking immigrants. It is believed that the last wave of the southern ancestors of the Yakuts penetrated the Middle Lena only in the XIV – XV centuries. Some local Yakut groups, such as the Yakut-reindeer herders of the northwest, have arisen relatively recently as a result of the mixing of separate Evenki groups with Yakuts originating from the central regions. In the public life of the Yakuts, there were many remnants of the tribal system, and tribal revenge was preserved. Anthropologically, the Yakuts belong to the Central Asian and Baikal types of the Mongoloid race. According to their habitat, cultural and domestic differences, the Yakuts are divided into a number of local groups – Amgino-Lena, Vilyuisk, Olekminsky, Verkhoyansk, northern. In the economy and material culture of the Yakuts, traits similar to the culture of cattle breeders of Central Asia prevail, but there are also northern taiga elements. In the 20s. XVII century Yakuts were included in the Russian state, which accelerated their socio-economic and cultural development. At the same time, the Yakut masses began to be subjected to brutal yasak oppression, gross oppression by tsarist officials, merchants and furs buyers.

For countries that came to feudalism through the slave system (for example, for China, India, Iran – in Asia, for Italy, France, Spain – in Europe), the transition to feudal relations meant a new step in the formation of nationalities that began to form in ancient times. For countries that came to feudalism directly from the primitive communal system (for example, in Europe – for Germany, England, the Scandinavian countries, Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland, in the East – for some Turkic tribes), the process of forming ethnic groups from tribes and tribal associations began along with the development of feudalism. In a number of tribe groups and associations in Europe and Asia (for example, among the Mongol and some Turkic tribes), the beginning of this process dates back to a relatively late time, to the 11th – 13th centuries.

The ancestors of modern Turks – nomadic Oguz tribes first entered the territory of modern Turkey from the regions of Central Asia, and earlier from Altai, in the XI century. The largest ruler of the Turkish tribes of Osman Bay (ruled around 1281—1324) actually became the founder of the Ottoman (Ottoman) empire. The migration of the ancient Oguzes is mentioned by the Arab geographer al-Adrisi (XII century), who, in his essay “Entertainment of the worn out by wandering by regions” or “Book of Roger”, according to one of the travelers, describes the area of the South Urals, where the river Ruza is mentioned (the Finno-Ugric name of the Yaik River, now the Urals): “… this river is called Ruza. It is a large river, crosses through it on barges… The big river flows (into it – the author), flowing from the north from this river from the large mountains separating the country Guz (Oghuz – author) from the country of Basjirt (Bashkir – Av op) …». And the Guz (Oghuz) are the ancestors of the Turks, Turkmen, Azerbaijanis, Gagauz and Karakalpaks. Wikipedia: “The book of Roger (Arabic.” Al-Kitab ar-Roojari”, lat. Tabula Rogeriana, full name” Nuzhat al-mushtak fi-htirak al-afak”, which translates as” the joy of a passionate person who wants to cross the world”) – comment al-Idrisi to the map of the world famous in his time in the form of a silver planisphere on paper, on which he worked for 18 years at the court of the Sicilian king Roger II.There are three manuscripts of the 14th-15th centuries with the book of Roger, two of which at the National Library of France and one at the Bodleian Library of Oxford.”

Famous Orenburg local historian Chibilev A.A. in the book “The Ural River (Historical and Geographical Essays on the Ural River Basin)”, Leningrad, Gidrometeoizdat, 1987, writes: “When we were in the deep regions of Kazakhstan, we asked the indigenous people why the rivers are called Aksu and Karasu, and were surprised by their deep knowledge toponymy and local environmental conditions. It turns out that giving the name to this or that stove, the lake, the ancient nomads took into account whether they would be able to water cattle in this place, say, in the middle of summer or not. Indeed, in the dry season, temporary flowing rivers dry up, designated in Kazakh by the word ‘axu’, and, on the contrary, ‘streams’ of rivers with ground nutrition ‘karas’ ‘hold’ water. Thus, the names Aksu, Akbulak, Aksai, Akkol, as well as Karasu, Karabutak, Karakol, etc., so widespread in the Ural basin, are characterized not by the color of the water, but by the features of the water regime. These are either ‘flowing’ or ‘ground’ water bodies.”

Among the Kazakh river names, you can often find starting with the words “ak” and “kara”. There is a widespread opinion that the geographic network of Kazakhstan and the adjacent regions of Russia almost half consists of “white” (“ak”) and “black” (“kara”) rivers, streams, beams, lakes. However, it is clear that such a name does not explain the local characteristics of geographical objects. Therefore, it is necessary not only to translate the name, but also to explain its origin.

Here are some examples of river names of Turkic origin. The names of the valley and riverbed are indicated by the names Zharly (steep), Kumak (fine sand), Tashla and Kargala (stone, boulder), Burtya, Burlya, Burlin, Borla (chalk), Akshagyl (white-crushed), Wil (river with recesses – separate reaches), Sazdy (swampy), Terensay (deep gully), etc. The names of Aschi, Ashibutak, Aschisay (bitter-salty), Tuzluk (brine), Sasyk (rotten) testify to the quality of water. The nature of the current is reflected in the names Suren (quiet, slow), Catral (cold with a fast current), Guberlya (boiling), Chagan or Shagan (river with whirlpools), etc.

An important distinguishing feature of rivers is the presence of forest and other vegetation on their banks. Along with the Russian Elshanks (elkha – alder) in the upper part of the Ural basin there are Zerikla and Irikla (from it the Iriklinskoe reservoir), which in translation from Bashkir means “alder”. We recognize the nature of woody plants by the names Terekla – poplar, Usakla – aspen, Muyuldy, Moyldy – bird cherry, Kaindy – birch. The names of the bushes are reflected in the hydronyms of Karagasht, Karaganda (chilizhnaya), Taldy, Chilik, Shilikty – willow, talnik, Shieli – cherry. Grassy steppe and near-water vegetation can be traced by the names Chiyli or Chiybulak – a spring, a stream with Chiya thickets, Kinderlaya – hemp, Shagyrly (from “chagyr”) – wormwood, Bidaik – wheatgrass, Kugala – rogozovaya, Miyalyov – sedge or by the name of the kurai plant, etc. The names of some reservoirs are associated with the animal world. Among them Ayuly – bear, Burlyuk – wolf, Donguz – boar, Koyandy – hare, Tanalyk – veal, Chebenka, Chibenda – midge, mosquito, Oysylkara – camel, Conduz la, Kondurcha – beaver. Many names have two to three reasonable explanations. For example, Ilek can be translated as “windy, steppe” and “wild goat”, Chagan (Shagan) as “white, clean”, “maple” and “river with whirlpools”. The names of reservoirs with the word sirs are ambiguous – Sarybulak, Sarysu. “Sary” can mean “yellow”, “wide”, “main”, “clear”, “spacious”, etc.

Researchers suggest that the toponym Sakmar is of Iranian origin, that is, belongs to the Savromato-Sarmatian tribes. In this regard, a close toponym Samara gives a hint – the left-bank tributary of the Volga, the upper reaches of which are 40 km from the confluence of the Urals and Sakmara. There are rivers with the name Samara in the basins of the Don and Dnieper, as well as on the border of steppe and forest-steppe landscapes. Of the many versions about the origin of the toponym Sakmar, there is also one: translated from Iranian languages, it means “sheep river” (“shu” – “sheep”, “mara” – “big river”). Apparently, during seasonal migrations from south to north, on the banks of these rivers herds of nomad sheep were concentrated. Here they found wonderful pastures and watering places, good conditions for lambing sheep and raising young animals. By analogy with the “sheep rivers” were called “veal” – Tanalyk, “bull” – Buzuluk, etc. From the language of the Turkic-speaking Khazar tribe, the word that served as the name of the fortress – Sarkel on the Don, on the site of the modern Tsimlyansk reservoir, was preserved in 965 by Prince Svyatoslav and became the Russian fortress of Belaya Vezha. Gumilev L.N. translates this word as “white house” (Gumilyov L. N. From Russia to Russia). This beautiful fortress was designed and built by Byzantine architects, among other things, from red burnt brick.

The ethnonym Türks (Turks) from “teryuk” is a man. During the tribal system, all tribes called their fellow tribesmen people, but all the rest – just some kind of living creatures.

The ethnic basis of the Tatars of the Middle Volga and Ural regions was composed of Turkic-speaking tribes that penetrated into the Middle Volga and Prikamye from the second half of the first millennium AD. The Volga-Kama Bulgars, together with the Turks and Finno-Ugrians, created the state of the Volga-Kama Bulgaria at the beginning of the 10th century. The main ethnic component in it was the Turkic-speaking peoples. Volga Bulgaria used all the benefits of its geographical location for trade with Europe and Asia. The trade route between the Volga Bulgaria and Kievan Rus totaled 60 days. As a result of the Mongol conquest in the 30s of the XIII century, the Volga Bulgaria lost its state independence and soon became part of the Golden Horde. Historians say that in the XV century the Tatar Khanates arose on the dismembered territory of the Golden Horde: Kazan, Kasimov, Crimean, Siberian, Astrakhan and Nogai Horde. The Nogais lived in the Orenburg steppes.

There is a version that the name of the city of Kiev goes back to the ancient Turkic “kuyavia” and means “hare”, this word with the same meaning is preserved in the Chuvash language, which is considered one of the ancient archaic Turkic languages. The fortified city of Orenburg was founded on the current site on April 19 (30), 1743. This was the third bookmark of the fortress with the name Orenburg. Originally, the fortress with this name was founded on the site of the modern city of Orsk in 1735, where the river Or (in Türkic “duck river”) flows into the Yaik river (in Türkic “wide riverbed” or “wide spreading”). After the Pugachev revolt in 1775, the river was renamed the Urals (it goes back to the Turkic name of the Southern Urals – Araltov or Oraltov Hill and means “island” or “interfluve”). Then Orenburg was moved in 1741 to the place where the village of Krasnogor of the Saraktash district is now located. And, finally, for the third time Orenburg was founded at the confluence of the Sakmara River in Yaik (Ural). However, there was already the Byrd fortress (located in the area of modern Ivanovsky Lane), which was transferred to the left bank of Sakmara (translated from Iranian languages as “sheep river”, the legacy of the Sarmatian-Savromat tribes that roamed here in ancient times), now it is part of the city – Byrds. The name is most likely connected with the old Slavic word “bird” – “weaving ridge”, apparently, initially the landscape of Orenburg alternated with small hills and lowlands, which resembled a weaving ridge.

Many scholars considered the Huns a model of “pure” nomads. But new archaeological materials and a careful study of Han (Chinese) written sources showed that not only the Huns, but also their ancestors built fortified cities. After the Hunish state split, it was the Western Huns under the pressure of the Eastern, that is, the ancestors of the Mongols, in the II century BC. e. moved west with their religion and after mixing with the Scythian tribes (female Amazonian priestly communities, the Amazonian from the Greek “breastless”, removed one woman’s breast so that she could better fight and kill the enemy, only after that she could get married) and the Ugrian population in the second half of the 4th century became known in European historiography as the Huns. Following them, during another great migration of peoples in the early Middle Ages, various peoples descended from the same regions from the crossbreeding of Indo-Europeans, Indo-Iranians, Iranians with local Finnish tribes: Kipchaks (Polovtsy) from Altai and a conglomerate of other ethnic groups named in the VI century the Chinese “tyukyu”, and the Europeans – “Turki”. For many millennia, nomadic life has proven to be the most stable. He provided tremendous military advantages. The nomadic world must be seen as something fluid. Unlike settled peoples, the nomadic people could easily get away from the blow of the enemy army. For nomads, it’s just their way of life. For the enemy army, moving across the steppe without settlements and the availability of agriculture is a problem. The nomadic world, based entirely on the principle of nomadism, is adapted to overcome land spaces. Of course, there were clashes between sedentary and nomadic peoples, which was reflected in the Bible in the conflict between Abel and Cain. Nomads could not exist without a settled population, they needed clothes, weapons, and these are the results of the labor of farmers and artisans, that is, a settled population.

At the first alarm, the nomads threw everything, and women, children and the elderly were taken in wagons, later they tried to leave them protected by reliable fortifications, if possible. Such a way of life was preserved among the peoples of the southern Russian steppes, who led a nomadic and semi-nomadic way of life, and after a thousand years, of which Batu organized detachments along the border strips to protect the borders. They were called the Turkic word “Cossack.” One of the first references to the term “Cossack” in Muslim written sources is found in an anonymous Turkic-Arabic dictionary, probably compiled in Egypt, known from the manuscript of 1245 with the meaning “homeless”, “homeless”, “wanderer”, “exile”. It is known that until Catherine II, correspondence with the Cossacks was conducted in Turkic (Tatar), that is, in their official language, as evidenced by letters preserved in the archives.

The word “Cossack” existed in the Russian language for a long time and was a borrowing from the Turkic languages, where it had several meanings: “free, independent man”, “tramp, robber”, “military servant of the feudal lord”. The original meaning of the word in Russian soil was “employee, employee”. Then the word “Cossack” began to mean soldiers serving on the outskirts of the state, the first mention of Cossacks in Russian chronicles dates back to 1444. Here are also some “Cossack” words of Turkic origin with their original meaning: ataman – “appointed”; hat – “hat”; bashlyk – “headline”; esaul – the “chief”; bunchuk – “a long shaft with a ball or a tip, locks of horse hair and tassels”, a sign of power.

This proves the initial settlement of fugitive serf lands, where Turkic peoples already lived – Tatars, Bashkirs, Kazakhs, Chuvashs, Turks and others. Nogayka (Nagayka) – from the Turkic people Nogais. Koshevoi is the head of the military command in the Zaporizhzhya Sich (the Sich located “beyond the thresholds”), which was called a cat – from the Turkic language “construction on one axis of buildings facing each other and mirroring each other,” subsequently “military camp”. Sich – from the Türkic language “elected”, Sichovaya Rada (from the glory. “Council”) – the combined arms meeting, the supreme body in the Zaporizhzhya Sich, elected the military foreman (from the glory. “Senior”) and resolved the most important issues.

Cossacks became mainly fugitive serfs, who fled from their owners – landowners. Cossacks were the main organized force in the peasant wars of the 16—18 centuries. (uprisings led by Razin, Bulavin, Pugachev, etc.). This caused, on the one hand, the desire of the tsarist government to eliminate the Cossack freemen, on the other hand, it was very tempting to contain these armed people as troops to protect the borders, ensuring their maintenance at the expense of those lands that joined the Russian state. Three times in government circles in Russia there was a question about the elimination of the Cossacks. But the tsarist government decided to bribe the Cossacks, giving him land, various privileges and privileges. In the 18th – early 20th centuries Cossacks – a military estate, which could include people of different nationalities: Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Bashkirs, Germans, etc. Tsarism implemented a system of measures to turn the Cossacks into an estate that was in the service of the state to protect it. Cossacks were widely used as punitive and police forces against popular uprisings.

The origin of modern Azerbaijanis (in Azeri – azərbaycanlılar, can be translated as people living near the Caspian: Xəzər (Caspian, Caspian Sea, goes back to the word “Khazar”) – ancient ethnic groups of the East Caucasus (Albanians, Indians, Caspians and etc.) and penetrated here from the 7th century BC to the 15th century A.D., the Scythians, Cimmerians, Bulgarian-Hun, Khazar, Iranian and Turkic-Mongolian elements.

Ethnogenesis, the initial stages of the formation of the Chuvash people are among the most interesting, but also very complex scientific problems, which still have many polemical aspects. Today, solid scientific literature has been formed on the origin and ethnic history of the Chuvashs. At different times, the most controversial theories of the origin of the Chuvash were put forward. Some believe that their ancestors are the Khazars, others are the Finno-Ugrians, others are the ancient Avars, fourth are the Volga Bulgars, etc. Nikolaev in the book “The History of the Chuvash Ancestors” writes (p. 23—25): “The inscriptions made in Arabic script on numerous stone gravestones and other monuments left by the Bulgars and Savirs living in the Volga-Kama in the VIII – XV centuries, historians and linguists read in the Chuvash language. It is established that the Bulgarian dialect was the historical predecessor of the modern Chuvash language [Klyashtorny SG, Sultanov TI, p. 54]. Speakers of the Hunnic language, one of the Turkic languages (or rather, Praturkic), it is considered to be Chuvash. Bulgarian tribes: Utigurs, Kutigurs, Onogurs, Saragurs, Savirs, etc., were one of the main components of the Iranian Union.The speakers of the Turkic language, which became the ancestor of the Chuvash language, were pushed out of Asia by Europe as a wave of resettlement of peoples.

Subsequently, this Turkic-speaking community fell into two languages – Bulgarian and Khazar [Gumilev L.N. Kn. 1, p. 327]. The Türkic language in the modern sense has spread as an international and commonly used (modern Tatar) only in the 11th century thanks to the Kipchaks (Polovtsy). Before this, ethnic groups spoke at home in languages that did not reach us, but knew the ancient Turkic language of the military authorities [Gumilev L.N. Ancient Russia and the Great Steppe, p. 47]. From the language of the Khazar tribe, the word that served as the name of the fortress – Sarkel (Sarig-kil> Sarkil> Sarkel) was preserved. Gumilev L.N. translates this word as “white house”. Turkic, Finno-Ugric and Slavic languages do not know anything similar to this word [Gumilev L.N. From Russia to Russia, p. thirty]. This beautiful fortress was designed and built by Byzantine architects, among other things, from red burnt brick. “Sarkel” is, in general, the Old-Chuvash word and is understood as “a beautiful house.” That is, “rubbish” is not translated literally yellow, just like the Russian “red girl” means not a “red girl”, but a “beautiful girl”. Similarly, in the Chuvash language: saraher does not literally mean “yellow girl”, but is understood as “beautiful girl”, moreover, rather blonde or red, but not brunette. The word sarkel means “beautiful (white) house.” The Chuvash people put in the concept of “home” more than just the word “hut”, because they call the house “pürt”, “surt”, and when they say keel (-kel) they mean their native house, native land, native village, homeland. Thus, the Chuvash people put the same meaning in the word “Sarkel” as the Russians when they say, as in the famous song, “I’m in Russia, I want to go home” or simply “I am going home” ie without being tied to a specific type of object – a house, an apartment, a hut, a palace, a homeland, a courtyard, fenced and with buildings, a native village, or simply ashes. Theophanes the Confessor (VIII century A.D.) refers to the Khazars as Scythians: “This year, Leo Vasileva married Konstantin’s son to the daughter of Hagan, the Scythian ruler, converting her to Christianity and calling her Irina (before her baptism her name was Chichak)” [Chichurov I. S., p. 68;”. Zakiev MZ]. Chichak (check) – in Chuvash means’ flower. ‘This name was also found among the Chuvash in the 20th century.