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67. First attempts to study the ethnogenesis of Tatars.

The Bulgaro-Tatars formed by consolidation of the local Türkic and Türkicized tribes which received a general name Bulgars in the Itil-Bulgarian state; then in the Tatar state of the Djuchi (also spelled "Juchi" - Translator's Note) Ulus they acquired the external ethnonym Tatars (i.e. other peoples called them Tatars even though they continued to call themselves Bulgars). Then, in the middle of the 19th century, the ethnonym Tatars started to be applied as a self-name among them, though among the people the former name, Bulgars, was also used. Thus, the modern Bulgaro-Tatars as an ethnos descend from the Bulgars in a broad sense of this word, and the ethnonym Tatars penetrated into their society coming from the name of the Mongolo-Tatar state of the Djuchi Ulus, and from the Russian term for the Kipchak Khanate population as Tatars. Therefore in the Bulgaro-Tatar ethnogenesis study we cannot leave in the dark the semantic problems of the ethnonym Tatar, and the history of its penetration into the Bulgarian society.

Mahmud Kashgarly (i.e. Mahmud from Kashgar), a Türk by his origin, made the first attempt to study the Tatars and their ethnogenesis, in his encyclopedic work "Divanu lugat it-Türk" (Collection of Türkic Vernaculars). This work was written in the Arab language under an influence of the Arabian culture, to train the Arabs in the Türkic language, in the 466 year by the Muslim chronology (hidjra), which corresponds to the 1072-73 in the Christian chronology (Miladi). As other treasures of the Arabo-Türkic culture, M.Kashgarly's "Divanu" have been lost, it was found only in the beginning of the 20th century, and gradually entered the scientific circulation. So, we consider it a first attempt to define the Tatar ethnos.

M.Kashgarly considers Tatars a Türkic tribe; he notes their geographical location: "The Türkic tribe closest to Byzantium is Besenyo (Badjinak), further to the east are the tribes of the Kyfchak/Kipchak, Oguz, Yemek, Bashkirt, Basmyl, Kay, Yabaku, Tatar, Kyrgyz. Kyrgyzes are the closest to the Chinese" [Kashgarly М., 1992, vol. 1, 28]. Speaking further about Tatars and other Türkic tribes, he continues that the tribes Kay, Yabaku, Tatar, Basmyl have their own languages, at the same time they speak well also in Türkic; the Kyrgyzes, Kyfchaks, Oguzes... have their own Türkic languages, and the languages of Yemeks and Bashkirts are close to them [Ibid, 30].

From this message follows that the ancient Tatars (i.e. 10th or 11th c. Tatars - Translator's Note) lived somewhere near the Kyrgyzes, apparently, in the Middle Asia, maybe, in Mongolia, and that their language was not similar to the Bashkirt's and Yemek's language. Hence, it also strongly differed from the modern Bulgaro-Tatar language, which is very close to Bashkir language. By the way, the traces of Yemeks remain in the territory of the modern Tatarstan close to the to Bashkirs, as a toponym Jèmèk/Yamak/Chamyak/Shemyak/Semyak. This fact tells that the Bashkirian and Yemekian languages took part in the formation of the Bulgar language, and what was then the Tatar language was far from these dialects.

A great ethnogenetical interest also presents the message of M.Kashgarly about Bulgars. He notes that the Bulgars and Suvars live close to the Besenyos (Badjinaks), who are next to the Byzantium, their languages are Türkic, but with the truncated endings [Kashgarly М., 1992, vol. 1, 30]. If M.Kashgarly compares these languages with Oguzian languages, in the Bulgarian and Suvarian languages the endings are truncated in fact: Oguz. biliyorum, biliyoruz, and Bulg. bilem (belèm), bilebiz (belèbez). Further, he informs that the Bulgars, Suvars, Yemeks, and Kyfchaks replace sounds [d, [y] ("y" - as "Y" in York - Translator's Note) with [z]: some Türks say adak 'legs', others say ayak, and the Bulgars, Suvars, and Yemeks say azak [Ibid, 32]. From this message it becomes clear that the opinion of the modern linguists about the rhotacism (i.e. about transformation of a sound [z] into [r]) in the ancient Bulgarian language does not match the facts. If the Bulgarian language was characterized by rhotacism, the Türkic word azak (ayak) would be pronounced as arak (chuv. ura 'leg').

The first attempts to define the ethnic roots of the Tatars were also done in the Türkic Saraijere (genealogical tree at Türks). Such Saraijere under the name "Djami ’ at-tavarih" (Collection of Annals or Collection of Histories) was made by the most significant Persian historian of the 14th century. Rashid-ad-din. He believes that the Türkic peoples, most of which are called Mongols, descend from the persons whowere sons, grandsons, great-grandsons or great-great-grandsons of the prophet Noah. One of the Türkic branches were Tatars. In the opinion of Rashid-ad-din, in the antiquity Tatars lived close to the borders of Hitay (China - Translator's Note). "For the most time they were people who were obeying and rendering tribute to the Hitay emperors" [Rashid-ad-din, 1952, 101]. Then the main place of theirs became the district called Buir-naur.

Because of the intensive development, Tatars later managed to come in control of others; "and because of their extreme greatness and honorable position the other Türkic clans, with (all) variety of their ranks and names, became known under their name and all were called Tatars... Now, owing to the prosperity of Chingizhan and his clan, because they are Mongols, [different] Türkic tribes... all of them because of self-aggrandizement call themselves Mongols, in spite of the fact that in the antiquity they did not recognize this name" [Ibid].

To this category of the sources should be rated the "Saraijera Türkiya" ("Genealogical tree of Türks"), written by the Khiva Khan Abul-Gazi Bagadurhan in the 1663. He believes that from the prophet Noah came Alancha-khan, who had two twin sons: Tatar and Mongol. From the Tatar descend the Tatars [Abul-Gazi, 1906, 33]. Earlier the Tatars lived near China, subordinated to the Chinese emperors, then they were drawn into the military campaigns of Chingiz-Khan and lived in his empires.

The tradition of drawing up the Saraijere continues, it becomes a favorite occupation for the literate people. The Authors of these Saraijere deduce their people from the tribes descending of different prophets and persons of the Khans, mainly Chingizids, whose origin was necessarily tied with the prophet Noah.

In its realism, the work of Mahmud Kashgarly favorably contrasts with Saraijere.
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68. History of ethnogenesis studies for the Tatars in the Mongolian states of Chingizids.

The ethnonym Tatars in the Europe and Near East becomes known in the connection with the Mongolo-Tatar conquest campaigns. Chingiz-Khan and his sons, attacking other countries, "everywhere sent forward the Tatars, noted Giljom (Willem) Rubruk, and from that spread their name, for everywhere was cried out: "The Tatars are coming" [Karpini Dj., 1957, 116].

The famous Persian historian of the 14th century Rashid-ad-din, describing the realities of the time, noted that the Türks of all countries conquered by Chingizids were called Tatars. So, he writes: ".... In areas of Hitay, Hind and Sind, in the Chin and Machin, in the country of Kirgizes, Kelars and Bashkirs, in the Deshte-Kipchak... at the Arabian tribes in Syria, Egypt and Maghrib [Morocco] all the Türkic tribes were called Tatars" [Rashid-ad-din, 1952, 103]. In this part of the annals Rashid-ad-din, telling about the Türks, asserts that in the above named countries the Türks are called Tatars. From the other sources we know that "Tatars" were called not only the Türks, but also all the population of the Mongolian states created by the army of the Chingizids, which itself was called Tatarian army.

Further, Rashid-ad-din describes the ethnic roots the Mongolo-Tatars in the spirit of other genealogical books, i.e. he connects the ethnic roots of Tatars with the prophets.

In the Europe, both the conquests of the Chingizids, and the states created by them, also become known as Tatarian. There instead of the ethnonym Tatar started to be applied a word Tartar ‘People from the Hell’. The French King Lui IX was attributed the saying: "If Tatars would come, we would send them to the Tartar [Bartold V.V., 1977, vol. IX, 271]. Really, in the Western Europe the Tatars frequently named Tartars, i.e. the comers from the Tartar, the Hell [Matuzova V.I., 1979, 164].

There, to the Tatars were carried all the peoples of the territories conquered by the Mongolo-Tatars, namely the peoples of all Mongolian Chingizid states, specifically the Mongolian feudal empire and the four Chingizid empires created after its split: Khubilai (China and other countries), Chagatai (Middle Asia, Afghanistan, etc.), Khulagu (Iran, Arabian countries, etc.), Djuchi (Rus, Itil Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, etc.). For example, in the collection of the Sofia library under numbers 1464 and 1465 is an article dated by the first third of the16th century, beginning with the words "Tatarian lands' names". Here is its text.

"Tatarian lands' names: Samarhand, Chagadaie, Horusani, Golustani, Kitai, Blue horde, Shiraz, Ispagan, Ornach, Gilyan, Siz, Sharban, Shamahii, Savas, Arzunoum, Telfizi, Tevrizi, Gurzistani, Obezi, Gourzii, Bagdat, Temirkaby, called Iron gates, Great Horde, Crym, Vastorokan, Sarai, Azov, Kalmaky, Nogai, Shibany, Kazan" [Kazakov N.A., 1979, 253].

The author of research N.A.Kazakov gives the following explanations for the distorted names: Ornach - Urgench, Siz - Siz in Kilia Armenia, Savas - Sevastia, Arzunoum - Erzerum, Telfizi - Tbilisi, Obezi - Abkhazia, Shibany - the land of the Shiban Tatars (Uzbeks) [Ibid, 1979, 154].

In the 15th-16th centuries the first more or less detailed maps locate the "Tartaria" in the Eastern Europe, in Siberia, in Caucasus, in Near, Middle and Middle Asia. That tradition continued for a very long time. So, V.V.Bartold in this respect remarks, that "Tartaria" in the European literature is used with the same vagueness as in the Greek was the word "Scythia". "The term "High Tartaria ” for the designation of the Central part of Asia only recently was replaced from the geographical terminology" [Bartold V.V., works, vol. IX, 1977, 271]. V.N.Tatishchev notes it also: "The European writers... all the eastern-western Asia call "Great Tartaria"... but not a single people living beyond Yaik use (the word Tatar)" [Tatishchev V.N., 1962, 233].

Later the West-European scientists, getting acquainted with the peoples at the location, started distinguishing these Tatars by their self-names. So, the German scientist and traveler of the 17th century Adam Oleary, who visited the Itil region, calls the people Bulgarian Tatars [Oleary А., 1905, 408].

Thus, in the Western Europe the initial study of the ethnogenesis is also limited to the task of defining the peoples called then Tartars by the Europeans. They present the "Tartar" as the remains of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. Only some, who gave visited the Eastern Europe or Asia, started to understand that among these Tatars are also the local peoples.

In Russia the first ethnogenetical research of non-Russian peoples also were conducted by the foreigners invited initially by Peter I, and then by the Russian Academy of Sciences. Within the 18th century the Academy sent a number of expeditions to the Itil region, Siberia and Caucasus to study the non-Russian (i.e. non-Slavic Russian, some of these non-Slavic peoples were already Russian by virtue of Russian conquests - Translator's Note) peoples. These expeditions, due to the efforts of the naturalists leading them (G.Shober, D.G.Missershmidt, G.F.Miller, I.E.Fisher, P.S.Pallas, I.I.Lepehin, S.G.Gmelin, I.A.Gildenshtedt, I.P.Falk, I.G.Georgi), and scientific-organizational activity of the "enlightened administrators" (V.N.Tatishchev, P.I.Rychkov), collected and partially processed a big linguistic, ethnographic, toponymic, historical and geographical material in respect to various peoples and nations, who were populating the eastern fringes of then Russia, including, perhaps, the overwhelming quantity of the materials about the Türkic peoples, languages, history and folklore [Kononov A.N., 1982, 58].

These foreign experts, brought up in the Western Europe, applied the ethnonym Tatars to designate the inhabitants of all four empires of Chingizids, but because they were assigned a task to study the non-Russian peoples of Russia, they call all eastern non-Russian peoples of Russia Tatars, and their lands, by the tradition of the West-European scientists, they continued to call Great Tartaria. But studying on the location the local languages, these foreigners came to a conclusion that under Tatars can be meant the ethnonyms of different peoples. So, F.I.Stralenberg (1676-1747), a captured captain the Charles XII Swedish army, exiled in the 1711 with other captured Swedes for a settlement in Tobolsk, left an appreciable trace in the history of complex studies of the Siberian Tatars, and he was one of the first who based on the established facts accomplished to group the languages, on which spoke the Tatars of the Great Tartaria and Siberia. In his works "New geographical description of the Great Tataria..." and "Northern and Eastern parts of Europe..." [Stralenberg, 1730] he comes to a conclusion that the Tatars of these regions speak 32 languages.

It would be also possible to talk in detail about the works of other foreigners who studied the Tatars of the Great Tataria and Siberia. But here is no need for it. They all were calling Tatars the eastern non-Russian peoples of Russia, but at the same time they stated that these Tatars consist of differently speaking peoples. Unfortunately, the ethnic history of these peoples did not become a subject of deep study for the scientists.
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69. History of ethnogenesis studies for the Tatars and Bulgars by Russian scientists.

As was noted, the West-European scientists and the "Russian" West-Europeans, studying in complex the Tatars of the Great Tartaria, presented these Tatars as the population of the Chingizid Tatar empires, and did not pay attention to their deeper ethnic roots.

In the 18th century the Russian scientists in Russia also started studying the works of the ancient Greek writers. They were especially attracted by the "History" written by Herodotus in the 5th century BC, which is closely connected with the peoples of the most ancient period of Russia, and which could have been used for a reconstruction of the domestic history.

The first serious work that studied the problem of the Scythians based on the composition of Herodotus was the "Scythian history", written by Andrey Lyzlov in 1692. Until 1776 it existed only in hand-written manuscripts, in the 1776 it was partially, and in the 1787 it was published completely. In this book the author represents Scythians as the ancestors of the Tatars and Turks, he substantiates his conclusions from different points, using a mass of the literature. He knew well the annals, Nikonov, Lvov, the so-called "Zaseka Chronist" (which did not survive to our time), etc. ("zaseka" is a Slavic term for a continuous bulwark Russians were using to cut off the pastoralist herdsmen from their pastures in staged appropriation of their territory by force. "Zaseka Chronist" sounds synonymous with "Colonization History", the history that may have been written but does not exist today - Translator's Note). He also used the Sedate Book (i.e. "Ranks Book" - Translator's Note), used the chronographs of different editions, numerous stories ("Story about Turks", "Story about Mahmete", "Story about Tsargrad" from the chronographic editions of Nestora-Iskander, "Story about capture of Kazan"), mostly borrowed by him from annalistic tradition [Neihardt A.A., 1982, 8]. A.Lyzlov knew well the western works and works of antique authors. Therefore we can tell with confidence that the A.Lyzlov's conclusions about the Tatars and Turks being one of the descendants of the Scythians are convincing enough.

In the beginning of the 18th century the known Russian historian Vasily Nikitich Tatischev was scrupulously engaged in the problems of the origin of the Tatars, Türks and Bulgars. In his works subsequently published as the "Russian History", he dedicates special chapters: "Remains of the Scythians, Turks and Tatar", "Tatars from the Scyths beyond Imay", "About Bulgars and Hvalises, the ancient Argipei and Issedoni", "Bulgars and Hvalises".

V.N.Tatishchev believes that earlier the Slavs, Sarmatians, Turks, Mongols, Persians, Chinese and even Germans were called Scythians. When the scientists sorted out the peoples, each of them started to be designated by their names. As a result, in the 10th century the general name Scythians has stopped to be used. Greeks learned the names Saratseni and Turks, and in the Western Europe since the 13th century "The name Tatars became famous, and both began to be used instead of the Scyth, mixing in both the different peoples called by that" [Tatishchev V.N., 1962, vol. 1, 232-233].

V.N.Tatishchev also tells that in Russia all Mohammedans were called Tatars [Ibid, 239], but that the peoples who by the Europeans and Russians are called Tatars, do not called themselves with this ethnonym, and even do not know what this word Tatar designates [Ibid, 233].

V.N.Tatishchev studied in detail the Bolgar/Bulgar people. As he thinks, the Bulgars lived along Itil, Kama, Sviyaga, they had great cities Bulgar, Bilyar, Ashly, Tashly, etc. Bulgars were in close trade relations with Persia, India, with the Arabian countries, Novgorod, Sweden, Holland, Ireland and other countries.

In the V.N.Tatishchev's opinion, Bulgars historically accend to the ancient Hvalises, Issedons and to Argippeis. Hvalises lived in the north of the Caspian Sea, which was also called Hvalynian Sea (from the ethnonym Hvalises). In the 1232 the Suzdal bishop Simon called Hvalises the Lower Bulgars, Abul-Gazi Bagadurhan in his Tatar history called the Bulgarian lands Deshti-Kypchak, and the ancient Greek writers called the Bulgars Issedons [Tatishchev V.N., 1962, vol. I., 269], and Herodotus and Pliny called the Bulgar Argipeis [Tatishchev V.N., vol. IV, 70].

Thus, V.N.Tatishchev all Tatars (all Mohammedans), and also the Bulgars considers to be aboriginals of the territory, and their origin links with various Scythian tribes.

A Russian scientist of the 18th century Peter Ivanovich Rychkov also studied the problems of the Tatars' and Türks' history. The word Tatars he also used in a broad sense, including in that concept almost all Türkic peoples. "All scholarly people agree that the Tatar people, dispersed to many places, are real scions of the Scythians, and all the ancient, both the Greek and Roman writers, ordinarily described the nowday's Tatars under the name of the Scythians, and sometimes including there also the Sarmatians " [Rychkov P.I., 1999, 45]. Further P.I.Rychkov notes that Scythians lived both in Europe, and in Asia, "that between the Scythians, and even more so between the Sarmatians, always lived many Slavs" [Ibid].

In the works of P.I.Rychkov we also find information about Bulgars. In his information, Bulgars lived in the Deshti Kypchak, fought against Mongols, in their Great Bulgaria country also lived Bashkirs.

The echoes of the views of the West-European scientists about the peoples of the Great Tataria, about the Scythians, recognized as ancestors of many local peoples in the East Europe and Asia, also are in the "History of the Russian State" by N.M.Karamzin [Chapter 1].

The modern scientists supporting the Scytho-Iranian theories label the teachings of the 18th century historians, about the Scythians and their descendants, Tatars (in a broad sense of this word), unscientific [Neihardt A.A., 1982, 23], for in the 19th century started a real struggle for the Scythian heritage: some scientists attribute the Scythians to the Slavs, others to the Indo-Europeans, the third to the Indo-Iranians, and particularly to the Ossets. We believe that the research of the 17th-18th centuries' scholars contains a rational kernel.
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70. Origin and development of the Magyaro-Misharo-Tatarian concept in the history of study the ethnogenesis of the Tatars.

In a history of studies of the Tatar, in narrow sense of this word (Tatars not in a sense ‘non-Russian eastern peoples’ and not in sense 'Türks'), ethnogenesis , i.e. of the Bulgaro-Tatars a certain place takes the study of the process of emergence and development of the Magyaro-Misharo-Tatarian concept. According to this concept, in the Ural-Itil region in the 6th-9th centuries AD was located the so-called Маgna Hungaria (Great Hungary) which ostensibly in the 9th century had for some reasons migrated to the Pannonia, and the remaining part of the Hungarians (Magyars) under an influence of the newcomer Türks was Türkicized, forming the Mishar-Tatars and Bashkirs.

How come and from where appeared this concept?

As is known, the Arabo-Persian travelers, the composers of the sources about other peoples, in the 9th-10th centuries AD pointed that between the Besenyo (Badjinak) lands and lands of the Bulgarian s'k'l' is a country Almadjgaria where Madjgars live [Zahoder B.N., 1967, 48]. In the middle of the 19th century the French scientist S.Defremeri identified Madjgars with Magyars-Hungarians. Later, the scientists supporting this interpretation of the Madjgars in their own way determined that the Madjgars are really the Hungarians, that they in the 7th-9th centuries lived not only between the Bulgarian s'k'l's and Besenyos (Badjinaks), but also in the land of the Bulgars and Bashkirs by the river White, in the Urals and in the Southern Ural: in those regions ostensibly was the Great Hungary. The so-called Kushnarenko-Karayakup archeological culture found there was attributed to the remains of the Great Hungary. But because in the better known time there were no Hungarians, but lived only the Bulgars and Bashkirs, was being made the conclusion that the Great Hungary emigrated to the Pannonia (why, for what purpose the whole country would move from the settled habited place and move into an uncertainty?), its place in the Ural-Itil region was take by the Türks, who Türkicized the remaining Hungarians, forming at that new peoples under the name Tatars-Mishars and Bashkirds.

Believed in the validity of this version, the historians started searching for the traces of the Hungarians in the territory of the Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. Alas, E.A.Halikova and A.H.Halikov "have found" the Hungarian burials in the Bolshe-Tiganian burial grounds of the Alekseev region, in the very center of the Itil Bulgaria [Halikova E.A., Halikov A.H., 1981], and the Bashkir historians "have found" the traces of the Hungarians-Ugrs in the Southern Ural [see collection "Problems of Ancient Ugrs in the Southern Ural". Ufa, 1988]. But about this question no common opinion exist among the archeologists. V.A.Ivanov, who is studying these problems, recognizes that if the majority of the researchers attributes the monuments Kushnarenko-Karayakup type to the "Ugrian" (E.A.Halikova, A.H.Halikov, G.I.Matveeva, E.P.Kazakov, V.A.Mogilnikov, R.G.Kuzeev, V.A.Ivanov) or Ugro-Nenetsian (the author, quoting V.F.Gening, uses the Russian derogatory word "Samoed", i.e "Self-eating" moniker, still widely used in the ethnological classifications, for the Nenets group of languages - Translator's Note) (V.F.Gening) N.A.Majitov persistently leads and advocates a concept about belonging of the Kushnarenko-Karayakup monuments (per N.A.Majitov Kara-Yakup Culture) to the Türks, to the ancient Bashkirs" [Ivanov V.A., 1988, 53]. Does not also agree with the postulate about the presence of the "Great Hungary" in the Ural-Itil region the archeologist V.F.Gening. Particularly, he wrote: "Even a cursory observation shows that genetically, the burial grounds of the Kushnarenko type and the Hungarian of the 9th-10th c. are incompatible, and hence, it is wrongful to allocate the territory of the lower r. White as "Great Hungary" [Gening V.F., 1977, 320].

A closer analysis of the evidence about the Madjgars rejects very easy the invalidity of the Madjaro-Misharo-Tatarian and the Madjaro-Bashkirian concepts.

First, the location of the Madjgar teritory raises doubts. The Arabian sources write that Madjgaria is located between the lands of the Bulgarian skl (s'k'l') and the Besenyos (Badjinaks), that the Madjgars had direct economic relations with the Byzantium. Mahmud Kashgarly in the 11th century noted that Besenyos (Badjinaks) live next to the Byzantium. The doubt is, how could the Madjgars be located in the territory between the Itil and Ural, most likely they had to live somewhere in the Northern Caucasus.

Secondly, the Arabian travelers unanimously inform that the Madjgars are Türks, they speak in Türkic. The supporters of identification the Madjgar with the Hungarians-Magyars very lightly assert that ostensibly the eastern historians were unanimously mistaken, that they by mistake misidentified the Hungarian language as the Türkic language [Erdeyn I., 1961, 307-320]. S.Defremeri and his followers were simply unaware that there were and still are the Madjgars who speak Türkic language; they lived and continue living in the Northern Caucasus and in the basin of the rivers Oka, Sura, in the Meshcher lowland. Most likely, the Arabian travelers wrote about these Türkic-speaking Madjgars/Machars/Mishars.

Thirdly, if the Mishars and Bashkirs originally were Hungarian-speaking Magyars, in their language would necessarily be retained the Hungarian substratum, i.e. the native Hungarian words, but they do not exist. Hence, the Hungarians any did not render any influence upon the formation process of the Mishars and the Bashkirs.

Failing to find the Hungarian substratum in the Mishars' and Bashkirs' language, some scientists came to a conclusion that the ancestors of the Tatars and Bashkirs did not live in the Ural-Itil region together with the Hungarians. They (the ancestors of the Tatars and Bashkirs) ostensibly from the aside monitored for the Ural-Itil region to be free from the Hungarians, and came in the Ural-Itil region only after a total departure of all Hungarians from there [Serebrennikov B.A., 1963, 22].

Fourthly, if in the Ural-Itil region for 200-250 years lived the Hungarians-Magyars, after them should remain a mass of the Hungarian toponyms, but they also do not exist.

As to the detection of the burials similar to the burials in Hungary, by E.A.Halikova and A.H.Halikov in the center of the Itil Bulgaria, and by the Bashkirian scientists in the Kama area and Urals [Hungarians, 1987, 236-239], it should be noted that these territories are not the lands between the Bulgarian skl (s'k'l') and Besenyos (Badjinaks).

So, how to explain the fact of the finding in the Hungary and the Ural-Itil region of the identical burials? In the Pannonia, where the Hungary is located, next to the Hungarians lived the Türkic-speaking Kumans, Kuns (Huns), Alans-Ases who also lived in the Ural-Itil region. Therefore its nothing surprising that both in Pannonia, and in the Ural-Itil region the same burials could be found.

Thus, the Magyaro-Misharo-Tatarian and the Magyaro-Bashkirian ethnogenetic concepts do not match the reality.
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71. Origin and development of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the history of study of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars.

Even the first foreign scientists who included all eastern non-Russians in the semantics of the ethnonym Tatars, and later all the Türks, noted that these Tatars consists of various peoples: Vogul Tatars (Mansi), Abakan Tatars, Chulym Tatars, Kazakh Tatars, etc. Among them the scientists-travelers in the 17th century noted the presence of the Bulgaro-Tatars, i.e. the Bulgarian Tatars [Oleary А., 1905, 408]. That was the first application of the ethnonym Bulgaro-Tatars in the history.

The Bulgarian origin of the Kazan Tatars was known to the Tatar intelligentsia of the 17th-18th centuries. That is witnessed by the two works about the history of the Bulgars created at the end of the 18th and in the beginning of the 19th century. These are the "Tavarih-i Bulgaria" by Hisamutdin bin Sharafutdin Bulgari-Muslimi and "Tarih name-i Bulgar" by Tadütdin Yalchygulov. They are written in the traditional genre "Türkic family tree" where the origin of the Bulgars by the tradition of genealogical compositions is lead to the prophets and Adam [Usmanov M.A., 1972, 134-166; Galyautdinov I.G., 1998].

The history of the ethnogenetical studies of the Tatars in the 19th century marked by the use of the term Tatar in Russia was starting to be applied as the ethnonym in a narrow sense, i.e. in its semantics were included only the Tatars of the Ural-Itil region, Crimean, Lithuanian, and Dobrudjian. At that time appeared historians who were studying the ethnogenesis of only the Kazan Tatar, or sometimes of the Tatars of the Ural-Itil region.

In the beginning of the 19th century the first historians who were specifically studying the Ural-Itil region's Tatar ethnogenesis, noticed at once that the history of the ethnonym Tatar and a history of the ethnos Tatar do not coincide. They succeeded in proving that the Tatars of the Ural-Itil region by their anthropological attributes, ethnological features, mythological views are absolutely unlike the Mongolo-Tatars, and remind readily the local Türkic-speaking tribes called Bulgars in the Bulgarian state. And then this state occupied not only the Middle Itil territory (as now some Bulgarologists unsoundly minimize its borders), but the more extensive regions: from the Oka to the coast of the Caspian Sea, from the borders of The Old Rus to the r. Irtysh and the borders of Khoresm. In this extensive territory the Bulgars even after the disintegration of the Kipchak Khanate considered themselves a separate nation, did not rate themselves as Tatars, i.e. the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. The first researchers of the Tatar history, noticing it, professed that the Itil Tatars as ethnos were the descendants of local Itil Bulgars, and the ethnonym Tatars came there later, together with the Mongolo-Tatars.

So, V.V.Grigorjev in 1836 published a special work "Volga Tatars", where he very easy and intelligibly proved that the Itil Tatars are the Itil Bulgars. He wrote "Present Kazan and Siberian Tatars, bearing the khalats (Türkic long outer gown - Translator's Note) in streets of the Russian cities, call themselves Bulgarlyk 'Bulgardom' " [Grigorjev V.V., 1836, 24].

In second half of the 19th century N.Ostroumov in his work "First experience of the ordinary Tatar language dictionary by the speech of the Christened Tatars of the Kazan province" attested that the ethnonym Tatar is a newcomer, but then for the Russians it served as the external name for very many peoples, including the Siberian, Crimean, and Itil Türks. Especially emphasizing that the ethnonym Tatar did not become the self-name of these peoples, he wrote: "these aliens still remember till now about their not Tatar, i.e. not Mongolian origin, and they ordinarily call themselves... Moslems, or Bulgars" [Ostroumov Н., 1876, 10] (The author, Ostroumov, used the term "inorodets", by which the Russian colonizers called the aboriginal population, twisting the semantics upside down and calling the aboriginals "aliens" vs. themselves if not exactly "natives", at least something like "our root" - Translator's Note).

A big contribution to the development of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept made S.M.Shpilevsky, who in the 1877 published in Kazan the results of his complex research called "Ancient cities and other Bulgaro-Tatar monuments in the Kazan province". Explaining the meaning of the Bulgaro-Tatar history for understanding of the process of making up the Russian people, he wrote: "the Great-russian populace composed and developed under a direct influence of the neighboring alien tribes (The author, Shpilevsky, used the term "inorodets" - Translator's Note) of the Bulgarian federation, and subsequently of the Kazan Kingdom, absorbing the aliens and imbibing much from them into its core" [Shpilevsky S.M., 1877, 1]. For the first time in the Bulgaro-Tatar history S.M.Shpilevsky's subjects to the analysis the main Muslim sources (Ibn-Fadlan, Ibn-Ruste, Masudi, el-Balhi, Istahri, Ibn-Haukal) about the Bulgarian cities [Ibid, 3-7]. The same can be also said about his detailed analysis of the Russian sources about the Bulgaro-Tatars.

It should be also noted that after the publication of the S.M.Shpilevsky's capital work the ethnonym Bulgaro-Tatars is used by all leading historians of the Tatars.

N.G.Chernyshevsky knew the Tatar language and was also vividly interested in the Tatar history. He stated his ideas about the ethnogenesis of the Tatars thus: "Out of present Crimean, Kazan and Orenburg Tatars there is not a single person descending from the Batu soldiers, the present Tatars are the descendants of the former tribes who were living in these places before Batu and and were subjugated by Batu like were subjugated the Russians" [Chernyshevsky N.G., 1951, 245-246].

At the end of the 19th century appear aboriginal historians, the natives from the Itil Tatars, they enrich the Bulgaro-Tatar concept by the new, more weighty arguments. Among them Kaüm Nasyri should be the first in the list, he adhered to the theory of the Bulgarian origin of the Tatars and for the proofs of it was giving numerous ethnographical evidence [Nasyri К., 1975].

Shigabutdin Mardjani stepped out as a convinced supporter of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. On one hand, he has proved incontestably that the ancestors of the Tatars are the local Türkic tribes called Bulgars within the Bulgarian state, on the other hand, he explained that that nation has already accepted the ethnonym Tatars, therefore to reject it, as is done by the some people, does not make sense. The negative altitude of the Russians to the Tatars is not only because the Tatars carry the name of the conquerors; if the people were called not the Tatars, but the Moslems, that Russian negative attitude would be all the same, he explained [Mardjani Sh., 1989, 43-44]. Then, all the healthy forces of the Tatar historians followed in the S.Mardjani steps, and supported the Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the study of the ethnogenesis of that people.

The first after S.Mardjani who continued deep ethnogenetical research was Gaynetdin Ahmerov, and he published two books: Bulgar tarihy ‘History of Bulgaria’ (1909), and Kazan tarihy ‘History of Kazan’ (1910). About the ethnogenesis of the Tatars, G.Ahmerov wrote in the "History of Kazan": "Though it is traditionally viewed that Bulgars and Kazan are essentially two separate states that replaced one another, but at close historical comparison and study allows to easily find their direct heredity, and to some extent even their alikeness: in the Kazan Khanate lived the same Türko-Bulgarian people" [Ahmerov Г., 1998, 62].

The outstanding historian Riza Fahreddinov recognized the Türks and Bulgars as the ancestors of the modern Tatars, but he did not use the term Tatars, he called the modern Tatars Kazan Töreklère, i.e the ‘Kazan Türks’, accordingly his book also is called "Bulgar vè Kazan Töreklère" (Bulgar and Kazan Türks), composed mostly in the 1908-1918, but published only in the 1993. As to Bulgars proper, Riza Fahreddinov holds that they were formed as a result of consolidation of the Huns and Finno-Ugric peoples. The population of the Bulgaria, though they had a common name Bulgar, the peoples among them also retained their own ethnonyms: Türk, Chuvash, Ar, Chirmish, Bashkir, Mishar, Tiptyar, etc. [Fahreddinov Р., 1993, 24].

In the 1909 G.Alisov noted in his article "The Muslim question in Russia" (Russian thought, № 7): "If to ask a Tatarin about his nationality, he would not call himself a Tatar, and ethnographically he would be partly right, as this name is a historical misunderstanding" [Alisov Г., 1909, 39]. Here he believes that these Tatars are the descendants of the Bulgars.

In the 1910 was published a book of P.Znamensky "Kazan Tatars" (Kazan), in which the author attracts the attention of the readers to the fact that the "Tatars called themselves Bulgars (Bulgarlyk), linking themselves, in this way, into the most direct connection with that... nation" [Znamensky P., 1910, 4].

The famous Tatarian historian Hadi Atlasi in his book "Kazan hanlygy" (Kazan Khanate. Kazan, 1914) directly connects the construction of the Kazan with the Bulgars, considering them to be the ancestors of the Kazan Tatars [Atlasi H., 1993, 185].

The world famous historian Ahmet Zaki Validi Togan, still in his student years in Kazan has written the book "Kyskacha Törek-Tatars tarihy" (Brief history of the Türko-Tatars. Kazan, 1917), in which the Bulgarian period is considered as one of stages of the formation of the Bulgaro-Tatars from the Türks.

The known Tatar historian Gaziz Gubaydullin, advocating the acceptance of the ethnonym Tatar, notes that the name Tatars was given to the population of the Kipchak Khanate "More in the political than in the ethnographic sense. It is very important that then the population did not yet call themselves "Tatars".... Thus, in the Altyn Orda period of the East European Türks' history the Tatar people could not yet be created in ethnological sense of this word. The history of the Kipchak Khanate for the stated reasons is not the main part of the history of the Itil Tatars, but is only a history of those elements from which were subsequently created the Nogays, Crimean Tatars, Bashkirs, Uzbeks, Itilian Tatars" [Gubaydullin G.S., 1928, 141]. The Itil Tatars he acknowledges as the descendants of the Bulgars and other Türkic tribes.

A special value has for the history the opinion of the outstanding writer and politic Gayaz Ishaki (pronounced "Ih-s-khaki" - Translator's Note) who specially studied the history of the Tatar people to write a historical reference article about "Idel-Ural", published for the first time in the 1933 in Tatar, Russian and French languages. Developing the views he expressed in the beginning of the 20th century in his composition "Ike yüz eldan son_g inkyiraz" (Disappearance after two hundred years), in his work "Idel-Ural" he comes to a conclusion that the Kazan Tatars were formed on the basis of the Bulgarian population, which also adopted much from the newcomers, i.e. from the Mongolo-Tatars [Ishaki G., 1991, 11-15].

The historian Gabdulbari Battal in the 1922-23, studying in the library of the Helsinki university, wrote the book "Kazan Kazan Töreklère" (Kazan Türks) which was published in Istanbul in the 1925, where he stipulates that the Kazan Türks (i.e. Tatars) formed from the basis of a further development of the Bulgars in a broad sense of this word [Battal G., 1925, 2nd part, 1st Ch.].

The opinion of M.Hudjakov, who in 1923 published his book "Sketches for the history of the Kazan Khanate", is very important for us. As an unsurpassed expert on the Kazan Khanate and as an objective historian, he wrote about the ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars: "The base population of the Kazan Khanate were the descendants of the ancient Bulgars, which is an old, settled people of Türkic origin, which long before the Kazan Khanate created in the Middle Itil region a state, which traded widely, and was associated with Muslim culture for a long time" [Khudyakov М., 1996, 541] (The above bibliographical review is itself a testament to the devastation made to the historical science and its scholars during the country-wide Stalinist national-socialistic terror of the 1920es-1980es, when nothing of value could be published in Russia on this subject prior to the already suppressed momentary renaissance of the 1990es - Translator's Note).
228

72. Rebirth of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the studies of the Tatars' ethnogenesis.

In the 1930es the Communist Party starts propagandizing the idea of the creation of the uniform Soviet people. All national personnel that worked in the field of the revival, preservation and development of the nations (especially small nations), are subjected to discharge of that function or to a physical elimination as enemies of the construction of communism i.e. as enemies of the people. As creation of the ethnic history for the small nations is directly connected with the policy of revival and development of these nations, so any ethnogenetical research of the Tatar peoples stop. A revival in that area begins only after the end of the Great Patriotic War (i.e. WWII - Translator's Note).

Alarmed that the small nations of the USSR start addressing their ancient history, the Moscow makes a decision to restrain the ancientization of the history of the non-Russian peoples (i.e. the Russin subject people that are not ethnically Slavic - Translator's Note). The display of this apprehension materialized by the promulgation on August 9, 1944 of the decisions of the Central Committee VKP (b) (i.e. all-Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) - Translator's Note) "Condition and improvement measures for mass-political and ideological work in the Tatar party organization", in the item 7 of which was written: "Urge the Tatar Obkom VKP (b) (Reginal Committee - Translator's Note) to organize a scientific creation of the history of the Tataria, eliminate the serious deficits and mistakes of a nationalist character in the illumination of the history of the Tataria (embellishing the Golden Horde, popularization of the Khano-feudal epos about Idegy) made by different historians and literators. A special attention shall be to the research and illumination of the history of the joint struggle of the Russian, Tatar and other peoples of the USSR against foreign captors, against Tsarism and feudal-capitalistic oppression".

This citation is given here to understand correctly the essence of the decision of the Central Committee VKP (b) about the study of the history of the Tatarstan and Tatar people. In it the emphasis is made that neither historians, nor the writers were not engaged in embellishment of the Kipchak Khanate, in the popularization of the Khano-feudal epos about Idegy, but is urged to engage only in the later history, specifically in the periods after annexation of the Kazan Khanate to the Russian state.

Despite of that, the Tatar historians, linguists, literary critics, folklorists continued to poke in both the Altyn Orda, and the Bulgarian in periods of the history and culture of the Tatar people. But the historians were under a microscope, and therefore they had to limit to the display of only the negative sides of the Kipchak Khanate. The epos "Idegey" had to be forgotten. To maneuver out of this difficult situation, in the Republic was resolved to involve in the ethnogenetical research the Russian experts from Moscow also. Therefore the Institute of Language, Literature and History applied to the History and Philosophy Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences the with a petition to hold in the Moscow a special session devoted to the ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars. The session was held on April 25-26, 1946, there was discussed the question about the relation of the history of the Bulgars to the ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars. The Bulgar-Chuvash concept was endeavored to be preserved, for by then it was already recognized by the world Türkology.

The value of this session for the deeper study of the Tatars was profound. First, the year 1944 was the year of the deportation of nations who were considered to be the newcomers to their native land from only the 11th century AD. In those years the Kazan Tatars were also considered newcomers and conquerors of the territory. The deportation could also involve the Kazan Tatars, but their heroic struggle against the German invaders and the efforts of the historians, who proved that the present Tatars are not the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors, the Kazan Tatars were saved from this doom. Secondly, this session proved to all the world that the Kazan Tatars have deep ethnic roots in the Itil region and Urals.

The leading speaker at the session was the professor A.P.Smirnov. In his report "Question of the origin of the Tatars of the Itil region" he, after an analysis of the historical works for this theme, came to a conclusion that the modern Tatars of the Itil region are not Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. "The Mongols, crossing with fire and sword the Itil Bulgaria, did not settled in the Middle Itil region and in no case did they rendered an appreciable influence on the formation of the physical type of the modern Tatars. After the conquest of the Bulgaria by the Mongols, the Bulgars for a long time retained their name... Under their own name of Bulgars, and not the Tatars, know them also the Russian annals. So, in the events of the 1311, 1366, 1370, 1374-1391 the Bulgars were called Bulgars, or (in the Nikon annals) Kazanians, or Besermyans, but nowhere they are designated as Tatars" [Smirnov A.P., 1948, 14]. However, A.P.Smirnov was not an exception among the Indo-European historians. Trusting their doctrines, he believed that the Bulgars also were newcomers. "Among the autochtonous tribes were no Türks, he continues, ...the modern Chuvashes, like the Tatars, are the successors of the Bulgarian culture" [Ibid, 148]. A.P.Smirnov in his conclusion states a seditious then idea that the Alans-Sarmatians could be Türks. "The Bulgars belonged to the Alano-Sarmatian tribes. This element is well traced in the culture of the Itil Bulgars" [Ibid, 150]. With this remark he rejects his own declaration that the Bulgars were newcomers.

At the session of the History and Philosophy Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences a very important report was also made by T.A.Trofimova on the theme "Ethnogenesis of the Tatars of the Middle Itil region in view of the evidence of anthropology". The anthropological material, which by its nature is the most objective, shows that Bulgaro-Tatars neither during the Bulgar period, nor during the formation of the Tatars were not a newcoming population. T.A.Trofimova concludes: "... The study of the anthropological composition of the Tatar ASSR Tatars shows that the modern Tatar population has developed on the basis of ancient layers of the local population, which included in its composition some later anthropological layers" [Trofimova T.A., 1948, 61].

All other lecturers and co-speakers, N.I.Vorobiev, L.Z.Zalyay, N.F.Kalinin, and H.G.Gimadi were confirming the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept.

There T.A.Trofimova had incontestably proved the direct ethnic connection of the Bulgaro-Tatars with the pre-Bulgarian ancient local population. This courageous viewpoint was supported by S.E.Malov. Participating in the discussion on the reports, he said: "... That these two language mediums (Tatar and Chuvash - M.Z.) were there for a very long time, centuries before our era, and almost in the same form as now. If the present Tatars would have met a pressumed "ancient Tatarin", the inhabitant of the 5th century BC, they would have communicated quite well... In my assertion I base on the great stability and little changeability of the Türkic languages" [Malov S.E., 1948, 116].

Thus, after a 15-years break, the ethnogenetical research was restarted, and was restored the Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the study of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars.
231

73. Rise of necessity to define the essence of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept.

After the discussion at the session of the History and Philosophy Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, calmed by the newly found common language in the question about the ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars, the Tatar historians started to work in quiet atmosphere. But soon the calmness was broken. M.G.Safargaliev voiced in a periodical media in an article "One of the disputable questions of the history of Tataria" ("History Questions" № 7, 1951) where he reproached the participants of the session that they, putting forward the thesis about the Bulgarian origin of the Kazan Tatars, ostensibly did not consider at all the participation in it of the Desht-i Kipchak Türkic tribes, so-called Tatars, who were speaking, like the Kama Bulgars, the Türkic, and truer, the Kipchak language.

The presence in the Kipchak Khanate of the numerous Tatars M.G.Safargaliev "proves" by that they were called Tatars by the Persian historian Rashid-ad-din and the historians of the Western Europe, completely overlooking that into the concept 'Tatars' were included not only the Bulgars, not only all the population of the Kipchak Khanate, but also the population of other empires of Chingizids (Chagatai, Khubilai and Khulagu), and that all the peoples of these empires retained their own ethnonyms, including the Bulgars who have not lost their ethnonym until the 19th century.

A very logical answer to M.Safargaliev gave H.Gimadi in his article "Some questions of the history of Tataria" ("History Questions", № 12, 1951). H.Gimadi notes that in spite of the fact that the lecturers speaking at the session prepared independently one from each other, their conclusions in respect to the origin of the Kazan Tatars have mostly coincided. He formulated the main conclusion of the participants of the session as follows: "The Kazan Tatars as a nation formed in the place of their modern habitation from the aboriginal population and the Türkic-speaking Bulgarian and partly Kypchak tribes that have received the name of the Itil or Kama Bulgars" [Gimadi X., 1951, 119]. This opinion adequately reflected the conclusions of the discussion at the session, and on that basis was defined the essence of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. Some historians, not understanding the essence of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, criticized the conclusions of discussion at the session of the History and Philosophy Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, advocating instead of the Bulgarian the Altyn Ordu origin of the Tatars.

What is the essence of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept?

First, the concept about a Bulgarian origin of the Tatars does not reject the concept about their Altyn Orda origin, and on the contrary presupposes it. In fact, the Türkic population of the Bulgarian state that consisted of different local Türkic-speaking and Türkicized tribes, who received a common ethnonym Bulgars, after their conquest by the Mongolo-Tatars did not soar somewhere in air, but continued to live in the Kipchak Khanate. Therefore the scientists divide the history of the Itil Bulgaria into two main periods: the "pre-Mongolian (10th - first half of the 13th centuries), and the Altyn Orda (second half of the 13th - first half of the 15th centuries)" [Halikov A.H., 1994, 53-103, 152-158; Fahrutdinov R.G., 1975, 5].

Knowing this makes it difficult to agree with the formulation of the question: do the Kazan Tatars originate from the Bulgarian or the Kipchak Khanate state? In fact, the ancestors of the Kazan Tatars lived both in the Kipchak Khanate, and in the Bulgarian states, at different times also accepting an insignificant quantity of the newcomers.

Secondly, the theory about the Bulgarian origin of the Tatars can be put in opposition to the concept of their Altyn Orda origin only in the event when the last concept is understood as Mongolo-Tatarian i.e. if to think as follows: the Mongolo-Tatars have conquered the Bulgarian state, settled there and assimilated the Bulgars. But that did not happen, and on the contrary, the local Bulgars assimilated the insignificant quantity of the Chingizids' posted soldiers. This is eloquently evidenced by the fact that the Tatar language historically ascends not to the Eastern-Türkic, but to the Ural-Itilian local norms.

Thirdly, the Bulgaro-Tatar concept does not reject that after the Mongolo-Tatar conquest the newcomer Mongolo-Tatars have penetrated in the Bulgar society, but accounts that such newcomer elements were, but they rather quickly assimilated among the local Bulgars, rather than the reverse.

Fourthly, the word Tatars in the name Bulgaro-Tatars does not mean that once to local Bulgars came the eastern Tatars. These Tatars after the Mongolian conquests did not exist, i.e. the self-name Tatars was not used anywhere, this word was used by other peoples only as an external name for the population of all four Chingizid empires, including all Altyn Orda citizens. The word Tatars in the name Bulgaro-Tatars means only that the former Bulgars under the influence of the external factors in the 19th century started to apply, instead of the ethnonym Blgar/Bulgar the ethnonym Tatar, though earlier for external interfaces the Bulgars also used this ethnonym.

Fifthly, the Bulgaro-Tatar concept does not reject, but pressumes the presence of pre-Bulgarian aboriginal Türkic tribes, who also are the ancestors of the Bulgaro-Tatars. Thinking that the far ancestors of the modern Tatars were not only the Bulgars, but also other Türks, especially pre-BulgarianTürks, some scientists, deeming the simple ethnonym Tatars to be a misconstrual, applied a composite ethnonym Türko-Tatars. For example, the chairman of the Muslim fraction in the Russian State Duma, Sadri Maksudi, at its November 10, 1910, session declared that "… The term Tatars is not a scientific term.., it is based on a historical mishap". Therefore in his works he avoided using the ethnonym Tatars, and in relation to the Kazan Tatars he recommended the ethnonym Türko-Tatars, also including there Bashkirs. So, on July 31, 1917, the 2nd All-Russian congress of Moslems accepted thesises prepared by Sadri Maksudi "Foundations for cultural-national autonomy of Moslems in the Internal Russia and Siberia" where the people were called with the ethnonym Türko-Tatars, and their language was called Türki (accent on the second syllable - Translator's Note) language. Nowadays the concept 'Türko-Tatars' includes the Dobrudja Tatars and Crimean Tatars. Thus, the Bulgaro-Tatar concept does not reject the Türko-Tatar concept, but includes it.

Sixthly, the Bulgaro-Tatar concept is opposing the Bulgaro-Chuvash and Tataro-Tatar concepts (about that is below).
234

74. Further complex confirmation of the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept.

With the understanding and exact definition of the essence of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, not only the historians, but also philologists and even philosophers started addressing the problems of the Bulgaro-Tatars ethnogenesis.

The Tatar historians and the department of the history of the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Kazan branch the USSR Academy of Sciences, carrying out objective ethnogenetical research, became convinced even more in the correctness of this concept supporters. Therefore it became the backbone in the illumination of the Tatar ethnogenesis in such summarizing works, as the "History of the Tatar ASSR" (in two volumes, vol. 1, 1955); "History of the Tatar ASSR (from the most ancient time to present)". Kazan, 1968; "Tatars of the Middle Itil region and Urals". Kazan, 1967; "History of the Tatar ASSR". Kazan, 1973.

The Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the study of the Bulgaro-Tatar ethnogenesis received a further development in the special collection of the scientific works "Questions of the ethnogenesis of the Türkic-speaking peoples in the Middle Itil region". Kazan, 1971.

In the 1960es-70es T.Davletshin vigorously studied the post-revolutionary history of the Tatars, he also studied their ethnogenesis in detail. He wrote about it: "Tatars mostly are the descendants of the ancient Itil Bulgars" [Davletshin Т., 1974, 9].

From the 1970es among the historians A.H.Halikov becomes a leading expert on the ethnogenesis, to the end of his life he consistently conducted ethnogenetical research on the basis of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. His personal beliefs, formed as a result of his scrupulous archeological research, he for the first time fully expressed in his monograph "Tatar halkynyn_g kilep chygyshy" (Origin of the Tatar people. Kazan, 1974). There he has shown that he is conducting objectively and scientifically the analysis of the material, not allowing unscientific, i.e. selective use of the factual material and literature.

His views at the problems of the Bulgaro-Tatars origin A.H.Halikov deepened in the following books:
1) Origin of the Tatars of the Itil region and Urals. Kazan, 1978;
2) Tatar people and their predecessors. Kazan, 1989;
3) Berenche dèülèt (Bulgar ile) ‘First State (Bulgaria Country)'. Kazan, 1991;
4) Who we are, Bulgars or Tatars? Kazan, 1992;
5) Mongols, Tatars, Kipchak Khanate and Bulgaria. Kazan, 1994.

The monographs of A.H.Halikov became reference books for several generations of the Tatar intelligentsia, the lovers of history of their people. His pupils properly continued his tasks, but some ungrateful of them started defaming him posthumously, sarcastically gauging the heritage of their teacher as "Halikovshchina" (derogatory, akin to "Halikovist" times, science, regime etc. - Translator's Note).

The objectivity of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the studies of the Tatar ethnogenesis is supported by the archeological materials found in the last years in the Samara area. For example, the archeologists from Samara R.S.Bagautdinov, A.V.Bogachev, S.E.Zubov from the analysis of a huge quantity of the archeological material came to a convincing conclusion that at sources of the Itil-Kama Tatar history stood the Pra-Bulgars [Bagautdinov R.S., Bogachev A.V., Zubov S.E., 1998] (Pra-Bulgars is a funny moniker specifically invented by the Russian PC historical lingo to avoid naming Bulgars. With no Pra-Norwegians, Pra-Finns, Pra-Italians or Pra-Eskimo etc. in existence, the invention of the Pra-Bulgars, used solely in the Russian and Danube Bolgaria Indo-Europeist lingo, is a masterpiece of the Orwellian creativity - Translator's Note).

Ferit Agi, Ali Akysh and Nadir Davlet in the joint work "Tatarlar" (Tatars) in the book "Cossack vè Tatar Türklère" (Kazakh and Tatar Türks), published in Istanbul in the 1976 spoke out as supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. They write that "the people formed from the consolidation of different Türkic tribes of the Desht-i Kypchak, the descendants of the Itil Bulgars, the various Finnish tribes, and also lost Mongols, was given the name Tatars" [Agi Ф., 1976, 130].

The Bulgaro-Tatar concept received a further international resonance in the monograph of the USA Southern California University professor Azade-Aisha Rorlih "Itil Tatars..." [Rorlih A. A., 1986, 5-9]. It has a special value for the Tatar history, for A.Rorlih has a world recognition, in particular world-renown orientalist Alexander Bennigsen wrote about her: "Among the living historians only Rorlih uniquely combines the linguistical abilities, ethnic acuity, historical penetration. She also has the factual material allowing her to finish research successfully... Her work will pass the time test and possibly become a classoc". A.Rorlih's book is valuable to our historical science also because it resists the numerous foreign editions advocating the Tataro-Tatar concept.

From the historians that support the Bulgaro-Tatar concept should be named Z.I.Gilmanov, S.H.Alishev, R.G.Fahrutdinov, and G.L.Fayzrahmanov, who conducted historical and archeological research based on the recognition of the Bulgarian origin of the Itil Tatars.

Up until now F.S.Huzin and G.M.Davletshin continue the scientific focus of their teacher A.H.Halikov. Despite of the pressure from the supporters of other concepts, they remain reliable defenders of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept in study of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars. They were successful in defending the Bulgaro-Tatar concept from its newly emerging opponents, F.S.Huzin from the analysis of the archeological data (see his book "Itil Bulgaria during pre-Mongolian time (10th - beginning of the 13th centuries)". Kazan, 1997), and G.M.Davletshin from the analysis of the history of the development of the Türko-Tatars spiritual culture (see his book "Türki-Tatar ruhi mèdèniyate tarihy" (History of Türko-Tatars spiritual culture). Kazan, 1999).

D.K.Sabirova and J.S.Sharapov in the 2000 released a university textbook "History of Tatarstan" where the Tatar ethnogenesis is shown on the basis of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept.

In all the above works as evidence comes from the archeological and other historical data.

Analyzing the ancient Khazarian and the Bulgaro-Tatar coins, A.Muhammadiev incontestably proved the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. From his numerous works in this respect stands out as exceptional the book "Boryngy Hazar ѕèm Bolgar-Tatar akchalary" (Ancient Khazarian and Bulgaro-Tatar coins. Kazan, 1986).

The leading experts on ethnography (N.I.Vorobiev, G.M.Hisamutdinov, R.G.Muhamedova, J.G.Muhametshin, R.G.Kashafutdinov, N.A.Halikov, R.F.Urazmanova, R.N.Musina, S.V.Suslova) are supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept.

We have ethnogenetical research in which the Bulgaro-Tatar concept is supported by the linguistical data.

Among these works is G.V.Üsupov's monograph "Introduction to the Bulgaro-Tatar epigraphy" (M. L., 1960), where he wrote: "Replacing each other almost in the same territory feudal states, Itil Bulgaria and the Kazan Khanate, left gravestone inscriptions belonging to these sequential epochs" [Üsupov G.V., 1960, 164].

The author of this book with his works entered this problem with the linguistical research also directed to show the falsity of the Tataro-Tatar theory. In the book "Tatars halky telenen_g barlykka kilüe" (Formation of the Tatar people language. Kazan, 1977), analyzing the Bulgarian epigraphy of the 2nd type (with features of both Chuvash, and the spoken language of the Tatar ancestors), he came to a conclusion that they were written not by the ancestors of the modern Chuvashes, but ancestors of those Chuvashes, who were subsequently Bulgarised. The language of the Bulgarian epigraphy of the 1st type completely coincides with the language of the Tatar ancestors.

The confirmation of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept by the linguistical data was also stated in the subsequent works:
1) The language sources of the main components of the Kazan Tatars // Questions of Tatar Linguistics. Kazan, 1978;
2) Problems of language and the origin of the Itil Tatars. Kazan, 1986;
3) Ethnogenesis and milestones of development of the Bulgaro-Tatars // Problems Linguo-ethno-history of the Tatar people. Kazan, 1995;
4) Problems of the ethnogenesis of Tatar people // Materials on the history of the Tatar people. Kazan, 1995;
5) Tatars: Problems of history and language. Kazan, 1995;
6) Türki-Tatars ethnogenesis (Ethnogenesis of the Türko-Tatars. Kazan, 1998), and also in the joint work with J.F.Kuzmin-Ümanadi: Itil Bulgars and their descendents. Kazan, 1993.

The Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the linguistical plan was substantiated in the works of F.S.Hakimzyanov (1987), D.G.Muhametshin and F.S.Hakimzyanov (1987), F.G.Garipova (1994), D.B.Ramazanova (1983), V.H.Hakov ("Tatars èdèbi tele tarihy", History of the Tatar literary language. Kazan, 1993).

From the analysis of the linguistical and other data, A.Karimullin became a steadfast supporter of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. His clear viewpoint he stated with a talent the in the brochure "Tatars: ethnos and the ethnonym" (Kazan, 1988), which held several editions at home and abroad.

In the solving of the problems of the Bulgaro-Tatars origin also lively participated some literary critics. The widely known writer G.Tagirjanov convincingly demonstrates the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept [Tagirjanov G., 1979, 10-27].

Reconstructing the ethnic history of the people, historians also address the folklore. The problems of the Tatar ethnogenesis are illuminated in the F.I.Urmancheev's book "Heroic epos of the Tatar people" (Kazan, 1984). He writes that the "Türkic-speaking Bulgarian tribes render a powerful influence on the formation of the Kazan Tatars and Mishars" [Urmancheev F.I., 1984, 16] .

Among the art critics F.H.Valeev supports the Bulgaro-Tatar concept [Valeev F.H., 1975, 6-9].

In the development of the Bulgaro-Tatar theory the R.H.Bariev's in-depth study "Philosophical aspects of the Itil Bulgar ethnogenesis" (1996) was pivotal. The philosophers J.G.Abdullin, R.I.Nafigov, K.F.Faseev, F.M.Sultanov, etc. also came to a conclusion about the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept.

In the research of the ancient local ethnic roots of the Bulgaro-Tatars of a great importance happened the uncovering and study of the Collection of the Bulgarian annals "Djagfar tarihy" (vol. 1, Orenburg, 1993). Based on them and other sources, Z.Z.Miftahov recreated a novel original ethnic history of the Bulgaro-Tatars [Lecture Course for the history of the Tatar people. Kazan, 1998].

Now the Russian special research also admits that the Kazan Tatars are not the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatars, but the descendants of the Bulgars. For example, A.S.Tokarev in his book "Ethnography of the peoples of the USSR" writes: "The former view that the Kazan Tatars are lineal descendants of the Batu conquerors who came to the Eastern Europe in the 13th century, is completely wrong" [Tokarev A.S., 1958, 171-172]. K.I.Kozlova comes to a conclusion that the "Tatars of the Itil region are closely connected by their roots to the local population of the Itil region and, undoubtedly, one of the main components in the Tatar people were the Itil Bulgars" [Kozlova K.I., 1964, 20-21].

The review of the literature that substantiate the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept can be extended. But the works listed above clearly demonstrate that the main body of the leading historians who seriously considered the problems of the Tatar ethnogenesis support the introduction of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the Tatar ethnogenetical research.
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75. Emergence and development of the Tataro-Tatar concept in the study of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars.

Any curious person without a special preparation who for the first time would face the problems of the Tatars origin, would be ready to believe an elementary reasoning, that there are modern Tatars and there are Mongolo-Tatars, that they carry an identical ethnonym Tatars, and consequently the modern Tatars are the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. Actually the Tataro-Tatar concept is born at such amateurish level. As we saw above, the first supporters of the Tataro-Tatar concept were the first West-European researchers of the Tatars. However, then under the semantics of the ethnonym Tatars they included all the population of the Chingizids' Mongolo-Tatar states, i.e. the Mongolian feudal empire and the Uluses of Khubilai, Chagatai, Khulagu and Djuchi, deeming them to be the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. The Russian scientists, with a better idea about the Djuchi empire, i.e. about the Kipchak Khanate, initially all Altyn Ordunians called Tatars, also deeming them to be the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. In spite of the fact that about the Tatar ethnogenesis the majority of the scientists formulated the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, some Tatar intellectuals and a part of the scientists of the neighboring peoples supported the Tataro-Tatar concept. Thus emerged an amateurish approach to the Tatar ethnogenesis, thus formed the amateurish Tataro-Tatar concept in the study of the ethnogenesis of the modern Tatars.

In the 2nd half of the the 19th century it has received a new development from unexpected positions. In particular, the Kazan missionaries decided to revive it in their colonial purposes and linked it to the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept. N.I.Ilminsky, engrossed in the fast Christianization of Itil region peoples, did not like that the Maris, Chuvashes, Mordvas gravitate to the Moslem Tatars, and view Christianization negatively. He had to show the Tatars as newcomers, as conquerors, so that other Itil region peoples would not orient upon them. For that, N.I.Ilminsky as a scientist, has taken advantage of that in the 1863 H.Feyzhanov in the language of the Bulgarian tombstones found Chuvash words [Fejzhanov H., 1863]. Not troubling himself by a comprehensive study of the material, from the presence of the Chuvash words in the Bulgarian epigraphy, N.I.Ilminsky had declared that descendants of the Bulgars are not the Tatars, but the Chuvashes, and that the Tatars are the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors.

The N.I.Ilminsky's views were then supported and advanced by A.Kunik [1878] and by the tsarist censor and scientist N.I.Ashmarin. Explaining why the Mari (Cheremises) call the Tatars Suases (Chuvashes), he wrote: "... The contemporary with us Chuvashes are not anything else as the lineal descendants of the Volga Bulgars, and the Cheremises, designating them by the name Suas, subsequently transferred this name also on the Tatarian conquerors of the territory, who, having inherited that political influence what initially belonged to the Bulgars, and also partly their culture, and accepted Islam, then began to attribute to themselves the Bulgarian origin. Such transfer of a tribal name from one nation to another was especially possible that the merging of the half-civilized newcomers with the cultural Bulgars (Moslems) came with slow graduality, and the former Bolgarism was totally imperceptibly replaced by Tatarism" [Ashmarin N.I., 1902, 49-50].

The Tataro-Tatar concept after N.I.Ilminsky, A.Kunik and N.I.Ashmarin was supported by the main forces of the Russian, foreign and Chuvash Türkologists, for they with different reasons have tried and are trying now to prove the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept. The relative sections of the school and university textbooks about the history of Russia were composed to illuminate the history of Tatars starting from the Mongolo-Tatar conquests, and finishing with the modern Itil and Crimean Tatars, considering the last as lineal descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors (for the uninitiated, the Russian textbook history, in addition to being re-written with every new political cataclysm, is also marked by Slavo-centric and Imperial-centric themes, and completely ignores the history of the constituent people save for the Slavic nationalism, including a total blindness toward the Fennic peoples, Türkic peoples and every other people of the 200+ accounted for in the 1900 and reduced to only 100+ nations by 2000. At the same time all children of the country use the same Orwellian-rigged textbooks, with forced public education mostly in the Russian language, brainwashing children to learn only the state imperial views and whatever falsehoods it propagates. The State Ministry of Education is in fact a Ministry of Propaganda with added enforcement powers. - Translator's Note).

As to the Tatar historians, they did follow the Tataro-Tatar concept, being the supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, they were conducting explanatory work among the supporters of the Tataro-Tatar concept, and they have been proving that the modern Tatars are not the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. A similar explanatory work had to be carried out also among the Tatar population, for studying the respective sections of the textbooks on the Russian history at school, the Tatar pupils feel insulted and offended for being counted as the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors.

During the 20th century the Tataro-Tatar concept sometimes metamorphosed.

Learning that the Itil Tatars are not characterized by the Mongolian anthropological features, and hence, they cannot be the lineal descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors, some scientists started asserting that the Itil Tatars, as well as Chuvashes, anthropologically are the descendants of the Bulgars, but the Chuvashes retained the Bulgarian language, while the Tatars under the influence of the newcomer Tatars, had forgotten their former Bulgarian language, and started to speak in the Tatarian language [Baskakov N.A., 1969, 288; Tihomirov M.N., 1948; Dimitriev V.D., 1984, 35]. Below we shall see that Tatars language is not introduced from the outside, but is a product of the further development of the language of the local Türkic and Türkicized tribes.

In 1960es of the 20th century across the Europe rolled the movement which received a name "big nationalism of the small nations". It could not penetrate through the Iron Curtain into the USSR. But some Tatars living in Turkey, under the influence of the supporters of this movement, found it necessary to raise a question about the Tatar ethnogenesis.

Lyabib Karan, who then was working in Turkey, in the 1962 published his book "Tatarlarnyn_g töp chygyshy" (Real origin of the Tatars), where he puts the ethnonym Tatars above the ethnonym Türk and calls for a creation of a common Türkic state under the name Tatarian. For the Bulgaro-Tatar views he sharply critiques Gayaz Ishaki and Sadri Maksudi. Thus being revived the orientation of the deliberate Tatarists, but from another side. The missionaries stand up for the ethnonym Tatars because it shows that the Tatars descend from the Mongolo-Tatars, and Lyabib Karan is preaching this ethnonym because he wants to lift the nationalist spirit of all Türks and calls them to create a common Tatarian, i.e. common Türkic state [Karan L., 1962, 10-11, 67-71]. The Tatar historians did not follow after Lyabib Karan, until right at the end of the 20th century some of them "did not get lost" between the three concepts. As to some Russian and West-European scientists adhering to the Tataro-Tatar concept, they would like to use it also today to accuse the modern Itil and Crimean Tatars for the negative consequences of the Mongolo-Tatar conquests. And the Chuvash historians adhere to the Tataro-Tatar concept only to prove better the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept.
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76. Origin and development of the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept in the study of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars and Chuvashes.

The Bulgaro-Chuvash concept has arisen in parallel with the Tataro-Tatar concept. After the known discovery of H.Fejzhanov about the presence of the Chuvash words in the Bulgarian epigraphy, N.I.Ilminsky's in 1865 advanced an idea about the origin of the Chuvashes from the Itil Bulgars, and the Tatars from the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. He was supported by A.Kunik [1878] and N.I.Ashmarin [1902] who tried to develop this concept.

The Bulgaro-Chuvash concept was attractive by its novelty and many Türkologists and even non-Türkologists started work on it. For some of them it was important to prove its adequacy, to connect confidently an origin of the Itil Tatars with the Mongolo-Tatars, and to solve the ethnic and political problems linearly from the Tatars to the Tatars. In addition, the adherents of the Bulgaro-Chuvash theory at the same time tried to define the character of language for the Khazars, and the Huns, identifying them with "Chuvash-like" Bulgarian language. So, the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept turned over many pages in the Türkology.

It all began with the Bulgarian language accepted as not a common-Türkic, but strongly deviating from it, like the Chuvash language. That "was proved" by pronouncing that the language of the Bulgarian epitaphs was the Chuvash language. But a more objective research have shown that the language of the Bulgarian epigraphy of the 1-st type was a common Türkic, and of the 2-nd type was similar to the Chuvash language. As the Chuvashes have not inherited almost anything from the Bulgars, including the Islam, it was premised that the epigraphy of the second type (with the Chuvash features) was written by the Chuvashes who accepted Islam and were being Bulgarised at the time. After these Chuvash Moslems had finally Bulgarised, the Chuvash-lingual epitaphs disappear. As to the main part of the Chuvashes who remained away from the (cultural - Translator's Note) influence of the Bulgars, they survived till now, from the paganism they gradually went to the Christian religion. Again was proved that the Bulgarian language was a common Türkic language.

At the same time some Türkologists came up with an idea that if the Bulgarian language was Chuvash-like, ostensibly both Khazarian and Hunnish languages were also Chuvash-like. That hypothesis was disproved by the follow up research (see para. 98-99).

Some Türkologists, expecting that the Ibn-Fadlan's records should reflect some traces of the Bulgarian language, endeavored to search the records for the Chuvash words. All attempts in this direction also turned out to be in vain (see para. 101-102 for details).

Some supporters of the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept, thinking that the Bulgarian language was characterized by the Chuvash features, endeavored to search for the Chuvash words in so-called Slavo-Bulgarian Nominalia, but found nothing like it and could not prove the Chuvash-linguality of the Bulgars/Bolgars (see para. 103 for details).

Were not crowned with a success the aspirations of some scientists to find Chuvash words in the Ancient Balkarian inscriptions in Türkic alphabet (details in para. 104).

Confident that once the Hungarians lived in the Ural-Itil region next to the Bulgars, the Hungarian scientists strenuously searched for the Chuvash words in the Hungarian language, but all in vain, they could not discover anything real (details in para. 105).

Trying to prove the (state-mandated - Translator's Note) legitimacy of the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept, scientist studied the Türkic loanwords in the Mari, Udmurt and Mordovian languages. Falling to the believes that the Bulgarian language is the Chuvash language, they started extracting the Chuvash loanwords and call them Bulgarian loanwords (details in para. 106).

The Tatar historians, even the linguists, during this scientific turbidity were limited to the subject of proving the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Tatar theory, ans specifically did not work to prove the deceptiveness of the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept. Only in a joint work of the author of this book with J.F.Kuzmin-Ümanadi, the "Itil Bulgars and their descendants" (Kazan, 1993) the falsity of the Bulgaro-Chuvash doctrine was shown in detail by demonstrating examples. In spite of all the reasons stated above, the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept still finds its supporters, especially among the Chuvash scientists, and also among the newly emerging Tataro-Tatarists.

Meanwhile, the objective history connects the ethnic roots of the Chuvashes with the Veds, who spoke a Finno-Ugric language of the Mari type. Apparently, in the antiquity their language experienced a very strong influence of the Mongolian language. The Veds in the Itil region very closely interacted with common Türkic-speaking Suases (one of the ancestors of the Bulgaro-Tatars), under the influence of that language the Finno-Ugric language of Veda people gradually accepted the feature of the Suasian language, and adopted from them a new ethnonym Suas/Suvas/Chuvas/Chuvash. Exactly for that reason the not Türkicized part of the Maris calls the Chuvashes "Suaslamari" (i.e. Suasian Maris), and they call the Bulgaro-Tatars Suases. That is why all attempts of the scientists to prove the Chuvashe-linguality of the Bulgars have been doomed to failure.
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77. Movement for returning the ethnonym Bulgars and against preservation of the ethnonym Tatars.

In the history of the ethnogenetical studies of the Bulgaro-Tatars a special place takes a movement of some scientists and politicians for returning to the people of their former ethnonym Bulgars and against retention of the ethnonym Tatars. The movement simultaneously also touched the problems of studying the ethnic history.

We know that the modern Tatars were formed from the development of the Bulgarian nation, formed as a result of consolidation of local Türkic-speaking and Türkicized tribes into the structure of the Itil-Bulgarian state, and that only at the end of 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries they acquired from the Russians and others the ethnonym Tatars, and under that ethnonym consolidated into a nation. The reasons of introduction of the ethnonym Tatars into the former Bulgars in a broad sense of this word R.M.Raimov formulated as follows: "The name Tatars has taken root here only during the capitalist development due to the nationalist aspirations of the Tatar young bourgeoisie, which was trying to achieve installation in the people of the nationalist militant spirit, and which linked the origin of the people with the Chingizids, those conquerors who for many centuries dominated the Near East and the Eastern Europe" [Raimov R.M., 1948, 145]. From the very beginning a struggle went in that fashion between the supporters of the preservation for the people of their former own name of Bulgars, and for renaming them by their exoethnonym Tatars.

In the 1862 the supporters of returning to the people their ethnonym Bulgars united in special a party group under a leadership of Gaynan Vaisov. The party was running an explanatory work among the intelligentsia for abandoning the ethnonym Tatars. But the representatives of the Tatar bourgeoisie insisted that the ethnonym Tatars, the name of the great Chingizids, became a self-name of the people. On their side was also the known scientist and a religious figure S.Mardjani.

Calling their people Beznen_g Bolgarlar ‘our Bulgars’, and being a convinced supporter of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, S.Mardjani supported the ethnonym Tatars. On one hand, he was arguing that the Kazan Khanate is a continuation of the Bulgarian Khanate, which during the existence of the Djuchi Ulus also continued its former traditions, that the ancestors of the Tatars are the local Türkic tribes which had the general name Bulgars in the Bulgarian Khanate, but on the other hand, he tried to explain that the people already accepted the ethnonym Tatars; therefore it should not be abandoned; the hostile altitude of the Russians toward the Tatars is not only because they are called Tatars, if the people were called Moslems then from the Christian Russians there would be the same attitude [Mardjani S., 1989, 43-44].

S.Mardjani was also supported by other Tatar historians, the supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. Despite of it, the movement if the Vaisovans again rejuvenated during the revolutionary events of the 1917. S.G.Vaisov created a new "Council Volgobulgarmus" which had a purpose to free the people from the national oppression, a revival of the Bulgarian nation, and restoration to the people of their real name Bulgars.

In spite of the party splintering shortly, its adherents did not stop their struggle. Summarizing the activity of the partisans of that struggle, the scientists of those times noted that the "Tasks of the Tatar political leaders was to take out from the use the name Tatars, replacing it with the name Türk or Bulgars" [Samoylovich A.N., 1922, note 25].

With coming of perestroika and democratization of public life in 80es the movement for restoration of the former name of the nation has renewed, in the Kazan was created a party "Bulgarian national congress", with a propaganda society "Bulgar al Djadid" with the local branches in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Naberezhnye Chelny, Kiev, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk and in many other cities. The supporters of this movement began to be called simply Bulgarists.

The Bulgarists pursued basically the same ideas as the former party of revival of the Bulgarian nation. With the purpose of elimination of the nagative altitude of the Russian and other peoples toward the Tatars as the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors, they expressed demands to abandon the ethnonym Tatars, to restore and anchor the label Bulgars to the people (this is reality of the situation that creates a special mentality: from the Stalinist times everyone carries at all times an internal passport ID showing the "nationality" of the person, and that label is one of the major factors in the lives of the individuals, a factor inescapable and uncontrollable like a hand of a fate - Translator's Note). Some of them believed that among the Tatar people are the descendants of the Bulgars, who at census should enter the name Bulgars, and there are the descendants of the enlisted Tatars who can enter the name Tatars. At that they were mistaken, such division of the population into Bulgars and Tatars does not reflect the reality, and it can negatively affect the revival and development of the nation.

In movement of the Bulgarists was very positive their recognition of the insufficient level of study of the Bulgarian period in the history of our people, and they called to deepen this research. It was the Bulgarists who have found the Bulgarian annals "Djagfar tarihy" of Bahshi Iman [1993], and "Shan kyzy dastany" (‘Legend about Shan's daughter’) by Bashtu ibn Shams, which shed a light on many questions of the ancient history of the Bulgars and for many mysteries echo the ancient Assyrian, Urartian, Persian, and Greek sources. After many of our "experts" have had maligned the Collection, the acknowledged historian I.R.Tagirov in response noted that "in our science is a tendency of unequivocal denying of these works from the viewpoint of their credibility and objectivity. It appears to me that everything can't be denied outright, for such exquisite creations cannot arise in an empty place, and especially as modern falsifications. If these are falsifications, then who were their ingenious creators?" [Tagirov I.R., 1995, "Tatarstan", № 9-10, 8]. I quite agree with I.R.Tagirov and I shall add that the credibility of the records of these Bulgarists' finds is recognized in the Ukraine, in Bulgaria, the historians of these countries conduct serious scientific research based on them. And our (i.e. Russian - Translator's Note) historians conduct a "serious" scramble not to "legitimate" them into the scientific research.

Considering this contribution to the ethnic history of the Bulgaro-Tatars, the leading Tatar historians, recognizing the Bulgarian ethnic basis of the Tatars, remained the supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar orientation, i.e. they do not consider it to be reasonable to abandon the ethnonym Tatars.

The Tatarian (i.e. Tatarstan - Translator's Note) Bulgaro-Tatarists did not see any evil in the movement of the Bulgarists, for the ethnonym Tatars had settled during the consolidation of the people into the nation, and it, despite the efforts of the Bulgarists, did not lose its positions.

On the contrary, the Bulgarists to some extent strengthen the historical positions of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. At the same time the supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept reasoned the Bulgarists from the desire to enter the name Bulgars during the census, for it would result in the reduction of the numbers of the Bulgaro-Tatars. In response the Bulgarists estimated the reduction of the Tatars because of the identification of the Tatars with the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors, because of the negative altitude of the non-Tatars to the Tatars. By the unconfirmed data, because of a drive by the Bulgarists to enter the name Bulgar the Tatars were numerically reduced by approximately 10 thousand persons, but because of the refusal of some Tatars, especially outside of the Tatarstan, from listing the ethnonym Tatar and adoption by them of the ethnonyms Russian, Uzbek, Azerbaijanian, Kazakh, Kirgiz, Turkmen, Bashkir, or Ukrainian, with every census the quantity of the Tatars was reducing by a few hundred thousand people. For example, the plenipotentiary representative of Tatarstan in the Kazakhstan prof. Karimov on April 13, 2001 declared on the Tatarstan radio that 350 thousand Tatars is counted in Kazakhstan, while actually their number reaches 500 thousand, but many of them are counted as Kazakhs.

These incidents around the ethnonyms of the Bulgars and Tatars should be eliminated not by opposition, but "reconciliation" of them, for example, by the use of the conventional ethnonym Bulgaro-Tatars.
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78. New aspirations to revive the Tataro-Tatar concept and their side motives.

The world global historical science recognizes that the Mongolo-Tatars, i.e. the initial fighters of Chingiz-Khan, have not settled either one of the Chingizid empires: not in the empire of Khubilai (China, Tibet, Korea), not in the empire of Chagatai (Maverannahr, Jety Su, Kashgar), not in the empire of Khulagu-Ilhans (Persia, part of Afghanistan, Turkmenia and Southern Caucasus, Iraq, eastern part of Asia Minor), not in the Djuchi empire (Kipchak Khanate). About a mass settlement of these Tatars in the Kipchak Khanate (among the local Türkic-speaking tribes united in the Bulgarian state into a Bulgarian nation, among Russian and Finno-Ugrians, among the ancestors of the Kazakhs and Uzbeks) cannot be even said, for the Chingizids have conquered these territories almost at the last turn. It is known to all that in the army of Chingizids the Mongolo-Tatars were a majority only in the initial stage of their conquest campaigns, and later the main force of their army was the youth from conquered countries. That is especially true because after their shameful defeat from the Bulgars, Chingizids gathered huge forces from the subordinated countries and captured the territories where was formed the Djuchi Ulus.

The world global historical science recognizes also such an opinion according to which in the Mongolian feudal empire, and later in the four Chingizid states continued to live the former local tribes and peoples. An insignificant part of the polyglot Chingizid army (Mongolo-Tatars) who settled down were very quickly assimilated among the local peoples. This fact was determined by the historians of all those peoples whose ancestors found themselves in the population of all Chingizid Mongolian states. And none of these peoples have historians tying the ethnic origin of the nation with the Mongolo-Tatars. This abnormal phenomenon is observed only for those peoples who later accepted the ethnonym Tatars. The reason for this is the likeness of the ethnonyms at the Mongolo-Tatars, and the modern Tatars (Bulgaro-Tatars, Crimean Tatars and Dobrudja Tatars).

In fight against the Bulgarists and Bulgaro-Tatarists at the end of the 80es popped out a few ambitious Tataro-Tatarists who started exposing haughtily the "political harm" of the supporters of the Bulgarists and Bulgaro-Tatarists concepts. They stood up for revival of the "unique correct" Tataro-Tatar concept in the study of the ethnic history of the Tatars. This movement was started by D.M.Ishakov (pronounced Ih-s-khakov - Translator's Note) together with R.G.Fahrutdinov, a former supporter of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, the former pupil I.L.Izmaylov of the adherent of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept prof. A.H.Halikov, and also M.Ahmetzyanov, an expert on Saraijere where almost all authors tried to prove that they are the descendants of the prophets and Chingiz-Khan.

This group of the Tataro-Tatarists, feeling that their arguments are not convincing and were rejected by the leading historians a long time ago, firstly, tried to present the Tataro-Tatar concept as a Türko-Tatar (as if the Bulgaro-Tatar concept does not relate to the general Türko-Tatar theory), secondly, were using inadmissible in the scientific environment methods of moral and finally of physical destruction of the active influential opponents of the Tataro-Tatar concept. In the result they managed to fortify temporarily their positions within the limits of a new institute, the History Institute of the RT Academy of Sciences.
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79. Why Tataro-Tatarists are afraid of a complex approach to the study of the Tatar ethnogenesis?

In their articles the newly surfaced Tataro-Tatarists do not hide their hostile attitude to the ethno-linguistical and ethno-folklore research, showing themselves as the opponents of the complex approach to the problem. A question arises: Why? The matter is that they never dealt with the problems of the Tatar's ethnogenesis and their ancestors, and try to deny a priori the value of the ethno-linguistic, ethno-folklore and ethno-mythological research. They do not even have an idea about who and how the ethnogenesis of other peoples is studied. It should be known, for example, that the research of the ethnic roots of the Indo-European peoples always rely onto the complex methods. The first place in that is allocated to the linguists, for they know that the archeological materials without linguistical evaluations are not capable to give a picture of the ethnic mix of the population. So, the most ancient ethnic roots of the Indo-Europeans have been uncovered by the linguists T.V.Gamkrelidze and V.V.Ivanov in their joint work "Indo-European language and Indo-Europeans. Reconstruction and historical-typological analysis of the protolanguage and proto-culture (Book 1-2. Tbilisi, 1984). This work, in which is made an attempt to define the ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans, has not been rejected by the Russian historians outright, as the Tataro-Tatarists try to do, but was recognized and recommended for the Lenin premium, and the work really received such a high award.

For other peoples the conditions develops in the same way: the most ancient history is reconstructed by linguists, and the historians follow them. And in the Indo-Iranistiks we see the same: the deep ethnic roots of the Indo-Iranians are investigated by linguists and specialists in folklore, in particular by V.I.Abaev. His work "Scythian language", published in his book "Ossetian language and folklore" (M. L., 1949), is an initial material for the study of the ethnogenesis of the Ossets. Plenty of these examples can be cited. They testify that not an isolated historical research can produce the results, but only a joint research with linguists, specialists in folklore and other experts studying the outstanding questions of the Tatar people's ethnogenesis.

If our Tataro-Tatarists really want that our ethnogenetical research went at the European level, they should engage not in reporting the fellow linguists to the organs of power (if this phrase sounds a little Stalinist, that's what it is, no jokes about it - Translator's Note) about their ostensibly illegitimate intervention in this matter, but should care about a complex research of the problems of the day.

Meanwhile, today's Tataro-Tatarists are exclusively absorbed by an obsession of protecting the ethnonym Tatars from the Bulgarists, who offer the people the ethnonym Bulgars. Meanwhile the ethnonym Tatars has been already accepted, it does not need such an unjust defense. Alas, this defense is conducted by the methods far from scientific. In particular, it affirms that the Tatars came to this territory under the name Tatars and have taught "some insignificant" Bulgars the Tatar language. The Tataro-Tatarists simply do not understand what is more important: by all truths and untruths to defend the ethnonym Tatars, or to reconstruct a true ethnic history of the people. Precisely with a view of protecting the people against penetration of the ethnonym Bulgars, preservation of the ethnonym Tatars (it hardly requires it), Tataro-Tatarists try to revive the Tataro-Tatar concept, according to which the modern Tatars are considered to be the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. This obsession prevents them from understanding the purposes and methods of the ethno-linguistical research of the most ancient Türks.
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80. Methods of protection of the Tataro-Tatar concept.

One of the methods of defense the Tataro-Tatar concept recently became the manipulation with documents of the Soviet time in respect to the studies of the history of the Tatar people, and in particular, the August, 9, 1944, decision of the Central Committee VKP (b) (i.e. all-Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) - Translator's Note) "Condition and improvement measures for mass-political and ideological work in the Tatar party organization" which urged to "eliminate the serious deficits and mistakes of a nationalist character in the illumination of the history of the Tataria (embellishing the Golden Horde, popularization of the Khano-feudal epos about Idegy) made by different historians and literators. A special attention shall be to the research and illumination of the history of the joint struggle of the Russian, Tatar and other peoples of the USSR against foreign captors, against Tsarism and feudal-capitalistic oppression, and also illumination the history of socialist transformation of Tataria during the Soviet power and popularization of the outstanding persons, scientists and revolutionaries of the Tatar people and its sons, the heroes of the Patriotic war" [item 7 of the Decision of Central Committee VKP (b) on August, 9, 1944].

From the citation it is clear that the main purpose of this part of the decision of Central Committee VKP (b) is a fight against ancientization of the ethnic history of the Tatars, a re-direction of the attention of the Tatarstan historians onto the research of the Tatar history only in the Russian state and the USSR.

The main Tataro-Tatarists in their "theoretical" works tried to convince the readers that in the given part of the Decision the imperial ideology forbids the study of the Kipchak Khanate, and at the same time allows the study of the Bulgarian period, because in the decision, against the Bulgars was said nothing. From their "acute" understanding of the decision they judge that after deliberating about this decision and the discussion of 1946 "in the foundation of the historical science of Tatarstan, of the history of the Tatar people was lain the Stalin's concept of the history. D.Ishakov noted: "Our academicians, certainly, do not want to admit from what soldier overcoats came their "Bulgarizatorian" assemblages"! [Ishakov D.M., 1997, 203].

Such a simple question arises: really these newly surfaced Tataro-Tatarists seriously believe that the so-called "Bulgarizator constructions" in the ethnic history of theTatars appeared only during the Stalin times, namely after the 1944. Maybe K.Nasyri, S.Mardjani of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, G.Ahmarov, G.Ishaki, and H.Atlasi in the beginning of the 20th century, and many other active supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, were Stalinists. The absurdity of this idea is obvious.

From the viewpoint of the presence of the Stalin trace in the "Bulgarizatorian" concept even more ridiculous is the reasoning of the Tataro-Tatarists about the destiny of the "Sketches of TASSR History", about the destruction of their manuscript in the autumn of the 1944, i.e. after the decision of Central Committee VKP (b).

During the Patriotic War because of the shortage of the personnel in the Republic, the composition of the "Sketches of TASSR History" was entrusted to the known Russian scientists B.D.Grekov, S.V.Bahrushin and L.V.Cherepnin. D.Ishakov himself evaluated this book like this: In the "Sketches..." was proved that the ancestors of the Kazan Tatars are the Bulgars; it was telling about the fight of the Bulgars against Mongols. Further on was the idea that it is wrong to idealize the conquerors like Chingiz-Khan and Tohtamysh as the "national heroes". In the "Sketches" was emphasized the local background of the Tatar people [Ishakov D.M., 1997, 119]. So, why the manuscript was destroyed? It turned out that these known Russian scientists were "Bulgarizators" of the Tatar history. Naturally, it was not because the authors of the "Sketches" were "Bulgarizators", but because they have shown the presence of the Bulgaro-Tatar statehood during the period before the annexation of the Tatars to the Russian state, i.e. they ancientized the history of the Tatars. Hence, there was no Stalin's Bulgarizatorian concept. It is only the D.Ishakov's invention.

In defense of the concept the Tataro-Tatarists also advance this argument: "and now use your brains, advises D.Ishakov, and think: if we declare ourselves "Bulgars", are we refusing the Crimean, Siberian, Astrakhan, Lithuanian and even the Kasimov and Mishar Tatars, they practically have no relation to the Bulgars... The Bulgars mostly lived in the territory of the modern Tatarstan" [Ishakov D.M., 1997, 197-198]. From such a reasoning follows that the author does not understand the essence of the question.

First, for D.Ishakov it appears that there is no difference between the Bulgarists and the supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar theory. In fact it is clear that Bulgarists and the Bulgaro-Tataristy derive the modern Tatars from the descendants of the Bulgars in a broad sense of this word, but the first oppose the acceptance of the ethnonym Tatars, and the second believe that the ethnonym Tatars was accepted as the name of the nation, and therefore they agree with the acceptance of this ethnonym.

Second, for him the pre-Mongolian Bulgaria and the Bulgaria after the Mongolo-Tatar conquest are all the same. In fact those who deal with the problems of the Itil-Bulgarian state know well its pre-Mongolian borders [Zakiev M.Z., 1998, 467]. The Bulgars, as result of the consolidation of the Türkic-speaking tribes of the pre-Mongolian Bulgaria, are a main ancestor of the modern Tatars: Kazanian, Siberian, Astrakhanian, Lithuanian, and Kasimovian. As to the Crimean Tatars, they, per some information, also were related to the Bulgars, and the Mishars spoke the same dialect with the Bulgars.

Thirdly, once the Russians called Tatars all the population of the Kipchak Khanate, but the ethnonym Tatars later adopted only the descendants of the Bulgars in a broad sense of this word, and the descendants of the Türkic Nogays in the Crimea.

Thus, the Tataro-Tatarists in order to show that the Tatars are "great", ascribe their ethnic source to the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors, and believe that linking them to the Bulgars would ostensibly equate the Tatars with only that population which settled in the post-Mongolian Bulgaria, i.e. in the Bulgarian vilayet (next down admin unit from ulus, akin to a county - Translator's Note) of the Kipchak Khanate.

To think that Stalin specially imposed upon the Tatars a puny group of Bulgars and by that he wanted to degrade the greatness of the Tatars would be to recognize Stalin a big historian even for the history of the Tatars. Naturally it is not so.
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81. Is the so-called new concept in studying the history of the Tatars new?

The supporters of this, as the Tataro-Tatarists call it, "new concept" (and hence, also of the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept) usually state that they ostensibly do not reject the Bulgarian period, but regard the Altyn Orda period as a key for the Tatar history. In their opinion, Bulgars also survived, but the newcomer Tatars taught them to speak in Tatarian, and therefore they have forgotten the Chuvash-like Bulgarian language. This statement of the newly surfaced Tataro-Tatarists is not new, it is borrowed from the missionaries, from the authors of the Russian school textbooks, from the Chuvash historians, from Lyabib Karan who called for a restoration under the name Tatars of the great Kipchak Khanate and to absorb all Türks to the great Tatars. D.Ishakov, unable to distinguish the Mongolo-Tatar conquest from the Kipchak Khanate, the state that arose from it, declared that "for a national Tatar history the Mongolian conquest was certainly a positive phenomenon" [Magazine "Native Land, № 3-4, 1997, 85]. Actually, the Mongolian conquest for both the national Tatar history, and for people, and specifically the Bulgarian people, was certainly a negative phenomenon, it became the beginning of the gradual disappearance of the Bulgars and Bulgaro-Tatars statehood. If there was no Mongolian conquest, the Bulgars, who had the strongest country in Eurasia, would have reached a higher level of development.

As to the Kipchak Khanate, it became the following stage in the development of the local peoples after such strong states as Bulgarian and Khorezmian states. These peoples assimilated the insignificant part of the Mongolo-Tatars that stayed there. The Kipchak Khanate had a chance for a prompt development with the experience of the Bulgarian and Khorezmian states.

Has no sense also the statement of the Tataro-Tatarists that we, the Tatars, are not from the Bulgar, but from the Kipchak Khanate. We, naturally, are both from the Bulgar, and from the Kipchak Khanate, because in fact in the Kipchak Khanate, alongside with the ancestors of the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Nogays, Russians, etc., lived the same local Türkic-speaking tribes and peoples who during the Bulgarian state were called by a common ethnonym Bulgars.

To a linguist is obvious the improbability of the statement of the Tataro-Tatarists that ostensibly newcomer Tatars or have Kypchaks taught the Tatar language to the Chuvash-lingual Bulgars. The historico-linguistical research show that in the Ural-Itil region long before the Mongolian expansion was formed an exclusive Türko-Finno-Ugric language union in the result of which the Ural-Itil Türkic language of the ancestors of the Tatar, Bashkirs and Chuvashes acquired Ural-Itil features that also were in the Kipchak Khanate, and in the Kazan Khanate. If the newcomer Tatars (or ostensibly the newcomer Kypchaks from the Kimaks which did not happened) taught the Tatar language to the former Bulgars, then the language of the modern Tatars and Bashkirs would be characterized by approximately Khakassian features.

The Tataro-Tatarists assiduously suggest to recognize the Kipchak Khanate as the key or golden period in the Tatar history. In reality during that period the world famous and strong Bulgarian people, that gave the first and only crushing repulse to the Chingizids, continued to lose its strength, its organization, its statehood.

The history of the Bulgaro-Tatars are not the history of the Kipchak Khanate. In fact it is clear to all that the history of the Kipchak Khanate should be written only by coordinated forces of the Uzbek, Kazakh, the Bashkir, Nogay, Russian, Bulgaro-Tatar, etc., historians. As to the history of the Bulgaro-Tatars, it should consist of the history of their liberating struggle against the Altyn Orda Khans.

The Kipchak Khanate as a large state should have created all the conditions for a consolidation of the uniform Tatar people from the Bulgars, Kwarezmians, ancestors of the Kazakhs, Siberian Tatars, Russians and Finno-Ugrians. But it could not do it. As to construction of the big cities, and the economic development, it should be stated that the Kipchak Khanate was a next stage in the development of the Bulgar and Khoresm, whose experience was used by the Khans of the Kipchak Khanate, but the former construction was mostly done by the population of these territories.

In all aspects the Tataro-Tatarists, not having and not expressing anything new, keep repeating, mostly, the mistakes of the missionaries, of the supporters of the Bulgaro-Chuvash and Tataro-Tatar concepts. Not for nothing the supporters of our Tataro-Tatarists, the Chuvash historians seized at once their "theoretical" interpretations, and based on these interpretations, they write that "a uniform Tatar nation, according to the proved statement of the doctor of the historical sciences R.G.Fahrutdinov, formed in the Kipchak Khanate in the 14th-15th centuries out of the Türkic-speaking Tatars who arrived with Mongols, related to them and speaking one language with them western Kypchaks who invaded Eastern Europe in the middle of the 11th century. The Bulgars in the formation of the Tatar nation did not participate. 40-50 thousand Tatars came with its founder Ulug-Mohammed into the formed in the 1438 Kazan Khanate, then tens of thousands Tatars arrived there from the Sarai, Azov, Astrakhan and Crimea" [Dimitriev V.D., 2000, 5]. For V.D.Dimitriev, in his endeavor to fortify his Tataro-Tatar concept, the R.G.Fahrutdinov's statement about the arrival of more than 50 thousand Tatars in the Kazan Khanate was a big gift. Only neither him, nor R.Fahrutdinov have pondered where these Tatars were held for 200 years without assimilating between the Bulgars, Kwarezmians, or the ancestors of the Kazakhs, Nogays, Bashkirs, etc. First, Ulu-Mohammed died in Nizhni Novgorod without reaching Kazan, the Kazan was taken an a fight by his son Mahmut (Mahmutek) [Alishev S.H., 2001, 10]. Secondly, it is clear to all that Ulu-Mohammed's and his son Mahmutek's army consisted of representatives of the local peoples, who in 200 years had enough time to also assimilate the newcomer Mongolo-Tatars.

However many times the newly surfaced Tataro-Tatarists tried to present their illogical assertions as a new concept, there is nothing new, all what they consider as new was not once repeated before.
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82. The historical science, like any other science, should be objective.

The initiators of the restoration of the old Tataro-Tatar concept under a cover of an idea that "the history should serve the national interests" usually ignore the objectivity of the historical research. Thinking that to connect the ethnic history of the Tatars with a "puny Bulgaria" denigrates the historical dignity of the Tatars, they bring to the forefront the Tataro-Tatar concept and try to prove with any arguments the Mongolo-Tatar origin of the modern Tatars. Ostensibly, that answers the national interests of the Tatars, for it shows the Tatars as the masters of the great Kipchak Khanate, who once be able to subordinate even Russians, and Caucasians, and Finno-Ugrians, and the others. Coming from such "hurrah patriotic" objective, they declare the conclusions of the Bulgaro-Tatarists' and Bulgarists' ethnogenetical research to be harmful for the history of Tatarstan, because they state that the modern Tatars are not the newcomer Mongolo-Tatars, that they have deep historical roots in the Ural-Itil region and Western Siberia. In the D.Ishakov's opinion, before the arrival of the Mongolo-Tatar to the Ural-Itil region there were no real Türkic ancestors of the Tatars not counting the "pin head sized" Bulgars, whom the newcomer Tatars taught their Tatar language; M.Zakiev should not try in vain to present the Ural-Itil region and Western Siberia as the primordial territory of the Tatars. That should not be of concern, because "under the international treaties, the native peoples are those peoples who lived in a particular territory before the beginning of the colonial epoch in the 15th century. As we can see, the civilized societies do not consider it necessary to lower the problem of the "aboriginality" deeper than this date, it would be a lost case" [Ishakov D.M., 1997, 228]. So naively can argue only a person who never dealt with the problems of the ethnic history. In fact all historians of antiquity are clear that even if there is such an international document, it cannot recommend to work only with aboriginality problems for non-Indo-European peoples. The Indo-European historians long time ago (much before the birth of this international document) have established that the primordial territory of these peoples is not only the India (Sanskrit native land) and Western Europe, but also the Eastern Europe, Central, Middle, and Asia Minor, and Middle East. In the opinion of these scientists if in these territories live other, non-Indo-European peoples (for example, Türks), all of them are late newcomers.

This viewpoint of the Indo-European scientists even now is now confirmed by additional "new and new" facts. Thus, finding even in the ancient Altai burials Europeoid (aka Europoid, Caucasoid - Translator's Note) skulls, some historians declared that in the Altai earlier, before the arrival of the Türks there, lived Indo-Europeans.

The Indo-European historians, naturally, do not want a non-Indo-European (for example, Türkic) scientist to dare to even state a suggestion of the presence in these ancient Indo-European territories of the ethnic traces of non-Indo-European peoples (say, Türks). In the D.Ishakov's opinion, it turns out that it is in vain that some non-civilized Bulgaro-Tatar scientists are finding in the Ural-Itil region the ethnic roots of the Türko-Tatars from the period before our era, that the study of the ethnic history of the modern Tatars should be limited to the period of the Kipchak Khanate, the ostensibly "golden" period of Tatars. The Itil Bulgaria supposedly would never be able to pretend for that role. If we limit the Tatar history to the Kipchak Khanate only, then the "Russian history cannot 'assimilate' " its history, for the Russian history of the Altyn Orda period is also only a part of the history of the Djuchi Ulus. The Russian history perfectly "digests" the Bulgarian history, especially when it is directly connected with the Kazan Khanate (the Kazan Khanate as the successor of the Itil Bulgaria) [Ishakov D.M., 1997, 205]. Besides, including in the Tatar history the Bulgarian period also we are finding ourselves in constant contradictions with the Chuvash historians [Ibid].

This reasoning of D.Ishakov shows a full loss of purposeful orientation in the studying the Bulgaro-Tatar history and full departure from objectivity.

First, in his opinion, the Bulgarian period should not be included in the history of the modern Tatars, for it ostensibly would bring constant contradictions with the Chuvash historians. In addition, it will not give us a chance to be proud of the Tatars' greatness, for the Bulgarian state in comparison with the Kipchak Khanate is a "pin head sized" country. We had not once to prove that there is no greater harm for our history, than the antipodal opposition of two periods, of the Bulgarian and Altyn Orda periods, in fact they are two parts of one historical chain. Besides, the presentation of the Bulgarian state as "pin head sized" shows the illiteracy in its real history.

Secondly, D.Ishakov is convinced that if we connect the modern Tatars history not with the Bulgaria, but with the Kipchak Khanate, we would win that the Russian history becomes a part of the Kipchak Khanate history, and becomes "automatically" a part of the history of the modern Itil Tatars, but if we would connect it with the Bulgaria, than, on the contrary, the Russian history will easily swallow ("nicely digests") the Bulgarian history. That is the next unreasoned assumption of the author. In fact it is clear to all that the Russian history of the Altyn Orda period is a recognized part of the Djuchi Ulus history. Hence, to roil toward that is not necessary at all.

Thirdly, the author of the above citation in his judgments comes from a proposition that the modern Itil Tatars are a continuation of the development of not the Bulgars in a broad sense of this word, but most likely of the Kipchak Khanate Tatars, who have consisted of the ancestors of Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Bulgars, Bashkir, Nogays, Finno-Ugrians, etc.

The Tataro-Tatarists are notable by not distinguishing at all the meaning of the ethnonym Tatars. Therefore is futile to seek in their articles a specific argumentation about the descendants of whose Tatars are the modern Tatars. The same ignorance is also marking an article of I.Izmajlov "As Tatars became Tatars", published in magazine "Kazan" in 2000 (No 10).

The supposition of the Tataro-Tatarists about the origin of the modern Tatars from the Tatars (but they do not know from which: from the ancient Tatars, or the Mongolo-Tatars, or Tartars, or Kipchak Khanate Tatars, or Türko-Tatars) is impossible to take as objective. They simply repeat the supposition of some Russian scientists and the viewpoint of the missionaries, who purposefully pushed the Tataro-Tatar concept. The secret of it, in our opinion, was correctly disclosed by Tamurbek Davletshin. He saw that they initially called the population of the Kazan Khanate New Bulgars, then Kazanians, and subsequently Tatars "… most likely in the propaganda purposes also, to raise in the people a hatred toward the military opponent. Together with the name Tatars, certainly, were also transferred onto the population of the Kazan Khanate that derogatory information which had been spread in Russia, and through the Russians also to the West, about the Tataro-Mongols" [Davletshin Т., 1974, 16].
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83. What results can the non-objective ethnogenetical creation of the Tataro-Tatarists bring?

So, in the history of the ethnogenetical studies of the modern Tatars (i.e. the Bulgaro-Tatars, excluding here the Crimean and Dobrudjian, in old terminology Budjak Tatars) can be discerned three concepts: Bulgarists, Bulgaro-Tatarists and Tataro-Tatarists (the last matched by the Bulgaro- Chuvashist).

The Bulgarists recognize as adequate the concept of the Bulgarian origin of the modern Tatars, believe to be wrongful "imposing" to the Bulgars in a broad sense of this word of the ethnonym Tatars, call the population to register not as Tatars, but as Bulgars, that leads to some reduction of in the number of the Tatars. The Bulgarists act as supporters of the studies of the deep historical roots of the Bulgars with use of all available ancient sources in all languages. In that in solidary with them are the Bulgarists of the Danube Bolgars, who, unlike our Bulgarists, are not interested in the modern ethnonym of the Bulgaro-Tatars.

The supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, like the Bulgarists, recognize as adequate the concept of the Bulgarian origin of the modern Tatars, but differ in considering that the ethnonym Tatars played a consolidating role during the formation of the nation. Therefore they do not reject the ethnonym Tatars, but to discriminate them from others Tatars, especially from the Mongolo-Tatars, they apply the defined ethnonym Bulgaro-Tatars. All leading Tatar historians were supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, they conducted objective ethnogenetical research. Reading their works, the Tatars understood that they are not the descendants of neither ancient Tatars, nor of Tartars, nor of Kipchak Khanate Tatars, not of Türko-Tatars, and therefore understood the ethnonym Tatars in a sense of Bulgaro-Tatars, and explained it to the representatives of other peoples.

Not distinguishing the history of the Bulgaro-Tatar ethnos from the history of the ethnonym Tatars, the supporters of the Tataro-Tatar (or Bulgaro-Chuvash) concepts, coming from unobjective ethnogenetical scheme, tried and are trying to prove that the modern Bulgaro-Tatars are the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatars or Kipchak Khanate Tatars. This view was initially formulated by some Russian and West-European historians and missionaries. Only in the last decade of the 20th century came about the Tatarian Tataro-Tatarists, who are identifying Bulgaro-Tatars with the Mongolo-Tatars, in whose composition they wrongly included the ancient Tatars, and Tartars, and Kipchak Khanate Tatars, and Türko-Tatars. In their opinion, the Tataro-Tatar concept better answers the national interests of the modern Tatars, presents them as a great people which created the great empire Djuchi Ulus (Kipchak Khanate).

It is clear to all that any conquest of other's territories sooner or later is condemned by the history. The Mongolo-Tatar conquests have the same condemning attitude. Therefore because of identification of the modern Tatars with the Mongolo-Tatars the image of the ethnonym Tatars is very unenviable. It causes that the Tatars, especially the young, who live outside of Tatarstan, display toward ethnonym Tatars a negative altitude, express a desire to call themselves not with the general exoethnonym Tatars, but with their own former ethnonym, say, Mishar, Bulgars, Kreshen (Baptized) or at best with a special local ethnonym like Seber Tatary (Siberian Tatars), Esterkhan Tatary (Astrakhan Tatars), Nijgar Tatary (Nizhny Novgorod Tatar, Penza Tatary (Penza Tatars), etc. Sometimes are observed cases of legalization for these own ethnonyms through the proper authorities in Moscow. Clearly these phenomena can result in quantitative reduction of the Bulgaro-Tatars. Because of low image of the ethnonym Tatars among the population such processes are already going. By the informal estimates of the local Tatar societies, in Kazakhstan hide their Tatar origin more than 150 thousand Tatars, in Uzbekistan more than 300 thousand, there are also a lot of them in Kirgizia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and Russia. In the future among the Tatar youth will be even more of those, for the supporters of the Tataro-Tatarists, especially homebrewn, under a label of the "new concept" strenuously propagandize the idea of equivalence of the Bulgaro-Tatars with the Mongolo-Tatars, which can result in a sharp reduction of the (registered - Translator's Note) Bulgaro-Tatars.

If we want to raise the image of the ethnonym Tatars, in front of the people unsealed all its meanings, should be objectively stated that there are ancient Tatars, Mongolo-Tatars, Tartars, Kipchak Khanate Tatars, Türko-Tatars, Bulgaro-Tatars, Crimean Tatars, Dobrudja Tatars; for external interactions we should apply the word Tatars with definition as Bulgaro-Tatars.

The biassed ethnogenetical scheme of the Tataro-Tatarists distracts the Tatar historians from studying the real history of the Bulgaro-Tatars, who like other subjugated peoples, the Russians, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Bashkirs, etc. during the Kipchak Khanate time fought for liberation, for which they constantly experienced the consequences of the Chingizids' retaliatory expeditions. Not for nothing during the Kipchak Khanate time was destroyed and annihilated the capital of the Bulgarian state. The Tataro-Tatarists are going to create a history of the Kipchak Khanate as theirs. It is clear to all reasonable historians that its history can be written objectively only by joint efforts of the specialists of all those peoples whose ancestors found themselves under the power of the Altyn Ordanian Chingizids.

Unfortunately, the wrongful identification of the modern Bulgaro-Tatars with the Mongolo-Tatars also takes place in the modern Russian historiography, about which testifies, for example, a new book by V.V.Pohlebkina "Tatars and Russia. 360 years of relation. 1238-1598", published in Moscow in 2000.

V.V.Pohlebkin tallied the modern Tatars and the Tatars of the end of the16th century as the direct descendants of the Mongolo-Tatars. The Ruso-Tatar relations started suddenly, he writes, with an aggression of the Mongolo-Tataro-Kypchak hordes against Rus (and other countries of the Eastern Europe) in the 20es-30es of the 13th century. For the 360 years people suffered ruin and many deprivations.

He further continues: "After 150 years of continuous and increasing sovereignty above Rus, the winner Tatars fell a victim to a stronger aggressor than them, they experienced the aggressive invasions of Tamerlan. The Kipchak Khanate has weakened, began falling into decay.

The Russians immediately took advantage of it, being made well aware during the 150 years of one simple foreign policy lesson: in the international collisions always wins force, not justice. The winners are not judged, no claims are made to them, even when they are atrocious, they are not reproached for any sins. They are listened to and agree with. And the weak, backward and dependent are beaten. Therefore, if the former winner has weakened and cannot defend its exclusive position any more, it is necessary to beat and finish it. And the faster, the crueler, the better... From there came the continuity and consistence of this offensive process, aspiration to bring it to utter annihilation of the opponent, to a full liquidation of the Tatar statehood" [Pohlebkin V.V., 2000, 166-167]. It is clear to all that here is meant the statehood of the Tatarstan Republic. If V.V.Pohlebkin would know that the modern Tatars are not the Mongolo-Tatars, he would reason differently, he would remind also that from the Mongolo-Tatar aggression have also suffered the ancestors of the modern Tatars , i.e. the Bulgars like Ruses fought for liberation against the Mongolo-Tatars.

Summing up, it should be noted that the concept advanced by the Tataro-Tatarists about the origin of the modern Tatars from the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors, or at best from the Tatar part of the population of the Kimak state, contradicts the Bulgaro-Tatar concept established in the Türkology and supported by a majority of the Tatar ethnologists.

The Tataro-Tatar concept also has nothing in common with the national interests of people, which expects from the historians and ethnologists a truthful description of its ethnogenetical roots. By accepting this concept, we would also find ourselves in a false position in celebrating the 1000-year anniversary of Kazan. In this case we should have had to state that the city of Kazan was founded during the Bulgarian period by the Chuvash-lingual Bulgars, instead of the Tatar ancestors.

There would be no advantage for the Tatar history if, following Lyabib Karan and Tataro-Tatarists, we would start calling as Tatarian the Hunnish, Türkic, Khazarian, and Bulgarian states. Such an anachronism in the application of the term Tatars or Tatarian may result in a negative atitude toward Tatar scientists by other Türkic-speaking peoples. In fact, the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kirgizes, Azerbaijanis, Bashkirs, etc. also connect their ethnic roots with the common Türkic period, but this period is not named neither Uzbek, nor Kazakh, nor Azerbaijan, etc. How would we take the Uzbek history if the Uzbek authors called the Hunnish, Türkic, Khazarian, and Kipchak Khanate states "the Uzbek national states". There would be a squabble between the historians of the Türkic-speaking peoples.

Tataro-Tatarists have begun a fight for the Russian history textbooks to stop maligning the Mongolo-Tatar conquest, and instead to show its positive sides. Certainly, it is bad to especially malign one of the periods of your own history, but if to be frank, the Mongolo-Tatar conquest has left the Bulgars without their independent state.

Hence, it can't be said that the study of the Tatar ethnogenesis is already completed. The professional training for these problems, new thorough ethnogenetical research should be continued. If this work of ours would serve as the beginning of this research we would consider that its purpose was achieved.
264

Origin of Türks-Contents · Introduction · First chapter · Second chapter · Third chapter · Fourth chapter · Fifth chapter · ORIGIN OF TATARS
Part 2 - ORIGIN OF TATARS · First chapter · Second chapter · Third chapter · Fourth chapter · Conclusion · Name and Ethnic Index · Literature
	Mirfatyh Zakiev Origin of Türks and Tatars Part two ORIGIN OF TATARS
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Page numbers, where shown, indicate pages in the book publication. The offered copy of the printed edition contains typos and misspellings, for which I apologize and intend to correct them with time. The spelling of the Greek-based quasi-Cyrillic-Tatar letters, occasionally used by the author to signify a Türkic phonetics inexpressible by the mandated Cyrillics, is transcribed from the quasi-Cyrillic to English, with the following conventions: Replaced: quasi-Cyrillic "ъ" ( ' - stop-guttural consonant ) with " ' ", like in "sъkъd" => "S'k'd" quasi-Cyrillic "н₁" ( n + guttural consonant "g") with "n_g", like in "дин₁гезе" => "Din_ggeze" Cyrillic "ë" (yo) "ë" Other conventions:. "a" - as "a" in arch, "j" - as "j" in jealousy, "kh" - as "h" in hug, "ü" - as "u" in munitions, "y" - as "Y" in York or as "i" in if
Introduction General information about Tatars
212 67. First attempts to study the ethnogenesis of Tatars. The Bulgaro-Tatars formed by consolidation of the local Türkic and Türkicized tribes which received a general name Bulgars in the Itil-Bulgarian state; then in the Tatar state of the Djuchi (also spelled "Juchi" - Translator's Note) Ulus they acquired the external ethnonym Tatars (i.e. other peoples called them Tatars even though they continued to call themselves Bulgars). Then, in the middle of the 19th century, the ethnonym Tatars started to be applied as a self-name among them, though among the people the former name, Bulgars, was also used. Thus, the modern Bulgaro-Tatars as an ethnos descend from the Bulgars in a broad sense of this word, and the ethnonym Tatars penetrated into their society coming from the name of the Mongolo-Tatar state of the Djuchi Ulus, and from the Russian term for the Kipchak Khanate population as Tatars. Therefore in the Bulgaro-Tatar ethnogenesis study we cannot leave in the dark the semantic problems of the ethnonym Tatar, and the history of its penetration into the Bulgarian society. Mahmud Kashgarly (i.e. Mahmud from Kashgar), a Türk by his origin, made the first attempt to study the Tatars and their ethnogenesis, in his encyclopedic work "Divanu lugat it-Türk" (Collection of Türkic Vernaculars). This work was written in the Arab language under an influence of the Arabian culture, to train the Arabs in the Türkic language, in the 466 year by the Muslim chronology (hidjra), which corresponds to the 1072-73 in the Christian chronology (Miladi). As other treasures of the Arabo-Türkic culture, M.Kashgarly's "Divanu" have been lost, it was found only in the beginning of the 20th century, and gradually entered the scientific circulation. So, we consider it a first attempt to define the Tatar ethnos. M.Kashgarly considers Tatars a Türkic tribe; he notes their geographical location: "The Türkic tribe closest to Byzantium is Besenyo (Badjinak), further to the east are the tribes of the Kyfchak/Kipchak, Oguz, Yemek, Bashkirt, Basmyl, Kay, Yabaku, Tatar, Kyrgyz. Kyrgyzes are the closest to the Chinese" [Kashgarly М., 1992, vol. 1, 28]. Speaking further about Tatars and other Türkic tribes, he continues that the tribes Kay, Yabaku, Tatar, Basmyl have their own languages, at the same time they speak well also in Türkic; the Kyrgyzes, Kyfchaks, Oguzes... have their own Türkic languages, and the languages of Yemeks and Bashkirts are close to them [Ibid, 30]. From this message follows that the ancient Tatars (i.e. 10th or 11th c. Tatars - Translator's Note) lived somewhere near the Kyrgyzes, apparently, in the Middle Asia, maybe, in Mongolia, and that their language was not similar to the Bashkirt's and Yemek's language. Hence, it also strongly differed from the modern Bulgaro-Tatar language, which is very close to Bashkir language. By the way, the traces of Yemeks remain in the territory of the modern Tatarstan close to the to Bashkirs, as a toponym Jèmèk/Yamak/Chamyak/Shemyak/Semyak. This fact tells that the Bashkirian and Yemekian languages took part in the formation of the Bulgar language, and what was then the Tatar language was far from these dialects. A great ethnogenetical interest also presents the message of M.Kashgarly about Bulgars. He notes that the Bulgars and Suvars live close to the Besenyos (Badjinaks), who are next to the Byzantium, their languages are Türkic, but with the truncated endings [Kashgarly М., 1992, vol. 1, 30]. If M.Kashgarly compares these languages with Oguzian languages, in the Bulgarian and Suvarian languages the endings are truncated in fact: Oguz. biliyorum, biliyoruz, and Bulg. bilem (belèm), bilebiz (belèbez). Further, he informs that the Bulgars, Suvars, Yemeks, and Kyfchaks replace sounds [d, [y] ("y" - as "Y" in York - Translator's Note) with [z]: some Türks say adak 'legs', others say ayak, and the Bulgars, Suvars, and Yemeks say azak [Ibid, 32]. From this message it becomes clear that the opinion of the modern linguists about the rhotacism (i.e. about transformation of a sound [z] into [r]) in the ancient Bulgarian language does not match the facts. If the Bulgarian language was characterized by rhotacism, the Türkic word azak (ayak) would be pronounced as arak (chuv. ura 'leg'). The first attempts to define the ethnic roots of the Tatars were also done in the Türkic Saraijere (genealogical tree at Türks). Such Saraijere under the name "Djami ’ at-tavarih" (Collection of Annals or Collection of Histories) was made by the most significant Persian historian of the 14th century. Rashid-ad-din. He believes that the Türkic peoples, most of which are called Mongols, descend from the persons whowere sons, grandsons, great-grandsons or great-great-grandsons of the prophet Noah. One of the Türkic branches were Tatars. In the opinion of Rashid-ad-din, in the antiquity Tatars lived close to the borders of Hitay (China - Translator's Note). "For the most time they were people who were obeying and rendering tribute to the Hitay emperors" [Rashid-ad-din, 1952, 101]. Then the main place of theirs became the district called Buir-naur. Because of the intensive development, Tatars later managed to come in control of others; "and because of their extreme greatness and honorable position the other Türkic clans, with (all) variety of their ranks and names, became known under their name and all were called Tatars... Now, owing to the prosperity of Chingizhan and his clan, because they are Mongols, [different] Türkic tribes... all of them because of self-aggrandizement call themselves Mongols, in spite of the fact that in the antiquity they did not recognize this name" [Ibid]. To this category of the sources should be rated the "Saraijera Türkiya" ("Genealogical tree of Türks"), written by the Khiva Khan Abul-Gazi Bagadurhan in the 1663. He believes that from the prophet Noah came Alancha-khan, who had two twin sons: Tatar and Mongol. From the Tatar descend the Tatars [Abul-Gazi, 1906, 33]. Earlier the Tatars lived near China, subordinated to the Chinese emperors, then they were drawn into the military campaigns of Chingiz-Khan and lived in his empires. The tradition of drawing up the Saraijere continues, it becomes a favorite occupation for the literate people. The Authors of these Saraijere deduce their people from the tribes descending of different prophets and persons of the Khans, mainly Chingizids, whose origin was necessarily tied with the prophet Noah. In its realism, the work of Mahmud Kashgarly favorably contrasts with Saraijere. 215 68. History of ethnogenesis studies for the Tatars in the Mongolian states of Chingizids. The ethnonym Tatars in the Europe and Near East becomes known in the connection with the Mongolo-Tatar conquest campaigns. Chingiz-Khan and his sons, attacking other countries, "everywhere sent forward the Tatars, noted Giljom (Willem) Rubruk, and from that spread their name, for everywhere was cried out: "The Tatars are coming" [Karpini Dj., 1957, 116]. The famous Persian historian of the 14th century Rashid-ad-din, describing the realities of the time, noted that the Türks of all countries conquered by Chingizids were called Tatars. So, he writes: ".... In areas of Hitay, Hind and Sind, in the Chin and Machin, in the country of Kirgizes, Kelars and Bashkirs, in the Deshte-Kipchak... at the Arabian tribes in Syria, Egypt and Maghrib [Morocco] all the Türkic tribes were called Tatars" [Rashid-ad-din, 1952, 103]. In this part of the annals Rashid-ad-din, telling about the Türks, asserts that in the above named countries the Türks are called Tatars. From the other sources we know that "Tatars" were called not only the Türks, but also all the population of the Mongolian states created by the army of the Chingizids, which itself was called Tatarian army. Further, Rashid-ad-din describes the ethnic roots the Mongolo-Tatars in the spirit of other genealogical books, i.e. he connects the ethnic roots of Tatars with the prophets. In the Europe, both the conquests of the Chingizids, and the states created by them, also become known as Tatarian. There instead of the ethnonym Tatar started to be applied a word Tartar ‘People from the Hell’. The French King Lui IX was attributed the saying: "If Tatars would come, we would send them to the Tartar [Bartold V.V., 1977, vol. IX, 271]. Really, in the Western Europe the Tatars frequently named Tartars, i.e. the comers from the Tartar, the Hell [Matuzova V.I., 1979, 164]. There, to the Tatars were carried all the peoples of the territories conquered by the Mongolo-Tatars, namely the peoples of all Mongolian Chingizid states, specifically the Mongolian feudal empire and the four Chingizid empires created after its split: Khubilai (China and other countries), Chagatai (Middle Asia, Afghanistan, etc.), Khulagu (Iran, Arabian countries, etc.), Djuchi (Rus, Itil Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, etc.). For example, in the collection of the Sofia library under numbers 1464 and 1465 is an article dated by the first third of the16th century, beginning with the words "Tatarian lands' names". Here is its text. "Tatarian lands' names: Samarhand, Chagadaie, Horusani, Golustani, Kitai, Blue horde, Shiraz, Ispagan, Ornach, Gilyan, Siz, Sharban, Shamahii, Savas, Arzunoum, Telfizi, Tevrizi, Gurzistani, Obezi, Gourzii, Bagdat, Temirkaby, called Iron gates, Great Horde, Crym, Vastorokan, Sarai, Azov, Kalmaky, Nogai, Shibany, Kazan" [Kazakov N.A., 1979, 253]. The author of research N.A.Kazakov gives the following explanations for the distorted names: Ornach - Urgench, Siz - Siz in Kilia Armenia, Savas - Sevastia, Arzunoum - Erzerum, Telfizi - Tbilisi, Obezi - Abkhazia, Shibany - the land of the Shiban Tatars (Uzbeks) [Ibid, 1979, 154]. In the 15th-16th centuries the first more or less detailed maps locate the "Tartaria" in the Eastern Europe, in Siberia, in Caucasus, in Near, Middle and Middle Asia. That tradition continued for a very long time. So, V.V.Bartold in this respect remarks, that "Tartaria" in the European literature is used with the same vagueness as in the Greek was the word "Scythia". "The term "High Tartaria ” for the designation of the Central part of Asia only recently was replaced from the geographical terminology" [Bartold V.V., works, vol. IX, 1977, 271]. V.N.Tatishchev notes it also: "The European writers... all the eastern-western Asia call "Great Tartaria"... but not a single people living beyond Yaik use (the word Tatar)" [Tatishchev V.N., 1962, 233]. Later the West-European scientists, getting acquainted with the peoples at the location, started distinguishing these Tatars by their self-names. So, the German scientist and traveler of the 17th century Adam Oleary, who visited the Itil region, calls the people Bulgarian Tatars [Oleary А., 1905, 408]. Thus, in the Western Europe the initial study of the ethnogenesis is also limited to the task of defining the peoples called then Tartars by the Europeans. They present the "Tartar" as the remains of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. Only some, who gave visited the Eastern Europe or Asia, started to understand that among these Tatars are also the local peoples. In Russia the first ethnogenetical research of non-Russian peoples also were conducted by the foreigners invited initially by Peter I, and then by the Russian Academy of Sciences. Within the 18th century the Academy sent a number of expeditions to the Itil region, Siberia and Caucasus to study the non-Russian (i.e. non-Slavic Russian, some of these non-Slavic peoples were already Russian by virtue of Russian conquests - Translator's Note) peoples. These expeditions, due to the efforts of the naturalists leading them (G.Shober, D.G.Missershmidt, G.F.Miller, I.E.Fisher, P.S.Pallas, I.I.Lepehin, S.G.Gmelin, I.A.Gildenshtedt, I.P.Falk, I.G.Georgi), and scientific-organizational activity of the "enlightened administrators" (V.N.Tatishchev, P.I.Rychkov), collected and partially processed a big linguistic, ethnographic, toponymic, historical and geographical material in respect to various peoples and nations, who were populating the eastern fringes of then Russia, including, perhaps, the overwhelming quantity of the materials about the Türkic peoples, languages, history and folklore [Kononov A.N., 1982, 58]. These foreign experts, brought up in the Western Europe, applied the ethnonym Tatars to designate the inhabitants of all four empires of Chingizids, but because they were assigned a task to study the non-Russian peoples of Russia, they call all eastern non-Russian peoples of Russia Tatars, and their lands, by the tradition of the West-European scientists, they continued to call Great Tartaria. But studying on the location the local languages, these foreigners came to a conclusion that under Tatars can be meant the ethnonyms of different peoples. So, F.I.Stralenberg (1676-1747), a captured captain the Charles XII Swedish army, exiled in the 1711 with other captured Swedes for a settlement in Tobolsk, left an appreciable trace in the history of complex studies of the Siberian Tatars, and he was one of the first who based on the established facts accomplished to group the languages, on which spoke the Tatars of the Great Tartaria and Siberia. In his works "New geographical description of the Great Tataria..." and "Northern and Eastern parts of Europe..." [Stralenberg, 1730] he comes to a conclusion that the Tatars of these regions speak 32 languages. It would be also possible to talk in detail about the works of other foreigners who studied the Tatars of the Great Tataria and Siberia. But here is no need for it. They all were calling Tatars the eastern non-Russian peoples of Russia, but at the same time they stated that these Tatars consist of differently speaking peoples. Unfortunately, the ethnic history of these peoples did not become a subject of deep study for the scientists. 218 69. History of ethnogenesis studies for the Tatars and Bulgars by Russian scientists. As was noted, the West-European scientists and the "Russian" West-Europeans, studying in complex the Tatars of the Great Tartaria, presented these Tatars as the population of the Chingizid Tatar empires, and did not pay attention to their deeper ethnic roots. In the 18th century the Russian scientists in Russia also started studying the works of the ancient Greek writers. They were especially attracted by the "History" written by Herodotus in the 5th century BC, which is closely connected with the peoples of the most ancient period of Russia, and which could have been used for a reconstruction of the domestic history. The first serious work that studied the problem of the Scythians based on the composition of Herodotus was the "Scythian history", written by Andrey Lyzlov in 1692. Until 1776 it existed only in hand-written manuscripts, in the 1776 it was partially, and in the 1787 it was published completely. In this book the author represents Scythians as the ancestors of the Tatars and Turks, he substantiates his conclusions from different points, using a mass of the literature. He knew well the annals, Nikonov, Lvov, the so-called "Zaseka Chronist" (which did not survive to our time), etc. ("zaseka" is a Slavic term for a continuous bulwark Russians were using to cut off the pastoralist herdsmen from their pastures in staged appropriation of their territory by force. "Zaseka Chronist" sounds synonymous with "Colonization History", the history that may have been written but does not exist today - Translator's Note). He also used the Sedate Book (i.e. "Ranks Book" - Translator's Note), used the chronographs of different editions, numerous stories ("Story about Turks", "Story about Mahmete", "Story about Tsargrad" from the chronographic editions of Nestora-Iskander, "Story about capture of Kazan"), mostly borrowed by him from annalistic tradition [Neihardt A.A., 1982, 8]. A.Lyzlov knew well the western works and works of antique authors. Therefore we can tell with confidence that the A.Lyzlov's conclusions about the Tatars and Turks being one of the descendants of the Scythians are convincing enough. In the beginning of the 18th century the known Russian historian Vasily Nikitich Tatischev was scrupulously engaged in the problems of the origin of the Tatars, Türks and Bulgars. In his works subsequently published as the "Russian History", he dedicates special chapters: "Remains of the Scythians, Turks and Tatar", "Tatars from the Scyths beyond Imay", "About Bulgars and Hvalises, the ancient Argipei and Issedoni", "Bulgars and Hvalises". V.N.Tatishchev believes that earlier the Slavs, Sarmatians, Turks, Mongols, Persians, Chinese and even Germans were called Scythians. When the scientists sorted out the peoples, each of them started to be designated by their names. As a result, in the 10th century the general name Scythians has stopped to be used. Greeks learned the names Saratseni and Turks, and in the Western Europe since the 13th century "The name Tatars became famous, and both began to be used instead of the Scyth, mixing in both the different peoples called by that" [Tatishchev V.N., 1962, vol. 1, 232-233]. V.N.Tatishchev also tells that in Russia all Mohammedans were called Tatars [Ibid, 239], but that the peoples who by the Europeans and Russians are called Tatars, do not called themselves with this ethnonym, and even do not know what this word Tatar designates [Ibid, 233]. V.N.Tatishchev studied in detail the Bolgar/Bulgar people. As he thinks, the Bulgars lived along Itil, Kama, Sviyaga, they had great cities Bulgar, Bilyar, Ashly, Tashly, etc. Bulgars were in close trade relations with Persia, India, with the Arabian countries, Novgorod, Sweden, Holland, Ireland and other countries. In the V.N.Tatishchev's opinion, Bulgars historically accend to the ancient Hvalises, Issedons and to Argippeis. Hvalises lived in the north of the Caspian Sea, which was also called Hvalynian Sea (from the ethnonym Hvalises). In the 1232 the Suzdal bishop Simon called Hvalises the Lower Bulgars, Abul-Gazi Bagadurhan in his Tatar history called the Bulgarian lands Deshti-Kypchak, and the ancient Greek writers called the Bulgars Issedons [Tatishchev V.N., 1962, vol. I., 269], and Herodotus and Pliny called the Bulgar Argipeis [Tatishchev V.N., vol. IV, 70]. Thus, V.N.Tatishchev all Tatars (all Mohammedans), and also the Bulgars considers to be aboriginals of the territory, and their origin links with various Scythian tribes. A Russian scientist of the 18th century Peter Ivanovich Rychkov also studied the problems of the Tatars' and Türks' history. The word Tatars he also used in a broad sense, including in that concept almost all Türkic peoples. "All scholarly people agree that the Tatar people, dispersed to many places, are real scions of the Scythians, and all the ancient, both the Greek and Roman writers, ordinarily described the nowday's Tatars under the name of the Scythians, and sometimes including there also the Sarmatians " [Rychkov P.I., 1999, 45]. Further P.I.Rychkov notes that Scythians lived both in Europe, and in Asia, "that between the Scythians, and even more so between the Sarmatians, always lived many Slavs" [Ibid]. In the works of P.I.Rychkov we also find information about Bulgars. In his information, Bulgars lived in the Deshti Kypchak, fought against Mongols, in their Great Bulgaria country also lived Bashkirs. The echoes of the views of the West-European scientists about the peoples of the Great Tataria, about the Scythians, recognized as ancestors of many local peoples in the East Europe and Asia, also are in the "History of the Russian State" by N.M.Karamzin [Chapter 1]. The modern scientists supporting the Scytho-Iranian theories label the teachings of the 18th century historians, about the Scythians and their descendants, Tatars (in a broad sense of this word), unscientific [Neihardt A.A., 1982, 23], for in the 19th century started a real struggle for the Scythian heritage: some scientists attribute the Scythians to the Slavs, others to the Indo-Europeans, the third to the Indo-Iranians, and particularly to the Ossets. We believe that the research of the 17th-18th centuries' scholars contains a rational kernel. 223 70. Origin and development of the Magyaro-Misharo-Tatarian concept in the history of study the ethnogenesis of the Tatars. In a history of studies of the Tatar, in narrow sense of this word (Tatars not in a sense ‘non-Russian eastern peoples’ and not in sense 'Türks'), ethnogenesis , i.e. of the Bulgaro-Tatars a certain place takes the study of the process of emergence and development of the Magyaro-Misharo-Tatarian concept. According to this concept, in the Ural-Itil region in the 6th-9th centuries AD was located the so-called Маgna Hungaria (Great Hungary) which ostensibly in the 9th century had for some reasons migrated to the Pannonia, and the remaining part of the Hungarians (Magyars) under an influence of the newcomer Türks was Türkicized, forming the Mishar-Tatars and Bashkirs. How come and from where appeared this concept? As is known, the Arabo-Persian travelers, the composers of the sources about other peoples, in the 9th-10th centuries AD pointed that between the Besenyo (Badjinak) lands and lands of the Bulgarian s'k'l' is a country Almadjgaria where Madjgars live [Zahoder B.N., 1967, 48]. In the middle of the 19th century the French scientist S.Defremeri identified Madjgars with Magyars-Hungarians. Later, the scientists supporting this interpretation of the Madjgars in their own way determined that the Madjgars are really the Hungarians, that they in the 7th-9th centuries lived not only between the Bulgarian s'k'l's and Besenyos (Badjinaks), but also in the land of the Bulgars and Bashkirs by the river White, in the Urals and in the Southern Ural: in those regions ostensibly was the Great Hungary. The so-called Kushnarenko-Karayakup archeological culture found there was attributed to the remains of the Great Hungary. But because in the better known time there were no Hungarians, but lived only the Bulgars and Bashkirs, was being made the conclusion that the Great Hungary emigrated to the Pannonia (why, for what purpose the whole country would move from the settled habited place and move into an uncertainty?), its place in the Ural-Itil region was take by the Türks, who Türkicized the remaining Hungarians, forming at that new peoples under the name Tatars-Mishars and Bashkirds. Believed in the validity of this version, the historians started searching for the traces of the Hungarians in the territory of the Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. Alas, E.A.Halikova and A.H.Halikov "have found" the Hungarian burials in the Bolshe-Tiganian burial grounds of the Alekseev region, in the very center of the Itil Bulgaria [Halikova E.A., Halikov A.H., 1981], and the Bashkir historians "have found" the traces of the Hungarians-Ugrs in the Southern Ural [see collection "Problems of Ancient Ugrs in the Southern Ural". Ufa, 1988]. But about this question no common opinion exist among the archeologists. V.A.Ivanov, who is studying these problems, recognizes that if the majority of the researchers attributes the monuments Kushnarenko-Karayakup type to the "Ugrian" (E.A.Halikova, A.H.Halikov, G.I.Matveeva, E.P.Kazakov, V.A.Mogilnikov, R.G.Kuzeev, V.A.Ivanov) or Ugro-Nenetsian (the author, quoting V.F.Gening, uses the Russian derogatory word "Samoed", i.e "Self-eating" moniker, still widely used in the ethnological classifications, for the Nenets group of languages - Translator's Note) (V.F.Gening) N.A.Majitov persistently leads and advocates a concept about belonging of the Kushnarenko-Karayakup monuments (per N.A.Majitov Kara-Yakup Culture) to the Türks, to the ancient Bashkirs" [Ivanov V.A., 1988, 53]. Does not also agree with the postulate about the presence of the "Great Hungary" in the Ural-Itil region the archeologist V.F.Gening. Particularly, he wrote: "Even a cursory observation shows that genetically, the burial grounds of the Kushnarenko type and the Hungarian of the 9th-10th c. are incompatible, and hence, it is wrongful to allocate the territory of the lower r. White as "Great Hungary" [Gening V.F., 1977, 320]. A closer analysis of the evidence about the Madjgars rejects very easy the invalidity of the Madjaro-Misharo-Tatarian and the Madjaro-Bashkirian concepts. First, the location of the Madjgar teritory raises doubts. The Arabian sources write that Madjgaria is located between the lands of the Bulgarian skl (s'k'l') and the Besenyos (Badjinaks), that the Madjgars had direct economic relations with the Byzantium. Mahmud Kashgarly in the 11th century noted that Besenyos (Badjinaks) live next to the Byzantium. The doubt is, how could the Madjgars be located in the territory between the Itil and Ural, most likely they had to live somewhere in the Northern Caucasus. Secondly, the Arabian travelers unanimously inform that the Madjgars are Türks, they speak in Türkic. The supporters of identification the Madjgar with the Hungarians-Magyars very lightly assert that ostensibly the eastern historians were unanimously mistaken, that they by mistake misidentified the Hungarian language as the Türkic language [Erdeyn I., 1961, 307-320]. S.Defremeri and his followers were simply unaware that there were and still are the Madjgars who speak Türkic language; they lived and continue living in the Northern Caucasus and in the basin of the rivers Oka, Sura, in the Meshcher lowland. Most likely, the Arabian travelers wrote about these Türkic-speaking Madjgars/Machars/Mishars. Thirdly, if the Mishars and Bashkirs originally were Hungarian-speaking Magyars, in their language would necessarily be retained the Hungarian substratum, i.e. the native Hungarian words, but they do not exist. Hence, the Hungarians any did not render any influence upon the formation process of the Mishars and the Bashkirs. Failing to find the Hungarian substratum in the Mishars' and Bashkirs' language, some scientists came to a conclusion that the ancestors of the Tatars and Bashkirs did not live in the Ural-Itil region together with the Hungarians. They (the ancestors of the Tatars and Bashkirs) ostensibly from the aside monitored for the Ural-Itil region to be free from the Hungarians, and came in the Ural-Itil region only after a total departure of all Hungarians from there [Serebrennikov B.A., 1963, 22]. Fourthly, if in the Ural-Itil region for 200-250 years lived the Hungarians-Magyars, after them should remain a mass of the Hungarian toponyms, but they also do not exist. As to the detection of the burials similar to the burials in Hungary, by E.A.Halikova and A.H.Halikov in the center of the Itil Bulgaria, and by the Bashkirian scientists in the Kama area and Urals [Hungarians, 1987, 236-239], it should be noted that these territories are not the lands between the Bulgarian skl (s'k'l') and Besenyos (Badjinaks). So, how to explain the fact of the finding in the Hungary and the Ural-Itil region of the identical burials? In the Pannonia, where the Hungary is located, next to the Hungarians lived the Türkic-speaking Kumans, Kuns (Huns), Alans-Ases who also lived in the Ural-Itil region. Therefore its nothing surprising that both in Pannonia, and in the Ural-Itil region the same burials could be found. Thus, the Magyaro-Misharo-Tatarian and the Magyaro-Bashkirian ethnogenetic concepts do not match the reality. 225 71. Origin and development of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the history of study of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars. Even the first foreign scientists who included all eastern non-Russians in the semantics of the ethnonym Tatars, and later all the Türks, noted that these Tatars consists of various peoples: Vogul Tatars (Mansi), Abakan Tatars, Chulym Tatars, Kazakh Tatars, etc. Among them the scientists-travelers in the 17th century noted the presence of the Bulgaro-Tatars, i.e. the Bulgarian Tatars [Oleary А., 1905, 408]. That was the first application of the ethnonym Bulgaro-Tatars in the history. The Bulgarian origin of the Kazan Tatars was known to the Tatar intelligentsia of the 17th-18th centuries. That is witnessed by the two works about the history of the Bulgars created at the end of the 18th and in the beginning of the 19th century. These are the "Tavarih-i Bulgaria" by Hisamutdin bin Sharafutdin Bulgari-Muslimi and "Tarih name-i Bulgar" by Tadütdin Yalchygulov. They are written in the traditional genre "Türkic family tree" where the origin of the Bulgars by the tradition of genealogical compositions is lead to the prophets and Adam [Usmanov M.A., 1972, 134-166; Galyautdinov I.G., 1998]. The history of the ethnogenetical studies of the Tatars in the 19th century marked by the use of the term Tatar in Russia was starting to be applied as the ethnonym in a narrow sense, i.e. in its semantics were included only the Tatars of the Ural-Itil region, Crimean, Lithuanian, and Dobrudjian. At that time appeared historians who were studying the ethnogenesis of only the Kazan Tatar, or sometimes of the Tatars of the Ural-Itil region. In the beginning of the 19th century the first historians who were specifically studying the Ural-Itil region's Tatar ethnogenesis, noticed at once that the history of the ethnonym Tatar and a history of the ethnos Tatar do not coincide. They succeeded in proving that the Tatars of the Ural-Itil region by their anthropological attributes, ethnological features, mythological views are absolutely unlike the Mongolo-Tatars, and remind readily the local Türkic-speaking tribes called Bulgars in the Bulgarian state. And then this state occupied not only the Middle Itil territory (as now some Bulgarologists unsoundly minimize its borders), but the more extensive regions: from the Oka to the coast of the Caspian Sea, from the borders of The Old Rus to the r. Irtysh and the borders of Khoresm. In this extensive territory the Bulgars even after the disintegration of the Kipchak Khanate considered themselves a separate nation, did not rate themselves as Tatars, i.e. the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. The first researchers of the Tatar history, noticing it, professed that the Itil Tatars as ethnos were the descendants of local Itil Bulgars, and the ethnonym Tatars came there later, together with the Mongolo-Tatars. So, V.V.Grigorjev in 1836 published a special work "Volga Tatars", where he very easy and intelligibly proved that the Itil Tatars are the Itil Bulgars. He wrote "Present Kazan and Siberian Tatars, bearing the khalats (Türkic long outer gown - Translator's Note) in streets of the Russian cities, call themselves Bulgarlyk 'Bulgardom' " [Grigorjev V.V., 1836, 24]. In second half of the 19th century N.Ostroumov in his work "First experience of the ordinary Tatar language dictionary by the speech of the Christened Tatars of the Kazan province" attested that the ethnonym Tatar is a newcomer, but then for the Russians it served as the external name for very many peoples, including the Siberian, Crimean, and Itil Türks. Especially emphasizing that the ethnonym Tatar did not become the self-name of these peoples, he wrote: "these aliens still remember till now about their not Tatar, i.e. not Mongolian origin, and they ordinarily call themselves... Moslems, or Bulgars" [Ostroumov Н., 1876, 10] (The author, Ostroumov, used the term "inorodets", by which the Russian colonizers called the aboriginal population, twisting the semantics upside down and calling the aboriginals "aliens" vs. themselves if not exactly "natives", at least something like "our root" - Translator's Note). A big contribution to the development of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept made S.M.Shpilevsky, who in the 1877 published in Kazan the results of his complex research called "Ancient cities and other Bulgaro-Tatar monuments in the Kazan province". Explaining the meaning of the Bulgaro-Tatar history for understanding of the process of making up the Russian people, he wrote: "the Great-russian populace composed and developed under a direct influence of the neighboring alien tribes (The author, Shpilevsky, used the term "inorodets" - Translator's Note) of the Bulgarian federation, and subsequently of the Kazan Kingdom, absorbing the aliens and imbibing much from them into its core" [Shpilevsky S.M., 1877, 1]. For the first time in the Bulgaro-Tatar history S.M.Shpilevsky's subjects to the analysis the main Muslim sources (Ibn-Fadlan, Ibn-Ruste, Masudi, el-Balhi, Istahri, Ibn-Haukal) about the Bulgarian cities [Ibid, 3-7]. The same can be also said about his detailed analysis of the Russian sources about the Bulgaro-Tatars. It should be also noted that after the publication of the S.M.Shpilevsky's capital work the ethnonym Bulgaro-Tatars is used by all leading historians of the Tatars. N.G.Chernyshevsky knew the Tatar language and was also vividly interested in the Tatar history. He stated his ideas about the ethnogenesis of the Tatars thus: "Out of present Crimean, Kazan and Orenburg Tatars there is not a single person descending from the Batu soldiers, the present Tatars are the descendants of the former tribes who were living in these places before Batu and and were subjugated by Batu like were subjugated the Russians" [Chernyshevsky N.G., 1951, 245-246]. At the end of the 19th century appear aboriginal historians, the natives from the Itil Tatars, they enrich the Bulgaro-Tatar concept by the new, more weighty arguments. Among them Kaüm Nasyri should be the first in the list, he adhered to the theory of the Bulgarian origin of the Tatars and for the proofs of it was giving numerous ethnographical evidence [Nasyri К., 1975]. Shigabutdin Mardjani stepped out as a convinced supporter of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. On one hand, he has proved incontestably that the ancestors of the Tatars are the local Türkic tribes called Bulgars within the Bulgarian state, on the other hand, he explained that that nation has already accepted the ethnonym Tatars, therefore to reject it, as is done by the some people, does not make sense. The negative altitude of the Russians to the Tatars is not only because the Tatars carry the name of the conquerors; if the people were called not the Tatars, but the Moslems, that Russian negative attitude would be all the same, he explained [Mardjani Sh., 1989, 43-44]. Then, all the healthy forces of the Tatar historians followed in the S.Mardjani steps, and supported the Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the study of the ethnogenesis of that people. The first after S.Mardjani who continued deep ethnogenetical research was Gaynetdin Ahmerov, and he published two books: Bulgar tarihy ‘History of Bulgaria’ (1909), and Kazan tarihy ‘History of Kazan’ (1910). About the ethnogenesis of the Tatars, G.Ahmerov wrote in the "History of Kazan": "Though it is traditionally viewed that Bulgars and Kazan are essentially two separate states that replaced one another, but at close historical comparison and study allows to easily find their direct heredity, and to some extent even their alikeness: in the Kazan Khanate lived the same Türko-Bulgarian people" [Ahmerov Г., 1998, 62]. The outstanding historian Riza Fahreddinov recognized the Türks and Bulgars as the ancestors of the modern Tatars, but he did not use the term Tatars, he called the modern Tatars Kazan Töreklère, i.e the ‘Kazan Türks’, accordingly his book also is called "Bulgar vè Kazan Töreklère" (Bulgar and Kazan Türks), composed mostly in the 1908-1918, but published only in the 1993. As to Bulgars proper, Riza Fahreddinov holds that they were formed as a result of consolidation of the Huns and Finno-Ugric peoples. The population of the Bulgaria, though they had a common name Bulgar, the peoples among them also retained their own ethnonyms: Türk, Chuvash, Ar, Chirmish, Bashkir, Mishar, Tiptyar, etc. [Fahreddinov Р., 1993, 24]. In the 1909 G.Alisov noted in his article "The Muslim question in Russia" (Russian thought, № 7): "If to ask a Tatarin about his nationality, he would not call himself a Tatar, and ethnographically he would be partly right, as this name is a historical misunderstanding" [Alisov Г., 1909, 39]. Here he believes that these Tatars are the descendants of the Bulgars. In the 1910 was published a book of P.Znamensky "Kazan Tatars" (Kazan), in which the author attracts the attention of the readers to the fact that the "Tatars called themselves Bulgars (Bulgarlyk), linking themselves, in this way, into the most direct connection with that... nation" [Znamensky P., 1910, 4]. The famous Tatarian historian Hadi Atlasi in his book "Kazan hanlygy" (Kazan Khanate. Kazan, 1914) directly connects the construction of the Kazan with the Bulgars, considering them to be the ancestors of the Kazan Tatars [Atlasi H., 1993, 185]. The world famous historian Ahmet Zaki Validi Togan, still in his student years in Kazan has written the book "Kyskacha Törek-Tatars tarihy" (Brief history of the Türko-Tatars. Kazan, 1917), in which the Bulgarian period is considered as one of stages of the formation of the Bulgaro-Tatars from the Türks. The known Tatar historian Gaziz Gubaydullin, advocating the acceptance of the ethnonym Tatar, notes that the name Tatars was given to the population of the Kipchak Khanate "More in the political than in the ethnographic sense. It is very important that then the population did not yet call themselves "Tatars".... Thus, in the Altyn Orda period of the East European Türks' history the Tatar people could not yet be created in ethnological sense of this word. The history of the Kipchak Khanate for the stated reasons is not the main part of the history of the Itil Tatars, but is only a history of those elements from which were subsequently created the Nogays, Crimean Tatars, Bashkirs, Uzbeks, Itilian Tatars" [Gubaydullin G.S., 1928, 141]. The Itil Tatars he acknowledges as the descendants of the Bulgars and other Türkic tribes. A special value has for the history the opinion of the outstanding writer and politic Gayaz Ishaki (pronounced "Ih-s-khaki" - Translator's Note) who specially studied the history of the Tatar people to write a historical reference article about "Idel-Ural", published for the first time in the 1933 in Tatar, Russian and French languages. Developing the views he expressed in the beginning of the 20th century in his composition "Ike yüz eldan son_g inkyiraz" (Disappearance after two hundred years), in his work "Idel-Ural" he comes to a conclusion that the Kazan Tatars were formed on the basis of the Bulgarian population, which also adopted much from the newcomers, i.e. from the Mongolo-Tatars [Ishaki G., 1991, 11-15]. The historian Gabdulbari Battal in the 1922-23, studying in the library of the Helsinki university, wrote the book "Kazan Kazan Töreklère" (Kazan Türks) which was published in Istanbul in the 1925, where he stipulates that the Kazan Türks (i.e. Tatars) formed from the basis of a further development of the Bulgars in a broad sense of this word [Battal G., 1925, 2nd part, 1st Ch.]. The opinion of M.Hudjakov, who in 1923 published his book "Sketches for the history of the Kazan Khanate", is very important for us. As an unsurpassed expert on the Kazan Khanate and as an objective historian, he wrote about the ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars: "The base population of the Kazan Khanate were the descendants of the ancient Bulgars, which is an old, settled people of Türkic origin, which long before the Kazan Khanate created in the Middle Itil region a state, which traded widely, and was associated with Muslim culture for a long time" [Khudyakov М., 1996, 541] (The above bibliographical review is itself a testament to the devastation made to the historical science and its scholars during the country-wide Stalinist national-socialistic terror of the 1920es-1980es, when nothing of value could be published in Russia on this subject prior to the already suppressed momentary renaissance of the 1990es - Translator's Note). 228 72. Rebirth of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the studies of the Tatars' ethnogenesis. In the 1930es the Communist Party starts propagandizing the idea of the creation of the uniform Soviet people. All national personnel that worked in the field of the revival, preservation and development of the nations (especially small nations), are subjected to discharge of that function or to a physical elimination as enemies of the construction of communism i.e. as enemies of the people. As creation of the ethnic history for the small nations is directly connected with the policy of revival and development of these nations, so any ethnogenetical research of the Tatar peoples stop. A revival in that area begins only after the end of the Great Patriotic War (i.e. WWII - Translator's Note). Alarmed that the small nations of the USSR start addressing their ancient history, the Moscow makes a decision to restrain the ancientization of the history of the non-Russian peoples (i.e. the Russin subject people that are not ethnically Slavic - Translator's Note). The display of this apprehension materialized by the promulgation on August 9, 1944 of the decisions of the Central Committee VKP (b) (i.e. all-Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) - Translator's Note) "Condition and improvement measures for mass-political and ideological work in the Tatar party organization", in the item 7 of which was written: "Urge the Tatar Obkom VKP (b) (Reginal Committee - Translator's Note) to organize a scientific creation of the history of the Tataria, eliminate the serious deficits and mistakes of a nationalist character in the illumination of the history of the Tataria (embellishing the Golden Horde, popularization of the Khano-feudal epos about Idegy) made by different historians and literators. A special attention shall be to the research and illumination of the history of the joint struggle of the Russian, Tatar and other peoples of the USSR against foreign captors, against Tsarism and feudal-capitalistic oppression". This citation is given here to understand correctly the essence of the decision of the Central Committee VKP (b) about the study of the history of the Tatarstan and Tatar people. In it the emphasis is made that neither historians, nor the writers were not engaged in embellishment of the Kipchak Khanate, in the popularization of the Khano-feudal epos about Idegy, but is urged to engage only in the later history, specifically in the periods after annexation of the Kazan Khanate to the Russian state. Despite of that, the Tatar historians, linguists, literary critics, folklorists continued to poke in both the Altyn Orda, and the Bulgarian in periods of the history and culture of the Tatar people. But the historians were under a microscope, and therefore they had to limit to the display of only the negative sides of the Kipchak Khanate. The epos "Idegey" had to be forgotten. To maneuver out of this difficult situation, in the Republic was resolved to involve in the ethnogenetical research the Russian experts from Moscow also. Therefore the Institute of Language, Literature and History applied to the History and Philosophy Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences the with a petition to hold in the Moscow a special session devoted to the ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars. The session was held on April 25-26, 1946, there was discussed the question about the relation of the history of the Bulgars to the ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars. The Bulgar-Chuvash concept was endeavored to be preserved, for by then it was already recognized by the world Türkology. The value of this session for the deeper study of the Tatars was profound. First, the year 1944 was the year of the deportation of nations who were considered to be the newcomers to their native land from only the 11th century AD. In those years the Kazan Tatars were also considered newcomers and conquerors of the territory. The deportation could also involve the Kazan Tatars, but their heroic struggle against the German invaders and the efforts of the historians, who proved that the present Tatars are not the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors, the Kazan Tatars were saved from this doom. Secondly, this session proved to all the world that the Kazan Tatars have deep ethnic roots in the Itil region and Urals. The leading speaker at the session was the professor A.P.Smirnov. In his report "Question of the origin of the Tatars of the Itil region" he, after an analysis of the historical works for this theme, came to a conclusion that the modern Tatars of the Itil region are not Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. "The Mongols, crossing with fire and sword the Itil Bulgaria, did not settled in the Middle Itil region and in no case did they rendered an appreciable influence on the formation of the physical type of the modern Tatars. After the conquest of the Bulgaria by the Mongols, the Bulgars for a long time retained their name... Under their own name of Bulgars, and not the Tatars, know them also the Russian annals. So, in the events of the 1311, 1366, 1370, 1374-1391 the Bulgars were called Bulgars, or (in the Nikon annals) Kazanians, or Besermyans, but nowhere they are designated as Tatars" [Smirnov A.P., 1948, 14]. However, A.P.Smirnov was not an exception among the Indo-European historians. Trusting their doctrines, he believed that the Bulgars also were newcomers. "Among the autochtonous tribes were no Türks, he continues, ...the modern Chuvashes, like the Tatars, are the successors of the Bulgarian culture" [Ibid, 148]. A.P.Smirnov in his conclusion states a seditious then idea that the Alans-Sarmatians could be Türks. "The Bulgars belonged to the Alano-Sarmatian tribes. This element is well traced in the culture of the Itil Bulgars" [Ibid, 150]. With this remark he rejects his own declaration that the Bulgars were newcomers. At the session of the History and Philosophy Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences a very important report was also made by T.A.Trofimova on the theme "Ethnogenesis of the Tatars of the Middle Itil region in view of the evidence of anthropology". The anthropological material, which by its nature is the most objective, shows that Bulgaro-Tatars neither during the Bulgar period, nor during the formation of the Tatars were not a newcoming population. T.A.Trofimova concludes: "... The study of the anthropological composition of the Tatar ASSR Tatars shows that the modern Tatar population has developed on the basis of ancient layers of the local population, which included in its composition some later anthropological layers" [Trofimova T.A., 1948, 61]. All other lecturers and co-speakers, N.I.Vorobiev, L.Z.Zalyay, N.F.Kalinin, and H.G.Gimadi were confirming the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. There T.A.Trofimova had incontestably proved the direct ethnic connection of the Bulgaro-Tatars with the pre-Bulgarian ancient local population. This courageous viewpoint was supported by S.E.Malov. Participating in the discussion on the reports, he said: "... That these two language mediums (Tatar and Chuvash - M.Z.) were there for a very long time, centuries before our era, and almost in the same form as now. If the present Tatars would have met a pressumed "ancient Tatarin", the inhabitant of the 5th century BC, they would have communicated quite well... In my assertion I base on the great stability and little changeability of the Türkic languages" [Malov S.E., 1948, 116]. Thus, after a 15-years break, the ethnogenetical research was restarted, and was restored the Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the study of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars. 231 73. Rise of necessity to define the essence of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. After the discussion at the session of the History and Philosophy Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, calmed by the newly found common language in the question about the ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars, the Tatar historians started to work in quiet atmosphere. But soon the calmness was broken. M.G.Safargaliev voiced in a periodical media in an article "One of the disputable questions of the history of Tataria" ("History Questions" № 7, 1951) where he reproached the participants of the session that they, putting forward the thesis about the Bulgarian origin of the Kazan Tatars, ostensibly did not consider at all the participation in it of the Desht-i Kipchak Türkic tribes, so-called Tatars, who were speaking, like the Kama Bulgars, the Türkic, and truer, the Kipchak language. The presence in the Kipchak Khanate of the numerous Tatars M.G.Safargaliev "proves" by that they were called Tatars by the Persian historian Rashid-ad-din and the historians of the Western Europe, completely overlooking that into the concept 'Tatars' were included not only the Bulgars, not only all the population of the Kipchak Khanate, but also the population of other empires of Chingizids (Chagatai, Khubilai and Khulagu), and that all the peoples of these empires retained their own ethnonyms, including the Bulgars who have not lost their ethnonym until the 19th century. A very logical answer to M.Safargaliev gave H.Gimadi in his article "Some questions of the history of Tataria" ("History Questions", № 12, 1951). H.Gimadi notes that in spite of the fact that the lecturers speaking at the session prepared independently one from each other, their conclusions in respect to the origin of the Kazan Tatars have mostly coincided. He formulated the main conclusion of the participants of the session as follows: "The Kazan Tatars as a nation formed in the place of their modern habitation from the aboriginal population and the Türkic-speaking Bulgarian and partly Kypchak tribes that have received the name of the Itil or Kama Bulgars" [Gimadi X., 1951, 119]. This opinion adequately reflected the conclusions of the discussion at the session, and on that basis was defined the essence of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. Some historians, not understanding the essence of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, criticized the conclusions of discussion at the session of the History and Philosophy Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, advocating instead of the Bulgarian the Altyn Ordu origin of the Tatars. What is the essence of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept? First, the concept about a Bulgarian origin of the Tatars does not reject the concept about their Altyn Orda origin, and on the contrary presupposes it. In fact, the Türkic population of the Bulgarian state that consisted of different local Türkic-speaking and Türkicized tribes, who received a common ethnonym Bulgars, after their conquest by the Mongolo-Tatars did not soar somewhere in air, but continued to live in the Kipchak Khanate. Therefore the scientists divide the history of the Itil Bulgaria into two main periods: the "pre-Mongolian (10th - first half of the 13th centuries), and the Altyn Orda (second half of the 13th - first half of the 15th centuries)" [Halikov A.H., 1994, 53-103, 152-158; Fahrutdinov R.G., 1975, 5]. Knowing this makes it difficult to agree with the formulation of the question: do the Kazan Tatars originate from the Bulgarian or the Kipchak Khanate state? In fact, the ancestors of the Kazan Tatars lived both in the Kipchak Khanate, and in the Bulgarian states, at different times also accepting an insignificant quantity of the newcomers. Secondly, the theory about the Bulgarian origin of the Tatars can be put in opposition to the concept of their Altyn Orda origin only in the event when the last concept is understood as Mongolo-Tatarian i.e. if to think as follows: the Mongolo-Tatars have conquered the Bulgarian state, settled there and assimilated the Bulgars. But that did not happen, and on the contrary, the local Bulgars assimilated the insignificant quantity of the Chingizids' posted soldiers. This is eloquently evidenced by the fact that the Tatar language historically ascends not to the Eastern-Türkic, but to the Ural-Itilian local norms. Thirdly, the Bulgaro-Tatar concept does not reject that after the Mongolo-Tatar conquest the newcomer Mongolo-Tatars have penetrated in the Bulgar society, but accounts that such newcomer elements were, but they rather quickly assimilated among the local Bulgars, rather than the reverse. Fourthly, the word Tatars in the name Bulgaro-Tatars does not mean that once to local Bulgars came the eastern Tatars. These Tatars after the Mongolian conquests did not exist, i.e. the self-name Tatars was not used anywhere, this word was used by other peoples only as an external name for the population of all four Chingizid empires, including all Altyn Orda citizens. The word Tatars in the name Bulgaro-Tatars means only that the former Bulgars under the influence of the external factors in the 19th century started to apply, instead of the ethnonym Blgar/Bulgar the ethnonym Tatar, though earlier for external interfaces the Bulgars also used this ethnonym. Fifthly, the Bulgaro-Tatar concept does not reject, but pressumes the presence of pre-Bulgarian aboriginal Türkic tribes, who also are the ancestors of the Bulgaro-Tatars. Thinking that the far ancestors of the modern Tatars were not only the Bulgars, but also other Türks, especially pre-BulgarianTürks, some scientists, deeming the simple ethnonym Tatars to be a misconstrual, applied a composite ethnonym Türko-Tatars. For example, the chairman of the Muslim fraction in the Russian State Duma, Sadri Maksudi, at its November 10, 1910, session declared that "… The term Tatars is not a scientific term.., it is based on a historical mishap". Therefore in his works he avoided using the ethnonym Tatars, and in relation to the Kazan Tatars he recommended the ethnonym Türko-Tatars, also including there Bashkirs. So, on July 31, 1917, the 2nd All-Russian congress of Moslems accepted thesises prepared by Sadri Maksudi "Foundations for cultural-national autonomy of Moslems in the Internal Russia and Siberia" where the people were called with the ethnonym Türko-Tatars, and their language was called Türki (accent on the second syllable - Translator's Note) language. Nowadays the concept 'Türko-Tatars' includes the Dobrudja Tatars and Crimean Tatars. Thus, the Bulgaro-Tatar concept does not reject the Türko-Tatar concept, but includes it. Sixthly, the Bulgaro-Tatar concept is opposing the Bulgaro-Chuvash and Tataro-Tatar concepts (about that is below). 234 74. Further complex confirmation of the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. With the understanding and exact definition of the essence of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, not only the historians, but also philologists and even philosophers started addressing the problems of the Bulgaro-Tatars ethnogenesis. The Tatar historians and the department of the history of the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Kazan branch the USSR Academy of Sciences, carrying out objective ethnogenetical research, became convinced even more in the correctness of this concept supporters. Therefore it became the backbone in the illumination of the Tatar ethnogenesis in such summarizing works, as the "History of the Tatar ASSR" (in two volumes, vol. 1, 1955); "History of the Tatar ASSR (from the most ancient time to present)". Kazan, 1968; "Tatars of the Middle Itil region and Urals". Kazan, 1967; "History of the Tatar ASSR". Kazan, 1973. The Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the study of the Bulgaro-Tatar ethnogenesis received a further development in the special collection of the scientific works "Questions of the ethnogenesis of the Türkic-speaking peoples in the Middle Itil region". Kazan, 1971. In the 1960es-70es T.Davletshin vigorously studied the post-revolutionary history of the Tatars, he also studied their ethnogenesis in detail. He wrote about it: "Tatars mostly are the descendants of the ancient Itil Bulgars" [Davletshin Т., 1974, 9]. From the 1970es among the historians A.H.Halikov becomes a leading expert on the ethnogenesis, to the end of his life he consistently conducted ethnogenetical research on the basis of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. His personal beliefs, formed as a result of his scrupulous archeological research, he for the first time fully expressed in his monograph "Tatar halkynyn_g kilep chygyshy" (Origin of the Tatar people. Kazan, 1974). There he has shown that he is conducting objectively and scientifically the analysis of the material, not allowing unscientific, i.e. selective use of the factual material and literature. His views at the problems of the Bulgaro-Tatars origin A.H.Halikov deepened in the following books: 1) Origin of the Tatars of the Itil region and Urals. Kazan, 1978; 2) Tatar people and their predecessors. Kazan, 1989; 3) Berenche dèülèt (Bulgar ile) ‘First State (Bulgaria Country)'. Kazan, 1991; 4) Who we are, Bulgars or Tatars? Kazan, 1992; 5) Mongols, Tatars, Kipchak Khanate and Bulgaria. Kazan, 1994. The monographs of A.H.Halikov became reference books for several generations of the Tatar intelligentsia, the lovers of history of their people. His pupils properly continued his tasks, but some ungrateful of them started defaming him posthumously, sarcastically gauging the heritage of their teacher as "Halikovshchina" (derogatory, akin to "Halikovist" times, science, regime etc. - Translator's Note). The objectivity of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the studies of the Tatar ethnogenesis is supported by the archeological materials found in the last years in the Samara area. For example, the archeologists from Samara R.S.Bagautdinov, A.V.Bogachev, S.E.Zubov from the analysis of a huge quantity of the archeological material came to a convincing conclusion that at sources of the Itil-Kama Tatar history stood the Pra-Bulgars [Bagautdinov R.S., Bogachev A.V., Zubov S.E., 1998] (Pra-Bulgars is a funny moniker specifically invented by the Russian PC historical lingo to avoid naming Bulgars. With no Pra-Norwegians, Pra-Finns, Pra-Italians or Pra-Eskimo etc. in existence, the invention of the Pra-Bulgars, used solely in the Russian and Danube Bolgaria Indo-Europeist lingo, is a masterpiece of the Orwellian creativity - Translator's Note). Ferit Agi, Ali Akysh and Nadir Davlet in the joint work "Tatarlar" (Tatars) in the book "Cossack vè Tatar Türklère" (Kazakh and Tatar Türks), published in Istanbul in the 1976 spoke out as supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. They write that "the people formed from the consolidation of different Türkic tribes of the Desht-i Kypchak, the descendants of the Itil Bulgars, the various Finnish tribes, and also lost Mongols, was given the name Tatars" [Agi Ф., 1976, 130]. The Bulgaro-Tatar concept received a further international resonance in the monograph of the USA Southern California University professor Azade-Aisha Rorlih "Itil Tatars..." [Rorlih A. A., 1986, 5-9]. It has a special value for the Tatar history, for A.Rorlih has a world recognition, in particular world-renown orientalist Alexander Bennigsen wrote about her: "Among the living historians only Rorlih uniquely combines the linguistical abilities, ethnic acuity, historical penetration. She also has the factual material allowing her to finish research successfully... Her work will pass the time test and possibly become a classoc". A.Rorlih's book is valuable to our historical science also because it resists the numerous foreign editions advocating the Tataro-Tatar concept. From the historians that support the Bulgaro-Tatar concept should be named Z.I.Gilmanov, S.H.Alishev, R.G.Fahrutdinov, and G.L.Fayzrahmanov, who conducted historical and archeological research based on the recognition of the Bulgarian origin of the Itil Tatars. Up until now F.S.Huzin and G.M.Davletshin continue the scientific focus of their teacher A.H.Halikov. Despite of the pressure from the supporters of other concepts, they remain reliable defenders of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept in study of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars. They were successful in defending the Bulgaro-Tatar concept from its newly emerging opponents, F.S.Huzin from the analysis of the archeological data (see his book "Itil Bulgaria during pre-Mongolian time (10th - beginning of the 13th centuries)". Kazan, 1997), and G.M.Davletshin from the analysis of the history of the development of the Türko-Tatars spiritual culture (see his book "Türki-Tatar ruhi mèdèniyate tarihy" (History of Türko-Tatars spiritual culture). Kazan, 1999). D.K.Sabirova and J.S.Sharapov in the 2000 released a university textbook "History of Tatarstan" where the Tatar ethnogenesis is shown on the basis of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. In all the above works as evidence comes from the archeological and other historical data. Analyzing the ancient Khazarian and the Bulgaro-Tatar coins, A.Muhammadiev incontestably proved the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. From his numerous works in this respect stands out as exceptional the book "Boryngy Hazar ѕèm Bolgar-Tatar akchalary" (Ancient Khazarian and Bulgaro-Tatar coins. Kazan, 1986). The leading experts on ethnography (N.I.Vorobiev, G.M.Hisamutdinov, R.G.Muhamedova, J.G.Muhametshin, R.G.Kashafutdinov, N.A.Halikov, R.F.Urazmanova, R.N.Musina, S.V.Suslova) are supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. We have ethnogenetical research in which the Bulgaro-Tatar concept is supported by the linguistical data. Among these works is G.V.Üsupov's monograph "Introduction to the Bulgaro-Tatar epigraphy" (M. L., 1960), where he wrote: "Replacing each other almost in the same territory feudal states, Itil Bulgaria and the Kazan Khanate, left gravestone inscriptions belonging to these sequential epochs" [Üsupov G.V., 1960, 164]. The author of this book with his works entered this problem with the linguistical research also directed to show the falsity of the Tataro-Tatar theory. In the book "Tatars halky telenen_g barlykka kilüe" (Formation of the Tatar people language. Kazan, 1977), analyzing the Bulgarian epigraphy of the 2nd type (with features of both Chuvash, and the spoken language of the Tatar ancestors), he came to a conclusion that they were written not by the ancestors of the modern Chuvashes, but ancestors of those Chuvashes, who were subsequently Bulgarised. The language of the Bulgarian epigraphy of the 1st type completely coincides with the language of the Tatar ancestors. The confirmation of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept by the linguistical data was also stated in the subsequent works: 1) The language sources of the main components of the Kazan Tatars // Questions of Tatar Linguistics. Kazan, 1978; 2) Problems of language and the origin of the Itil Tatars. Kazan, 1986; 3) Ethnogenesis and milestones of development of the Bulgaro-Tatars // Problems Linguo-ethno-history of the Tatar people. Kazan, 1995; 4) Problems of the ethnogenesis of Tatar people // Materials on the history of the Tatar people. Kazan, 1995; 5) Tatars: Problems of history and language. Kazan, 1995; 6) Türki-Tatars ethnogenesis (Ethnogenesis of the Türko-Tatars. Kazan, 1998), and also in the joint work with J.F.Kuzmin-Ümanadi: Itil Bulgars and their descendents. Kazan, 1993. The Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the linguistical plan was substantiated in the works of F.S.Hakimzyanov (1987), D.G.Muhametshin and F.S.Hakimzyanov (1987), F.G.Garipova (1994), D.B.Ramazanova (1983), V.H.Hakov ("Tatars èdèbi tele tarihy", History of the Tatar literary language. Kazan, 1993). From the analysis of the linguistical and other data, A.Karimullin became a steadfast supporter of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. His clear viewpoint he stated with a talent the in the brochure "Tatars: ethnos and the ethnonym" (Kazan, 1988), which held several editions at home and abroad. In the solving of the problems of the Bulgaro-Tatars origin also lively participated some literary critics. The widely known writer G.Tagirjanov convincingly demonstrates the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept [Tagirjanov G., 1979, 10-27]. Reconstructing the ethnic history of the people, historians also address the folklore. The problems of the Tatar ethnogenesis are illuminated in the F.I.Urmancheev's book "Heroic epos of the Tatar people" (Kazan, 1984). He writes that the "Türkic-speaking Bulgarian tribes render a powerful influence on the formation of the Kazan Tatars and Mishars" [Urmancheev F.I., 1984, 16] . Among the art critics F.H.Valeev supports the Bulgaro-Tatar concept [Valeev F.H., 1975, 6-9]. In the development of the Bulgaro-Tatar theory the R.H.Bariev's in-depth study "Philosophical aspects of the Itil Bulgar ethnogenesis" (1996) was pivotal. The philosophers J.G.Abdullin, R.I.Nafigov, K.F.Faseev, F.M.Sultanov, etc. also came to a conclusion about the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. In the research of the ancient local ethnic roots of the Bulgaro-Tatars of a great importance happened the uncovering and study of the Collection of the Bulgarian annals "Djagfar tarihy" (vol. 1, Orenburg, 1993). Based on them and other sources, Z.Z.Miftahov recreated a novel original ethnic history of the Bulgaro-Tatars [Lecture Course for the history of the Tatar people. Kazan, 1998]. Now the Russian special research also admits that the Kazan Tatars are not the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatars, but the descendants of the Bulgars. For example, A.S.Tokarev in his book "Ethnography of the peoples of the USSR" writes: "The former view that the Kazan Tatars are lineal descendants of the Batu conquerors who came to the Eastern Europe in the 13th century, is completely wrong" [Tokarev A.S., 1958, 171-172]. K.I.Kozlova comes to a conclusion that the "Tatars of the Itil region are closely connected by their roots to the local population of the Itil region and, undoubtedly, one of the main components in the Tatar people were the Itil Bulgars" [Kozlova K.I., 1964, 20-21]. The review of the literature that substantiate the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept can be extended. But the works listed above clearly demonstrate that the main body of the leading historians who seriously considered the problems of the Tatar ethnogenesis support the introduction of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept in the Tatar ethnogenetical research. 239 75. Emergence and development of the Tataro-Tatar concept in the study of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars. Any curious person without a special preparation who for the first time would face the problems of the Tatars origin, would be ready to believe an elementary reasoning, that there are modern Tatars and there are Mongolo-Tatars, that they carry an identical ethnonym Tatars, and consequently the modern Tatars are the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. Actually the Tataro-Tatar concept is born at such amateurish level. As we saw above, the first supporters of the Tataro-Tatar concept were the first West-European researchers of the Tatars. However, then under the semantics of the ethnonym Tatars they included all the population of the Chingizids' Mongolo-Tatar states, i.e. the Mongolian feudal empire and the Uluses of Khubilai, Chagatai, Khulagu and Djuchi, deeming them to be the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. The Russian scientists, with a better idea about the Djuchi empire, i.e. about the Kipchak Khanate, initially all Altyn Ordunians called Tatars, also deeming them to be the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. In spite of the fact that about the Tatar ethnogenesis the majority of the scientists formulated the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, some Tatar intellectuals and a part of the scientists of the neighboring peoples supported the Tataro-Tatar concept. Thus emerged an amateurish approach to the Tatar ethnogenesis, thus formed the amateurish Tataro-Tatar concept in the study of the ethnogenesis of the modern Tatars. In the 2nd half of the the 19th century it has received a new development from unexpected positions. In particular, the Kazan missionaries decided to revive it in their colonial purposes and linked it to the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept. N.I.Ilminsky, engrossed in the fast Christianization of Itil region peoples, did not like that the Maris, Chuvashes, Mordvas gravitate to the Moslem Tatars, and view Christianization negatively. He had to show the Tatars as newcomers, as conquerors, so that other Itil region peoples would not orient upon them. For that, N.I.Ilminsky as a scientist, has taken advantage of that in the 1863 H.Feyzhanov in the language of the Bulgarian tombstones found Chuvash words [Fejzhanov H., 1863]. Not troubling himself by a comprehensive study of the material, from the presence of the Chuvash words in the Bulgarian epigraphy, N.I.Ilminsky had declared that descendants of the Bulgars are not the Tatars, but the Chuvashes, and that the Tatars are the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. The N.I.Ilminsky's views were then supported and advanced by A.Kunik [1878] and by the tsarist censor and scientist N.I.Ashmarin. Explaining why the Mari (Cheremises) call the Tatars Suases (Chuvashes), he wrote: "... The contemporary with us Chuvashes are not anything else as the lineal descendants of the Volga Bulgars, and the Cheremises, designating them by the name Suas, subsequently transferred this name also on the Tatarian conquerors of the territory, who, having inherited that political influence what initially belonged to the Bulgars, and also partly their culture, and accepted Islam, then began to attribute to themselves the Bulgarian origin. Such transfer of a tribal name from one nation to another was especially possible that the merging of the half-civilized newcomers with the cultural Bulgars (Moslems) came with slow graduality, and the former Bolgarism was totally imperceptibly replaced by Tatarism" [Ashmarin N.I., 1902, 49-50]. The Tataro-Tatar concept after N.I.Ilminsky, A.Kunik and N.I.Ashmarin was supported by the main forces of the Russian, foreign and Chuvash Türkologists, for they with different reasons have tried and are trying now to prove the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept. The relative sections of the school and university textbooks about the history of Russia were composed to illuminate the history of Tatars starting from the Mongolo-Tatar conquests, and finishing with the modern Itil and Crimean Tatars, considering the last as lineal descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors (for the uninitiated, the Russian textbook history, in addition to being re-written with every new political cataclysm, is also marked by Slavo-centric and Imperial-centric themes, and completely ignores the history of the constituent people save for the Slavic nationalism, including a total blindness toward the Fennic peoples, Türkic peoples and every other people of the 200+ accounted for in the 1900 and reduced to only 100+ nations by 2000. At the same time all children of the country use the same Orwellian-rigged textbooks, with forced public education mostly in the Russian language, brainwashing children to learn only the state imperial views and whatever falsehoods it propagates. The State Ministry of Education is in fact a Ministry of Propaganda with added enforcement powers. - Translator's Note). As to the Tatar historians, they did follow the Tataro-Tatar concept, being the supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, they were conducting explanatory work among the supporters of the Tataro-Tatar concept, and they have been proving that the modern Tatars are not the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. A similar explanatory work had to be carried out also among the Tatar population, for studying the respective sections of the textbooks on the Russian history at school, the Tatar pupils feel insulted and offended for being counted as the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. During the 20th century the Tataro-Tatar concept sometimes metamorphosed. Learning that the Itil Tatars are not characterized by the Mongolian anthropological features, and hence, they cannot be the lineal descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors, some scientists started asserting that the Itil Tatars, as well as Chuvashes, anthropologically are the descendants of the Bulgars, but the Chuvashes retained the Bulgarian language, while the Tatars under the influence of the newcomer Tatars, had forgotten their former Bulgarian language, and started to speak in the Tatarian language [Baskakov N.A., 1969, 288; Tihomirov M.N., 1948; Dimitriev V.D., 1984, 35]. Below we shall see that Tatars language is not introduced from the outside, but is a product of the further development of the language of the local Türkic and Türkicized tribes. In 1960es of the 20th century across the Europe rolled the movement which received a name "big nationalism of the small nations". It could not penetrate through the Iron Curtain into the USSR. But some Tatars living in Turkey, under the influence of the supporters of this movement, found it necessary to raise a question about the Tatar ethnogenesis. Lyabib Karan, who then was working in Turkey, in the 1962 published his book "Tatarlarnyn_g töp chygyshy" (Real origin of the Tatars), where he puts the ethnonym Tatars above the ethnonym Türk and calls for a creation of a common Türkic state under the name Tatarian. For the Bulgaro-Tatar views he sharply critiques Gayaz Ishaki and Sadri Maksudi. Thus being revived the orientation of the deliberate Tatarists, but from another side. The missionaries stand up for the ethnonym Tatars because it shows that the Tatars descend from the Mongolo-Tatars, and Lyabib Karan is preaching this ethnonym because he wants to lift the nationalist spirit of all Türks and calls them to create a common Tatarian, i.e. common Türkic state [Karan L., 1962, 10-11, 67-71]. The Tatar historians did not follow after Lyabib Karan, until right at the end of the 20th century some of them "did not get lost" between the three concepts. As to some Russian and West-European scientists adhering to the Tataro-Tatar concept, they would like to use it also today to accuse the modern Itil and Crimean Tatars for the negative consequences of the Mongolo-Tatar conquests. And the Chuvash historians adhere to the Tataro-Tatar concept only to prove better the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept. 242 76. Origin and development of the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept in the study of the ethnogenesis of the Tatars and Chuvashes. The Bulgaro-Chuvash concept has arisen in parallel with the Tataro-Tatar concept. After the known discovery of H.Fejzhanov about the presence of the Chuvash words in the Bulgarian epigraphy, N.I.Ilminsky's in 1865 advanced an idea about the origin of the Chuvashes from the Itil Bulgars, and the Tatars from the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. He was supported by A.Kunik [1878] and N.I.Ashmarin [1902] who tried to develop this concept. The Bulgaro-Chuvash concept was attractive by its novelty and many Türkologists and even non-Türkologists started work on it. For some of them it was important to prove its adequacy, to connect confidently an origin of the Itil Tatars with the Mongolo-Tatars, and to solve the ethnic and political problems linearly from the Tatars to the Tatars. In addition, the adherents of the Bulgaro-Chuvash theory at the same time tried to define the character of language for the Khazars, and the Huns, identifying them with "Chuvash-like" Bulgarian language. So, the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept turned over many pages in the Türkology. It all began with the Bulgarian language accepted as not a common-Türkic, but strongly deviating from it, like the Chuvash language. That "was proved" by pronouncing that the language of the Bulgarian epitaphs was the Chuvash language. But a more objective research have shown that the language of the Bulgarian epigraphy of the 1-st type was a common Türkic, and of the 2-nd type was similar to the Chuvash language. As the Chuvashes have not inherited almost anything from the Bulgars, including the Islam, it was premised that the epigraphy of the second type (with the Chuvash features) was written by the Chuvashes who accepted Islam and were being Bulgarised at the time. After these Chuvash Moslems had finally Bulgarised, the Chuvash-lingual epitaphs disappear. As to the main part of the Chuvashes who remained away from the (cultural - Translator's Note) influence of the Bulgars, they survived till now, from the paganism they gradually went to the Christian religion. Again was proved that the Bulgarian language was a common Türkic language. At the same time some Türkologists came up with an idea that if the Bulgarian language was Chuvash-like, ostensibly both Khazarian and Hunnish languages were also Chuvash-like. That hypothesis was disproved by the follow up research (see para. 98-99). Some Türkologists, expecting that the Ibn-Fadlan's records should reflect some traces of the Bulgarian language, endeavored to search the records for the Chuvash words. All attempts in this direction also turned out to be in vain (see para. 101-102 for details). Some supporters of the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept, thinking that the Bulgarian language was characterized by the Chuvash features, endeavored to search for the Chuvash words in so-called Slavo-Bulgarian Nominalia, but found nothing like it and could not prove the Chuvash-linguality of the Bulgars/Bolgars (see para. 103 for details). Were not crowned with a success the aspirations of some scientists to find Chuvash words in the Ancient Balkarian inscriptions in Türkic alphabet (details in para. 104). Confident that once the Hungarians lived in the Ural-Itil region next to the Bulgars, the Hungarian scientists strenuously searched for the Chuvash words in the Hungarian language, but all in vain, they could not discover anything real (details in para. 105). Trying to prove the (state-mandated - Translator's Note) legitimacy of the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept, scientist studied the Türkic loanwords in the Mari, Udmurt and Mordovian languages. Falling to the believes that the Bulgarian language is the Chuvash language, they started extracting the Chuvash loanwords and call them Bulgarian loanwords (details in para. 106). The Tatar historians, even the linguists, during this scientific turbidity were limited to the subject of proving the adequacy of the Bulgaro-Tatar theory, ans specifically did not work to prove the deceptiveness of the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept. Only in a joint work of the author of this book with J.F.Kuzmin-Ümanadi, the "Itil Bulgars and their descendants" (Kazan, 1993) the falsity of the Bulgaro-Chuvash doctrine was shown in detail by demonstrating examples. In spite of all the reasons stated above, the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept still finds its supporters, especially among the Chuvash scientists, and also among the newly emerging Tataro-Tatarists. Meanwhile, the objective history connects the ethnic roots of the Chuvashes with the Veds, who spoke a Finno-Ugric language of the Mari type. Apparently, in the antiquity their language experienced a very strong influence of the Mongolian language. The Veds in the Itil region very closely interacted with common Türkic-speaking Suases (one of the ancestors of the Bulgaro-Tatars), under the influence of that language the Finno-Ugric language of Veda people gradually accepted the feature of the Suasian language, and adopted from them a new ethnonym Suas/Suvas/Chuvas/Chuvash. Exactly for that reason the not Türkicized part of the Maris calls the Chuvashes "Suaslamari" (i.e. Suasian Maris), and they call the Bulgaro-Tatars Suases. That is why all attempts of the scientists to prove the Chuvashe-linguality of the Bulgars have been doomed to failure. 244 *77. Movement for returning the ethnonym Bulgars* and against preservation of the ethnonym Tatars.** In the history of the ethnogenetical studies of the Bulgaro-Tatars a special place takes a movement of some scientists and politicians for returning to the people of their former ethnonym Bulgars and against retention of the ethnonym Tatars. The movement simultaneously also touched the problems of studying the ethnic history. We know that the modern Tatars were formed from the development of the Bulgarian nation, formed as a result of consolidation of local Türkic-speaking and Türkicized tribes into the structure of the Itil-Bulgarian state, and that only at the end of 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries they acquired from the Russians and others the ethnonym Tatars, and under that ethnonym consolidated into a nation. The reasons of introduction of the ethnonym Tatars into the former Bulgars in a broad sense of this word R.M.Raimov formulated as follows: "The name Tatars has taken root here only during the capitalist development due to the nationalist aspirations of the Tatar young bourgeoisie, which was trying to achieve installation in the people of the nationalist militant spirit, and which linked the origin of the people with the Chingizids, those conquerors who for many centuries dominated the Near East and the Eastern Europe" [Raimov R.M., 1948, 145]. From the very beginning a struggle went in that fashion between the supporters of the preservation for the people of their former own name of Bulgars, and for renaming them by their exoethnonym Tatars. In the 1862 the supporters of returning to the people their ethnonym Bulgars united in special a party group under a leadership of Gaynan Vaisov. The party was running an explanatory work among the intelligentsia for abandoning the ethnonym Tatars. But the representatives of the Tatar bourgeoisie insisted that the ethnonym Tatars, the name of the great Chingizids, became a self-name of the people. On their side was also the known scientist and a religious figure S.Mardjani. Calling their people Beznen_g Bolgarlar ‘our Bulgars’, and being a convinced supporter of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, S.Mardjani supported the ethnonym Tatars. On one hand, he was arguing that the Kazan Khanate is a continuation of the Bulgarian Khanate, which during the existence of the Djuchi Ulus also continued its former traditions, that the ancestors of the Tatars are the local Türkic tribes which had the general name Bulgars in the Bulgarian Khanate, but on the other hand, he tried to explain that the people already accepted the ethnonym Tatars; therefore it should not be abandoned; the hostile altitude of the Russians toward the Tatars is not only because they are called Tatars, if the people were called Moslems then from the Christian Russians there would be the same attitude [Mardjani S., 1989, 43-44]. S.Mardjani was also supported by other Tatar historians, the supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. Despite of it, the movement if the Vaisovans again rejuvenated during the revolutionary events of the 1917. S.G.Vaisov created a new "Council Volgobulgarmus" which had a purpose to free the people from the national oppression, a revival of the Bulgarian nation, and restoration to the people of their real name Bulgars. In spite of the party splintering shortly, its adherents did not stop their struggle. Summarizing the activity of the partisans of that struggle, the scientists of those times noted that the "Tasks of the Tatar political leaders was to take out from the use the name Tatars, replacing it with the name Türk or Bulgars" [Samoylovich A.N., 1922, note 25]. With coming of perestroika and democratization of public life in 80es the movement for restoration of the former name of the nation has renewed, in the Kazan was created a party "Bulgarian national congress", with a propaganda society "Bulgar al Djadid" with the local branches in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Naberezhnye Chelny, Kiev, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk and in many other cities. The supporters of this movement began to be called simply Bulgarists. The Bulgarists pursued basically the same ideas as the former party of revival of the Bulgarian nation. With the purpose of elimination of the nagative altitude of the Russian and other peoples toward the Tatars as the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors, they expressed demands to abandon the ethnonym Tatars, to restore and anchor the label Bulgars to the people (this is reality of the situation that creates a special mentality: from the Stalinist times everyone carries at all times an internal passport ID showing the "nationality" of the person, and that label is one of the major factors in the lives of the individuals, a factor inescapable and uncontrollable like a hand of a fate - Translator's Note). Some of them believed that among the Tatar people are the descendants of the Bulgars, who at census should enter the name Bulgars, and there are the descendants of the enlisted Tatars who can enter the name Tatars. At that they were mistaken, such division of the population into Bulgars and Tatars does not reflect the reality, and it can negatively affect the revival and development of the nation. In movement of the Bulgarists was very positive their recognition of the insufficient level of study of the Bulgarian period in the history of our people, and they called to deepen this research. It was the Bulgarists who have found the Bulgarian annals "Djagfar tarihy" of Bahshi Iman [1993], and "Shan kyzy dastany" (‘Legend about Shan's daughter’) by Bashtu ibn Shams, which shed a light on many questions of the ancient history of the Bulgars and for many mysteries echo the ancient Assyrian, Urartian, Persian, and Greek sources. After many of our "experts" have had maligned the Collection, the acknowledged historian I.R.Tagirov in response noted that "in our science is a tendency of unequivocal denying of these works from the viewpoint of their credibility and objectivity. It appears to me that everything can't be denied outright, for such exquisite creations cannot arise in an empty place, and especially as modern falsifications. If these are falsifications, then who were their ingenious creators?" [Tagirov I.R., 1995, "Tatarstan", № 9-10, 8]. I quite agree with I.R.Tagirov and I shall add that the credibility of the records of these Bulgarists' finds is recognized in the Ukraine, in Bulgaria, the historians of these countries conduct serious scientific research based on them. And our (i.e. Russian - Translator's Note) historians conduct a "serious" scramble not to "legitimate" them into the scientific research. Considering this contribution to the ethnic history of the Bulgaro-Tatars, the leading Tatar historians, recognizing the Bulgarian ethnic basis of the Tatars, remained the supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar orientation, i.e. they do not consider it to be reasonable to abandon the ethnonym Tatars. The Tatarian (i.e. Tatarstan - Translator's Note) Bulgaro-Tatarists did not see any evil in the movement of the Bulgarists, for the ethnonym Tatars had settled during the consolidation of the people into the nation, and it, despite the efforts of the Bulgarists, did not lose its positions. On the contrary, the Bulgarists to some extent strengthen the historical positions of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept. At the same time the supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept reasoned the Bulgarists from the desire to enter the name Bulgars during the census, for it would result in the reduction of the numbers of the Bulgaro-Tatars. In response the Bulgarists estimated the reduction of the Tatars because of the identification of the Tatars with the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors, because of the negative altitude of the non-Tatars to the Tatars. By the unconfirmed data, because of a drive by the Bulgarists to enter the name Bulgar the Tatars were numerically reduced by approximately 10 thousand persons, but because of the refusal of some Tatars, especially outside of the Tatarstan, from listing the ethnonym Tatar and adoption by them of the ethnonyms Russian, Uzbek, Azerbaijanian, Kazakh, Kirgiz, Turkmen, Bashkir, or Ukrainian, with every census the quantity of the Tatars was reducing by a few hundred thousand people. For example, the plenipotentiary representative of Tatarstan in the Kazakhstan prof. Karimov on April 13, 2001 declared on the Tatarstan radio that 350 thousand Tatars is counted in Kazakhstan, while actually their number reaches 500 thousand, but many of them are counted as Kazakhs. These incidents around the ethnonyms of the Bulgars and Tatars should be eliminated not by opposition, but "reconciliation" of them, for example, by the use of the conventional ethnonym Bulgaro-Tatars. 248 78. New aspirations to revive the Tataro-Tatar concept and their side motives. The world global historical science recognizes that the Mongolo-Tatars, i.e. the initial fighters of Chingiz-Khan, have not settled either one of the Chingizid empires: not in the empire of Khubilai (China, Tibet, Korea), not in the empire of Chagatai (Maverannahr, Jety Su, Kashgar), not in the empire of Khulagu-Ilhans (Persia, part of Afghanistan, Turkmenia and Southern Caucasus, Iraq, eastern part of Asia Minor), not in the Djuchi empire (Kipchak Khanate). About a mass settlement of these Tatars in the Kipchak Khanate (among the local Türkic-speaking tribes united in the Bulgarian state into a Bulgarian nation, among Russian and Finno-Ugrians, among the ancestors of the Kazakhs and Uzbeks) cannot be even said, for the Chingizids have conquered these territories almost at the last turn. It is known to all that in the army of Chingizids the Mongolo-Tatars were a majority only in the initial stage of their conquest campaigns, and later the main force of their army was the youth from conquered countries. That is especially true because after their shameful defeat from the Bulgars, Chingizids gathered huge forces from the subordinated countries and captured the territories where was formed the Djuchi Ulus. The world global historical science recognizes also such an opinion according to which in the Mongolian feudal empire, and later in the four Chingizid states continued to live the former local tribes and peoples. An insignificant part of the polyglot Chingizid army (Mongolo-Tatars) who settled down were very quickly assimilated among the local peoples. This fact was determined by the historians of all those peoples whose ancestors found themselves in the population of all Chingizid Mongolian states. And none of these peoples have historians tying the ethnic origin of the nation with the Mongolo-Tatars. This abnormal phenomenon is observed only for those peoples who later accepted the ethnonym Tatars. The reason for this is the likeness of the ethnonyms at the Mongolo-Tatars, and the modern Tatars (Bulgaro-Tatars, Crimean Tatars and Dobrudja Tatars). In fight against the Bulgarists and Bulgaro-Tatarists at the end of the 80es popped out a few ambitious Tataro-Tatarists who started exposing haughtily the "political harm" of the supporters of the Bulgarists and Bulgaro-Tatarists concepts. They stood up for revival of the "unique correct" Tataro-Tatar concept in the study of the ethnic history of the Tatars. This movement was started by D.M.Ishakov (pronounced Ih-s-khakov - Translator's Note) together with R.G.Fahrutdinov, a former supporter of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, the former pupil I.L.Izmaylov of the adherent of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept prof. A.H.Halikov, and also M.Ahmetzyanov, an expert on Saraijere where almost all authors tried to prove that they are the descendants of the prophets and Chingiz-Khan. This group of the Tataro-Tatarists, feeling that their arguments are not convincing and were rejected by the leading historians a long time ago, firstly, tried to present the Tataro-Tatar concept as a Türko-Tatar (as if the Bulgaro-Tatar concept does not relate to the general Türko-Tatar theory), secondly, were using inadmissible in the scientific environment methods of moral and finally of physical destruction of the active influential opponents of the Tataro-Tatar concept. In the result they managed to fortify temporarily their positions within the limits of a new institute, the History Institute of the RT Academy of Sciences. 249 79. Why Tataro-Tatarists are afraid of a complex approach to the study of the Tatar ethnogenesis? In their articles the newly surfaced Tataro-Tatarists do not hide their hostile attitude to the ethno-linguistical and ethno-folklore research, showing themselves as the opponents of the complex approach to the problem. A question arises: Why? The matter is that they never dealt with the problems of the Tatar's ethnogenesis and their ancestors, and try to deny a priori the value of the ethno-linguistic, ethno-folklore and ethno-mythological research. They do not even have an idea about who and how the ethnogenesis of other peoples is studied. It should be known, for example, that the research of the ethnic roots of the Indo-European peoples always rely onto the complex methods. The first place in that is allocated to the linguists, for they know that the archeological materials without linguistical evaluations are not capable to give a picture of the ethnic mix of the population. So, the most ancient ethnic roots of the Indo-Europeans have been uncovered by the linguists T.V.Gamkrelidze and V.V.Ivanov in their joint work "Indo-European language and Indo-Europeans. Reconstruction and historical-typological analysis of the protolanguage and proto-culture (Book 1-2. Tbilisi, 1984). This work, in which is made an attempt to define the ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans, has not been rejected by the Russian historians outright, as the Tataro-Tatarists try to do, but was recognized and recommended for the Lenin premium, and the work really received such a high award. For other peoples the conditions develops in the same way: the most ancient history is reconstructed by linguists, and the historians follow them. And in the Indo-Iranistiks we see the same: the deep ethnic roots of the Indo-Iranians are investigated by linguists and specialists in folklore, in particular by V.I.Abaev. His work "Scythian language", published in his book "Ossetian language and folklore" (M. L., 1949), is an initial material for the study of the ethnogenesis of the Ossets. Plenty of these examples can be cited. They testify that not an isolated historical research can produce the results, but only a joint research with linguists, specialists in folklore and other experts studying the outstanding questions of the Tatar people's ethnogenesis. If our Tataro-Tatarists really want that our ethnogenetical research went at the European level, they should engage not in reporting the fellow linguists to the organs of power (if this phrase sounds a little Stalinist, that's what it is, no jokes about it - Translator's Note) about their ostensibly illegitimate intervention in this matter, but should care about a complex research of the problems of the day. Meanwhile, today's Tataro-Tatarists are exclusively absorbed by an obsession of protecting the ethnonym Tatars from the Bulgarists, who offer the people the ethnonym Bulgars. Meanwhile the ethnonym Tatars has been already accepted, it does not need such an unjust defense. Alas, this defense is conducted by the methods far from scientific. In particular, it affirms that the Tatars came to this territory under the name Tatars and have taught "some insignificant" Bulgars the Tatar language. The Tataro-Tatarists simply do not understand what is more important: by all truths and untruths to defend the ethnonym Tatars, or to reconstruct a true ethnic history of the people. Precisely with a view of protecting the people against penetration of the ethnonym Bulgars, preservation of the ethnonym Tatars (it hardly requires it), Tataro-Tatarists try to revive the Tataro-Tatar concept, according to which the modern Tatars are considered to be the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors. This obsession prevents them from understanding the purposes and methods of the ethno-linguistical research of the most ancient Türks. 251 80. Methods of protection of the Tataro-Tatar concept. One of the methods of defense the Tataro-Tatar concept recently became the manipulation with documents of the Soviet time in respect to the studies of the history of the Tatar people, and in particular, the August, 9, 1944, decision of the Central Committee VKP (b) (i.e. all-Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) - Translator's Note) "Condition and improvement measures for mass-political and ideological work in the Tatar party organization" which urged to "eliminate the serious deficits and mistakes of a nationalist character in the illumination of the history of the Tataria (embellishing the Golden Horde, popularization of the Khano-feudal epos about Idegy) made by different historians and literators. A special attention shall be to the research and illumination of the history of the joint struggle of the Russian, Tatar and other peoples of the USSR against foreign captors, against Tsarism and feudal-capitalistic oppression, and also illumination the history of socialist transformation of Tataria during the Soviet power and popularization of the outstanding persons, scientists and revolutionaries of the Tatar people and its sons, the heroes of the Patriotic war" [item 7 of the Decision of Central Committee VKP (b) on August, 9, 1944]. From the citation it is clear that the main purpose of this part of the decision of Central Committee VKP (b) is a fight against ancientization of the ethnic history of the Tatars, a re-direction of the attention of the Tatarstan historians onto the research of the Tatar history only in the Russian state and the USSR. The main Tataro-Tatarists in their "theoretical" works tried to convince the readers that in the given part of the Decision the imperial ideology forbids the study of the Kipchak Khanate, and at the same time allows the study of the Bulgarian period, because in the decision, against the Bulgars was said nothing. From their "acute" understanding of the decision they judge that after deliberating about this decision and the discussion of 1946 "in the foundation of the historical science of Tatarstan, of the history of the Tatar people was lain the Stalin's concept of the history. D.Ishakov noted: "Our academicians, certainly, do not want to admit from what soldier overcoats came their "Bulgarizatorian" assemblages"! [Ishakov D.M., 1997, 203]. Such a simple question arises: really these newly surfaced Tataro-Tatarists seriously believe that the so-called "Bulgarizator constructions" in the ethnic history of theTatars appeared only during the Stalin times, namely after the 1944. Maybe K.Nasyri, S.Mardjani of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, G.Ahmarov, G.Ishaki, and H.Atlasi in the beginning of the 20th century, and many other active supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, were Stalinists. The absurdity of this idea is obvious. From the viewpoint of the presence of the Stalin trace in the "Bulgarizatorian" concept even more ridiculous is the reasoning of the Tataro-Tatarists about the destiny of the "Sketches of TASSR History", about the destruction of their manuscript in the autumn of the 1944, i.e. after the decision of Central Committee VKP (b). During the Patriotic War because of the shortage of the personnel in the Republic, the composition of the "Sketches of TASSR History" was entrusted to the known Russian scientists B.D.Grekov, S.V.Bahrushin and L.V.Cherepnin. D.Ishakov himself evaluated this book like this: In the "Sketches..." was proved that the ancestors of the Kazan Tatars are the Bulgars; it was telling about the fight of the Bulgars against Mongols. Further on was the idea that it is wrong to idealize the conquerors like Chingiz-Khan and Tohtamysh as the "national heroes". In the "Sketches" was emphasized the local background of the Tatar people [Ishakov D.M., 1997, 119]. So, why the manuscript was destroyed? It turned out that these known Russian scientists were "Bulgarizators" of the Tatar history. Naturally, it was not because the authors of the "Sketches" were "Bulgarizators", but because they have shown the presence of the Bulgaro-Tatar statehood during the period before the annexation of the Tatars to the Russian state, i.e. they ancientized the history of the Tatars. Hence, there was no Stalin's Bulgarizatorian concept. It is only the D.Ishakov's invention. In defense of the concept the Tataro-Tatarists also advance this argument: "and now use your brains, advises D.Ishakov, and think: if we declare ourselves "Bulgars", are we refusing the Crimean, Siberian, Astrakhan, Lithuanian and even the Kasimov and Mishar Tatars, they practically have no relation to the Bulgars... The Bulgars mostly lived in the territory of the modern Tatarstan" [Ishakov D.M., 1997, 197-198]. From such a reasoning follows that the author does not understand the essence of the question. First, for D.Ishakov it appears that there is no difference between the Bulgarists and the supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar theory. In fact it is clear that Bulgarists and the Bulgaro-Tataristy derive the modern Tatars from the descendants of the Bulgars in a broad sense of this word, but the first oppose the acceptance of the ethnonym Tatars, and the second believe that the ethnonym Tatars was accepted as the name of the nation, and therefore they agree with the acceptance of this ethnonym. Second, for him the pre-Mongolian Bulgaria and the Bulgaria after the Mongolo-Tatar conquest are all the same. In fact those who deal with the problems of the Itil-Bulgarian state know well its pre-Mongolian borders [Zakiev M.Z., 1998, 467]. The Bulgars, as result of the consolidation of the Türkic-speaking tribes of the pre-Mongolian Bulgaria, are a main ancestor of the modern Tatars: Kazanian, Siberian, Astrakhanian, Lithuanian, and Kasimovian. As to the Crimean Tatars, they, per some information, also were related to the Bulgars, and the Mishars spoke the same dialect with the Bulgars. Thirdly, once the Russians called Tatars all the population of the Kipchak Khanate, but the ethnonym Tatars later adopted only the descendants of the Bulgars in a broad sense of this word, and the descendants of the Türkic Nogays in the Crimea. Thus, the Tataro-Tatarists in order to show that the Tatars are "great", ascribe their ethnic source to the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors, and believe that linking them to the Bulgars would ostensibly equate the Tatars with only that population which settled in the post-Mongolian Bulgaria, i.e. in the Bulgarian vilayet (next down admin unit from ulus, akin to a county - Translator's Note) of the Kipchak Khanate. To think that Stalin specially imposed upon the Tatars a puny group of Bulgars and by that he wanted to degrade the greatness of the Tatars would be to recognize Stalin a big historian even for the history of the Tatars. Naturally it is not so. 258 81. Is the so-called new concept in studying the history of the Tatars new? The supporters of this, as the Tataro-Tatarists call it, "new concept" (and hence, also of the Bulgaro-Chuvash concept) usually state that they ostensibly do not reject the Bulgarian period, but regard the Altyn Orda period as a key for the Tatar history. In their opinion, Bulgars also survived, but the newcomer Tatars taught them to speak in Tatarian, and therefore they have forgotten the Chuvash-like Bulgarian language. This statement of the newly surfaced Tataro-Tatarists is not new, it is borrowed from the missionaries, from the authors of the Russian school textbooks, from the Chuvash historians, from Lyabib Karan who called for a restoration under the name Tatars of the great Kipchak Khanate and to absorb all Türks to the great Tatars. D.Ishakov, unable to distinguish the Mongolo-Tatar conquest from the Kipchak Khanate, the state that arose from it, declared that "for a national Tatar history the Mongolian conquest was certainly a positive phenomenon" [Magazine "Native Land, № 3-4, 1997, 85]. Actually, the Mongolian conquest for both the national Tatar history, and for people, and specifically the Bulgarian people, was certainly a negative phenomenon, it became the beginning of the gradual disappearance of the Bulgars and Bulgaro-Tatars statehood. If there was no Mongolian conquest, the Bulgars, who had the strongest country in Eurasia, would have reached a higher level of development. As to the Kipchak Khanate, it became the following stage in the development of the local peoples after such strong states as Bulgarian and Khorezmian states. These peoples assimilated the insignificant part of the Mongolo-Tatars that stayed there. The Kipchak Khanate had a chance for a prompt development with the experience of the Bulgarian and Khorezmian states. Has no sense also the statement of the Tataro-Tatarists that we, the Tatars, are not from the Bulgar, but from the Kipchak Khanate. We, naturally, are both from the Bulgar, and from the Kipchak Khanate, because in fact in the Kipchak Khanate, alongside with the ancestors of the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Nogays, Russians, etc., lived the same local Türkic-speaking tribes and peoples who during the Bulgarian state were called by a common ethnonym Bulgars. To a linguist is obvious the improbability of the statement of the Tataro-Tatarists that ostensibly newcomer Tatars or have Kypchaks taught the Tatar language to the Chuvash-lingual Bulgars. The historico-linguistical research show that in the Ural-Itil region long before the Mongolian expansion was formed an exclusive Türko-Finno-Ugric language union in the result of which the Ural-Itil Türkic language of the ancestors of the Tatar, Bashkirs and Chuvashes acquired Ural-Itil features that also were in the Kipchak Khanate, and in the Kazan Khanate. If the newcomer Tatars (or ostensibly the newcomer Kypchaks from the Kimaks which did not happened) taught the Tatar language to the former Bulgars, then the language of the modern Tatars and Bashkirs would be characterized by approximately Khakassian features. The Tataro-Tatarists assiduously suggest to recognize the Kipchak Khanate as the key or golden period in the Tatar history. In reality during that period the world famous and strong Bulgarian people, that gave the first and only crushing repulse to the Chingizids, continued to lose its strength, its organization, its statehood. The history of the Bulgaro-Tatars are not the history of the Kipchak Khanate. In fact it is clear to all that the history of the Kipchak Khanate should be written only by coordinated forces of the Uzbek, Kazakh, the Bashkir, Nogay, Russian, Bulgaro-Tatar, etc., historians. As to the history of the Bulgaro-Tatars, it should consist of the history of their liberating struggle against the Altyn Orda Khans. The Kipchak Khanate as a large state should have created all the conditions for a consolidation of the uniform Tatar people from the Bulgars, Kwarezmians, ancestors of the Kazakhs, Siberian Tatars, Russians and Finno-Ugrians. But it could not do it. As to construction of the big cities, and the economic development, it should be stated that the Kipchak Khanate was a next stage in the development of the Bulgar and Khoresm, whose experience was used by the Khans of the Kipchak Khanate, but the former construction was mostly done by the population of these territories. In all aspects the Tataro-Tatarists, not having and not expressing anything new, keep repeating, mostly, the mistakes of the missionaries, of the supporters of the Bulgaro-Chuvash and Tataro-Tatar concepts. Not for nothing the supporters of our Tataro-Tatarists, the Chuvash historians seized at once their "theoretical" interpretations, and based on these interpretations, they write that "a uniform Tatar nation, according to the proved statement of the doctor of the historical sciences R.G.Fahrutdinov, formed in the Kipchak Khanate in the 14th-15th centuries out of the Türkic-speaking Tatars who arrived with Mongols, related to them and speaking one language with them western Kypchaks who invaded Eastern Europe in the middle of the 11th century. The Bulgars in the formation of the Tatar nation did not participate. 40-50 thousand Tatars came with its founder Ulug-Mohammed into the formed in the 1438 Kazan Khanate, then tens of thousands Tatars arrived there from the Sarai, Azov, Astrakhan and Crimea" [Dimitriev V.D., 2000, 5]. For V.D.Dimitriev, in his endeavor to fortify his Tataro-Tatar concept, the R.G.Fahrutdinov's statement about the arrival of more than 50 thousand Tatars in the Kazan Khanate was a big gift. Only neither him, nor R.Fahrutdinov have pondered where these Tatars were held for 200 years without assimilating between the Bulgars, Kwarezmians, or the ancestors of the Kazakhs, Nogays, Bashkirs, etc. First, Ulu-Mohammed died in Nizhni Novgorod without reaching Kazan, the Kazan was taken an a fight by his son Mahmut (Mahmutek) [Alishev S.H., 2001, 10]. Secondly, it is clear to all that Ulu-Mohammed's and his son Mahmutek's army consisted of representatives of the local peoples, who in 200 years had enough time to also assimilate the newcomer Mongolo-Tatars. However many times the newly surfaced Tataro-Tatarists tried to present their illogical assertions as a new concept, there is nothing new, all what they consider as new was not once repeated before. 259 82. The historical science, like any other science, should be objective. The initiators of the restoration of the old Tataro-Tatar concept under a cover of an idea that "the history should serve the national interests" usually ignore the objectivity of the historical research. Thinking that to connect the ethnic history of the Tatars with a "puny Bulgaria" denigrates the historical dignity of the Tatars, they bring to the forefront the Tataro-Tatar concept and try to prove with any arguments the Mongolo-Tatar origin of the modern Tatars. Ostensibly, that answers the national interests of the Tatars, for it shows the Tatars as the masters of the great Kipchak Khanate, who once be able to subordinate even Russians, and Caucasians, and Finno-Ugrians, and the others. Coming from such "hurrah patriotic" objective, they declare the conclusions of the Bulgaro-Tatarists' and Bulgarists' ethnogenetical research to be harmful for the history of Tatarstan, because they state that the modern Tatars are not the newcomer Mongolo-Tatars, that they have deep historical roots in the Ural-Itil region and Western Siberia. In the D.Ishakov's opinion, before the arrival of the Mongolo-Tatar to the Ural-Itil region there were no real Türkic ancestors of the Tatars not counting the "pin head sized" Bulgars, whom the newcomer Tatars taught their Tatar language; M.Zakiev should not try in vain to present the Ural-Itil region and Western Siberia as the primordial territory of the Tatars. That should not be of concern, because "under the international treaties, the native peoples are those peoples who lived in a particular territory before the beginning of the colonial epoch in the 15th century. As we can see, the civilized societies do not consider it necessary to lower the problem of the "aboriginality" deeper than this date, it would be a lost case" [Ishakov D.M., 1997, 228]. So naively can argue only a person who never dealt with the problems of the ethnic history. In fact all historians of antiquity are clear that even if there is such an international document, it cannot recommend to work only with aboriginality problems for non-Indo-European peoples. The Indo-European historians long time ago (much before the birth of this international document) have established that the primordial territory of these peoples is not only the India (Sanskrit native land) and Western Europe, but also the Eastern Europe, Central, Middle, and Asia Minor, and Middle East. In the opinion of these scientists if in these territories live other, non-Indo-European peoples (for example, Türks), all of them are late newcomers. This viewpoint of the Indo-European scientists even now is now confirmed by additional "new and new" facts. Thus, finding even in the ancient Altai burials Europeoid (aka Europoid, Caucasoid - Translator's Note) skulls, some historians declared that in the Altai earlier, before the arrival of the Türks there, lived Indo-Europeans. The Indo-European historians, naturally, do not want a non-Indo-European (for example, Türkic) scientist to dare to even state a suggestion of the presence in these ancient Indo-European territories of the ethnic traces of non-Indo-European peoples (say, Türks). In the D.Ishakov's opinion, it turns out that it is in vain that some non-civilized Bulgaro-Tatar scientists are finding in the Ural-Itil region the ethnic roots of the Türko-Tatars from the period before our era, that the study of the ethnic history of the modern Tatars should be limited to the period of the Kipchak Khanate, the ostensibly "golden" period of Tatars. The Itil Bulgaria supposedly would never be able to pretend for that role. If we limit the Tatar history to the Kipchak Khanate only, then the "Russian history cannot 'assimilate' " its history, for the Russian history of the Altyn Orda period is also only a part of the history of the Djuchi Ulus. The Russian history perfectly "digests" the Bulgarian history, especially when it is directly connected with the Kazan Khanate (the Kazan Khanate as the successor of the Itil Bulgaria) [Ishakov D.M., 1997, 205]. Besides, including in the Tatar history the Bulgarian period also we are finding ourselves in constant contradictions with the Chuvash historians [Ibid]. This reasoning of D.Ishakov shows a full loss of purposeful orientation in the studying the Bulgaro-Tatar history and full departure from objectivity. First, in his opinion, the Bulgarian period should not be included in the history of the modern Tatars, for it ostensibly would bring constant contradictions with the Chuvash historians. In addition, it will not give us a chance to be proud of the Tatars' greatness, for the Bulgarian state in comparison with the Kipchak Khanate is a "pin head sized" country. We had not once to prove that there is no greater harm for our history, than the antipodal opposition of two periods, of the Bulgarian and Altyn Orda periods, in fact they are two parts of one historical chain. Besides, the presentation of the Bulgarian state as "pin head sized" shows the illiteracy in its real history. Secondly, D.Ishakov is convinced that if we connect the modern Tatars history not with the Bulgaria, but with the Kipchak Khanate, we would win that the Russian history becomes a part of the Kipchak Khanate history, and becomes "automatically" a part of the history of the modern Itil Tatars, but if we would connect it with the Bulgaria, than, on the contrary, the Russian history will easily swallow ("nicely digests") the Bulgarian history. That is the next unreasoned assumption of the author. In fact it is clear to all that the Russian history of the Altyn Orda period is a recognized part of the Djuchi Ulus history. Hence, to roil toward that is not necessary at all. Thirdly, the author of the above citation in his judgments comes from a proposition that the modern Itil Tatars are a continuation of the development of not the Bulgars in a broad sense of this word, but most likely of the Kipchak Khanate Tatars, who have consisted of the ancestors of Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Bulgars, Bashkir, Nogays, Finno-Ugrians, etc. The Tataro-Tatarists are notable by not distinguishing at all the meaning of the ethnonym Tatars. Therefore is futile to seek in their articles a specific argumentation about the descendants of whose Tatars are the modern Tatars. The same ignorance is also marking an article of I.Izmajlov "As Tatars became Tatars", published in magazine "Kazan" in 2000 (No 10). The supposition of the Tataro-Tatarists about the origin of the modern Tatars from the Tatars (but they do not know from which: from the ancient Tatars, or the Mongolo-Tatars, or Tartars, or Kipchak Khanate Tatars, or Türko-Tatars) is impossible to take as objective. They simply repeat the supposition of some Russian scientists and the viewpoint of the missionaries, who purposefully pushed the Tataro-Tatar concept. The secret of it, in our opinion, was correctly disclosed by Tamurbek Davletshin. He saw that they initially called the population of the Kazan Khanate New Bulgars, then Kazanians, and subsequently Tatars "… most likely in the propaganda purposes also, to raise in the people a hatred toward the military opponent. Together with the name Tatars, certainly, were also transferred onto the population of the Kazan Khanate that derogatory information which had been spread in Russia, and through the Russians also to the West, about the Tataro-Mongols" [Davletshin Т., 1974, 16]. 260 83. What results can the non-objective ethnogenetical creation of the Tataro-Tatarists bring? So, in the history of the ethnogenetical studies of the modern Tatars (i.e. the Bulgaro-Tatars, excluding here the Crimean and Dobrudjian, in old terminology Budjak Tatars) can be discerned three concepts: Bulgarists, Bulgaro-Tatarists and Tataro-Tatarists (the last matched by the Bulgaro- Chuvashist). The Bulgarists recognize as adequate the concept of the Bulgarian origin of the modern Tatars, believe to be wrongful "imposing" to the Bulgars in a broad sense of this word of the ethnonym Tatars, call the population to register not as Tatars, but as Bulgars, that leads to some reduction of in the number of the Tatars. The Bulgarists act as supporters of the studies of the deep historical roots of the Bulgars with use of all available ancient sources in all languages. In that in solidary with them are the Bulgarists of the Danube Bolgars, who, unlike our Bulgarists, are not interested in the modern ethnonym of the Bulgaro-Tatars. The supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, like the Bulgarists, recognize as adequate the concept of the Bulgarian origin of the modern Tatars, but differ in considering that the ethnonym Tatars played a consolidating role during the formation of the nation. Therefore they do not reject the ethnonym Tatars, but to discriminate them from others Tatars, especially from the Mongolo-Tatars, they apply the defined ethnonym Bulgaro-Tatars. All leading Tatar historians were supporters of the Bulgaro-Tatar concept, they conducted objective ethnogenetical research. Reading their works, the Tatars understood that they are not the descendants of neither ancient Tatars, nor of Tartars, nor of Kipchak Khanate Tatars, not of Türko-Tatars, and therefore understood the ethnonym Tatars in a sense of Bulgaro-Tatars, and explained it to the representatives of other peoples. Not distinguishing the history of the Bulgaro-Tatar ethnos from the history of the ethnonym Tatars, the supporters of the Tataro-Tatar (or Bulgaro-Chuvash) concepts, coming from unobjective ethnogenetical scheme, tried and are trying to prove that the modern Bulgaro-Tatars are the descendants of the Mongolo-Tatars or Kipchak Khanate Tatars. This view was initially formulated by some Russian and West-European historians and missionaries. Only in the last decade of the 20th century came about the Tatarian Tataro-Tatarists, who are identifying Bulgaro-Tatars with the Mongolo-Tatars, in whose composition they wrongly included the ancient Tatars, and Tartars, and Kipchak Khanate Tatars, and Türko-Tatars. In their opinion, the Tataro-Tatar concept better answers the national interests of the modern Tatars, presents them as a great people which created the great empire Djuchi Ulus (Kipchak Khanate). It is clear to all that any conquest of other's territories sooner or later is condemned by the history. The Mongolo-Tatar conquests have the same condemning attitude. Therefore because of identification of the modern Tatars with the Mongolo-Tatars the image of the ethnonym Tatars is very unenviable. It causes that the Tatars, especially the young, who live outside of Tatarstan, display toward ethnonym Tatars a negative altitude, express a desire to call themselves not with the general exoethnonym Tatars, but with their own former ethnonym, say, Mishar, Bulgars, Kreshen (Baptized) or at best with a special local ethnonym like Seber Tatary (Siberian Tatars), Esterkhan Tatary (Astrakhan Tatars), Nijgar Tatary (Nizhny Novgorod Tatar, Penza Tatary (Penza Tatars), etc. Sometimes are observed cases of legalization for these own ethnonyms through the proper authorities in Moscow. Clearly these phenomena can result in quantitative reduction of the Bulgaro-Tatars. Because of low image of the ethnonym Tatars among the population such processes are already going. By the informal estimates of the local Tatar societies, in Kazakhstan hide their Tatar origin more than 150 thousand Tatars, in Uzbekistan more than 300 thousand, there are also a lot of them in Kirgizia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and Russia. In the future among the Tatar youth will be even more of those, for the supporters of the Tataro-Tatarists, especially homebrewn, under a label of the "new concept" strenuously propagandize the idea of equivalence of the Bulgaro-Tatars with the Mongolo-Tatars, which can result in a sharp reduction of the (registered - Translator's Note) Bulgaro-Tatars. If we want to raise the image of the ethnonym Tatars, in front of the people unsealed all its meanings, should be objectively stated that there are ancient Tatars, Mongolo-Tatars, Tartars, Kipchak Khanate Tatars, Türko-Tatars, Bulgaro-Tatars, Crimean Tatars, Dobrudja Tatars; for external interactions we should apply the word Tatars with definition as Bulgaro-Tatars. The biassed ethnogenetical scheme of the Tataro-Tatarists distracts the Tatar historians from studying the real history of the Bulgaro-Tatars, who like other subjugated peoples, the Russians, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Bashkirs, etc. during the Kipchak Khanate time fought for liberation, for which they constantly experienced the consequences of the Chingizids' retaliatory expeditions. Not for nothing during the Kipchak Khanate time was destroyed and annihilated the capital of the Bulgarian state. The Tataro-Tatarists are going to create a history of the Kipchak Khanate as theirs. It is clear to all reasonable historians that its history can be written objectively only by joint efforts of the specialists of all those peoples whose ancestors found themselves under the power of the Altyn Ordanian Chingizids. Unfortunately, the wrongful identification of the modern Bulgaro-Tatars with the Mongolo-Tatars also takes place in the modern Russian historiography, about which testifies, for example, a new book by V.V.Pohlebkina "Tatars and Russia. 360 years of relation. 1238-1598", published in Moscow in 2000. V.V.Pohlebkin tallied the modern Tatars and the Tatars of the end of the16th century as the direct descendants of the Mongolo-Tatars. The Ruso-Tatar relations started suddenly, he writes, with an aggression of the Mongolo-Tataro-Kypchak hordes against Rus (and other countries of the Eastern Europe) in the 20es-30es of the 13th century. For the 360 years people suffered ruin and many deprivations. He further continues: "After 150 years of continuous and increasing sovereignty above Rus, the winner Tatars fell a victim to a stronger aggressor than them, they experienced the aggressive invasions of Tamerlan. The Kipchak Khanate has weakened, began falling into decay. The Russians immediately took advantage of it, being made well aware during the 150 years of one simple foreign policy lesson: in the international collisions always wins force, not justice. The winners are not judged, no claims are made to them, even when they are atrocious, they are not reproached for any sins. They are listened to and agree with. And the weak, backward and dependent are beaten. Therefore, if the former winner has weakened and cannot defend its exclusive position any more, it is necessary to beat and finish it. And the faster, the crueler, the better... From there came the continuity and consistence of this offensive process, aspiration to bring it to utter annihilation of the opponent, to a full liquidation of the Tatar statehood" [Pohlebkin V.V., 2000, 166-167]. It is clear to all that here is meant the statehood of the Tatarstan Republic. If V.V.Pohlebkin would know that the modern Tatars are not the Mongolo-Tatars, he would reason differently, he would remind also that from the Mongolo-Tatar aggression have also suffered the ancestors of the modern Tatars , i.e. the Bulgars like Ruses fought for liberation against the Mongolo-Tatars. Summing up, it should be noted that the concept advanced by the Tataro-Tatarists about the origin of the modern Tatars from the Mongolo-Tatar conquerors, or at best from the Tatar part of the population of the Kimak state, contradicts the Bulgaro-Tatar concept established in the Türkology and supported by a majority of the Tatar ethnologists. The Tataro-Tatar concept also has nothing in common with the national interests of people, which expects from the historians and ethnologists a truthful description of its ethnogenetical roots. By accepting this concept, we would also find ourselves in a false position in celebrating the 1000-year anniversary of Kazan. In this case we should have had to state that the city of Kazan was founded during the Bulgarian period by the Chuvash-lingual Bulgars, instead of the Tatar ancestors. There would be no advantage for the Tatar history if, following Lyabib Karan and Tataro-Tatarists, we would start calling as Tatarian the Hunnish, Türkic, Khazarian, and Bulgarian states. Such an anachronism in the application of the term Tatars or Tatarian may result in a negative atitude toward Tatar scientists by other Türkic-speaking peoples. In fact, the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kirgizes, Azerbaijanis, Bashkirs, etc. also connect their ethnic roots with the common Türkic period, but this period is not named neither Uzbek, nor Kazakh, nor Azerbaijan, etc. How would we take the Uzbek history if the Uzbek authors called the Hunnish, Türkic, Khazarian, and Kipchak Khanate states "the Uzbek national states". There would be a squabble between the historians of the Türkic-speaking peoples. Tataro-Tatarists have begun a fight for the Russian history textbooks to stop maligning the Mongolo-Tatar conquest, and instead to show its positive sides. Certainly, it is bad to especially malign one of the periods of your own history, but if to be frank, the Mongolo-Tatar conquest has left the Bulgars without their independent state. Hence, it can't be said that the study of the Tatar ethnogenesis is already completed. The professional training for these problems, new thorough ethnogenetical research should be continued. If this work of ours would serve as the beginning of this research we would consider that its purpose was achieved. 264
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Origin of Türks-Contents · Introduction · First chapter · Second chapter · Third chapter · Fourth chapter · Fifth chapter · ORIGIN OF TATARS
Part 2 - ORIGIN OF TATARS · First chapter · Second chapter · Third chapter · Fourth chapter · Conclusion · Name and Ethnic Index · Literature

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Mirfatyh Zakiev Origin of Türks and Tatars

Part two ORIGIN OF TATARS

Mirfatyh Zakiev
Origin of Türks and Tatars

Part two
ORIGIN OF TATARS