Bashkirs

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Bashkirs

Bashkir: Башҡорттар
Flag of the Republic of Bashkortostan
Total population
approx. 2 million[1]
Regions with significant populations
Russia  1,584,554[2]  Bashkortostan 1,172,287
Kazakhstan	41,000[3]
Uzbekistan	58,500[4]
Ukraine	4,253[5]
Belarus	1,200[6]
Turkmenistan	8,000[7]
Moldova	610[8]
Latvia	300[9]
Lithuania	400[10]
Estonia	112[11]
Kyrgyzstan	1,111[12]
Georgia	379[13]
Azerbaijan	533[14]
Armenia	145[15]
Tajikistan	8,400[16]
Languages
Bashkir, Russian[17]
Religion
Sunni Islam[18]
Related ethnic groups
Tatars, Kazakhs,[19] Nogais,[20][21] Crimean Tatars[22]

The Bashkirs (/ˈbɑːʃkɪərz/; Bashkir: Башҡорттар, romanized: Başqorttar, باشقردتر‎, IPA: [bɑʃqortˈtɑr]; Russian: Башкиры, pronounced [bɐʂˈkʲirɨ]) are a Kipchak Turkic ethnic group, indigenous to Russia. They are concentrated in Bashkortostan, a republic of the Russian Federation and in the broader historical region of Badzhgard, which spans both sides of the Ural Mountains, where Eastern Europe meets North Asia. Smaller communities of Bashkirs also live in the Republic of Tatarstan, the oblasts of Perm Krai, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Tyumen, Sverdlovsk and Kurgan and other regions in Russia; sizable minorities exist in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Bashkirs in Paris during the Napoleonic Wars, 1814

Bashkirs in traditional clothing

Most Bashkirs speak the Bashkir language, an endangered^{[citation needed]} language^[23] closely related to the Tatar and Kazakh languages, which belong to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages; they share historical and cultural affinities with the broader Turkic peoples. Bashkirs are mainly Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab faith, following the Jadid doctrine. Previously nomadic and fiercely independent, the Bashkirs gradually came under Russian rule beginning in the 16th century; they have since played a major role through the history of Russia, culminating in their autonomous status within the Russian Empire, Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia.

Ethnonym[]

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The etymology and indeed meaning of the endonym Bashqort has been for a long time under discussion.

The name of the people of Bashkort has been known since the 10th century, most researchers etymologize the name as "main/leader/head" (bash) + "wolf" (qort, old archaic word for the animal), thus "wolf-leader" (from the totemic hero ancestor). The folk interpretation of the name suggests an etymology related to the legend regarding the migration of the first seven Bashkir tribes from the Syr-Darya valley to the Volga-Ural region. The legend relates that the Bashkirs, who dwelled in the arid Syr-Darya, were committed to the Goddess of Fertility of Tengrism, (referred as "Omay-äsä" or also "Umay" in most sources), Umay, in order to reward them for their loyalty, decided to donate them a prosperous, green, fertile land, protected by the legendary Ural mountains (in alignement with the famous Bashkir epic poem "Ural-Batyr"), a wolf was sent to guide these tribes to their promised land, therefore the tribes followed the wolf, thus "Bash-qort" ("Head/Lead(ing)" + "Wolf"). The 18th-century ethnographers V. N. Tatishchev, P. I. Richkov, and Johann Gottlieb Georgi, seem to agree with this interpretation.

Other theories have been formulated in the years, but none of them seems to have some kind of folk foundation unlike the most prominent theory:

• In 1847, the historian V. S. Yumatov suggested the original meaning to be: "beekeeper, beemaster" ("Qort" has shifted meaning in the modern Bashkir language, and it now means "Bee").
• Historian and ethnologist A. E. Alektorov (1885) suggested that Bashqort meant "distinct nation".^{[citation needed]}
• Anthropologist R. M. Yusupov considered Bashqort may have originally been an Iranian compound word meaning: "wolf-children" or "descendants of heroes", i.e. bacha "descendant, child" and gurd "hero" or gurg "wolf".
• Historian and archaeologist Mikhail Artamonov suggested that the word is a corruption of the name of the (or Bwsxk), a Scythian tribe speaking Iranian-that lived in the area now known as Bashkortostan.^[24]
• The Turkologist N. A. Baskakov believed the term: "Bashqort" to have consisted of two parts: "badz(a)" – brother-in-law" and "(o)gur" meaning: "brothers-in-law of the Ugor [Magyars]".^{[citation needed]}
• According to the orientalist Douglas Morton Dunlop, the ethnonym Bashqort was derived from beshgur (or bashgur) which means "five tribes in modern Bashkir language.^{[citation needed]}
• Ethnologist N. V. Bikbulatov suggested that the term originated from the name of a legendary Khazar warlord named Bashgird, who ruled an area centred on the Yayıq river.
• Ethnologist R. G. Kuzeev derived the ethnonym from a compound of "bash" — "main, head" and "qort" — " clan, tribe".^{[citation needed]}
• Historian and linguist András Róna-Tas argued the ethnonym "Bashkir" to be a Bulgar Turkic reflex of the Hungarian endonym Magyar (or the Old Hungarian Majer).^{[citation needed]}

History[]

Origins[]

The formation of the Bashkir people was played by Turkic tribes of South Siberian Central Asian origin, who, before migrating to the Southern Urals, wandered for a considerable time in the Aral-Syr Darya steppes [modern day central-southern Kazakhstan], coming into contact with the Pecheneg-Oghuz and Kimak-Kipchak tribes. Therefore, it is possible to note that the Bashkir people originates from the same tribes which compose the modern Kazakhs, Kyrgyzes and Nogais, but there has been a considerable cultural and a small ethnic exchange with Oghuz tribes.

The migration to the valley of the Southern Urals happened between the end of the 9th century and the beginning of the 10th century, in parallel to the great Kipchak migration to the north.

Middle Ages[]

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Mausoleum of Husseinbek of the 14th century in Bashkortostan

Mausoleum of Turakhan of the 15th century in Bashkortostan

The first report about Bashkirs might have been found in the Chinese chronicle Book of Sui: around 40 Turkic Tiele tribes were named (636 AD) in "A Narration about the Tiele people"; Bashkirs might have included within that narration: if the tribal name 比干 (Mandarin Bǐgān < Middle Chinese ZS: *piɪ^X-kɑn) were read as 比千 (Bĭqiān < *piɪ^Xt͡sʰen), according to Chinese scholar Rui Chuanming^[25]

In the 7th century, Bashkirs are also mentioned in "Ashkharatsuyts".

However these citations may refer to the precursors of the Kipchak Bashkir tribes who wandered in the Aral-Syr Darya region before the migration. The Book of Sui might be speaking about the precursors of these tribes when the Turkic peoples were still wandering in southern Siberia.

From the 9th century, during the migration of the Bashkirs to the Volga-Ural, the first Arab and Persian written reports about Bashkirs commence. These include reports by Sallam al-Tardzhuman (9th century).

10th-century authors on the Bashkir were: Ahmad ibn Fadlan, Al-Masudi, and Abu Zayd al-Balkhi.

In the 12th century, Said Al-Andalusi and Muhammad al-Idrisi mentioned the Bashkirs. The 13th-century authors Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi, Yaqut al-Hamawi and Qazvini and the 14th-century authors Al-Dimashqi and Abu'l-Fida wrote about Bashkirs.

The traveller Sallam an at-Tardzhuman visited Bashkir lands and wrote in circa 840 the first written Arab source on the Bashkirs and a rough description of its borders. In the 10th century, Persian Abu Zayd al-Balkhi (10th century) described Bashkirs as a people divided into two groups: One inhabiting the Southern Urals, the other living on the Danube plain near the boundaries of Byzantium.^{[A 1]} Ibn Rustah, a contemporary of Abu Zayd al-Balkhi, observed that Bashkirs were an independent people occupying territories on both sides of the Ural mountains ridge between Volga, Kama, and Tobol Rivers and upstream of the Yaik river.

Ahmad ibn Fadlan, ambassador of the Baghdad Caliph Al-Muqtadir to the governor of Volga Bulgaria, wrote the first ethnographic description of the Bashkir in 922. The Bashkirs, according to Ibn Fadlan, were a warlike and powerful people, which he and his companions (a total of five thousand people, including military protection) "bewared... with the greatest threat". They were described as engaged in cattle breeding. According to ibn Fadlan, the Bashkirs worshipped twelve gods: winter, summer, rain, wind, trees, people, horses, water, night, day, death, heaven and earth, and the most prominent, the sky god. Apparently, Islam had already begun to spread among the Bashkirs, as one of the ambassadors was a Muslim Bashkir. According to the testimony of Ibn Fadlan, the Bashkirs were Turks, living on the southern slopes of the Urals, and occupying a vast territory up to the river Volga. They were bordered by Oghuz Turks on the south, Pechenegs to the south-east and Bulgars on the west.

The first European sources to mention the Bashkirs were the works of Joannes de Plano Carpini and William of Rubruquis of the 13th century.

By 1236, Genghis Khan had incorporated the lands of Bashkortostan were incorporated into his empire. During the 13th and 14th centuries, all of Bashkortostan was a component of the Golden Horde. The brother of Batu-Khan, Sheibani, received the Bashkir lands east of the Ural Mountains.

After the disintegration of the Mongol Empire, the Bashkirs were divided among the Nogai Horde, the Khanate of Kazan and the Khanate of Sibir, founded in the 15th century.

Early modern period[]

Bashkir riders

Bashkir sculpture in the haven of Veessen, Netherlands

In the middle of the 16th century, Bashkirs were gradually conquered by the Tsardom of Russia.^[26] Primary documents pertaining to the Bashkirs during this period have been lost, although some are mentioned in the shezhere (family trees) of the Bashkir.^{[citation needed]}

During the Russian Imperial period, Russians and Tatars began to migrate to Bashkortostan which led to eventual demographic changes in the region. The recruitment of Bashkirs into the Russian army and having to pay steep taxes pressured many Bashkirs to adopt a more settled lifestyle and to slowly abandon their ancient nomadic pastoralist past.^[26]

In the late 16th and early 19th centuries, Bashkirs occupied the territory from the river Sylva in the north; to the river heads of Tobol in the east; the mid-stream of the river Yaik in the south; in the Middle and Southern Urals, the Cis-Urals including Volga territory and Trans-Uralsto; and the eastern bank of the river Volga on the south-west.^{[citation needed]}

Bashkir rebellions of the 17th–18th centuries[]

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This Bashkir wears a medallion, which identifies him as the village chief. Photo by G. Fisher, Orenburg, 1892

Davlekanovo (Ufa Governorate). Kumis cooking, the beginning of the 20th century

Bashkirs in Orenburg, at the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812, 1913

The Bashkirs participated in the 1662–64, and 1704–11 Rebellions. In 1676, the Bashkirs rebelled under a leader named Seyid Sadir or 'Seit Sadurov', and the Russian army had great difficulties in ending the rebellion. The Bashkirs rose again in 1707, under Aldar and Kûsyom, due to perceived ill-treatment by Imperial Russian officials.

At the founding of Orenburg in 1735, the fourth insurrection occurred in 1735 and lasted six years.^[27] Ivan Kirillov formed a plan to build the fort to be called Orenburg at Orsk at the confluence of the Or River and the Ural River, south-east of the Urals where the Bashkir, Kalmyk and Kazakh lands met. Work on Fort Orenburg commenced at Orsk in 1735. However, by 1743 'Orenburg' was moved a further 250 km west to its current location. The next planned construction was to be a fort on the Aral Sea. The consequence of the Aral Sea fort would involve crossing Bashkir and the Kazakh Lesser Horde lands, some of whom had recently offered a nominal submission to the Russian Crown.

• The southern side of Bashkiria was partitioned by the Orenburg Line of forts. The forts ran from Samara on the Volga east as far as the Samara River headwaters.. It then crossed to the middle of the Ural River and following the river course east and then north on the eastern side of the Urals. It then went east along the Uy River to Ust-Uisk on the Tobol River where it connected to the ill-defined 'Siberian Line' along the forest-steppe boundary.

In 1774, the Bashkirs, under the leadership of Salavat Yulayev, supported Pugachev's Rebellion. In 1786, the Bashkirs achieved tax-free status; and in 1798 Russia formed an irregular Bashkir army from among them.

Napoleonic Wars[]

During the Napoleonic Wars, many Bashkirs served as mercenaries in the Russian army to defend from the French invaders during Napoleon's invasion of Russia.^[28] Subsequently, the Bashkir battalions were the most notable fighters during the Napoleonic wars on the north German and Dutch plateau. The Dutch and the Germans called the Bashkirs "Northern Amurs", probably because the population was not aware of who the Bashkirs actually were or where they came from, therefore the usage of "Amurs" in the name may be associated to a reference of something or someone coming from far away; these battalions were considered as the liberators from the French, however modern Russian military sources do not give credit to the Bashkirs for these accomplishments. These regiments also served in Battle of Paris and the subsequent occupation of France by the coalition forces.^[28]

Establishment of First Republic of Bashkortostan[]

The Members Of The Bashkir Government, 1920

Monuments to Bashkir soldiers in Leipzig

After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the All-Bashkir Qoroltays (convention) concluded that it was necessary to form an independent Bashkir republic within Russia. As a result, on 15 November 1917, the Bashkir Regional (central) Shuro (Council), ruled by the notorious Äxmätzäki Wälidi Tıwğan proclaimed the establishment of the first independent Bashkir Republic in areas of predominantly Bashkir population: Orenburg, Perm, Samara, Ufa provinces and the autonomous entity Bashkurdistan on November 15, 1917. This effectively makes Bashkortostan the first ever democratic Turkic republic in history.

Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic[]

In March 1919, the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was formed based on agreements of the Russian Government.

World War II[]

During World War II, Bashkir soldiers served in the Red Army to defend the Soviet Union and fought against the Germans during the German invasion of the Soviet Union.^[29][30]

Second declaration of independence[]

On October 11, 1990, Declaration of State Sovereignty by the Supreme Council of the Republic was proclaimed. On March 31, 1992 Bashkortostan signed a federal agreement on the delimitation of powers and areas of jurisdiction and the nature of contractual relations between the authorities of the Russian Federation and the authorities of the sovereign republics in its composition including the Republic of Bashkortostan.

Genetics[]

Haplogroup R1b is most common among the Bashkirs and in Western Europe

The modern Bashkirs have an average of approximately 60% "West-Eurasian/European" and 40% "Siberian/East-Asian" genetic material.^[31]

Genetic studies about Y-DNA haplogroups have revealed that the dominant frequency for Bashkir males is the haplogroup R1b (R-M269 and R-M73) which is, on average, 47.6%. The second most dominant haplogroup is the haplogroup R1a at an average frequency of 26,5%, and third the haplogroup N1c at 17%. Despite the Bashkirs being considered a Turkic people, DNA haplogroups R1a and R1b are mostly shared with Indo-Europeans, however not exclusively and these haplogroups predate the formation of Indo-European.

Haplogroups C, O, D1, were found at lower incidences and are associated with Far Eastern Asians.^[32] However depending on the region and clan of ethnic Bashkir, these haplogroups range from moderate to high frequencies. Haplogroup R1b-Z2106 dominates at Bashkir Burzyan and Gaina (87%) except for a few regions where it varies from 0% to2 less than 18%, the clan of Kanglyh ahplogroup G1 dominates (60%), haplogroup N3 dominates (61%) in the clan of Enes (44% relates to the "East Siberian" branch N3a2). In the uranium clan, the frequency of N3a4 reaches 90%. The entire gene pool of Unlar is represented by the R1a haplogroup, it also reaches 77% of the balyx but reaching 0% to 10% in other clan. In the gene pool of the Mintsev The “North Asian” haplogroup N3a is 34%, and the subvariant N3a4-Z1936 reaches 29%, the R1a1a * haplogroup in the Mints is 22%, Near East haplogroups J2 and G2 10% (from 0-17%). East Asia haplogroup C2 * -M217 (xM48) is 0% to 17%. Haplogroup O-M75 0% to 6%.^[33]

Most mtDNA haplogroups of the Bashkirs (60–65%) consist of the haplogroups G, D, С, Z and F, which are lineages characteristic of East-Eurasian populations. On the other hand, mtDNA haplogroups characteristic of European and Near Eastern populations were found in significant amounts (35–40%).^[34][35][36] Immunogeneticist Suslova commented in 2015 that:

The Bashkirs appear close to Mongoloids in allele and haplotype distribution. However, Bashkirs cannot be labelled either as typical Mongoloids or as Caucasoids. Thus, Bashkirs possess some alleles and haplotypes frequent in Mongoloids, which supports the Turkic impact on Bashkir ethnogenesis, but they also possess the AH 8.1 haplotype, which could prove an ancient Caucasoid population that took part in their ethnic formation... Bashkirs showed no features of populations with a substantial Finno-Ugric component, for example, Chuvashes or Russian Saami. This is contrary to the commonly held belief of a Finno-Ugric origin for Bashkirs...

— Suslova et al. 2015, International Journal of Immunogenetics

The Bashkirs are characterized by East-Asian admixture, which dates from the 13th century, according to an analysis of the identical-by-descent segments.^[37]

A group of Bashkirs from the Burzyansky and Abzelilovsky districts of the Republic of Bashkortostan in the Volga-Ural region who belong to the R1a subclade R1a-SUR51 are the closest kin to the Hungarian Árpád dynasty, from which they got separated 2000 years ago.^[38]

Language[]

Bashkir language is a Turkic language of the Kypchak group. It has three main dialects: Southern, Eastern and North-Western located in the territory of Historical Bashkortostan.

The Russian census of 2010 recorded 1,152,404 Bashkir speakers in the Russian Federation. Bashkir language is native to 1 133 339 Bashkirs (71,7% of the total number of Bashkirs, reporting mother tongue). The Tatar language was reported as native tongue to 230,846 Bashkirs (14,6%) and Russian language, as the native tongue to 216 066 Bashkir (13,7%). Most Bashkirs are bilingual in Bashkir and Russian.

The first appearance of a "Bashkir" language is dated back to the 9th century AD, in the form of stone inscription using a Runic alphabet, most likely, this alphabet derives from the Yenisei variant of the old Turkic runic script. This archaic version of a Bashkir language would be more or less a dialect of the proto-Kipchak language, however, since then, the Bashkir language has been through a series of vowel and consonant shifts, which are a result of a common literary history shared with the Idel Tatar language since the formation of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation, when the Oghuric Volga Bulgars started to receive Kipchak Turkic influence and became the Idel Tatars, most likely between the 10th and 11th centuries.

Today's spoken Turkic languages that could sound more like the proto-Kipchak languages spoken by Bashkirs back in time, could easily be the Nogai and Karachay-Balkar languages.

From an ark of time of roughly 900 years, the Bashkir language and Idel Tatar language, previously being completely different languages, "melted" into a series of dialects of a common "Volga Kipchak" or "Volga Turki" language, the Idel Tatars and Bashkirs tough are and always were two peoples of completely different origins, cultures and identities, but because of a shared common literary history in an ark of 900 years, the two languages ended up in a common language, spoken in different dialects with features depending on the people which spoke them.

For example, the dialects spoken by Bashkirs, tend to have an accent which mostly resembles other Kipchak languages, like Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Nogai, Karakalpak, and many other languages of the Kipchak sub-group, while the dialects spoken by Idel Tatars, have accents more resembling the original Oghuric Volga-Bulgar language spoken before the Cuman invasion.

At the beginning of the 20th century, most notably during the Russian revolution, when Bashkortostan and Tatarstan became two different republics, the Bashkir and Idel Tatar language were defined as two separate literary languages, each of them based on the most distinct dialects of the Volga Kipchak language spoken by the Bashkir and Idel Tatar people.

The Cyrillic alphabet is the official alphabet used to write Bashkir.

Demographics[]

The area settled by the Bashkirs according to the national census of 2010.

The ethnic Bashkir population is estimated at roughly 2 million people (2009 SIL Ethnologue). The 2010 Russian census recorded 1,584,554 ethnic Bashkirs in Russia, of which 1,172,287 Bashkirs live in Bashkortostan (29.5% of the total population of the republic).

Culture[]

Bashkirs in traditional clothing, Ufa, 2016

The Bashkirs traditionally practiced agriculture, cattle-rearing and bee-keeping. The half-nomadic Bashkirs wandered either the mountains or the steppes, herding cattle. Wild-hive beekeeping can be named as a separate component of the most ancient culture which is practiced in the same Burzyansky District near to the Kapova Cave.^[26]

Traditional Bashkir dish bishbarmaq is prepared from boiled meat and halma (a type of noodle), sprinkled with herbs flavored with onions and some qorot (young dry cheese). This is another notable feature of the Bashkir cuisine: dishes are often served with dairy products — it is a rare party that is without qorot or qaymaq (sour cream). Most of the dishes in Bashkir cuisine are nutritious and easy to prepare.

Nomadic games in Bashkortostan

Epic poems and mythology[]

The Bashkirs have created a rich folklore associated with their early period of history. In their works of their oral folk art, the views of ancient Bashkirs on nature, their worldly wisdom, psychology, moral ideals, social aspirations and creative imagination are artistically reflected into the modern Bashkir folklore. The genre composition of the Bashkir folk art is very diverse: epic and fairy tales, legends and traditions, riddles, songs (ritual, epic or only lyrical) etc.

The Bashkir poems, like the epic creations of other peoples, find origin in the ancient Turkic mythology, in fact the Bashkir epic tale culture can be considered a more developed and expanded version of old Turkic epic culture. Majority of the poems of Bashkir mythology have been written down and published as books at the beginning of the 20th century, these poems compose a great part of the literature of the Bashkir people and are important examples of further-developed Turkic culture.

Some of these poems became important on a continental level, for example the poem of the "Ural Batyr", which tells the tale of the legendary hero Ural, is the origin of the name of the Ural mountains, the natural border between Europe and Asia. Other poems constitute a great part of the Bashkir national identity, other tales apart from the Ural Batyr are "Aqbuzat", "Qara yurga", "Aqhaq qola", "Kongur buga", "Uzaq Tuzaq", and many others.

The Ural-Batyr and its impact[]

The poem Ural Batyr has been developed with the inclusion of the pantheon of the old Turkic politheistic religion "Tengrism". It takes basis on the pre-Islamic Bashkir conception of the world. In the Ural batyr and pre-Islamic Bashkir folktale religion (which still constitute the basis of the modern Bashkir folk and literature) the world is three-tiered. It includes an heavenly, earthly and undergroundly (underwater) trinity: on the sky, the heavenly king Samrau resides, his wives are the Sun and the Moon, he has two daughters, Umay and , who are incarnated either in the form of birds or beautiful girls. In the Ural batyr, Umay is incarnated into a swan in fact, she later assumes the aspect of a beautiful girl as the story proceeds.

People live on the earth, the best of whom pledge honor and respect to the existence of nature. The third world is the underground world, where the Devas (also singular Deva or Div) live, incarnated as a snake, the incarnation of the dark forces, who live underground. As mentioned above, through the actions told in the Ural Batyr, the Bashkirs express their ideas on good and evil. This is how the legendary hero Ural, possessing titanic power, overcoming incredible difficulties, destroys the deva, and obtains "living water" (the idea of water in nature, in the pre-Islamic Bashkir panteon of the Turkic mythology, is known as a spirit of life, thus the water is what gives life). Ural thus obtains the "Living Water" in order to defeat death in the name of the eternal existence of man and nature. Ural did not drink the "living water" to live eternally. Instead, he decided to sparkle it around himself, died and donated eternity to the world, the withered earth turned green. Ural died and from his body, the Ural mountains originated.

The name of the Ural mountain range comes from this poem.

Music[]

The Bashkirs have a style of overtone singing called özläü (sometimes spelled uzlyau; Bashkort Өзләү), which has nearly died out. In addition, Bashkorts also sing uzlyau while playing the kurai, a national instrument. This technique of vocalizing into a flute can also be found in folk music as far west as the Balkans and Hungary.

Religion[]

Bashkirs in the midday prayer in the vicinity of the village Muldakaevo. Photo by Maxim Dmitriev, 1890

The mosque in the Bashkir village of Yahya. Photo by S. M. Prokudin-Gorskii, 1910

In the pre-Islamic period the Bashkirs were followers of Animism, Shamanism and Tengrianism.^[39][40]

Bashkirs began converting to Islam in the 10th century.^[41][26] Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan in 921 met some of the Bashkirs, who were already Muslims.^[42] The final assertion of Islam among the Bashkirs occurred in the 1320s and 1330s during the Golden Horde period. The mausoleum of Hussein-Bek, the burial place of the first Imam of Historical Bashkortostan, is preserved in Bashkortostan. The mausoleum is a 14th-century building. Catherine the Great established the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly in 1788 in Ufa, which was the first Muslim administrative center in Russia.

Religious revival among the Bashkirs began in the early 1990s.^[43] According to Talgat Tadzhuddin there were more than 1,000 mosques in Bashkortostan in 2010.^[44]

The Bashkirs are predominantly Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab.^[18]

Notable Bashkirs[]

• Ildar Abdrazakov,
• Salawat Yulayev, Bashkir national hero
• Minigali Shaymuratov, participant in the Civil War for the Red Army and Major General of the Bashkir cavalry in the Great Patriotic War. posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Russia.
• Zeki Velidi Togan, historian, turkologist and leader of the Bashkir national movement of the early 20th century
• Shaikhzada Babich, Bashkir poet, writer and playwright. Member of the Bashkir national liberation movement, one of the members of the Bashkir government (1917–1919)
• Shagit Hudayberdin, Communist revolutionary
• Tagir Kusimov, Soviet military leader
• Mustai Karim, Bashkir Soviet poet, writer and playwright. He was named People's poet of the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1963), Hero of Socialist Labour (1979), and winner of the Lenin Prize (1984) and the State Prize of the USSR (1972)
• Zagir Ismagilov, composer and educator
• Rudolf Nureyev, ballet dancer and choreographer
• Murtaza Rakhimov, first president of Bashkortostan
• Lyasan Utiasheva, (Bashkir mother) TV show host, socialite and former rhythmic gymnast
• Alina Ibragimova, Violinist
• Morgenshtern, rapper and internet personality

See also[]

• Bashkir horse
• Karayakupovo culture

Notes[]

References[]

Further reading[]

• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bashkirs" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Rudenko, S. I. (2006). Башкиры: историко-этнографические очерки [The Bashkirs: historical and ethnographic essays] (in Russian). Ufa: Kitap. ISBN 5-295-03899-8.
• Kuzeev, R. G. (2010). Происхождение башкирского народа. Этнический состав, история расселения [The origin of the Bashkir people. Ethnic composition, history of settlement] (in Russian). Ufa: DizainPoligrafServis. ISBN 978-5-94423-212-0.
• Bermisheva, M. A.; Ivanov, V. A.; Kinyabaeva, G. A.; et al. (2011). Антропология башкир [Anthropology of the Bashkirs] (in Russian). Saint-Petersburg: Aleteya. ISBN 978-5-91419-386-4.
• Kulsharipov, M. M., ed. (2009). История башкирского народа: в 7 т. Т. I [History of the Bashkir people: 7 vol. Vol. I] (in Russian). Moscow: Nauka. ISBN 978-5-02-037010-4. Archived from the original on 2017-03-06. Retrieved 2016-10-02.
• Kulsharipov, M. M., ed. (2012). История башкирского народа: в 7 т. Т. II [History of the Bashkir people: 7 vol. Vol. II] (in Russian). Ufa: Gilem. ISBN 978-5-91608-100-8. Archived from the original on 2017-03-21. Retrieved 2016-10-02.
• Kulsharipov, M. M., ed. (2011). История башкирского народа: в 7 т. Т. III [History of the Bashkir people: 7 vol. Vol. III] (in Russian). Ufa: Gilem. ISBN 978-5-7501-1301-9.
• Kulsharipov, M. M., ed. (2011). История башкирского народа: в 7 т. Т. IV [History of the Bashkir people: 7 vol. Vol. IV] (in Russian). Moscow: Nauka. ISBN 978-5-02-038276-3.
• Kulsharipov, M. M., ed. (2009). История башкирского народа: в 7 т. Т. V [History of the Bashkir people: 7 vol. Vol. V] (in Russian). Ufa: Gilem. ISBN 978-5-7501-1199-2. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2016-10-02.
• Kulsharipov, M. M., ed. (2009). История башкирского народа: в 7 т. Т. VI [History of the Bashkir people: 7 vol. Vol. VI] (in Russian). Moscow: Nauka. ISBN 978-5-02-036494-3. Archived from the original on 2017-01-15. Retrieved 2016-10-02.
• Kulsharipov, M. M., ed. (2012). История башкирского народа: в 7 т. Т. VII [History of the Bashkir people: 7 vol. Vol. VII] (in Russian). Ufa: Gilem. ISBN 978-5-4466-0040-3. Archived from the original on 2014-10-06. Retrieved 2016-10-02.
• Asfandiyarov, A. Z., ed. (2013). Военная история башкир: энциклопедия [Military history of Bashkirs: Encyclopedia] (in Russian). Ufa: Bashkir encyclopedia. ISBN 978-5-8818-5076-0.
• Kuzeev, R. G.; Danilko, E. S., eds. (2015). Башкиры [The Bashkirs] (in Russian). Moscow: Nauka. ISBN 978-5-02-039182-6.
• Ilgamov, M.A., ed. (2015–2016). Башкирская энциклопедия: в 7 томах [Bashkir encyclopedia: 7 vol.] (in Russian). Ufa: Bashkir encyclopedia. ISBN 978-5-88185-306-8. Archived from the original on 2020-01-22. Retrieved 2017-02-19.

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bashkir people.

• Photos of Bashkirs and their life in funds of the Library of Congress
• Photos of Bashkirs and their life in funds of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (the Kunstkamera)