Crimean Tatars, Nogays, and Scottish Missionaries the Story of Katti Geray and Other Baptised Descendants of the Crimean Khans
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Cahiers du monde russe Russie - Empire russe - Union soviétique et États indépendants 45/1-2 | 2004 Stratégies impériales Crimean Tatars, Nogays, and Scottish missionaries The story of katti Geray and other baptised descendants of the Crimean khans HAKAN KIRIMLI Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/monderusse/8679 DOI : 10.4000/monderusse.8679 ISSN : 1777-5388 Éditeur Éditions de l’EHESS Édition imprimée Date de publication : 1 janvier 2004 Pagination : 61-108 ISBN : 2-7132-2008-4 ISSN : 1252-6576 Référence électronique HAKAN KIRIMLI, « Crimean Tatars, Nogays, and Scottish missionaries », Cahiers du monde russe [En ligne], 45/1-2 | 2004, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 2007, Consulté le 30 avril 2019. URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/monderusse/8679 ; DOI : 10.4000/monderusse.8679 © École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris. Cet article est disponible en ligne à l’adresse : http:/ / www.cairn.info/ article.php?ID_REVUE=CMR&ID_NUMPUBLIE=CMR_451&ID_ARTICLE=CMR_451_0061 Crimean Tatars, Nogays, and Scottish missionaries. The story of katti Geray and other baptised descendants of the Crimean khans par HAKAN KIRIMLI | Editions de l'EHESS | Cahiers du monde russe 2004/1-2 - Vol 45 ISSN 1252-6576 | ISBN 2713220084 | pages 61 à 108 Pour citer cet article : — KIRIMLI H., Crimean Tatars, Nogays, and Scottish missionaries. The story of katti Geray and other bapt ised descendants of the Crimean khans, Cahiers du monde russe 2004/ 1-2, Vol 45, p. 61-108. Distribution électronique Cairn pour les Editions de l'EHESS. © Editions de l'EHESS. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit. HAKAN KIRIMLI CRIMEAN TATARS, NOGAYS, AND SCOTTISH MISSIONARIES The story of Kattı Geray and other baptised descendants of the Crimean khans11 The Crimean Tatars and their close ethnic kinsmen the Nogays played a significant role in the history of post-medieval Eastern Europe. Their active relations with several European powers and peoples in the course of centuries notwithstanding, one may think that the past of these Muslim Turkic peoples had little bearing on that of the faraway Scots. Still, there were some curious, albeit long forgotten, twists of history where the fortunes of the peoples of the Kipchak steps and that of the Caledonians intersected. One such case involved the activities of a group of Scottish missionaries in the North Caucasus and the Crimea during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. This unusual encounter not only refers to a daring enterprise on the part of a group of Scotsmen, but also highlights the interesting, and thus far rather blurry, changes in the social life of the Crimean Tatars and Nogays during the earlier decades of Russian rule over them. All these could be depicted against the background of the very exceptional fate and story of a member of the Geray dynasty who was directly affected by these developments, namely Kattı Geray or “Aleksandr Ivanovich Sultan-Kırım-Geray.” 1. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Nurettin Demir, Wenzel Freiherr von Reiswitz, Roza Ayırçinskaya, Malcolm Vince Jones, Hans-Jürgen Kornrumpf, Mehmet Ali Dofian, and Ömer Turan who extended me very kind and invaluable assistance of various kinds during the process of the preparation of this article. Cahiers du Monde russe, 45/1-2, Janvier-juin 2004, p. 61-108. 62 HAKAN KIRIMLI TThhee GGeerraayy ddyynnaasstt yy The Muslim and Turkic Geray dynasty, which was believed to have an unbroken genealogical link with Chinghiz Khan, ruled over the Crimean Khanate for more than three-and-a-half centuries. In turn, they descended from a branch of the ruling Chinghizid dynasty of the Golden Horde, the powerful empire which dominated vast areas stretching from eastern Europe to Central Asia during at least mid- thirteenth to late fourteenth centuries. The Gerays considered themselves the legitimate heirs of the Golden Horde and for them the state they ruled was nothing but the Golden Horde or Great Horde (Ulufi Orda) itself, a claim which they were keen to assert until the very end of the Crimean Khanate. The Geray line was directly linked to the fully Turkified and Islamized descendants of Juji, son of Chinghiz Khan. The emergence of the name “Geray” as the epithet of a particular Chinghizid line goes back to the early fifteenth century. It was Hacı Geray Khan I who was to bear this name first and who made the Crimean peninsula the base of his and his descendants’ realm. Following Hacı Geray Khan I, his male descendants would add this appellation to their personal names.2 The cognomen Geray (or Giray in the Ottoman usage), thus acquired a distinctive historical meaning as the name of the Turkic and Muslim ruling dynasty of the Crimean Khanate, independent from the etymological background of the term, which had, in all likelihood, been linked with the eponymic Turkic/Mongolian tribe Kerey, a historical community important in its own right.3 Until the end of the Crimean Khanate, and even thereafter, the Geray dynasty enjoyed great respect by outsiders as one of the oldest Asiatic and Muslim royal houses whose legitimacy has never been a matter of dispute. In the Ottoman Empire, which the Crimean Khanate from the last quarter of the fifteenth century on recognized as its sovereign, the Gerays, as a dynasty, were known to be second only to the Ottomans themselves. The Russian annexation of the Crimea ended the rule of Gerays in the Crimea in 1783. Supported by the Ottomans, who could hardly reconcile themselves to the loss of the Crimea to the Russian Empire, the Gerays’ sovereignty — at least nominally — continued over certain parts of the Kuban and Bucak regions which used to belong to the Crimean Khanate. The last Gerays to be declared khans by the Ottoman Empire as such were ∑ahbaz Geray Khan (1787-1789) and Baht Geray Khan (1789-1792).4 Following the Russian invasion of the Crimea, practically all Gerays belonging to the line of direct succession left (or were forced to leave) the 2. For the Geray dynasty, see Halil |nalcık, “Giray,” The Encyclopedia of Islam (New Edition), vol. II (Leiden, 1983): 1112-1114; idem, “Giray,” |slâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. IV (Istanbul, 1964): 783-789. 3. For the correlation between the terms and concepts “Geray” and “Kerey” (or “Kereit”), see Julius [Gyula] Németh, “Kereit, Kerey, Giray,” Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher (Wiesbaden), vol. XXXVI (1965): 360-365. It should be noted that Hacı Geray’s adaptation of the term did not indicate, on his part, any genealogical link to the Kerey tribe. 4. Halim Geray Sultan, Gülbün-i Hânân yahud Kırım Tarihi (Istanbul, 1327 [1911]): 217-220. CRIMEAN TATARS, NOGAYS, AND SCOTTISH MISSIONARIES 63 peninsula for the Ottoman Empire or for some of the former possessions of the Crimean Khanate on the Caucasus. At the turn of the nineteenth century, there was not such a single male descendant of the royal house of Gerays left in the Crimea.5 Although some minor members (especially women) of the large Geray pedigree and individuals with varying degrees of relations to the Gerays continued to live in the peninsula, none of them were ever recognized as heirs to the former dynasty or ennobled by the Russian government owing to their ancestry. In other words, whatever stories the fate had in store for the individual descendants of the Gerays who still somewhat cherished their filiation after the demise of the Crimean Khanate, they would take place outside the Crimea. TThhee GGeerraayyss ii nn tt hhee NNoorrtt hh CCaauuccaassuuss Throughout its reign, the Geray dynasty had always maintained close relations with the Turkic and Adyge (“Circassian”) peoples of the western section of the North Caucasus who constituted an important element in the khanate. The Gerays’ ties with the nobility of the North Caucasian tribes were kept alive with the time-honored atalık tradition.6 According to this custom, every male member of the Geray dynasty, having reached a certain age of childhood, was ceremoniously sent to a Circassian noble family to be brought up in the virile arts of tough North Caucasian life. Apart from its important role in the upbringing of the young Geray sultans, this tradition provided the Gerays with the most trustworthy alliances among the North Caucasian nobility, whose prestige and influence in turn would be raised enormously if and when the sultan they brought up came to power.7 A living legacy of the Crimean rule in, and relations with, many a North Caucasian land and people is the widespread usage of the cognomen of the Crimean 5. Jean Reuilly, Travels in the Crimea and along the shores of the Black Sea (London, 1807): 59. 6. Vasilii Dmitrievich Smirnov, Krymskoe khanstvo pod verkhovenstvom otomanskoi porty do nachala XVIII veka (St. Petersburg, 1887): 348-349; Abdullah Zihni Soysal, “Kırım Hanzâdelerinin Kafkasya’da Talim ve Terbiyesi,” Emel (|stanbul), no. 36 (1966): 17-19; Ali Barut, “Kırım Hanlıfiı ile Kuzey-Batı Kafkasya |liÒkilerinde Atalık Müessesesinin Yeri,” Emel (Ankara), no. 219 (1997): 21-27. For a broad analysis of this critical tradition among the Caucasian peoples of various ethno-linguistic origins, see K. I. Ashkhamatov, Atalychestvo: sushchnost´ i vospitatel´naia funktsiia (Maikop, 2001); Mark Osipovich Kosven, Etnografiia i istoriia Kavkaza.