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Evolution of the Meaning of the Ethnonym Tatar: a Look from a Spatial Perspective

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Evolution of the Meaning of the Ethnonym Tatar: a Look from a Spatial Perspective LIAISAN ŞAHIN EVOLUTION OF THE MEANING OF THE ETHNONYM TATAR: A LOOK FROM A SPATIAL PERSPECTIVE Liaisan Şahin, Marmara University, 34722 Göztepe Campus, Istanbul, Turkey, [email protected]. The ethnonym “Tatar” has a very long and extremely complicated history. It is inseparably linked with broad historical changes across vast geographic spaces. Tracing the spatial dimension of the changes in the meaning of the name “Tatar” sheds light on the long-term evolution of geographical imaginations in large parts of Eurasia as well as provides useful insights into the politics of modern Tatar nationalism. The article describes the history of the ethnonym “Tatar” from a spatial perspective, focusing first on the evolution of its meaning from medieval times to the 20th century, then considering the use of the name in the context of modern nationalist practices. The latter issue is examined through the developments in the Tatar historiographical thought: the author traces how spatial visions of Tatar history have been transformed from the beginning of the 19th century to the present. In the Tatar historiography the two confronting viewpoints have clashed and interacted (the Bulgarist-Tatarist debate). The article considers this confrontation from the spatial perspective and within the related context of the identity formation process among the Volga-Ural Turkic population, which was profoundly impacted by the Soviet historiography. Key words: Tatar history, Tatar historiography, the name “Tatar”, national spatial imagination, the Bulgarist-Tatarist debate, Soviet historiography. Time and space are inseparable phenomena: this research, place has been redifined “away from one cannot exist without the other. However, until the traditional, static definiton as a bounded land recently there was a tendency in the social sciences area toward a reconceptualization as a more dy- to differentiate between them and often neglect namically constituted, historically contingent net- space. In 1980, Foucault complained about the he- work of social interaction” [12: 2]. Especially in gemony of time over space: regard to nationalist practices, scholars have Space was treated as something dead, fixed, started to pay attention to the role of territory and undialectical, and immobile. Time, on the contrary, territoriality in nationalization projects. The ways, was richness, fecundity, life, and dialectics [5: 70]. in which homeland images, myths and symbols Since 1980s, the role of space (place) and geo- have been used to nationalize space and territorial- graphic imagination have received increasing at- ize national identity, have come to the fore [11: tention from many scholars. As a consequence of 229-230]. 90 TATARICA: HISTORY AND SOCIETY The ethnonym Tatar has a very long and ex- 19th century, the name “Tatar” had acquired certain tremely complicated history. It is inseparably ethnic meaning in the context of the Russian Em- linked with broad historical changes across vast pire as it came to exclusively refer to Turkic popu- geographic spaces. Tracing the spatial dimension lations of the Volga, Astrakhan, Crimean, Siberian of the changes in the meaning of the name Tatar and Caucasian regions. At the end of the 19th cen- sheds light on the long-term evolution of geo- tury, the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brokgauz and graphical imaginations in large parts of Eurasia as Efron listed the following ethnic groups under the well as provides useful insights into the process of category of the Tatars: 1) Asian or Siberian Tatars; homeland making of modern Tatar nationalism. 2) European Tatars (Kazan, Astrakhan and Cri- History of the Name “Tatar” from Medieval mean Tatars); 3) Caucasian Tatars (Azerbaijan, Times to the 20th Century. Between the 7th and 12th Kabarda and Dagestan Tatars) [1: 672]. The ency- centuries certain Tatar tribes lived to the north of clopedia noted the fact that the ethnic communities Chinese lands. It is not known for sure if the tribes referred by Russians as “the Tatars” had not used – who appear under the name of “Ta-Ta” in Chi- this name as their ethnic identification and the use nese sources of the 9th century – had Mongol or of the name Tatar in the case constituted a “his- Turkic roots. In the 12th century, they were con- torical mistake” [2: 347]. quered by neighboring Mongol tribes. Some histo- In the Soviet period, Soviet nationality policies rians have noted that, for some reason, since the resulted in serious transformations in ethnic identi- 10th century Chinese sources started to use the ties. In some cases, the adoption of new ethnic name “Ta-Ta” for all non-Chinese tribes, living to names accompanied the process. Considering the north of Chinese lands. Later, this usage became Tatar case, the name became associated mainly common in Islamic sources of the 11th-12th centu- with four groups: Kazan (Volga) Tatars, Crimean ries. Meanwhile, the original Tatar tribes are con- Tatars, Astrakhan Tatars and Siberian Tatars. All sidered to have lost their collective identity and the groups were counted within the single category their remainers to have become assimilated by the of “the Tatars” in Soviet censuses [21: 45; 301; Mongols by the time the Mongol conquerors were 516]. After the establishment of the Tatar Autono- advancing towards Europe [21: 566]. mous Soviet Socialist Republic on the historical The Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan, which land of the Kazan Tatars, the name “Tatar” became extended in the 13th century across central Asia associated mainly with them. Thus, the name of from Manchuria in the east to European Russia in some nomad tribes of Mongolia, whose physical the west, was comprised of an extremely mixed existence ended long before the modern times, population. Mongol rulers were in minority and eventually has become to identify a Turkic com- they were rapidly assimilated by local communi- munity of European Russia, which had only a re- ties. For some reason – perhaps, because of the re- mote relation – if any – to the original name- semblance of the name “Tatar” to “Tartarus” (the bearers. underworld; Hades) – the terrifying warriors of In this connection, it will be particularly inter- Genghis Khan’s empire became known in Europe esting to analyze how the process of self- and Russia as Ta(r)tar-Mongols or just “Ta(r)tars”. identification of the Kazan (Volga) Tatars – who Then the name “Tatar” was transferred to the have become the ultimate bearers of the name – mostly Turkic population of the Golden Horde, the progressed and how the process was influenced by westernmost part of the Mongol Empire. During Soviet nationality policies. the existence of the Golden Horde, even the Mos- Processes of Self-Identification among the cow State was identified on European maps as a Turkic population of the Volga-Ural Region from part of “Tartaria” [13: 20]. After the disintegration Medieval Times to the 20th Century. The ancestors of the Golden Horde into smaller khanates at the of the contemporary Kazan Tatars inhabited the beginning of the 15th century, the population of Middle Volga region since the 8th century. The first these khanates was also identified as Tatars. Rus- Turkic colonists here were known as Bulgars. Lo- sian sources used to call the khanates of Kazan, cated in the Middle Volga at the confluence of the Crimea and Astrakhan the Smaller Tataria and the Volga and Kama rivers (within the boundaries of region of Turkestan the Greater Tataria [15]. the present-day Tatarstan), the Volga Bulgar state The Russian State started to expand in the became a Muslim state by the beginning of the 10th middle of the 16th century by the conquest of the century. After the Mongol conquest and integration Kazan Khanate. The conquests of the other territo- of the Volga Bulgar State into the Golden Horde, ries of the former Golden Horde followed. By the the Middle Volga region underwent profound 91 LIAISAN ŞAHIN changes: the population transfers under Mongol the formation and adoption of a religiously- rule, the arrival of Kipchak-speaking groups, and conceived “Bulgar” identity among Volga-Ural finally the Black Death led to a profound transfor- Muslims. According to Frank, this was an identity mation in the ethnic and linguistic character of the that “on the one hand had sought to create a re- region by the late 14th century [18: 141]. gional identity that unified the Volga-Ural Mus- Schamiloglu doubts the existence of a separate lims as Muslims, and on the other it was conscious Volga Bulgar people at this point in time, though of the religious basis of communal identity in the accepting that the name Bulgar continued to have a Volga-Ural region.” The proponents of this idea special place in the history of the peoples of the expressed Bulgar identity in historiography Middle Volga region [18: 141]. However, most of (through the medium of locally produced Turkic the scholars speak of a Bulgar population which histories) using historical legends and sacred histo- was existent in the late Golden Horde period [20: ries [6: 2; 9]. The “Bulgar” historiographical tradi- 492]. tion that considered the conversion of the Bulgars In the next period, when the Golden Horde dis- to Islam as “the sacred inception of the commu- integrated into smaller successor states, the former nity” [6: 159] emerged in the first decades of the territory of the Volga Bulgar state came to form an 19th century. This historiography popularized the integral part of the Khanate of Kazan. Historical Bulgar identity and led to its widespread accep-
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