On the question of the origin of the Kryashens or baptized Tatars. Summary: Baptized Tatars

29.09.2019

Origin of the Kryashens

Traditional version

According to the traditional and most reasonable point of view on the problem of the emergence of the Kryashens, the formation of this ethno-confessional group as an independent community took place long time with the participation of Finno-Ugric and Turkic components. At the same time, despite the fact that during the period of the Volga Bulgaria and the Golden Horde, Turkic feudal lords and their entourage were known Christian denomination, and the fact that in a later period some Tatar aristocrats converted to Orthodoxy, there was no separate "Kryashen" ethnic formation. The decisive influence on the formation of the Kryashens, as a separate community, was exerted by the process of Christianization of part of the Tatars of the Volga region in the second half of the 16th-17th centuries (the group formed at that time is called the “old-baptized Tatars”) and the process of Christianization of the non-Russian peoples of the Volga region in the first half of the 18th century (the new group Tatars, formed at that time, is called "newly baptized"). As a result, five ethnographic groups of Kryashens were formed, which have their own specific differences: Kazan-Tatar, Yelabuga, Molkeev, Chistopol, Nagaybak (the last group of Nagaybaks stood out in 2002 as a separate nationality).

Archeological data and cultural studies in the places of compact residence of the Kryashens testify in favor of the traditional theory of the version. Thus, the Molkeev Kryashens have a stable memory of the Islamic origin of their ancestors. According to the observations of G. Filippov, at the beginning of the 20th century, the inhabitants still had legends:

“The fact of the baptism of their “fathers” refers to times relatively close. They remember the places of mosques, indicate the persons who remained unbaptized"
Filippov G. From the history of Christian education of the baptized Meshcheryak Tatars of the Tetyush and Tsivil districts of the Kazan province // News of the Kazan diocese. 1915. No. 37

In a number of villages of the Molkeev Kryashens there were Muslim cemeteries, where, according to legend, the founding fathers of these villages were buried, their graves were the main object of worship. The grave of Khoja Hasan in the village of Khozesanovo and the grave of Myalka (Malik) babay in Molkeevo were especially popular both among the Kryashens and local Muslim Tatars. The Kryashens, together with visiting Muslims, visited these graves, during prayers and sacrifices they resorted to the help of mullahs. Also, near the Kryashen village of Tashkirmen, Laishevsky district, an ancient Muslim burial ground was discovered, which, according to archaeologists, belongs to the Bulgar and Golden Horde periods. At the end of the 19th century, the historian I.A. Iznoskov, describing the village, testified:

“... inside the village, during excavations of the earth, residents find various things and coins with an Arabic inscription ...”
Another version was developed by the Kazan historian Maxim Glukhov. He believed that the ethnonym "Kryashens" goes back to the historical tribe of Kerchin - a Tatar tribe known as Keraites and who professed Nestorian Christianity from the 10th century. At the end of the 12th century, the Keraites were conquered by Genghis Khan, but did not lose their identity. Participation in aggressive campaigns led to the appearance of Keraites in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Later, during the formation of independent Crimean and Kazan khanates big number Keraites ended up in the Crimea and the Middle Volga. Their descendants still live in the eastern regions of Tatarstan, preserving the ethnonym in a somewhat deformed form, as a relic of historical memory.

Number and placement

Historical overview

At the end of the 19th century, the most numerous subgroup was the ancestral Kama group of Kryashens, which occupied the limits of the Mamadyshksky, Laishevsky and Kazansky districts of the Kazan province and the southern part of the Malmyzhsky district of the Vyatka province. The number of this subgroup is estimated at 35 thousand people. The second largest was the Eastern Zakamskaya subgroup of the Kryashens, settled in the Menzelinsky district of the Ufa province. Its number was 19709 people.

Current state

Anthropological types of Kryashens

The most significant in the field of anthropology of the Kryashens are the studies of T. A. Trofimova, carried out in 1929-1932. In particular, in 1932, together with G. F. Debets, she carried out extensive research in Tataria. In the Yelabuga region, 103 Kryashens were examined, in the Chistopol region - 121 Kryashens. Anthropological studies have revealed the presence of four main anthropological types among the Kryashens: Pontic, light Caucasoid, sublaponoid, Mongoloid.

Table 1. Anthropological characteristics of different groups of Kryashens.

signs Kryashens of Yelabuga region Kryashens of Chistopolsky district
Number of cases 103 121
Growth 166,7 165,0
Longitudinal head diameter 189,8 189,7
Transverse head diameter 155,5 152,9
Height diameter 127,3 126,9
head pointer 81,9 80,7
Altitude-longitudinal indicator 67,3 67,2
Morphological face height 124,9 127,6
Cheekbone diameter 141,7 141,4
Morphological facial index 88,0 90,3
Nasal pointer 66,2 65,0
Hair color (% black-27, 4-5) 45,4 62,0
Eye color (% dark and mixed 1-8 according to Bunak) 70,9 76,0
Horizontal profile % flat 1,0 2,5
Average score (1-3) 2,32 2,22
Epicanthus (% availability) 1,0 0
Eyelid crease 61,0 51,8
Beard (according to Bunak) % very weak and weak growth (1-2) 54,9 43,0
Average score (1-5) 2,25 2,57
Bridge height, average score (1-3) 2,24 2,34
General profile of the bridge of the nose % concave 15,5 8,3
% convex 13,6 24,8
The position of the tip of the nose % elevated 18,4 30,5
% omitted 18,4 26,5

Table 2. Anthropological types of Kryashens, according to T. A. Trofimova

Population groups Light Caucasian Pontic Sublaponoid Mongoloid
N % N % N % N %
Kryashens of the Yelabuga region of Tatarstan 24 52,2 % 1 2,2 % 17 37,0 % 4 8,7 %
Kryashens of the Chistopol district of Tatarstan 15 34,9 % 12 27,9 % 13 30,2 % 3 7,0 %
Everything 39 43,8 % 13 14,6 % 30 33,7 % 7 7,9 %

These types have the following characteristics:

Pontic type- characterized by mesocephaly, dark or mixed pigmentation of the hair and eyes, high nasal bridge, convex bridge of the nose, with a lowered tip and base, significant beard growth. Growth is average with an upward trend.
Light Caucasian type- characterized by subbrachycephaly, light pigmentation of hair and eyes, medium or high nose bridge with a straight back of the nose, moderately developed beard, medium height. A number of morphological features - the structure of the nose, the size of the face, pigmentation, and a number of others - bring this type closer to the Pontic.
Sublaponoid type(Volga-Kama) - characterized by meso-subbrachycephaly, mixed pigmentation of hair and eyes, wide and low nose, weak beard growth and a low, medium-wide face with a tendency to flattening. Quite often there is a fold of the eyelid with a weak development of the epicanthus.
Mongoloid type(South Siberian) - characterized by brachycephaly, dark shades hair and eyes, a broad and flattened face and a low bridge of nose, frequent epicanthus and poor beard development. Growth, on a European scale, is average.

Language and alphabet

In the process of isolation, the Kryashens developed a number of their own dialects. Four of them stand out:

the dialect of the Kryashens of the Lower Kama region (the middle dialect of the Tatar language);

the dialect of the Zakazan Kryashens (the middle dialect of the Tatar language);

the dialect of the Chistopol Kryashens (the middle dialect of the Tatar language);

dialect of the Molkeevsky Kryashens (western dialect of the Tatar language).

The Kryashens mostly speak a middle dialect of the Tatar language. The dialect of the Molkeev Kryashens is an exception; it is closer to the western dialect of the Tatar language. The main differences between the dialects of the Kryashens are a small number of Arabisms and Farsisms, the preservation of archaic Old Tatar words.
In tsarist times, the Kryashens used the alphabet of N. I. Ilminsky, which differs from the modern Tatar alphabet. This alphabet was developed starting in 1862, and finally took shape by 1874. Compared to the Russian alphabet, the Ilminsky alphabet had four additional letters necessary to convey the sounds of the Tatar language. The official state authorities did not approve the alphabet. It was believed that the printing of literature is carried out in the "baptized Tatar dialect in Russian letters." In 1930, after the introduction of the yanalif, the use of the Ilyinsky alphabet was discontinued for several decades. The use was resumed in the early 90s of the XX century, when liturgical books and publications of Kryashen public organizations began to be published on it. At the same time, in secular life, the use of the standard Tatar alphabet has been preserved.

Printing and literature

Newspapers

Magazines

"Igen Iguche" ("Grain grower") (June-July 1918)

"Belemnek" ("Knowledge") (September 1921 - January 1922)

Fiction

The most famous Kryashen poet of the 19th century is Yakov Yemelyanov, who received the nickname "singer Yakov" among the people. He began to try the pen while still studying at the Kazan Central Baptized Tatar School. The poet prepared two poetry collections, which were published under the general title “Poems in the Baptized Tatar language. Deacon Y. Yemelyanov stihlaria" in 1879. Also known are such Kryashen writers as David Grigoriev-Savrushevsky, Darzhiya Appakova, N. [ ] Filippov, Alexander Grigoriev , V. [ ] Chernov, Gavrila Belyaev.

Self-identification and current situation

There are different views on the Kryashens; traditional is the opinion that the Kryashens are a kind of part of the Tatar people, it was defended by Glukhov-Nogaybek.
At the same time, among a noticeable part of the intelligentsia, there is an opinion about the Kryashens as a separate people.
Supporters of the fact that the Kryashens are a people separate from the Tatars also believe that since that time the life of the Muslim Tatars has changed under the influence and at the request of Islam, as the latter penetrated into the masses. In their opinion, in addition to the language and way of life, the Kryashens ethnically retained their original ancient qualities.
One of these versions is put forward by the historian and theologian Alexander Zhuravsky. According to his version, the Kryashens are not Tatars baptized in the 16th century, but are the descendants of the Turkic tribes, baptized no later than the 12th century, living in the Volga-Kama region and by the time of the fall of the Kazan Khanate were in a semi-pagan-semi-Christian state. At the same time, the researcher notes that these issues do not seem relevant to official science, and therefore they are obliged to study church local history. .
The question of the origin and position of the Kryashens became more active before the All-Russian census of the population in 2002. In October 2001, the Kryashens adopted a declaration of self-determination, a year later approved by the Interregional Conference of the Kryashens of the Russian Federation. . The issue went beyond the historical and cultural and became political.
The Kryashen Orthodox priest Pavel Pavlov finds the very idea of “returning” to Islam offensive: “Over the past five years, there have been many calls in the press for us to return to the fold of Islam, that we will be forgiven. It works, drop by drop - the neighbors start talking: “Why do you go to church? Come with us to the mosque." But if we are Orthodox, why should we apologize?” .

culture

Ethnographers note that, according to the peculiarities of the language and traditional culture five ethnographic groups of the Kryashens can be distinguished:

Kazan-Tatar

Yelabuga,

Molkeyevskaya,

Chistopol

each of which has its own characteristics and its own history of formation.

For several centuries, from the middle of the 16th century, they found themselves in relative religious isolation among the Muslim Tatars. The Kryashens came into closer contact with Russian culture, and did not lose their long-standing ties with the Finno-Ugric population of the region. Due to this and other historical reasons, the clothes of the Kryashens have their own characteristics.
One of the leaders of the Ethnographic Society of the Kryashens was the writer and historian Maxim Glukhov-Nogaybek.

see also

Nagaybaks - formerly an ethno-confessional group of Tatars, which separated in 2000 into an independent ethnic group

Kazan and Tatarstan diocese - Kazan diocese of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church

Udmurt writing (Nikolai Ilminsky)

Notes

All-Russian census of the population 2010 . Official totals with expanded lists by national composition of population and by regions. : cm.

Results of the national census 2009 . Ethnic composition, religion and language skills in the Republic of Kazakhstan

VPN-2010

Nagaibaki - who are they? // Administration of the Nagaybak municipal district

List of nationalities for the development of materials of the All-Union population census of 1926// All-Union census of the population of 1926. - M .: Edition TSSU SSSR, 1929. - T. XVII. THE USSR. - S. 106.] (reprint in Demoscope Weekly #267-268 November 27-December 10, 2006)

Iskhakov D. M. Census population and fate nation // Tatarstan. - No. 3 . - S. 18-23.

, from. 21-22.

Kadyrova G. A. Ethno-cultural interactions of the Kryashens with other peoples of the Volga-Ural region: based on the materials of the folk costume // Culturology of traditional communities: Mater. All-Russian. scientific conf. young scientists / Ed. ed. M.L. Berezhnova. - Omsk: OmGPU, 2002. - S. 27-30

Nikitina G. A. Kryashens of Udmurtia: an ethnocultural portrait // Bulletin of the Udmurt University. Series: History and Philology. - Izhevsk: UdGU, 2012. - Issue. 3 . - pp. 73–81.

In Russia appeared new nation - Kryashens (indefinite) . newsru.com. Retrieved February 13, 2014.

Tatar Encyclopedia: In 5 volumes, - Kazan: Institute of the Tatar Encyclopedia of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, 2006. - V. 3., p. 462.

Section 2. Kryashens (historical and ethnographic essay) // Iskhakov D. M. Tatar nation: history and modern development. Kazan: Magarif, 2002

, from. 16.

Islaev F. G. Orthodox missionaries in the Volga region. - Kazan: Tatar book publishing house, - 1999.

Kryashens (Tatar keräshennar from Russian Kryashens; Kryashens, Tatar keräshen Tatarlars, keräşen tatarları) is an ethno-confessional group of Tatars of the Volga and Ural regions, profess Orthodoxy, live mainly in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, small groups in Udmurtia and the Chelyabinsk region .

Currently, there is no consensus on the status of the Kryashens: in Soviet times, they were officially considered part of the Tatar people; at the same time, a noticeable part of the Kryashen intelligentsia defends the opinion of the Kryashens as a separate people.

KRYASHEN HOLIDAY NARDUGAN - SALT

When preparing the All-Union Population Census of 1926, the Kryashens in the "List of Nationalities" were classified as "inaccurately designated nationalities." When developing census results in view of household features Kryashens and in the interests of local government, it was found useful not to classify the Kryashens as Tatars, but to take this population group into account separately. According to the All-Union Population Census of 1926, there were 101.4 thousand Kryashens.

Prior to the 2002 All-Russian Census, some employees of the IEA RAS suggested that the number of Kryashens could reach 200 thousand people. Currently, activists of Kryashen public associations in their speeches indicate that the number of Kryashens is 250-350 thousand people.

DAY OF THE ELDERLY PEOPLE IN THE KRYASHEN VILLAGE MELEKES

According to the traditional point of view on the problem of the emergence of the Kryashens, the formation of this ethno-confessional group as an independent community took place for a long time with the participation of Finno-Ugric and Turkic components. At the same time, despite the fact that during the period of the Volga Bulgaria and the Golden Horde, Turkic feudal lords and their surroundings of the Christian faith were known, and the fact that in a later period some Tatar aristocrats converted to Orthodoxy, there was no separate “Kryashen” ethnic formation.

The decisive influence on the formation of the Kryashens, as a separate community, was exerted by the process of Christianization of part of the Tatars of the Volga region in the second half of the 16th-17th centuries - starting with the capture of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible in 1552 (the group formed at that time is called the "old-baptized" Tatars) and the process of Christianization of non-Russians the peoples of the Volga region in the first half of the 18th century (a new group of Tatars, formed at that time, is called the "newly baptized"). As a result, five ethnographic groups of the Kryashens were formed, which have their own specific differences: Kazan-Tatar, Yelabuga, Molkeev, Chistopol, Nagaybak (the last group of Nagaybaks stood out in 2002 as a separate nationality).

KRYASHEN HOLIDAY PITRAU - MAMADYSH DISTRICT

In the 1990s, alternative versions of the Kryashens ethnogenesis appeared, related to the fact that the Kryashens intelligentsia, which became more active, distancing itself from the generally accepted point of view about the forced baptism of the Tatars in the 15th-19th centuries, and as a result of this policy, the formation of the Kryashens ethnic group, attempted to scientifically substantiate provisions on the voluntary acceptance of Christianity by a part of the Bulgars.

WEDDING IN THE KRYASHEN CHURCH

One of these versions in the Orthodox media is put forward by the historian and theologian A. V. Zhuravsky. According to his version, baptized Tatars are not Tatars baptized in the 16th century, but are descendants of Turkic tribes, baptized no later than the 12th century, living in the Volga-Kama region and by the time of the fall of the Kazan Khanate were in a semi-pagan-semi-Christian state. A. V. Zhuravsky sees the justification for this hypothesis in the existence of some facts related to the history of Christianity in the Volga Bulgaria. So, for example, in an article in the Tatyana's Day newspaper, Zhuravsky, arguing this point of view, notes: from Orthodoxy. It is known that in the Bulgars there was an ancient Armenian (Monophysite) church, the ruins of which were already destroyed in Soviet time". At the same time, the researcher notes that these issues do not seem to be relevant for official science, and therefore church local history is obliged to study them.

HOLY KRYASHENSKY KEY - D. LYAKI - SARMANOV DISTRICT OF RT

Another version was developed by the Kazan historian Maxim Glukhov. He believed that the ethnonym "Kryashens" goes back to the historical tribe of Kerchin - a Tatar tribe known as the Keraites and who professed Nestorian Christianity from the 10th century. At the end of the 12th century, the Keraites were conquered by Genghis Khan, but did not lose their identity. Participation in aggressive campaigns led to the appearance of Keraites in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Later, during the formation of independent Crimean and Kazan khanates, a large number of Keraites ended up in the Crimea and the Middle Volga. Their descendants still live in the eastern regions of Tatarstan, preserving the ethnonym in a somewhat deformed form, as a relic of historical memory.

CLOTHING KRYASHEN

Kryashens (baptized Tatars)

Number and placement

According to the All-Russian population census of 2002, there were 24,668 Kryashens in Russia. Most of them (18760 people) lived in the Republic of Tatarstan. Significant groups of Kryashens also live in the Republic of Bashkortostan (4510 people) and the Udmurt Republic (650 people).

Language and alphabet

There are four dialects in the Kryashens language:

1. dialect of the Kryashens of the Lower Kama region;

2. the conversation of the Zazan Kryashens;

3. speech of the Chistopol Kryashens;

4. the speech of the Molkeevsky Kryashens.

The Kryashens mostly speak a middle dialect of the Tatar language. The dialect of the Molkeev Kryashens is an exception; it is closer to the western dialect of the Tatar language. The main differences of the Kryashen language are a small number of Arabisms and Farsisms, the preservation of archaic Old Tatar words.

KRYASHEN SERVICE IN THE VILLAGE OF CHURA - KUKMOR DISTRICT OF RT

The Kryashens use the alphabet of N. I. Ilminsky, which differs from the modern Tatar alphabet. This alphabet was developed starting from 1862 and finally took shape by 1874. Compared to the Russian alphabet, the Ilminsky alphabet had four additional letters necessary to convey the sounds of the Tatar language. The official state authorities did not approve the alphabet. It was believed that the printing of literature is carried out in the "baptized Tatar dialect in Russian letters." In 1930, after the introduction of the yanalif, the use of the Ilyinsky alphabet was discontinued for several decades. The use was resumed in the early 90s of the XX century, when liturgical books and publications of Kryashen public organizations began to be published on it.

KRYASHEN SERVICE IN THE VILLAGE OF KOVALI, PESTRECHINSKY DISTRICT, RT

Printing and literature

Newspapers "Sugysh Khabarlyare" (Military news, 1915-1917. Editor - P. P. Glezdenev)

"Dus" (Friend; February 1916-1918. Editor - S. M. Matveev)

"Kryashen newspapers" (Kryashenskaya newspaper; January 1917 - July 1918. Editor - N. N. Egorov)

"Alga taba" (Forward; January-April 1919. Editor - M. I. Zubkov)

"Kereshen suze" (The word of the Kryashens; February 1993-2002)

"Tuganaylar" (Kindred; since 2002)

Kryashenskiye Izvestia (since 2009)

Magazines "Igen Iguche" ("Grain grower") (June-July 1918).

KRYASHEN GUSLI

Fiction

The most famous Kryashensky poet XIX century is Yakov Emelyanov, who received the nickname "singer Yakov" among the people. He began to try the pen while still studying at the Kazan Central Baptized Tatar School. The poet prepared two poetry collections, which were published under the general title “Poems in the Baptized Tatar language. Deacon Y. Yemelyanov stihlary" in 1879. Also known are such Kryashen writers as David Grigoriev (Savrushevsky), Dariya Appakova, N. Filippov, A. Grigoriev, V. Chernov, Gavrila Belyaev.

HOUSE IN KRYASHEN VILLAGE KOVALI

Self-identification and current situation

There are different views on the Kryashens; traditional is the opinion that the Kryashens are a kind of part of the Tatar people, it was defended by Glukhov-Nogaybek.

At the same time, among a noticeable part of the intelligentsia, there is an opinion about the Kryashens as a separate people.

... “The Old Kryashens, who lived in Christianity for a number of generations, remained in it, creating, as it were, a special nationality with the Tatar language, but with a peculiar culture.

The question of whether the Old Kryashens were baptized from Islam is still quite controversial. Observing their modern life and even language, one can say with a significant degree of probability that these Tatars were either not Muslims at all or were in Islam so little that it did not penetrate their way of life. The language of the Kryashens is considered by linguists to be cleaner than the Tatar language, littered with a colossal number of barbarisms: of Arabic, Persian and Russian origin... The Kryashens have preserved their ancient way of life almost entirely and can to a certain extent serve as a living remnant of the life that the Tatar masses had before the Russian conquest "...

- Vorobyov N. I. "Kryashens and Tatars", Kazan, 1929

Supporters of the fact that the Kryashens are a people separate from the Tatars also believe that since that time the life of the Muslim Tatars, under the influence and at the request of Islam, has changed as the latter penetrated into the masses. In addition to the language and way of life, the Kryashens, ethnically, have retained their original ancient qualities, while the modern Tatars in this sense, in many ways, in their opinion, are other peoples who have become Tatars, like the Chuvash, Mari, Udmurts, etc., who converted to Islam.

In order to make sure that modern Tatars and Kryashens represent related, but different peoples, perhaps, historical research is not even required, but it is enough, for example, to visit the Tatar and Kryashens villages in the same Tatar Republic and take a closer look at life in one and the other.

1. Modern Tatars and Kryashens are, although related, but two different nationalities, which is the result of their development over a number of centuries under various historical conditions.

2. The official annulment of the self-name "Kryashens" and forcing them to be called Tatars is a mistake and contradicts the basic principles of national policy<…>

3. It should be officially returned to the Kryashens people the right to exist as a separate original nationality, with the self-name "Kryashens" rooted in the minds of the people over a long historical period.

4. Thus, to give this nationality the opportunity to develop in a natural historical way, without artificial barriers, together and on an equal footing with the peoples of our Motherland ...

- I. G. Maksimov "Kryashens", 1967

The question of the origin and status of the Kryashens became more active before the 2002 All-Russian Population Census. In October 2001, the Kryashens adopted a declaration of self-determination, a year later approved by the Interregional Conference of the Kryashens of the Russian Federation. It said that the “single Tatar ethnos” turned out to be the same ideological myth as the “single Soviet people”. The issue went beyond the historical and cultural and became political. So in the article “On the Tatars-Kryashens” in the newspaper “Star of the Volga Region”, Zaki Zainullin accused the “chauvinistic, Moscow Russian-nationalist leadership” of trying to divide the Tatar people, of inciting the Kryashens to declare themselves a separate nation. "We can't be divided! During the Russian census, we Tatars must declare: We are Tatars!

Kazan Islamic scholar Rafik Mukhametshin argued that the existence of the Kryashens is beneficial to Moscow. In his opinion, the interests of the Tatars, the second largest nationality Russian Federation, can be ignored only by dividing the Tatar people. “In Tatarstan, 52% are Tatars. But if you take away the Kryashens, then they will become a minority in their own republic, which will become just a province.”

Pavel Pavlov, an Orthodox priest from the Kryashens, finds the very idea of “returning” to Islam offensive: “Over the past five years, there have been many calls in the press for us to return to the fold of Islam, that we will be forgiven. It works, drop by drop - the neighbors start saying, 'Why do you go to church? Come with us to the mosque." But if we are Orthodox, why should we apologize?”

STUDENTS OF THE KAZAN KRYASHEN SCHOOL

Famous representatives of the Kryashens

Agapov, Vitaly Vasilyevich - People's Artist of the Republic of Tatarstan, composer.

Asanbaev, Nazhib - people's writer of Bashkortostan, poet, playwright.

Vasiliev, Vladimir Mikhailovich - opera singer (bass), Honored Artist of the Republic of Tatarstan, soloist of the TAGTOiB named after. M. Jalil and THF them. G. Tukaya.

Gavrilov Pyotr Mikhailovich - Soviet officer, major, hero of the defense of the Brest Fortress, Hero of the Soviet Union (1957).

Ibushev, Georgy Mefodievich - People's Artist of the Republic of Tatarstan, soloist of the THF named after. G. Tukaya.

Kazantseva, Galina Alexandrovna - People's Artist of the Republic of Tatarstan.

Karbyshev, Dmitry Mikhailovich - Lieutenant General of the Engineering Troops, Professor of the Military Academy of the General Staff, Doctor of Military Sciences, Hero of the Soviet Union.

Timofeev, Vasily Timofeevich - missionary, educator, teacher, first Kryashen priest, head of the Central Baptized Tatar School, employee of N. I. Ilminsky.

KARAMZIN'S ancestor was a baptized Tatar - KARA MURZA

culture

Ethnographers note that according to the peculiarities of the language and traditional culture, five ethnographic groups of the Kryashens can be distinguished:

Kazan-Tatar

Yelabuga,

Molkeyevskaya,

Chistopol and

nagaibakov,

each of which has its own characteristics and its own history of formation.

These names (except nagaybaks) are rather conditional:

The Kazan-Tatar group belonged to the Kazan province (in the Kazan, Laishevsky and Mamadysh counties); Samara; Ufimskaya; Vyatka provinces, in the latter in the Malmyzh district (this is the most numerous and ancient group).

The Molkeevsky Kryashens of the Kazan province lived in the Tetyushsky and Tsivilsky districts (now the Apastovsky district).

The Chistopol group was concentrated in the same province, in the region of Western Zakamye (Chistopolsky and Spassky counties),

The Yelabuga group belongs to the Yelabuga district (formerly the Vyatka province).

The Nagaybak group was located on the lands of the Upper Ural and Troitsk counties.

STREET IN THE KRYASHEN VILLAGE MELEKES - TUKAEVSKY DISTRICT OF RT

According to the main elements of culture, the Kryashens are close to the Kazan Tatars, although some groups of the Kryashens are also related by origin to the Mishars. Many character traits The traditional way of life of the Kryashens has already disappeared. Traditional clothing has survived only as family heirlooms. The life of the Kryashens experienced a strong influence of urban culture. Although today such a person lives in cities unique look art, like a Tatar Christian shamail.

One of the leaders of the Ethnographic Society of the Kryashens was the writer and historian Maxim Glukhov-Nogaybek

________________________________________________________________________________________________

SOURCE OF INFORMATION AND PHOTO:

http://www.missiakryashen.ru/

http://www.perepis-2010.ru/results_of_the_census/tab5.xls

Sokolovsky S.V. Kryashens in the 2002 All-Russian Population Census. - Moscow, 2004, pp. 132-133.

http://www.regnum.ru/news/1248213.html

http://www.otechestvo.org.ua/main/20066/2414.htm

1 2 3 Tatar encyclopedia: V 5.t., - Kazan: Institute of the Tatar encyclopedia of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, 2006. - V.3., C.462.

Iskhakov D.M. Tatar nation: history and modern development. Kazan: Magarif, 2002, Section 2. Kryashens (historical and ethnographic essay)

Tatars (Series "Peoples and Cultures" RAS). M.: Nauka, 2001. - P.16.

Wikipedia.

http://melekes.edusite.ru/p13aa1.html

Barkar E.V.

About the Kipchak-Nestorian origin of the Kryashens. // Modern Kryashen studies: state, prospects. Proceedings of the scientific conference held on April 23, 2005. - Kazan, 2005. - S. 56-64.

Evgeny Barkar (St. Petersburg)

General information. The Kryashens are also known as baptized, kereshenner or baptized Tatars. This is a special group, living mainly in the Republic of Tatarstan and in some other regions of the Volga region. The Kryashens traditionally profess Orthodox Christianity. Before the revolution of 1917 and for a short time after it, the Kryashens had a fairly broad autonomy. They had their own churches, where services were held in the Kryashen dialect, there were Kryashen schools, the Kryashens had their own theater, and publishing was also widely developed. The Kryashens used the word KERESHEN as their self-name. In general, the use of various ethnonyms among the Volga Türks is quite common, so among the general group called the Tatar people there were also local ethnonyms: Kazanly, Bolgars, Misher, Tipter, Meselman and others. However, all these groups were included in the single Tatar people. As for the Kryashens, in 1917 quite serious discussions arose in Tatarstan, the so-called “Kryashen question” appeared, which consisted in whether the existing autonomy of the Kryashens should be left or whether the ethnic border should be erased by fully including the Kryashens in the composition of the Tatar people. Then a decision was made to partially preserve the autonomy of the Kryashens, with the gradual blurring of the line between the Kryashens and the Tatars. Since May 1917, a specially established newspaper "Kryashen" was published, in which the slogan "Kryashens are a nation" was put forward. In 1918, the Kryashen mobile theater was still operating, the Kryashen publishing house and the Kryashen teacher's seminary, which was later transformed into a pedagogical college, continued to work. In 1926, a census was conducted, where more than 100,000 Kryashens declared themselves as a separate ethnic group. However, in the future, the Soviet government tried to pursue a policy of amalgamation of ethnic groups. As a result, which the Kryashens were united into a single ethnic group together with the Kazan Tatars, which led, for the Kryashens, to the loss of their relative autonomy, Kryashen educational and cultural institutions disappeared, with the introduction of atheism, many Kryashens began to lose the opportunity to practice the Orthodox faith. These factors inevitably led to a gradual intensification of assimilation processes and the loss of the original culture of many Kryashens. Part of the Kryashens really joined the assimilation process, however, among a large number of Kryashens, mostly rural residents, their original culture continued to exist.

The Kryashen question arose in a completely new way before the 2002 census. By this time, the Kryashens could freely profess Christianity and adhere to their traditions, at the same time, the situation continued and continues to be with the absence of Kryashen schools, there are also not enough Orthodox-Kryashen churches. In order to renew their autonomy, the Kryashens had hope for the 2002 census. As a result, before the census in Kazan, a Declaration was adopted, approved by the Republican Conference of National-Cultural Associations of the Kryashens of the Republic of Tatarstan on October 13, 2001, on the definition of the Kryashens as a separate ethnic group. The general meaning of the declaration boiled down to the fact that the Kryashens during the years of Stalin's national policy on the consolidation of ethnic groups were unjustifiably deprived of the status of a separate ethnic group. As a result, the Kryashens were deprived of a number of their rights and today they demand the restoration of the independence of the Kryashens ethnos.

From the leaders of a number of Kryashen cultural organizations, there were calls to be recorded as a separate ethnic group, and from the politicians of Tatarstan, and official Tatarstan publications, calls not to divide the single Tatar people along confessional lines. One way or another, but the last census of 2002 gave its results, because of the politicization of which the results of the number of Kryashens can be seriously doubted. Let's try to turn to the history of the Kryashens, how legitimate are their statements about themselves as a separate ethnic group, from the point of view of history and science?

History of Christianization of the Volga Turks. Soon after the capture of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible in 1552, a decision was made to establish the Kazan Diocese and baptize the non-Russian population of the Kazan region. The diocese appeared in 1555 by the decree of the Moscow Metropolitan Macarius. Soon after its establishment, various peoples began to actively convert to Christianity. but greatest success in Christianization it was possible to achieve only among groups that were not previously Muslims, but were in a pagan or semi-pagan state. Such groups, as a rule, willingly accepted Orthodoxy, but retained a certain dual faith, which is observed among some Orthodox Turkic and Finno-Ugric peoples to this day. Among the Muslim population, preaching was practically not successful; most Muslims preferred to remain within the framework of their religion.

The above stage of Christianization is usually called the first period of Christianization and the period of the appearance of the so-called old-baptized Tatars. It is these old-baptized Tatars in their majority who are the ancestors of modern Kryashens. The second period of mass Christianization of the Volga peoples dates back to the 18th century. Then Peter the Great issued a number of decrees in 1713 and 1715 on the baptism of heterodox peoples, and in 1740, already in the reign of Anna Ioannovna, the so-called "Office of Newly Baptized Affairs" was founded - the purpose of this office was the non-violent Christianization of the Muslim and pagan population. Archbishop Luka (Konashevich) of Kazan and Sviyazhsky was at its head, unfortunately, in relation to Muslims, Archbishop Luka was not going to fulfill the order of the Empress, on non-violent baptism, and many Muslims were baptized forcibly. His activities are not painted with the best fame, and in 1750 Holy Synod decided to send him to the Belgorod diocese, so that with his cruelty he would not cause disgust for Orthodoxy. At the same time, Archbishop Luke formally managed to convert quite a lot of Tatars and other peoples to Orthodoxy, it was these Tatars who received the name of the newly baptized Tatars. In 1773, Catherine II adopted a decree on religious tolerance, which completely prohibited forced conversion to Orthodoxy. After this law, most of the newly baptized Tatars again converted to Islam. As for the old-baptized, they continued to remain within the framework of the Christian religion. Therefore, the majority of modern Kryashens are the descendants of the old-baptized Tatars, and not the newly-baptized (forcibly converted from Islam).

But why did the old-baptized Tatars not want to return to Islam? In 1929, when there was a need to analyze the “Kryashen problem” in detail, the ethnographer N. I. Vorobyov in the book “Kryashens and Tatars” wrote literally the following: “... The question of whether the Old Kryashens were baptized from Islam is still quite controversial. Observing life and even language, one can say with a significant degree of probability that these Tatars were either not Muslims at all, or were in Islam so little that it did not penetrate into their life. Vorobyov believed that here lies the answer to why the old Kryashens remained Christians, and the new Kryashens returned to Islam. It is simple, the old-baptized Tatars did not have nostalgia for Islam, since it absolutely did not penetrate into their way of life, while the Tatars, strengthened in the Islamic religion, and then baptized, could not come to terms with the breaking of their traditional ideas and their way of life, therefore, in the future, they all returned to Islam. So, now it can be definitely stated that the Old Kryashens did not profess Islam, but arrived in a pagan or semi-pagan state. This is also evidenced by various studies. In the Kryashen culture, there is enough a large number of traces of shamanism, and it is not surprising, but even at the beginning of the 21st century in a number of Kryashen villages the memory of shamanic antiquity is alive, and in some villages part of the shamanic rituals has not been forgotten to this day. Back in the 19th century, the pagan custom of sacrifice was widespread among the Kryashens - kiremet. It is also interesting that the place for the icons “red corner” is designated among the Kryashens as “tere pochmak”, which indicates the transfer of the pagan term denoting the supreme God of the ancient Turks to the Christian shrine. As you can see, there are enough traces of paganism and their remnants among modern Kryashens, but at the same time traces of Islamic influence are minimal. They are present to the extent that they can be present in any ethnic group that lives side by side with another people, of course, experiencing significant cultural influence. Based on the above, we can make an unambiguous conclusion that the Kryashens never professed Islam, but were baptized from a pagan or semi-pagan state. But how could this happen? So, once again I repeat that by the name of the Kryashens I mean the Turks who were officially baptized no later than the 16th century, that is, the group called the old-baptized Tatars, since most of the modern Kryashens are descendants of this particular group. Based on the prevailing version, which some scientists adhere to today, and also adhered to by the famous missionary Nikolai Ivanovich Ilminsky, by the time of the capture of Kazan, there was no developed Islam as such, in many ways it was superficial, and already during the Russian rule, it began to spread massively. pace. Islam was more formal, while most of the inhabitants adhered to shamanism. Then one asks why it was during the Russian rule that Islam began to spread, then, how, in theory, should one expect its extinction? Its very spread could be linked directly to the educational process. All schools were Islamic (madrasas), that is, literacy was directly related to the adoption of Islam. Education and religion were very close, then one can understand the desire of some of the old-baptized Tatars to convert to Islam, since before N.I. Ilminsky, schools for baptized Tatars on mother tongue was not, but there were madrasas. The desire of a part of the baptized Tatars for education could lie in the desire to convert to Islam, since in this case the doors to literacy and knowledge were opened to the newly-made Muslim - this is natural, probably this is the answer to why a small part of the old-baptized Tatars also went to Islam.

Nevertheless, despite the correctness of most of the facts presented, one point is still in doubt, that Islam was poorly developed before the conquest of Kazan. As you know, the official date of the adoption of Islam by the Volga Bulgaria is 922, that is, Islam was adopted by the Bulgars 66 years before the baptism of Russia. Even with the relative formality of this Islam, by the 16th century it must have spread quite strongly. It is known that those who are usually called Tatar-Mongols accepted Islam quite consciously and, mixing with the Bulgars, represented a new Tatar ethnos. This means that the point here is not in the formal confession of Islam, but in the possible not confessing it at all. But could people who speak practically the same language and live together not practice Islam? The Kipchak ethnos merged into the Bulgar one, by adopting Islam by the Kipchaks, but at the same time, for a certain part of the time, there was bilingualism in the Bulgarian state (Bulgarian and Kipchak languages). But due to the numerical predominance of the Kipchaks in relation to the Bulgars, it happened, as if unbelievable, the language of the Kipchaks replaced the Bulgar language. But this was not a problem, since the unification of such different, albeit Turkic, tribes was due to Islam.

So, the Kipchaks preferred to assimilate due to their adoption of Islam. But did all the Kipchaks want to accept Islam and assimilate with the Bulgars? Let us assume the idea that part of the Kipchaks who came to the Bulgarian land did not convert to Islam, but they naturally spoke, like other Kipchaks, in the same Kipchak, and not in the Bulgar language, and what will we get? We will get an isolated group of Kipchak Turks who did not undergo assimilation with the Bulgars and other peoples who converted to Islam. Based on this, it can be assumed that those baptized Tatars of the 16th century are the ancestors of the current Kryashens and are not Islamized Kipchaks. Naturally, the Kipchaks, who never professed Islam, could not be drawn to him. In confirmation of this whole theory one could name the preservation by the Kryashens of a number of pagan rudiments. Among the Kazan Tatars, probably as a result of the influence of Islam, pagan traditions have almost disappeared, while among the Bashkirs, who are less enlightened by Islam, there are much more of them, but the rural Kryashens have their maximum number. There are practically no traces of Islam in the culture of the Kryashens, while usually even in the event of a change of religion, in the culture of the people, a number of traces remain, if you like, at least in historical memory, traces of the past confession. But the Kryashens have no traces of Islam either in their culture or in their language (the language of the Kryashens was minimally influenced by the Arabic language), and the historical memory of the Kryashens does not remember Islam as a past religion. But traces of remnants of paganism are everywhere recorded.

Possibility of the Nestorian past of the Kryashens. The next question is where, in the historical memory of a number of Kryashens, the idea that they professed Christianity before the aggressive campaigns of Ivan the Terrible, that is, before the time of their official Christianization? And in connection with it, an equally important question is about the language (or dialect) of the Kryashens, in which there are a number of words, including religious vocabulary, but which are completely absent from other groups of the Tatar people? These words are of ancient origin, but where do they come from? The historical memory of the Kryashens speaks of the possibility of a Christian past, let's try, at least theoretically, to ask the question, where can these Turks have Christian roots from? One could recall a number of well-known examples of Christians among the Bulgars who converted from Islam to Christianity or many famous personalities converted to Christianity during the Golden Horde, but these cases were more isolated than a mass phenomenon. Let's try to trace the history of Christianity among the Kipchaks. Of course, the Kipchaks, along with other Turks who did not accept world religions, adhered to shamanism. At the same time, it is known that a certain part of the Kipchaks professed Nestorian Christianity. Some Turks became acquainted with Christianity already in the 6th century, but Christian preaching reached its peak by the 9th century, when the Nestorians delivered their sermons in Southeast Asia. The Nestorians in general were distinguished by the gift of preaching, and its success was largely due to the fact that the Nestorians did not demand a radical break in the life of the converted peoples, one could say that it was not so much the people that adapted to religion, but that religion adapted to the life of the converted. Therefore, there is reason to believe that Kipchak Christianity could combine a large layer of pagan traditions. Nestorianism spread from Persia after the persecuted part of the followers of Nestorius immigrated there from Ephesus. From Persia, the Nestorians spread their teaching to East Asia, and from there to China. It is also known about the missionary center of the Nestorians in the city of Merv (the territory of present-day Turkmenistan). Already in 420, a metropolitan appeared in Merv, and this city became one of the major centers of Nestorian education with its own school and monastery.

Numerous Turkic tribes adopted Christianity in East Asia. By the 11th century, Nestorianism was so firmly established among a number of Kipchak Turks that there was already a Nestorian metropolis in Samarkand.

So, part of the Kipchaks could profess Nestorianism. As you know, some Mongols also professed Nestorian Christianity, and in the Golden Horde there was even a Nestorian temple, it is also known that Genghis Khan himself was married to a Nestorian woman. However, over time, the mass character of the steppe Christianity, represented by Nestorianism, came to naught. The subjects of the Kazan Khanate mostly converted to Islam, but this does not exclude the possibility that individual Kipchaks tried to maintain their allegiance to the Christian religion. So, returning to the Golden Horde, let us remember that there, in general, numerous Kypchak tribes began to prevail. In the XIV century, with the advent of Khan Uzbek (1312 - 1342), Islam became the state religion of the Golden Horde. Formally, it was so, but along with the Muslims, both Christians and pagans continued to coexist peacefully.

Since formally the entire population of the Golden Horde professed Islam, this had a positive effect on interethnic processes. But despite this, a number of peoples preferred to remain within the framework of their culture and religion, developing autonomously among themselves.

With the formation of the Kazan Khanate, the final formation of the state-forming ethnic group of the Kazan Tatars took place, which was completed by the beginning of the 16th century.

In addition to the state-forming ethnic group, the Kazan Khanate included territories inhabited by the Finno-Ugric ancestors of the modern Udmurts, Maris and Mordovians. Also, the khanate included the Turks - the ancestors of the modern Chuvash, Bashkirs and Nogai. So, various peoples lived on the territory of the Kazan Khanate, and any of them could merge into the state-forming ethnic group by adopting Islam, many took this step, but a certain part continued to remain within the framework of their traditional religion.

So, it has already been said that by the time the Kipchaks arrived on the Bulgarian land, they had not yet professed Islam. Can we assume that all the Kipchaks changed their faith so easily? Of course no. Then we come to the inevitable conclusion that a certain part of the Kipchaks, undoubtedly, could continue to profess their faith. Their assimilation with the Bulgars or Muslim Kipchaks would inevitably lead to the loss of their religious traditions. Therefore, the most faithful part of the Kipchaks did not accept Islam and lived in a certain independence from other groups. It is likely that this part is the distant ancestors of the Kryashens. By accepting this hypothesis, we can answer a number of questions that arise in our minds.

According to some studies, it turns out that the anthropological type of the Kryashens is closer to Caucasoid than that of the Kazan Tatars, this is not surprising, since it was the Kipchaks that differed from the Bulgars in their pronounced Caucasoid features. Of course, I'm not saying that the Bulgar influence did not touch the Kryashens for such a long time, it could well be, but the Bulgar influence is less noticeable among the Kryashens than among the Kazan Tatars, as evidenced by the studies. No less interesting for research are the so-called Tatars-Mishars. It is known for certain about them that Islam penetrated into their environment extremely late, in the 16th-17th centuries there were still non-Islamized Tatars among them. That is, these Tatars became Islamized after the capture of Kazan - this is all the more curious, since the Nizhny Novgorod Tatars speak a special dialect of the Tatar language, which is almost identical to the dialect of the Molkeev Kryashens. It was also noticed that it was their language that was much closer to the Cuman, that is, the Kipchak language and their anthropological features: a large Caucasoid, confirms their Kipchak past - as you know, the Kipchaks were Caucasoids. Thus, we have reliable sources about the Tatars, who were Islamized extremely late, and about the Kryashens, who are close to them in language and anthropological features. Moreover, among historical monuments Mishars often find crosses, and many of their holiday traditions clearly have Christian roots. It turns out that the current Mishari Tatars, who mostly profess Islam, were previously pagans or Nestorians, like their Kipchak ancestors, and perhaps for some time they were Orthodox. While the Molkeyev Kryashens from the same state, they came not to Islam, but to Orthodoxy. However, the Molkeev Kryashens are a special group, but it is known that the language of other Kryashens that have not been influenced by the Tatar-Kazan language is considered more archaic, which is natural, ancient Kipchak words are preserved in this language.

The most important thing here is that those words related to Christianity and existing among the Kryashens, but absent from the Kazan Tatars, may be the same words that were used by their distant ancestors, the Nestorian Christians! Taking this hypothesis, it can be argued that the modern Kryashens have an ancient Christian history related to the Nestorian Kipchaks.

Literature

1. Vorobyov N.I. Kryashens and Tatars - Kazan: Type. Council of People's Commissars, 1929

2. Letters from Nikolai Ivanovich Ilminsky. - Kazan.: Type-lithography of the Imperial University, 1985.

3. Bayazitova F. S. Ethnolinguistic research on the dialects of baptized Tatars. Languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation (Tatar language). - Kazan: AN RT iyali., 1998. - 100 p.

4. Trofimova T. A. Ethnogenesis of the Volga Tatars in the light of anthropological data. / Proceedings of the Institute of Ethnography. New Series Vol. XII. - M.-L.: Ed. USSR Academy of Sciences, 1949.

5. Orlov A. M. Nizhny Novgorod Tatars. Nizhny Novgorod: Ed. Nizhny Novgorod State University, 2001.

Kazan State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering.

Department of History and Cultural Studies.

SUMMARY ON THE TOPIC

Baptized Tatars

Completed by a student of group 04-101

Mustafin Marcel Maratovich .

Checked by Associate Professor Minnikhanov F.G.

Kazan-2010.

Plan

Introduction

Chapter I "A Brief Historical Outline".

Chapter II "Number, resettlement and formation of features of culture and life of the Kryashens".

Chapter III "General characteristics of the economy"

Conclusion.

List of used literature.

Introduction

The centuries-old history and original culture of the Tatars of the Middle Volga have long attracted the attention of not only specialists, but also a wide circle of the public both in our country and abroad. In recent years, dozens of papers have been published on these issues.

Works devoted to the ethnographic study of traditional culture are well known. Attention to this topic is determined by the great importance of ethnographic data in the development of theoretical and practical problems of ethnogenesis and cultural history.

However, until now, researchers are mainly interested in two large ethnographic groups of Tatars of the Middle Volga region - Kazan Tatars and Mishars. Meanwhile, the interpretation of ethnogenetic questions is especially effective when data are involved either from a poorly studied group of people, or from a group whose culture has noticeable differences.

One of these groups is a small part of the Tatar population of the Middle Volga region - "Kryashen Tatars", formed as a result of baptism in the middle of the 16th-early 17th centuries. It should be noted that in the literature and sources of the 16th-17th centuries. Kryashen Tatars are known as "newly baptized". At that time, this name extended to all Christianized peoples of the region. In the 17th century, a division into "newly baptized" and "old baptized" appeared. The category of the latter included newly baptized draft Tatars who had special benefits for baptism.

In the second half of the XVIII-XIX centuries. the names "newly baptized Tatars" and "old baptized Tatars" took root. The first name was understood as a group of Tatars, Christianized since the beginning of the 18th century. and later. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. almost all of them converted to Islam again. "Old-baptized Tatars" - a group whose ancestors were baptized in the period from the middle of the 16th to the beginning of the 18th century. In modern literature, they are often referred to as "Tatars-Kryashens" or simply "Kryashens". In what follows, for brevity, we will use the latter term.

The Kryashens are mainly settled on the territory of the Tatar ASSR. Their settlements are also found in the Udmurt, Chuvash, Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics, in the Kirov and Chelyabinsk regions. Some of them live in different cities of our country. They speak, like the Kazan Tatars, in the middle dialect of the Tatar language. In culture and life, the Kryashens had features that distinguish them from other groups of Tatars of the Middle Volga region. In particular, researchers note that they preserve ancient (often ancient) forms of language, songs, traditions, customs, personal names. The original material culture was no exception.

However, it has not yet become the subject of a special study. This circumstance justifies the importance of collecting, systematizing and analyzing all the elements of the material life of the Kryashens.

Such work will expand and enrich the ethnographic characteristics of the general Tatar culture and more fully illuminate the origins of the formation of its ethnographic specificity. The object of this study is the material culture of the Kryashens settled in the modern administrative regions of the Tatar ASSR, with the exception of a few villages located on the right bank of the Volga and on the border with the Chuvash ASSR, the population of which differs sharply from other Kryashens. These are the so-called Molkey Kryashens. In terms of language, they are Mishars, and in everyday life they are almost completely identical with the lower Chuvash. The territory of the Tatar ASSR is part of the Volga-Ural ethnographic zone, which is distinguished by ethnic diversity.

The centuries-old economic and cultural ties of the Turkic, Finno-Ugric and Slavic tribes and peoples contributed to ethnic infiltration and cultural and domestic mutual influences. This had a rather strong impact on the formation of the material culture of all the peoples of the region.

Therefore, the essential task of the study is an attempt to determine the place that the Kryashens and their material culture occupy among other peoples and cultures of the Middle Volga region, and also, based on the analysis of material culture, to express some thoughts about the formation of this group of Tatars and their cultural and everyday features.

In this regard, the work focuses on the characteristics of common and distinctive phenomena in the material culture of the Kryashens in comparison with the corresponding data of other groups of Tatars, as well as the neighboring non-Turkic population. As far as possible, the origin and development of the elements, the material life of the Kryashens are shown.

Chapter #1

BRIEF HISTORICAL OUTLINE

After the accession of the Middle Volga region to the Russian state, missionary activities were launched, which had the goal of converting the non-Christian peoples of the region, primarily the Tatars, to Orthodoxy. To carry out this work, which is important from the point of view of the political interests of the tsarist government and the aspirations of the church itself, already in 1555 the Kazan-Sviyazhsk diocese was established, endowed with broad rights and material resources. In the orders of the tsar and the metropolitan, the head of the new diocese, Guria (for example, the Tsar's "Remembrance of the Order" of May 1555), is advised to carry out Christianization primarily by peaceful means: by bribery, appeasement.

The government was afraid of complicating the already tense political situation in the region. First of all, the baptism was accepted by the former Kazan princes and part of the Tatar feudal nobility - princes and murzas, who adhered to the Moscow orientation even before the fall of Kazan. Of these, the government tried to create for itself a supporting social group. They were included in common group“newly baptized servicemen”, were exempted from yasak, encouraged with cash salaries, local dachas from the palace land fund. For all this they had to promote the colonial policy of the autocracy. The participation of the “newly baptized” in the suppression of the Kazan revolt of 1556 is known. In 1557, as a support force, they were settled near the city of Laishev, an important military point for that time, and in the 70s, 34 “newly baptized” were in the administrative service in Kazan. Perhaps this category of "newly baptized" contributed to the forced Christianization of the population dependent on it.

So, in the legends that have come down to us, it is said that during the time of Ivan the Terrible, three brothers of a princely family lived in Kazan, two of them, Iskak and Nyrsu, were baptized, and both brothers converted many of their Mukhamedan relatives to Christianity. The number of these "newly baptized" was small, and they, endowed with the rights of the Russian nobility, apparently became Russified. Later, the bulk of the “newly baptized” were “newly baptized yasash”, some of whom began to be classified as members of the service class.

This is how the “newly baptized servicemen” arose. N. Firsov considered them to be the lower strata of the “newly baptized servicemen”, cast into archers and Cossacks. The government, seeking to create economic antagonism between the baptized and the unbaptized, provided newly baptized servicemen with local estates from the lands of the yasak Tatars. Later, in the 17th-18th centuries, this group of Kryashens was equalized in rights with the rest of the yasak population, their lands were lost, and they themselves in the 19th century. were classified as state peasants.

It should be emphasized that in the second half of the seventeenth century. although the government managed to create faithful servants from a small group of Murzi princes, the task of separation was not achieved. The bulk, regardless of religious affiliation, continued to live in friendship and harmony. In 1593, Metropolitan Germogen, in a report to Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, complaining about the complete absence of the Christian faith among the “newly baptized”, pays special attention to the relationship of the population: with votyaks together, and they eat and drink with them at the same time, and many of the bad Tatar customs are kept shamelessly by the newly baptized, but they do not keep the peasant faith and do not get used to it.

It is significant that the Russian population, including the former “Polonyaniki” (Russian people freed from the Tatar captivity), did not support missionary activity and preferred to live with the local population in good neighborly relations: “Many Russian Polonyaniki and non-Polonyaniki live among the Tatars and among the Cheremis and Chuvash and they drink with them and eat sodnovo and their mate. .. and those de people also fell away of the Christian faith, turned into the Tatar faith among the Tatars, ”the same report wrote. Thus, the friendly relations that developed in the region between the local residents turned out to be stronger than the activities of the missionaries. sharply changes tactics in the direction of strengthening administrative pressure. It is recommended that “newly baptized” violators of the Christian faith be “humbled, imprisoned and beaten”, settled in a special settlement in Kazan, married to Russians, etc. cover the class orientation of this policy, it is associated with the religious question.

A number of government decrees are issued (decree of 1628, the Cathedral Code of 1649, decrees of May 16, 681, March 31, 1963, and also from 1713 to 1715) in which the right to own land and peasants remains with the Tatar murzas and princes only if they accept their Christianity. The decrees themselves do not touch upon the issue of the baptism of Tatar peasants, since the government cherishes the hope that the baptized Murzas will help in the Christianization of the population subordinate to them. However, this solution method did not bring the desired results to the government.

Recently, in connection with the well-known events in Tatarstan - the arson of churches in settlements where Orthodox Tatars live, in some cases calling themselves Kryashens, not without the participation of certain federal-level forces around this distinctive ethno-confessional group, another hype has arisen that clearly has a political context. As has been repeatedly written in the republican press, certain federal forces each time begin to play the Kryashen "card" when it is necessary for political radicals from the Moscow center who are interested in undermining the stability of our republic. Apparently, in this case, these forces decided to take advantage of the situation that had arisen or created before starting the operation to eliminate the post of president in the Republic of Tatarstan, which was obviously illegal due to the fact that the question of the organization of power in our country, according to the constitutional norms of the Russian Federation, belongs to the republican keeping. It is clear that such a dirty work requires a smoke screen and all sorts of explosives... Surprisingly, the activities of Muslim radicals who feed this political line fit perfectly into this scheme. It is very regrettable that some of the baptized Tatars, who consider themselves Kryashens, fell for this bait. True, it is encouraging that the Kryashen radicals are clearly not supported by the supporters of the moderate line in the Kryashen-Tatar social movement, who are clearly in the majority.
In the heat of these battles, where organizations such as RISS and Orthodox radicals wedged in, overexcited representatives of the Kryashen radicals (A. Fokin, M. Semenova, and others) decided to seize the leadership of the Baptized Tatar movement, including using various myths. These myths, which have arisen by no means today, are constantly torpedoed in order to substantiate the ideologeme about the “specialness” of the Kryashens, about their completely different origin from the Tatars. This point of view is very often based on the myth about the formation of the ethno-confessional community of the Kryashens in ancient times, almost starting from ancient Turkic times.
What do we really have? If we proceed from Russian statistics, then by the beginning of the 18th century we have 17 thousand baptized Tatars - this is exactly how the representatives of this group were called then in Russian historical sources. It should be borne in mind that this group of Orthodox Tatars are those who are called "old-baptized", that is, they were converted to Orthodoxy before the beginning of the 18th century. Taking into account the general demographics of the population of Russia in the 16th - early 18th centuries, when the country's population doubled, with a reverse calculation based on the dynamics of the Russian population, the total number of old-baptized by the middle of the 16th century could not have been more than 8 - 9 thousand people. In reality, there were even fewer of them, because Christianization took place in the 17th century. Thus, in the person of the old-baptized, and they constitute the core of the Kryashens, we are dealing with a very small group. When forming views on the origin of the Kryashens, this demographic reality must be constantly kept in mind.
In order to more clearly imagine how the group of Kryashens was formed, one should refer to the documents. Let's start with the letter of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich to Kazan in 1593. It says: “... in our fatherland in Kazan and in the Kazan and Sviyazhsk districts, newly baptized people live ... (who) do not carry the dead to the church, they put them in their old Tatar cemeteries.” Further, the Metropolitan of Kazan and Astrakhan Hermogenes complains to the tsar that “the newly baptized do not accept the teachings and do not lag behind the Tatar customs ... they grieve that they have fallen behind their faith.” The question is, who were these "newly baptized", if they had Tatar customs and they sought to bury their dead in "Tatar", that is, Muslim cemeteries? The answer is clear - they were baptized Tatars. But how they were baptized can be seen from other documents of that era. For example, this is what is said in the Novgorod Chronicle: “...the Kazan Tatars from Moscow were brought to Novgorod, and others were brought to Novgorod... and all the Tatars were 60; Yes, of the same summer, three new prisons were set up in the city, and Tatars were imprisoned in them, ”... on the first Tuesday of January, they gave diyak, in the monasteries of the Tatars, who were in prison and wanted to be baptized; who did not want to be baptized, otherwise they were thrown into the water ... ”Here is the first way of converting the Tatars to Christianity: either you are baptized, or into the water (hole). The following example from the petition of the Romanov service Tatars (they were from the Edigey family) dated 1647 to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich: “... the Romanovsky governor ... put us ... in prison and tortured us, put us in chains and iron, and forced us ... to be strongly baptized into the Orthodox Christian faith ... and we ... want to be in our infidel faith. The king then replied that it was impossible to baptize by force, that it was necessary to convert them to Christianity "by kindness and encouraging them with the sovereign's salary." And from the decree of 1681 it is clear what happened: “... who Romanov and Yaroslavl Murzas and Tatars were baptized into the holy Orthodox Christian faith, they ... were ordered to give relatives of their estates for baptism ... And those who were not baptized were sent from Moscow to Uglich ... and if they want to be baptized, they are ordered to baptize, and give them estates and estates. Everything is clear - there is direct economic pressure: you were baptized - you kept your wealth, you refused - your estates and estates were taken away from you. Many were baptized in this way to show this, let's look at one genealogy (it is just connected with the descendants of Edigei named above) of the branch of the Yusupov princes.
Prince Yusuf (from the main family of Edigei) dies in 1556. Sons: Il Murza, Chin Murza, Seyush Murza (come to Russia).
From Seyush Murza: 1) Korep Murza, his son Biy Murza (baptized Ivan).
II. Zhdan Murza, his son Kan Murza (baptized Ivan).
III. Akas Murza, his son Ak Murza (baptized Aleksey).
Serdega Murza (baptized Peter).
IV. Ishteryak Murza.
V. Islam Murza.
VI. Abdul Murza (by baptism Dmitry).
VII. Ibrahim Murza (by baptism Nikita).
VIII. Baim Murza.
You see, very soon the noble Nogai Tatars turn first into Orthodox Tatars, and then completely into Russified Tatars. The mechanism was very simple, and it will be shown on a specific example: “... take care that they ... go to church ... they kept images in their houses and wore crosses and priests ... they called the spiritual fathers to the houses they would have laid the dead at the church, and the newly baptized themselves would marry and marry their children to Russian people and among themselves to the baptized and give their daughters for Russian people and newly baptized, but they did not convert to the Tatar faith from the peasant faith ... "This is from the royal order of 1593 to Metropolitan Hermogenes. It is clear that mixed marriages were used to reinforce the results of the Christianization of the Tatars, so assimilation proceeded faster. And if nothing helped, they used the following approach: "... and who are newly baptized Christian faiths to hold tight ... they will not teach, and you would have ordered them to be humbled, imprisoned and beaten, and imprisoned in the glands and in the chains ... "There was also one way of Christianization, which is noted in the royal order to Archbishop Gury of 1555: ... and which Tatar comes to guilt and runs away to him (to Gury. - D.I.) from disgrace ... and wants to be baptized, and the governors back to him don’t give it back, and baptize him ... ”In this case, the Tatars who were guilty of something, in order to escape punishment, could accept Christianity.
Thus, there were quite a lot of ways to convert the Tatars to Christianity after the Russian conquest of the Kazan Khanate. According to historical sources, there is no need to invent some kind of mythical ancestors for the Kryashens. Moreover, for a century and a half after the capture of Kazan, the Russian authorities, acting in close connection from Orthodox Church, they could definitely convert to Christianity that small group that we see in historical sources by the beginning of the 18th century.
The above does not mean at all that there are no non-Tatar ethnic components in the baptized Tatars, they are, in particular, Finno-Ugric inclusions. But the thing is that Muslim Tatars also have these inclusions. For example, Tatar ethnographers have established that in the northern regions of Zakazan, near almost every Tatar settlement, there are places called Keremets, as our neighbors Mari, Udmurts, and Chuvashs call places of pagan prayers. Therefore, representatives of these peoples lived there and in some cases became part of the Tatars. But they became part of the Tatars even before some of the Tatars, including those with non-Tatar roots, were Christianized. This is proved by the fact that all baptized Tatars are Tatar-speaking. Therefore, it is completely incorrect to “construct” the Kryashen “specialness”, using the possibility of non-Tatar inclusions in the composition of the baptized Tatars.
Hence the conclusion: any arguments about the long historical roots of the baptized Tatars are absolutely groundless and, from a scientific point of view, belong to the category of myth-making. In fact, the baptized Tatars formed into a special ethno-confessional community for other, but completely understandable historical reasons. This issue requires separate consideration, which will be done in the continuation of this publication.

Damir Iskhakov,
Doctor of Historical Sciences,
head of the Center for Ethnological Monitoring.