07:00, 23.01.2017 63
About the mistakes of Refat Chubarov and Mustafa Dzhemilev, the Tatar Kama Sutra and the sensational research on Balanovsky genetics
Photo: Maxim Platonov
On January 3, the patriarch of Tatar ethnological science, leading researcher at the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Damir Mavlyaveevich Iskhakov, turned 65 years old. The author of historical publications of Realnoe Vremya, Mark Shishkin, talked with him about the state of ethnological research in Tatarstan, Tatar-Bashkir relations, the Crimean events of 2014 and the Turkic Kama Sutra.
There could be 10 million Tatars
— Damir Mavlyaveevich, everyone interested in ethnology and history of the Tatar people knows you as a very prolific author. What recent books should you pay attention to? What are you working on now?
— Quite recently I published the first volume of the book “Historical Ethnology of the Tatar People.” This is a collection of unpublished articles from different years, and some articles are voluminous - up to 60 pages. And now I am completing a rather serious work on the demography of the Tatars: from the end of the 19th century to the 2010 census. This is also important work, since, oddly enough, Soviet censuses have not yet been analyzed from the point of view of studying the Tatars. I had general publications on this issue, but there was no detailed analysis. There are a number of interesting points that require further discussion.
— Can you share conclusions that will be of interest to a wider audience?
— In this book, for the first time, I established the victims of the Tatars during the Great Patriotic War. According to my data, we lost a tenth of the people. This corresponds to the average for the Soviet Union. The Tatars, as a people represented throughout the country, suffered in the same way as the Russians and other peoples of the European part of Russia. This is a very large number. There are interesting materials on other periods. Possible losses of the Tatars during the famine in the Volga region of 1921-1922 and the famine that occurred in 1932-1933.
It was also established in detail how many Tatars “leaked” in favor of the Bashkirs during the last censuses of 2002 and 2010. It is usually believed that only in 2002 there were violations. In fact, in 2010, a significant part of the Tatars of Bashkortostan remained part of the Bashkirs. I have reasoned evidence on this matter. And it will be interesting to the reading public. Because even Moscow ethnostatisticians know about this problem. For example, Valery Aleksandrovich Tishkov wrote that about 100 thousand Tatars were recorded as Bashkirs. In fact, the figure is twice as high. And this is a serious political problem. I think that the Tatars did not record themselves as Bashkirs, but during the process of processing the census results they were declared as such. My field experience suggests that the self-awareness of the Tatars simply could not change to the Bashkir one.
— Russian authors often say that the demographic losses of the Russian people in the twentieth century were irreparable. Can this be said about the Tatars?
- Also irreplaceable. If all these direct and indirect losses were absent, there would be much more Tatars. I think about 10 million. The casualties of war and other upheavals cannot be replaced because the birth rate has fallen since then, and we are now hovering on the edge of simple reproduction. It is unlikely that it will be possible to compensate in the coming decades.
— How do the demographic indicators of Tatars and Russians compare?
- The dynamics are similar. Even when the Russians began to leave Central Asia, the Tatars followed them. We belong to the European peoples. In addition, the Tatars are largely Russian-speaking and Russified in terms of civilization.
The casualties of war and other upheavals cannot be replaced because the birth rate has fallen since then, and we are now hovering on the edge of simple reproduction
“I have never denied the existence of the Bashkir ethnic group...”
— Let's return to the Tatar-Bashkir affairs. The publication of the first volume of “History of the Tatars of the Western Urals,” in the writing of which you took part, caused a resonance. How would you define the position from which ethnologists and historians of Tatarstan approach the analysis of the ethnic situation in Bashkortostan?
— The appearance of this work is not accidental. After completing the seven-volume “History of the Tatars,” our team of authors began working on regional studies. The first big work was in the Western Siberia region, and now we have gone to the Urals zone. The work is important because it goes beyond narrow national boundaries, because it is impossible to write only Bashkir national history on the territory of the Urals. The Tatars sit there in dense masses, and they outnumber the Bashkirs in Bashkortostan itself. The history of the region featured the Kazan Khanate, the Siberian Khanate, and the Nogai Horde. All these are Tatar states. But our Bashkir colleagues, creating their seven-volume book on the history of the Bashkir people, gave a minimal history of the Tatars. That's why we did special work.
One of the important issues that we raised anew is the participation of the Ugric population in the formation of the Turks of the Urals (including the Tatars). The Ugrians played an important role in the formation of the Kazan Tatars and their ancestors - the Bulgars. The ancestral home of the Hungarians was located in the Urals. All these are well-known things. But one cannot ignore the fact that the traditional name of the ancestors of the Bashkirs from the neighboring Turkic peoples was ishtyak. The Russians called the Khanty, who belong to the Ugric group, Ostyaks. We have thoroughly studied various aspects of the Ishtyak problem, and I have a desire to return to its discussion again in the future. Because the ethnogenesis of the Siberian Tatars is also connected with the Ugrians. The Urals and Western Siberia have long been very closely interconnected.
In connection with this, there is another very large and insufficiently developed problem about the role of the Kimaks in the ethnogenesis of the Tatars of the Ulus of Jochi. In the Kimak Kaganate, whose center was located on the Irtysh, the ruling and elite group was the Tatar tribe. In the 11th century, the Kimak tribes began to move west. Then they played an important role in the state of the Khorezmshahs. The last three generations of Khorezm rulers along the female line were Kimaks, and the Khorezmshah guards were also recruited from them. Genghis Khan's son Jochi conquered the ancestral Kimak lands, and they became the base for the future Golden Horde.
A number of tribes who lived next to the Mongols, like the Merkits and Naimans, in my opinion, were also of Tatar origin. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the Turkic ethnic groups of the Sayan-Altai region - the Shors, Teleuts and groups included in the Khakass - also called themselves Tatars. There were Abakan Tatars, Black Tatars, Minusinsk Tatars... Even if now many Altaians and Khakassians are asked in an informal conversation who they are, the answer will be: “We are Tatars.” Consequently, the name “Tatars” did not arise artificially at the will of the Chinese. It had fundamental foundations on local soil. The remnants of the medieval Tatar ethnic group were gradually drawn into the composition of other ethnic groups. Although, for example, the Baraba Tatars in the Novosibirsk region remained in the same orbit with the Volga Tatars.
— When did the demarcation between the Tatars and Bashkirs occur?
- I think it's very late. Bashkir authors are accustomed to counting almost from the 6th-7th centuries or from the time of Ibn Fadlan, but, according to most scientists, in those days the ancestors of the Hungarians were called Bashkirs. The word "Bashkort" can be pronounced as "mazhgar" or "mazhgart", i.e. Magyars. Therefore, it is impossible to consider them the same ethnic group as modern Bashkirs. The modern Bashkir ethnic group began to take shape no earlier than the 16th century. The basis was made up of Ugric groups - Ishtyaks. Interesting details came through the life of the Orthodox saint Tryphon of Vyatka, who in the 1570s was located not far from Perm in the lower reaches of the Tulva River. He met there with a people called Ostyaks, and observed pagan rituals of worshiping sacred fir trees. Now this is the Bardymsky district of the Perm Territory, where the Gainin Bashkirs live.
In addition to the Ugrians, the Bashkirs included other Turkic groups. There was an impressive Tatar layer, but associated not with Kazan, but with the Siberian Shibanids. The capital of the Shibanids, Chimgi-Tura, was located where Tyumen is now. For a long time, the Shibanids controlled the Urals, including the east of modern Tatarstan - up to the Sheshma and Zai rivers. In 1509, 220 thousand Shibanid warriors (that’s about 1 million people with women and children) took off and the whole horde left for Central Asia. There they defeated the Timurids and became one of the components for the formation of the Uzbeks. It is possible that this resettlement was associated with the beginning of a cold snap in the 16th century, when snow fell in the summer and times of famine came for the nomads of Siberia. But part of the Shibanids remained. The same Khan Kuchum, after his defeat from Ermak, went not just anywhere, but to the Urals.
Even if you now ask many Altaians and Khakass in an informal conversation who they are, the answer will be: “We are Tatars.”
— Despite the differences in interpretations of the past, do you maintain contacts with your Bashkir colleagues?
— It is difficult to contact radical groups that generally deny the Tatar factor in Bashkortostan. But there are normal scientists with whom we communicate. For example, this is the Bashkir Institute of Ethnological Research named after. R.G. Kuzeeva. Unfortunately, they want to merge moderate Bashkir ethnologists with the Institute of History, Language and Literature, where the official position of Ufa is more strongly represented. But in general, Bashkir scientists are also in search and understand that the complex picture of the past must be somehow interpreted.
I studied the published seven-volume “History of the Bashkir People”, but came to the conclusion that the Bashkir colleagues have not yet advanced conceptually. The concepts that were developed by Zaki Validi at the beginning of the twentieth century were much more interesting. I call Zaki Validi the Bashkir Marjani. He was able to excellently integrate all available materials and provide very accurate estimates. Validi was a supporter of Little Bashkortostan, which covers the main ethnic territory of the Bashkirs.
— Disputes between Tatars and Bashkirs sometimes resemble Russian-Ukrainian ones. Many Russian ideologists say that there really are no Ukrainians, and they are part of the Russian people. Ukrainians say that modern Russians have no relation to the Slavs and Kievan Rus. Recently, these disputes turned into war. Aren't you afraid that something similar will happen to the Tatars and Bashkirs? What is being done to prevent conflict from arising?
— I never denied the existence of the Bashkir ethnic group. The Bashkir ethnic group exists and it has its own interests. We are close to the Bashkirs linguistically, but they are a different people with a special ethnogenesis. I would like Bashkir politicians to correctly assess the realities. There are a lot of Tatars in Bashkortostan and it will not be possible to dissolve them. Attempts to manipulate numbers during the census lead nowhere. The Tatars are not disappearing anywhere. You can write them any way you like, but they remain Tatars.
Fortunately, the best representatives of Bashkir science understood this. The largest Bashkir theorist of the national question, Bilal Khamitovich Yuldashbaev, who wrote the fundamental history of the formation of modern Bashkir statehood, proposed building Bashkortostan as a federation. Form Tatar territory, Bashkir territory and Russian territory in the Ufa region. Approximately how this is implemented in Belgium between the Walloons and the Flemings. But this option was not accepted. Rakhimov’s leadership followed the path of domination of one language and ethnic group, turning both Russians and Tatars against themselves. Now new generations of Bashkir politicians will have to understand new realities. If in the end a democratic path of development emerges in Russia, the possibility of expression of the people's will and a multi-party system appears, the interests of all peoples will need to be taken into account. Those politicians of Bashkortostan who will be the first to understand this will be on horseback. I think this is not too distant future.
“The theory about the strong isolation of the Crimean and Kazan Tatars is historically incorrect...”
— What do you think about the sensational publication by Oleg and Elena Balanovsky about the gene pool of the Tatars? Is there a sensation?
— There is no sensation and there cannot be. The Balanovskys, in their publications, began to transfer conclusions drawn on the basis of biological-genetic material to ethnic phenomena, and this is an unscientific path. Of course, they tried to distance themselves from extreme conclusions, but the texts of the studies are on the Internet, anyone can read them. I did a genetic test, so I can use myself as an example. My ancestor lived 30-35 thousand years ago. Closest relatives: Phoenicians, Cretans, Chechens, Bactrians and the two upper Indian strata - Brahmins and Kshatriyas. A biological mass may have very ancient roots, but it is impossible to derive a modern ethnos from there. They are probably bored with simply doing genetic analysis, and such PR campaigns attract the attention of potential research sponsors.
— So there is no politics behind these studies?
“Others can take politics out of there.” If Balanovsky writes this way, then others can use this as an argument that there is no single Tatar ethnic group. Although all this has nothing to do with ethnicity. Ethnicity is something that was formed relatively recently, primarily language and general culture. If researchers go beyond scientific boundaries, the consequences can be dire. Suffice it to recall Nazi Germany, where they began to build policy on the basis of eugenics. I am a supporter of ethnologists doing their work, and geneticists doing theirs. In fact, the Tatars are still very poorly studied. The material with which Balanovsky operates is not representative. When larger studies begin, these preliminary findings could easily fall apart.
If researchers go beyond scientific boundaries, the consequences can be very dire <...> I am a supporter of ethnologists doing their work, and geneticists doing theirs
— By the way, about the Crimean Tatars, about whom the Balanovskys write that they are not related to the Kazan ones. In 2014, the local press published your series of articles about Crimean-Kazan relations in the Middle Ages. How is cooperation between scientific schools of Tatarstan and Crimea currently being built?
— We work with Crimean scientists through the Institute of History. Sh. Marjani. With the support of the Office of the President of Tatarstan, the Crimean branch of the Institute of History was created. A good scientific journal “Crimean Review” is published. But there are problems in Crimea too. During the years of deportation, while the Crimean Tatars lived in poor conditions in Central Asia, they fell very far behind scientifically. To bring the research to at least our level, we need to work a lot. There are very few fundamental ethnological studies of the Crimean Tatars.
— Does the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Turkey somehow help scientists in Crimea?
— Of course, the Crimean Tatars living in Turkey do not forget their roots. Once in Adrianople, when my colleagues and I were speaking Tatar, a stranger approached us and simply recognized our native speech. It was nice. But I would not exaggerate Turkey’s influence on the processes in Crimea.
Alas, Refat Chubarov and Mustafa Dzhemilev did not work correctly when the Crimean events unfolded. I have known Refat Chubarov since the 80s. I spoke with him and suggested trying to get into closer contact with the Russian authorities in order to integrate into the new realities. Chubarov and Dzhemilev did not want to. Now the well-known leaders of the people are emigrants, but the people remain, having lost part of the political elite. I think that the groups that remained on the peninsula, where they are building their political and scientific line, will have a greater influence on the Crimean Tatars. Kazan Tatars need to cooperate with them and this will be useful for the people. Before the events of 2014, I also met with Mustafa Dzhemilev. We tried to establish relations between the World Congress of Tatars and the Milli Majlis. There was even a cooperation agreement ready. But then the Ukrainian authorities did not like it. They saw a Russian “tail” behind us, although there was no “tail” at all. We were just trying to make contacts.
The theory about the strong separation of the Crimean and Kazan Tatars is historically incorrect. There is evidence from Russian chronicles, in particular, a message dates back to 1432, which shows that in the summer the Crimean Tatars moved to migrate to the Volga region, and in the winter they went to the Crimea. The Crimean Tatars switched to a settled life after Sahib-Girey, who sat on the Kazan throne, became a khan in Crimea. Apparently, he looked at our sedentary Kazan life and after that he forcibly put his relatives on the ground, breaking all the carts. Back in the 15th - 16th centuries, the Tatars of Crimea and the Volga region were inextricably linked. In Crimea they have forgotten about this, but we must remind them.
Why Polina Gagarina divorced Dmitry Iskhakov
The other day news became known, although not officially confirmed, that the famous singer was divorcing her husband. So far, the couple have not officially confirmed this. They started talking about the fact that not everything was going well in the couple’s relationship at the beginning of 2020. The couple returned from a vacation on tropical islands and after that they unfollowed each other on social networks, which immediately attracted attention.
The husband and wife stopped posting family photos and they also stopped wearing rings. True, the man did not confirm the separation and tried to calm everyone down. Later it became known that the husband and wife were no longer living together and this had been going on for several months. Over time, Dmitry confirmed this, but according to him, the separation has not yet been legally formalized. The artist herself avoids direct comments.
This was followed by the dismissal of her husband from the company that prepared the artist’s performances. Previously, he headed it and now the 42-year-old man will return to his main specialty, and he is a photographer. According to insiders, the former couple is already busy dividing property. This is precisely what caused Dmitry’s dismissal. Now the director is a certain Julia.
The reasons for the separation are unknown. There are various rumors, including Polina’s infatuation with Barnabas’s ex-husband, to the banal “they didn’t get along.”
“To understand some things, it took visiting 550 Tatar villages...”
— How much does academic ethnology influence the views of ordinary people?
— Unfortunately, in Tatarstan things are not going well with academic ethnology. The Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan no longer has a department responsible for ethnology. I turned 65 on January 3, and was left part-time in another department, where I will work with historians. This is sad, because in Moscow there is an entire Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Because in such a large and complex country as the Russian Federation, ethnologists are needed. We monitor processes and help shape identity. But in our republic they remember this only during the population census, when it is necessary to formulate our Tatarstan position. There is a tendency to replace ethnological research with the work of sociologists, but this is incorrect. Sociologists, analyzing questionnaires, see the current situation, but they do not have ethnographic field experience to establish where the process is coming from and where it is going. To understand some things, it took me to travel through 550 Tatar villages over 20 years.
— What is the reason for such neglect of ethnology?
- There are many reasons. One of the main ones is that the consequences of a long course of reducing scientific personnel have reached us. Elderly ethnologists remained, but new generations did not have time to form. Hope for Kazan University, where the department of history of Tatarstan, archeology and ethnology works. But it will take time for our system to be replenished with new specialists. In recent years, I have trained more specialists for Western Siberia than for Tatarstan. But here we simply have no bets.
In such a large and complex country as the Russian Federation, ethnologists are needed. We monitor processes and help shape identity
— Tell us about how you came to science? Why did you become an ethnologist?
— I began my scientific work at Kazan University as an archaeologist. From the first year I wrote term papers with Alfred Khasanovich Khalikov. I traveled with archaeologists on expeditions for two years. But then I realized that I am not an archaeologist. And Khalikov worked at IYALI, and through him I met the ethnographers who worked there. At that time they were just preparing the “Historical and Ethnographic Atlas of the Tatar People.” I stuck to them and started going on expeditions from my third year. Although Alfred Khasanovich was still the scientific director, my diploma work was purely ethnographic on the Karin-Nukrat Tatars. This is a very interesting group of Tatars, living in the Kirov region and partially mixed with the Besermyans. After university, I worked for another 3 years at a school in the village of Staraya Ikshurma, Sabinsky district. During this time I wrote the history of the village. And from Ikshurma, on behalf of Khalikov, I was called to Kazan and sent to a targeted graduate school in Moscow.
Some things in my biography happened by chance, some were predetermined. Even as a child, I loved reading about travel. “The Journey to Kon-Tiki” by Thor Heyerdahl was my reference book. This is where my interest in the unknown comes from.
— During the Soviet years, a strong school of ethnography of Russians of the Middle Volga region developed at Kazan University. How is the relationship between scientists who study Russians and Tatars?
— University ethnographers are, of course, very strong, and we have always collaborated quite fruitfully with them. I myself enjoyed listening to the lectures of Evgeniy Prokopyevich Busygin, who was one of the leading specialists in Russian ethnography. The late Nikolai Vladimirovich Zorin is also a very famous specialist. Their fundamental works have not lost their relevance to this day. The value of these studies for understanding the Russian people is that the Russians of the Middle Volga region have a number of specific features, including due to interethnic interweaving.
I come from the village of Shemordan; we had local Russians who had lived there for a long time and knew the Tatar language. My childhood friend Vovka Baranov spoke to me in Tatar, and since childhood we knew Russian well. Busygin and his students wrote a lot about such examples. But this applies not only to cultural characteristics. According to my estimates, in the 1992 referendum, some Russians, together with the Tatars, voted for the special status of Tatarstan, which means that the Russians are well integrated into the republican processes. Such phenomena have a very long history that needs to be studied.
— By the way, how do you feel about the idea of the Russian nation? What model of integration of different peoples of Russia would, in your opinion, be optimal?
— I am negative: what is being proposed now is a meaningless construct or an imperial project. The Russian nation can only be a nation of nations. Russia is a federal state, and many peoples are already nations in themselves and even have their own statehood. There were even the beginnings of their own citizenship. I mean the Tatarstan passport insert, which they now prefer not to remember. Even if the republics are liquidated by a strong-willed decision, it will not be useful for the center itself. Moscow understands this. Valery Aleksandrovich Tishkov, well-known in government and scientific circles, believes that the cultural needs of peoples will not go away, which means that the publication of textbooks, support of creative groups, etc. - all this will fall on the shoulders of the federals, it would be better if the republics deal with this.
The thesis about the Russian nation does not take into account the interests of Russians. I contacted representatives of the Society of Russian Culture. These are Russian nationalists who operate in Kazan. So they are also against it. They say that we have already passed the Soviet people, we don’t want to anymore, we want to just be Russian.
The Russian nation can form naturally if we have democracy, civil society and generally normal conditions. After all, there is a Swiss nation, but no one thinks of assimilating the Romansh people or imposing the German language on everyone. But without democracy, the Russian nation is a purely assimilatory project.
The thesis about the Russian nation does not take into account the interests of Russians. I contacted representatives of the Society of Russian Culture. These are Russian nationalists who operate in Kazan. So they are also against it. They say that we have already gone through the Soviet people, we don’t want any more, we want to just be Russians
Hollywoodlifenews
Was the divorce of Polina Gagarina and Dmitry Iskhakov a logical ending? Reasons and details of what happened.
Polina Gagarina and her husband Dmitry Iskhakov today acknowledged their impending divorce. Polina Gagarina separated from her husband last fall. It is quite possible that Polina was bothered by the fact that her husband was too immersed in her career affairs. In addition, there were rumors that if any publication requested an interview with Gagarina, they were gently hinted that a conversation with the singer was possible if the article used photos of her husband Dmitry Iskhakov. Thus, Polina gave Dmitry the opportunity to earn money and realize himself as a successful photographer.
There have been rumors that Dmitry Iskhakov and Polina Gagarina do not get along well together for a long time. The reputation of the husband of the Eurovision participant was completely ruined by the information that in endless quarrels with Gagarina, he prefers to prove that he is right with the help of his fists. And although Gagarina has not recently confirmed the family discord, she still took off her wedding ring. And then she posted online publications in which she showed that she had fled to the United States with her son. Apparently, the issue related to the “division” of the daughter he shared with Iskhakov ended up in favor of the latter. Polina only received permission to divorce from her “beating husband”.
It is not expected that Polina will fight to the last for custody of her daughter. The blonde, living with the “family tyrant,” always tried to hide the fact that she was somehow suffering from an unsuccessful marriage. And now she simply doesn’t have the courage to publicly denounce her husband and talk about the reasons for her sudden vacation to America with her son. However, on his social networks, Iskhakov, as befits an exemplary “family tyrant,” says that everything is fine with his wife. What can fragile Polina oppose to her husband other than silent escape?
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However, despite the calm and “inconspicuous”, at first glance, separation in documents and Gagarina’s company, personnel changes have already begun. Polina carries out her artistic activities through Polina Gagarina LLC, which is 100% owned by the singer. In 2018, the organization’s revenue amounted to almost 150 million rubles.
According to SPARK-Interfax, the singer’s husband has been the general director of the company since its founding, but literally three weeks ago Iskhakov was fired. Now his position is occupied by a certain Julia Ex.
“In a conversation with the producer of Super, Dmitry Iskhakov did not refute the information that he and his wife had separated, but explained that they had not yet had an official divorce.”
Polina Gagarina and Dmitry Iskhakov were one of the most discussed secular couples. They started dating in 2013, and in 2014 they got married in the Tverskoy registry office in Moscow. In 2017, Polina and Dmitry had a daughter, Mia. No one doubted the unconditional harmony within this family: Dmitry often called his wife his muse, and also supported her on all trips, be it Eurovision or a Chinese talent show.
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