Bashkirs - History and Cultural Relations

The question of the ethnogenesis of the Bashkirs is still unsettled. There is a long-standing quarrel between the Turkologists and the Finn-Ugrists. Although Turks have played a major role, the Bashkirs exhibit both Europeanoid and Mongoloid features. The first written notice of their existence was that of Ibn-Fadlan, the secretary of the embassy of Baghdad to Great Bulgar, near the juncture of the Volga and Kama rivers, in A.D. 922. This mission introduced Islam to the mid-Volga peoples and it spread into Bashkiria. A group of Kipchaks (Polovtsy or Cumans) settled along the lower Belaya River and remained part of the Kipchak federation from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, when the Mongols assumed control. This period was decisive in the formation of language and culture. The Golden Horde (Mongols) in the fifteenth century broke up into several successor states. The Bashkirs were divided among the khanates of Kazan and Siberia and the Nogay Horde. After Ivan IV conquered Kazan in 1552, Muscovy claimed suzerainty; but the Bashkirs vigorously resisted Russian encroachments over a period of two centuries. Only with the suppression of the Pugachev Rebellion (1773-1775), in which they played an important part, were the Bashkirs finally subdued. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Russians and the non-Russian peoples of the mid-Volga region fled into Bashkiria to escape serfdom. Moscow sent governors and troops to maintain control and churchmen to minister to the Russians and to convert the non-Russians to Orthodoxy. During the reign of Peter the Great, significant development of the mining and smelting industries took place in Bashkir lands, bringing in additional Russians. The influx of large numbers of Russian, Tatar, Chuvash, Mari, Mordovian, and Udmurt peasants seriously disturbed the economy of the Bashkir pastoral nomads, who were gradually forced to turn to animal husbandry and to the growing of hay and grain. The seizure of their land, the heavy burden of tribute payments, the forced recruitment of soldiers for Russian armies, and the corrupt colonial administration led to the great frontier wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Continued buying of Bashkir land eliminated pastoral nomadism by the middle of the nineteenth century. Many Bashkirs, unable to adjust, perished; others sought work in industries in the Urals. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, fully 90 percent of Bashkirs were engaged in agriculture. According to the 1897 census, Bashkirs comprised less than 1 percent of the town population. Russian officials considered the Bashkirs a "light-minded" people and blamed Islam for their backwardness. Islam remained strong and served as a rallying cry in the anti-Russian wars. In the 1905 Revolution a soviet of workers' deputies was formed in Ufa. Although it was almost exclusively Russian in composition, some Bashkirs were reported to have participated. With the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1917 another soviet formed in Ufa. During the civil war that followed the Bolshevik seizure of power in late 1917, the Whites controlled Bashkiria for a short period, but on 23 March 1919, the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was formed; it has retained its present borders since 1922. Throughout the 1930s—the period of the first five-year plans and the collectivization of agriculture—schools, youth clubs, medical clinics, hospitals, and administrative buildings were constructed in the larger towns. Present-day towns are typical Soviet settlements with multistoried apartment buildings, stores, theaters, libraries, museums, and radio and television stations. According to official statements, illiteracy was eliminated in the 1930s. The Bashkirs, for the most part, live in a world apart—on collective farms in primitive villages with few of the advantages of town life. Some have moved to cities and industrial settlements, where they work in a variety of industries and occupations.

The multiethnic nature of Bashkiria renders cultural relations complex. Eight different ethnic groups live in significant numbers in the republic, and there are two major religions—Islam and Christianity. This offers grounds for ethnic and religious conflict, but such conflicts are apparently nonexistent, or are not reported. The nature of the settlement pattern no doubt contributes to the harmony. Most rural people live in separate, isolated communities. Mixed settlements are rare. Towns are places of contact, but they are heavily populated by Russians and non-Bashkirs.