THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY

THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY 195
the communities of Turkish descent, the term “Tatar” began to be
replaced by “Turkish-Tatar” within the course of time. 361
As the Russian Empire continued its expansion, some specific groups
began to emerge under the broad “Tatar” category. As Russia became
an empire in continental level at the end of the nineteenth century, the
“Tatars” category became a framework of three distinct groups: 1) Asian
or Siberian group (the Tatars of Altai, Abakan, Chulym, Kuznetsk, Baraba,
Tobol and Irtysh); 2) European group (the Tatars of Kazan, Astrakhan
and Crimea); 3) Caucasian group in between the European group and
the Asian group (the Tatars of Azerbaijan, Kabarda and Dagestan). 362
At the same time, we have to express that Russian Empire’s some
Turkish-background peoples were not included under the framework
of “Tatars” and were called with their traditional peculiar names
(such as the Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Yakut etc.). 363 In a prominent
encyclopaedia series published in Russia at the end of the nineteenth
century, this issue was highlighted. It claimed that the usage of the
name “Tatar” only for some specific ethnic communities created “a
historical mistake” and added that the communities called with this
name did not call themselves as “Tatars”. 364
The example of Kazan Tatars verifies this claim. It is verifiable that
this community that had been called as “Kazan Tatars” or “Volga
Tatars” by the Russians from the ancient times did not adopt this
name even at the end of the nineteenth century. In the middle of the
milieu of political chaos in the last days of the Russian Empire at the
beginning of the twentieth century, certain debates erupted among
the intellectual circles of the Volga-Ural region Muslims on ethnic
name and historical identity issues. A competition over the concepts
of “being Muslim”, “being Bulgarian”, “being Tatar” and “being Turk”
peaked. However, at the end, the name “Tatar” gained permanence.
In order to grasp its purposes, we have to concentrate on the history
of Volga-Ural region.
361 In the 86-volume Russian Encyclopaedia of Brokgauz and Efron published between
1890 and 1907, the word “Tatar” was presented as a historical term. On the
other hand, the term “Turk” was classified as a contemporary term and a synonym
of “Turkish-Tatar”.
362 “Tatarı”, Entsiklopediçeskiy slovar Brokgauza i Efrona, C. 64, p. 672, http://dlib.
rsl.ru/viewer/01003924196#?page=202
363 Chronologically speaking, Russians named the early communities they met
(that is, the frontier communities) as “Tatars”; whereas, they called the communities
they met afterwards with their traditional namep.
364 “Tyurko-Tatarı”, Entsiklopediçeskiy slovar Brokgauza i Efrona, p. 347.