From whom modern Tatars were formed
One of the most controversial topics on the Internet is the origin of the Tatars. Did they roam in Mongolia before, or were they settled Muslim Bulgars? Historical science still does not give an exact answer to this question.
Now there are 3 most plausible theories:
- Turkic-Tatar
- Bulgar
- Tatar-Mongolian
Each of them is faithful in its own way. To think that in ancient times there was a certain ideal pure people is completely wrong. The peoples constantly migrated, mixed, separated, and this process is still going on. Therefore, all three theories should be analyzed holistically. The analysis will be based on the following 3 indicators correlated with these theories of origin. Let’s go!
Language
The Turkic-Tatar theory says that our ancestors were the Polovtsians, or in another way the Kipchaks, who came to the territory of the Polovtsian steppe in the 11th century, displacing the Pechenegs from there. The Tatar language is based on the Kipchak language, which also gave rise to Kazakh, Bashkir, Nogai. In the late stone sources of the Polovtsians, their language is called “tatar tele”.
Religion
The ancient Bulgars gave the modern Tatars a religion. In the 10th century, the Bulgarian tsar Almush approved Islam as the state religion of Volga Bulgaria. Islam began to spread across the Volga region. The most important monument of this era is the settlement of the Bulgarians.
The question of where the Bulgars disappeared remains open. From the sources we see that the Mongols walked through the territory of Volga Bulgaria with fire and sword, after which it did not recover. During the Golden Horde era, the local population gradually became Kipchakized. At the moment, the closest language to Bulgarian is Chuvash. Perhaps the part that did not switch to the Turkic language gave origin to the modern Chuvash.
Statehood
The Tatar-Mongolian theory is most popular among the Tatars themselves. According to it, the Mongol-Tatars who came here quickly disappeared among the Turkic-speaking peoples of the Golden Horde. At this time, a new language of the Turks, or in another way Old Tatar, began to form. According to this theory, the Mongol-Tatars gave modern Tatars statehood. In the Middle Ages, the Golden Horde was one of the most powerful states. Many Tatar khanates emerged from it: Kazan, Astrakhan, Crimean, Siberian, Kasimov.
Awareness of the history of Tatar statehood served as a factor in the creation of the Tatar Bolsheviks of the TASSR. Now Tatarstan is the legal successor of the Volga Bulgaria, the Golden Horde, the Kazan Khanate.
Conclusion
So if we talk about the Tatar language, then of course it is the ancient Turkic-Kipchak language. And therefore we can say that the Tatars are of Kipchak origin.
Tatar Islam traces its origin to the ancient Bulgars.
But the name and state of the Tatars were given by the Mongols. So in the Tatar khanates of the Middle Ages, only a descendant of the great Genghis Khan could become
Therefore, the Tatars were formed from these three peoples.
