The article, aimed at identifying the interethnic model of rapprochement between Crimea and neighboring Circassia, which has existed for centuries, fixes its displayability in the works of researchers of different generations: S. Khan-Girey, A. Ostashko, I. Klingen, A. Soysal. An attempt is made to formulate a number of patterns of such mutual saturation of neighboring civilizations by means of the evidence in the works concerning Crimea, as a result of which it is concluded that there is an information resource in them that allows leaving open the ways for further development of the topic.
Crimea, Circassia, historical ties, interaction
Introduction
The majestic and well-established Crimean Khanate, as well as the courageous Circassia neighboring it, in fact, before the arrival of the northern invaders, had close, chronicly conditioned ties that predetermined the intense harmony of the parties both in the aesthetic and intellectual fields. Undoubtedly, such strong ties, constructed by history, were formed not in one day, but over the centuries. In the chronicles of events, there were repeated military conflicts between the Circassians and the Crimean khans. However, once convinced of the uselessness and harmfulness of battles bringing death and hunger, the Crimean rulers transformed an aggressive strategy into a loyal one, in order to consolidate and approbate which the Crimean upper class made an ordinary practice of giving their own children to be raised in Circassian families (that is, in atalyks).
One of the foreign researchers of the first half of the last century A. Soysal analyzes in detail the ritual and technical aspects of atalic procedures, whose article on this topic "On the upbringing of Crimean princes in the Caucasus", written much earlier, was published only in 1951 in the Munich magazine banned in the USSR "Caucasus" (No. 2-3).
Methodology
The study of historical-geographical and typological issues is carried out through an analytical-comparative strategy.
Main part
As A. Soysal testifies in this regard, describing the ritual procedure that accompanied the transfer of the child to a new family, as soon as an heir appeared in the khan's family, a representative of the Circassian princely family was immediately informed of this in the form of a request to accept the baby for upbringing and feeding. On this occasion, a khase (national assembly) was necessarily gathered to discuss and choose the most appropriate family unit for this. The approved trustees were pathetically informed about the ethnically significant mission entrusted to them, after which they, accompanied by more than one hundred worthy horsemen under the leadership of one head, set off to the Crimean side, in particular to Bakhchisarai as the capital of the Crimean Khanate. Such a delegation was welcomed by representatives of the khan's clan, as well as by members of the government and heirs to the throne (Kalgay and others). There was an exchange of welcoming and grateful speeches, congratulations on the increase in the khan's family clan. Here the head of the Circassian delegation, as described by A. Soysal, in response claimed that the message of such family joy from the Khan “was the reason for their long journey, the difficulties of which they, however, did not notice from great joy. Then he set out a request for the transfer of the newborn to the nurse and the educator, chosen according to the traditions and who came with them” (Soysal, 1951).
Through such an exchange of information, individual-personal acquaintance of family representatives took place, giving their own guarantees of the quality of the upcoming long-term methods developed and tested by Circassian ancestors. The head of the delegation, representing compatriots on this site, “assured that they would look after the child better than their own and would try to give him an upbringing befitting his high origin, especially since this honorable role does honor not only to the educator, but to the whole to the people” (Soysal, 1951). At the next stage of arrival, the delegation entered the family walls of the khan, found itself in the center of three-day feasts, and only after a corresponding three-day rest sent seven representatives to the khan with a request to hand them over to the khan and with gratitude to the ruler. The Crimean head took the baby from his mother with his own hands, handed it to the delegates, who pathetically gave it to the trustee. And, as A. Soisal summarizes when reproducing this ritual procedure, “the mission, having taken the child, set off on its way back to the Caucasus, where the nurse really cared for and looked after the child as her own. Moreover, all the people were interested in the upbringing, teaching and play of the child, as he grew up. For eight years he already knew how to ride a horse, participate well in war games and wield weapons” (Soysal, 1951).
Indeed, as it is repeatedly described in later ones, including works of art by the Adyghe authors, who greatly respected the atalic traditions in Circassian history, the attitude in the Adyghe society towards the infant adopted into the family was specific. The native child in the house, the blood son of his parents could be somewhat disadvantaged and more reproachful, severely and severely punished in comparison with the raised infant from another house, who was guarded as a priority and was somewhat more free in his preferences. But this did not prevent the family from competently establishing educational methods and raising, as a result, a worthy member of the highland society.
The maximum volumes of the aesthetic as well as intellectual influence of the Circassians on the Crimea were developed, initiated from the time of the leadership of Khan Davlet-Girey (reign: 1551 - 1577), as Anatoly Mamsirov claims in his 2001 Ph.D. thesis concerning the historical and genealogical ties of the Circassians with the peoples of the Black Sea region ... The Adyghe educators who lived and worked in these parts could not stay away from the ways of such interaction. So, in particular, the active Circassian publicist Sultan Khan-Girey (1808 - 1842), working in his ethnographic works on the Circassian landscape of life, constantly in one way or another dealt with the Crimean topic, since Crimea was the closest neighbor of Circassia on the map of that time. According to the named educator of the XIX century. S. Khan-Giray ("Notes on Circassia", 1836), the Crimean-Circassian ties described today by A. Mamsirov also originally date back to the sixteenth century, only his slightly earlier decade and another khan, who ruled in Crimea from 1515 to 1523. S. Khan-Girey is talking about the Crimean Khan Magmet Girey, who was the first to start political and territorial expansion to the detriment of the Circassian borders. As S. Khan-Girey describes the development of the situation, the heirs of Magmet Girey on the political field continued the line of oppression of the Circassians in the future, populating the conquered lands with a large number of Nogais from Astrakhan (“either during the war, captured and resettled to the Kuban, then during the fall of the kingdom Astrakhan voluntarily under the patronage of the Crimean Khan who came” (Khan-Girey, 1978). The Circassians displaced from their native territories by the Crimean inhabitants were forced, as S. Khan-Girey suggests in his "Notes ...", to beg for help from the Russian ruler Ivan the Terrible and, as a result, to submit to his rule in 1552.
Let us try to trace some patterns of such mutual socio-political and intellectual saturation by analyzing the folklore manifestations in the works of S. Khan-Giray concerning relations with Crimeans, which give him the opportunity to illustrate all kinds of versions of the creation, modification, destruction of ethnic and other resources with a peculiar way of thinking. So, for example, the anecdotal resources at the disposal of the author are not only grouped in a certain way by him, but are also saturated with private semantics, giving folklore nourishment to the speeches befitting events and to the corresponding occasions thanks to both artistic and documentary heroes of the word-creator S. Khan-Giray.
In particular, under the conditional name "1st joke" the author cites one of the joint stories of the Crimean-Circassian interethnic interaction during the atalism, the real information about which he draws from folk songs. The origin here is the author's statement of the fact that the practice of giving their children to Circassian families for upbringing is widespread among the khans in Crimea. The fabulous version is the author's assumption that among such pupils, commanders-in-chief over the Circassians were often appointed. So one of the Circassian tribes (Zhanintsy), according to the author's version, being the closest habitat to the Crimean lands, also practiced atalism in relations with the Crimean sultans. As S. Khan-Girey testifies, having not received any positive response to his request to the khan to appoint one of their pupils as a general, the residents of Zhanina were greatly offended and the request was modified into an open request. As a member of the Russian Geographical Society Andrei Ostashko confirms today, referring to the Turkish traveler Evliya Chelebi, in the 40s-60s. XVII century any tribe of Circassians had a Chingizid at their disposal, hoping to erect their own delegate to the Crimean throne: “When he (from us) leaves” the Temirgoevites said, “this may become a guarantee of friendship, he will become a khan, and we will benefit from it" (Ostashko, 2017).
Such a demand, as the author S. Khan-Girey believed at one time, turned out to be the reason for the beginning of the seven-year war, which the khan waged with the Zhaninites, rarely ending. As a result, the Circassian tribe, not wanting to surrender to a strong enemy, was forced, by virtue of its own exhaustion, to prefer the decision of a desperate battle. Moreover, at a national meeting, it was decided to bring women and children to the military field, so that by this, with such a kind of family motive, more seriously to stimulate soldiers to better ethnic protection. Having speculated here on whose side the victory remained and commenting on the versions that were available about this, S. Khan-Girey assesses the victory won by the Crimean Khan as follows: “This battle was too expensive, as is evident from the fact that the Khan was content with a very insignificant tribute from the Zhaninites defeated by him” (Khan-Girey, 1978). As a result, analyzing the actions undertaken by his fellow countrymen on the battlefield, the Circassian publicist comes to a proud final conclusion: “Be that as it may, the amazing determination of the Zhaninites is truly a heroic trait” (Khan-Girey, 1978).
S. Khan-Girey's interest in tribal identification is due to the fact that any of the intra-ethnic branches in Circassia understood and cherished its own specifics through the chronicle folklore in the works of S. Khan-Girey, reflected in his author's descriptions such as biographies of famous compatriots and expositions chronicle (more often - military) events. It is obvious to what extent, where ancient installations disappeared, various offensive projects also became weakly effective. In this respect, the works of S. Khan-Giray and other enlighteners, which were a real science, embodied the group knowledge of many times and generations. As another full member of the Russian Geographical Society, Ivan Klingen, who traveled around Circassia, said about the Circassian science of that time, “Only science, as a reflection of the collective experience of all times and peoples, only science, which gives an accurate acquaintance with the whole set of diverse conditions of this long-suffering country, can serve a guiding star in the search for an honorable outcome worthy of a great people” (Khan-Girey, 1978).
Returning to the testimony of a modern member of the Russian Geographical Society, Andrei Ostashko, we note that the territory, the toponymy of which contains Circassian signs, is the middle course of the Belbek River called Kabarta, where the Circassians of the Kabardian tribe lived along the northern border of the principality of Theodoro. Here, above the settlement of Foti-Sala (today it is the village of Golubinka), whose name in the Circassian language is "the settlement that gives sweetness", was the Pampuk-kaya military base. During its excavations, according to A. Ostashko, an array of ceramic tankware, previously unknown in Tavrika, was found, as well as a clay stencil bearing a solar sign. The thesis that such archaeological samples are found by experts in the Caucasus, allows A. Ostashko to draw a conclusion about the similarity with Caucasian objects of material culture, found "also in the Syuyren fortress, Aluston, Funa, Kuchuk-Lambat, Chembalo and on Mangup" (Ostashko, 2017). As Sultan Khan-Girey claims in chapter two of his "Notes on Circassia", speaking about the so-called "possessions of Kabardian", the ancestors of today's Kabardians lived in the Crimea on the banks of the Kabarta River and from the name of this river their name got its start. We do not know how the Kabarta river, which is still known in the Crimea under this name, was named before the ancestors of the Kabardian generation settled on its banks, and so in vain they would look to see if the Kabardians got their name from the river or this last from them. Both could have happened” (Khan-Girey, 1978).
Conclusion
Thus, as can be seen from the above quotes, in the case of this toponymy, Crimean researchers of the old and modern times are quite consonant. Moreover, the information given in this article is only partial, even in the works of the named authors there is a number of documentary evidence of the Crimean-Circassian intersection, both cultural and intellectual, as well as economic, and therefore such saturation can serve as a sufficient basis for the subsequent continuation of this topic in the scientific consideration.
References
Gubzhokov, M.N. (2020). Sultan Khan-Girey as a bearer and researcher of local identities. Bulletin of Science ARIGI, 12 (36), 77-81.
Khan-Girey, S. (1978). Notes on Circassia. Nalchik: Elbrus.
Klingen, I.N. (1897). Fundamentals of the economy in the Sochi district [Electronic resource] / Comp. S. Hotko. Adyghe Heku. Retrieved from https://www.google.ru/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj56fern73VAhVEWBQKHRA6BwQQFggrMAE&url=2%Fistor%Farticles%FRussian%Fistor%Farticles%Fussian%FISS2%Farticles adyigov% 2F3366 & usg = AFQjCNFToI-H2uV98fGU_HtP1otE0sv9Cg
Ostashko, A. (2017). Adygs (Circassians) in the history of Crimea. Interview with local historian, writer, member of the Russian Geographical Society Andrei Ostashko about the history of the Adyghe (Circassian) (including ancestral peoples) presence in Crimea from ancient times to its entry into the Russian Empire [Electronic resource]. Retrieved from https: // www .youtube.com / watch? v = idED5VgfTO0.
Soysal, A. (1951). On the education of the Crimean princes in the Caucasus. Caucasus. Munich, 2-3, 38-40.
Опубл.: Khuako F. The centural tactics of the Crimea's rapprochement with the Cherkessia and its display at the junction of the centuries // Journal
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