Kumyks (self-name - kumuk) - people in the Russian Federation - 277.2 thousand people, of which 231.8 thousand in Dagestan, 9.9 thousand in Chechnya, and 9.5 thousand in North Ossetia. The Kumyks are a people of a Turkic tribe, belonging to its Pontic branch, living in Dagestan, north of Derbent, along the coast, between the Terek and Sulak rivers.
Some believe that the Kumaks occupied the coast of the Caspian Sea from ancient times and were known to Ptolemy under the name of kami, kamaks, Klaproth sees in them the descendants of the Khazars, and Vamberi admits that they settled in the places they now occupy even during the prosperity of the Khazar kingdom, i.e. in the 8th century.
In terms of language and way of life, all Kumyks currently represent one ethnographic entity, but this can hardly be said about their origin. Local legends, in connection with the many surviving ethnographic terms, lead to the conclusion that at least some of the Kumyks were formed from very diverse elements, which is partly confirmed by the physical appearance of the inhabitants of this plane.
The fact that Kabardians entered the composition of the Kumyks occupying the Kumyk plane is evidenced by their history. Although back in 1559, Agim, the prince of the Tyumen Kumyks, accepted Russian citizenship, and during the reign of Tsars Fyodor Ioannovich and Boris Godunov, fortresses were built here to protect against, nevertheless, local legends claim that 300 years ago the Kumyks were ruled by the shamkhal of the city of Tarki. Upon the death of Shamkhal Andiya, his elder sons were not allowed to participate in the inheritance of his third son, Sultan-Mut, born from, who did not belong to the princely family. Sultan-Mut fled to Kabarda, recruited a detachment of several hundred people there and forced the brothers to cede part of their father's possessions to him. With his Kabardians, Sultan-Mut settled in Andrey, which quickly grew to the size of a large eastern city.
Located near the route from Persia to , he received the importance of a trading center, mainly for the trade in child slaves. In 1604, the Kumyks rebelled and forced the Russian garrison to retire beyond the Terek. During this disturbance fell, according to legend, Sultan-Mut. In 1722, during the campaign of Peter I in Persia, the Russians destroyed Andrew, who could no longer recover from this blow, in 1725 the city of Tarki was devastated by the Russians. At the same time, the fortress of the Holy Cross was laid on Sulak.
In the 19th century, the Kumyks generally belonged to the number of peaceful highlanders, remaining loyal to Russia. Previously, the Kumyks were divided into many classes. They were headed by biys or princes, followed by a chanka or princely children from unequal marriages, then sala-uzdens or independent nobles, bridles or nobles who were in vassal relations to the princes, chagars or tillers, of which some were free, others were depending on the princes and bridles and paid them dues or cultivated their lands, and finally coolies or slaves.
In the 1860s, the dependence of some estates on others was destroyed, and representatives of the unprivileged estates were endowed with land on communal law. Kumyks were divided into a class of landowners - owners and people. Kumyks - all Sunni Muslims, lead a sedentary lifestyle.
Traditional occupations: arable farming (wheat, barley, millet, rice, corn), cattle breeding (cattle, sheep, horses), as well as gardening, gardening, viticulture, fishing, beekeeping, trade, salt, oil, hunting. Home trades and crafts: cloth making, cotton weaving, carpet weaving (traditional women's occupations), leather, metal, wood, stone processing (men's occupations)
The customs and mores of the Kumyks are generally similar to the customs and mores of other Caucasian highlanders, but they do not look at customs as an inviolable shrine and easily allow deviations from them. Reconciliation for blood matters is arranged quite simply and easily. Kumyks almost do not have kunakry, the influence of kinship is limited to two or three generations. The traditional views of the Caucasian highlanders on predation, as an act of youth, do not enjoy unshakable authority among the Kumyks. The main type of family is a small one with subordination to an older one (a man, less often a woman), although the family council plays an important role in solving important issues.
Traditional dwelling: ground-based turluch, adobe with a sloping gable roof and stone with a flat roof (one-story, one-and-a-half-story, two-story). Food: flour, meat and dairy dishes - shorpa (soup), khinkal (a kind of dumplings), kurze (dumplings), dolma , pilaf, barbecue, sauce, porridge, numerous varieties of halva, pies, scrambled eggs, bread, as well as drinks (airan, sherbet, tea).
They speak the Kumyk language. Dialects: Buynak, Kaitag, Piedmont, Terek, Khasa-Vyurt. Writing based on the Russian alphabet. The Kumyk song reflects the moral character of the Kumyk - reasonable and observant, with strict concepts of honor and loyalty to this word, responsive to someone else's grief, loving his land, prone to contemplation and philosophical reflection, but who knows how to have fun with his comrades . As a more cultured people, the Kumyks have always enjoyed great influence on neighboring tribes.
Gahraman Gumbatov
More than 10,000 kilometers separate today's Buddhist Tuvan from Tuva from a Karaite, an adherent of the Jewish faith, who lives in Trakai in Lithuania. An even greater distance separates a Muslim Turk living in Istanbul from a Christian Yakut from the banks of the Lena River in Siberia. At the same time, a Tuvan and a Karaite, a Turk and a Yakut, and with them a Kazakh, a Kirghiz, a Uighur, an Altaian, a Khakass, a Shor, a Tofalar, a Karachay, a Balkar, a Kumyk, a Turkmen, an Uzbek, an Azerbaijanian, a Gagauz, a Tatar, a Bashkir, a Chuvash, a Crimean Tatar, Karakalpak, Nogai are united by the fact that they are all Turks and they all have a common language - Turkic.
The Turkic peoples (now their number, according to tentative estimates, exceeds 200 million people) live on a vast territory from the Lena to the Danube, from Taimyr to the Persian Gulf, mainly in the same territories that their ancestors inhabited from ancient times. Modern Turkic peoples, despite the various historical vicissitudes that divided them many millennia ago, were able to preserve in their memory a common language and a common culture inherited from their common ancestors.
As you know, language is not only a means of communication. Language is the memory of the people. In the words of our native language, we preserve the history of the multi-thousand-year pre-literate historical path of our ancestors. And the spirit of the people lives in the language.
Language is, as it were, an external manifestation of the spirit of the people; the language of the people is its spirit, and the spirit of the people is its language - it is difficult to imagine anything more identical. Since each language inherits its material from periods of prehistory that are inaccessible to us, spiritual activity aimed at expressing thought already deals with ready-made material: it does not create, but transforms.
The desire to know the origin of one's people, its history, language, original culture is a natural need of every thinking person. It is not surprising that in recent years numerous works related to the origin of modern Turkic peoples have been published. Very often on the Internet in various forums people ask questions related to the ethnogenesis of the Turkic peoples.
The study of the role and significance of the Turkic ethnogenesis has been in the field of attention of Orientalists, perhaps, since the middle of the 18th century. However, it should be emphasized that until the recent past, the solution of these problems did not answer the direct question - how was the process of formation of the Turkic peoples.
Unfortunately, until now, scientists do not have a single opinion on any of the issues of Turkic ethnogenesis. So, for example, some scientists believe that the ancestral home of the ancient Turks was in Altai. Others place it in areas adjoining the Black and Caspian Seas from the north, others in Western Asia, and fourth in territories to the west and east of the Urals. Some scholars write that the ancestors of modern Turks were originally Mongoloid, others argue that the ancient Turks were Caucasoids. Some believe that for the first time the Turkic tribes appeared in Eastern Europe only in the middle of the first millennium AD, others write about the distant relationship of the ancient Turks with the Sumerians, Etruscans and American Indians.
In Soviet times, historical science largely, if not completely, depended on the ideological and other attitudes of the authorities, and therefore, in those days, it would be very naive to count on the publication of any objective work containing a theory of Turkic ethnogenesis that was different from the theory officially recognized by the authorities.
It should be noted that since the establishment of Soviet power, Turkology has been constantly under the close control of the authorities. It is no secret that with the beginning of the seizure of Turkic lands (Volga region, Urals, Western Siberia, Astrakhan, Caucasus, Crimea, Transcaucasia, Central Asia, etc.), the Russian Empire, in order to force the Turkic peoples to forget their past, obliged Russian scientists (and not only Russians) purposefully falsify the ethnic and political history of the Turkic peoples. As a result of this, the so-called "Altai hypothesis" of the origin of the Turks was created. Especially stubbornly and aggressively, this "hypothesis-concept" was introduced into academic science during the years of Soviet power. Any deviation from this "concept" was severely punished. Many scientists who disagreed with it were repressed.
The main theses of this official "concept" approved by the authorities were:
- the ancestral home of the Turks was originally located in Altai and adjacent territories;
- the entry of the Turkic language into the Proto-Altaic linguistic community (this included, in addition to the Turkic language, the languages of the Mongols and Manchus, as well as the languages of the Koreans and Japanese);
- all the current Turkic peoples, except for the language, have nothing in common with each other, since they are Turkic aborigines;
- the original Mongoloid nature of the ancient Turks;
- Eurasian steppes, starting from the 6th millennium BC. occupied by the "Indo-Europeans", and from the II millennium BC. - Indo-Iranians: Aryans, Scythians, Sarmatians;
- only Ossetians are descendants of the most ancient tribes and peoples of the Eurasian steppes (Scythians, Sarmatians and Alans).
In recent years, dozens of new books on the ethnogenesis of the Turks have been published annually in Russia, in which certain theses of the “Altai” concept are repeated without proof. It should be noted that most researchers dealing with the ethnogenesis of the Turkic peoples, unfortunately, forget that any theory, hypothesis, concept must be reasoned and evidence-based. More than 90% of modern studies on the Turkic peoples are, in fact, mostly rehashings of old publications commissioned by the authorities back in the Soviet era. So, for example, the main Russian “Turkologist-Altaist” S.G. Klyashtorny, who has been writing about the past of the Turkic peoples for about 40 years, and today continues to prove the validity of the traditional Soviet concept of the ethnogenesis of the Turks. In the book Steppe Empires of Eurasia, published in 2005, he again repeats, like a spell, the main theses of the official concept:
- “Eurasian steppes between the Volga and the Yenisei as early as the 6th millennium BC. occupied by Indo-European tribes of the Caucasoid racial type, those very “Indo-Europeans”, whose numerous tribes spoke the related languages of the Indo-Iranian language family, the Balto-Slavic language family, the Germanic language family and many other related languages”;
- “Numerous autochthonous tribes (Indo-European in Central Asia, Finno-Ugric in the Volga region, the Urals and Western Siberia, Iranian and Adyghe in the North Caucasus, Samoyedic and Ket-speaking in Southern Siberia) were partially assimilated by the Turks during the existence of the ethno-political associations they created, first of all, the Hunnic states of the first centuries AD. e., the ancient Turkic Khaganates of the second half of the 1st millennium AD, the Kipchak tribal unions and the Golden Horde already in our millennium. It was these numerous conquests and migrations that led in the historically foreseeable period to the formation of Turkic ethnic communities in the places of their modern settlement.
Doctor of Historical Sciences N. Egorov, also, apparently, trying to wishful thinking, writes: “Turkologists have long determined that the Proto-Turkic language developed in Central Asia, more precisely, in the regions of Transbaikalia and Eastern Mongolia. The primary disintegration of the Turkic linguistic community occurred somewhere in the middle of the first millennium BC ... The ancient tribes, settled at one time in the vast expanses of the Eurasian steppes from the Northern Black Sea region to Central Mongolia, until the turn of the new era, spoke various dialects of the Eastern Iranian branch of Iranian languages".
In the Soviet Union, where the colonial policy of the Russian Empire towards national minorities continued, it was difficult to expect the appearance of reliable works on the Turkic languages. It should be noted that in recent years, in Russia, some scientists began to publish frankly false articles about the Turkic peoples. For example, the representative of Russian science V. Makhnach writes: “Undoubtedly, there are peoples who speak Turkic languages. Is there a unity of the Turkic peoples? It is enough to look at the various Turkic-speaking peoples to see that this is not so. This is not true racially because most Turks are moderate Mongoloids with very little Mongoloid features (say Turkmens). But there are Turks - pure Caucasoids (for example, Chuvash) and there are Turks - pure Mongoloids (Yakuts and, moreover, Tuvans). Their external appearance testifies that the evolution of languages went one way, and the evolution of these peoples - completely different. However, the comparison can be made not only at the racial level, but also at the religious level. The majority of those who speak Turkic languages are Muslims (although there are various Muslims: both Sunnis and Shiites), while the Chuvash are Orthodox Christians, therefore, they will always be together not with other Turks, but with other Orthodox. The Tuvans, on the other hand, are northern yellow-capped Buddhists (Lamaists), and they will have unity with the Buddhist peoples, and not with the Muslim Turks. That is, the idea of Turkic unity, which some figures in our state and especially in Turkey are striving for now, is not based on a real ethnic community, or on a religious and cultural basis, and therefore, is Nazism - the theory of artificial tribal unity. Muslim unity is organic, and there is nothing negative in it. Islamic fundamentalism, in a certain sense, is also natural and organic. But Pan-Turkism is Nazism.”
Another Russian researcher K. Penzev writes that “even the Turkic-speaking of some ethnic groups does not give us the right to believe that they really were Turks. So, for example, Azerbaijanis who speak the language of the Oguz group are not at all Turks by origin. Azerbaijanis, Kazakhs, Uighurs, Turkmens, Kumyks, Karachays, Balkars, Gagauzians, Tuvans and others are Turkic-speaking, but this does not mean at all that they are all Turkic.”
It should be noted that such a policy of ethnic discrimination against former colonial peoples is inherent in many European scientists.
Here is what the Canadian scholar Klaus Klostermeier writes about this: “The regimes that were in power in the twentieth century instructed to rewrite history in the key of their own ideological views. Like court chroniclers of the past, some modern academic historians did not disdain tendentious interpretations of historical events, reshaping the past to order. When the peoples of Asia and Africa gained independence after the Second World War, local intellectuals began to realize that the histories of their countries were written by representatives of the very colonial authorities with whom they were fighting. In most cases, they found that "official" historians had dismissed all traditional accounts of the past as nothing more than myths and fairy tales. Often there were no native historians with academic training in post-colonial countries (or, worse, only local historians who accepted the point of view of their colonial masters), so dissatisfaction with existing interpretations of history often found expression in works whose authors lacked the academic regalia necessary to to impress professional historians. At present, the situation is gradually changing. The history of their countries is being rewritten by a new generation of scientists who grew up in post-colonial times and do not share the old academic prejudices, while properly mastering the tools of their craft - a deep knowledge of the languages used, an understanding of the culture of their countries, respect for local traditions. (eight)
Modern Russian authors who are trying to rewrite the history of the Russian people and their close and distant neighbors in a new way should from time to time re-read the classic works of the great Russian historians V.O. Klyuchevsky and S.M. Solovyov. I believe that they should always remember the words written by V.O. Klyuchevsky about the origin of the Russian state and the Russian people: “From the beginning of the 17th century to the middle of the 19th century. The Russian people spread across the entire plain from the Baltic and White to the Black Seas, to the Caucasus Range, the Caspian and the Urals, and even penetrated to the south and east far beyond the Caucasus, the Caspian and the Urals. The vast East European plain, on which the Russian state was formed, at the beginning of our history is not throughout its entire space inhabited by the people who hitherto make its history. Our history opens with the phenomenon that the eastern branch of the Slavs, which later grew into the Russian people, enters the Russian plain from one of its corners, from the southwest, from the slopes of the Carpathians. For many centuries, this Slavic population was far from enough to occupy the entire plain with some uniformity. Moreover, according to the conditions of its historical life and geographical situation, it spread across the plain not gradually by way of generation, not settling, but moving, carried by bird flights from region to region, leaving their homes and landing on new ones.
Russian political scientist Alexei Miller argues that “Many territories that today are perceived as eternally Russian are territories that were subjected to ethnic cleansing under the Russian Empire, from which the local Muslim population was expelled, first settled by Cossacks, then some peasants arrived there ... Interesting that Siberia until the beginning of the twentieth century was not considered a Russian national territory. You can read Chekhov's letters from his trip to Sakhalin. These are amazing texts, it’s just a cry from the heart: “Lord, how could it be otherwise, how non-Russian this land is and the people here are non-Russian.”
One can marvel at the courage of many Soviet scientists who, during the period of Soviet repressions, were not afraid to write the truth about the history and language of the Turkic peoples: S.E. Malov, A.M. Shcherbak and others. : “Western Turkic languages show that they have gone through too long and too long a life, they have experienced many different influences, etc. This could not happen in a very short time. All the migrations of the Turks from Central Asia, as we know (for example, the Huns, Mongol-Tatars, Kirghiz), did not produce in the west that linguistic influence and revolution in favor of the Eastern Turkic linguistic elements, which could be expected if there were no already established and settled for a long time Western Turkic languages.
There are also many objective and independent scientists in modern Russia. One of them is a young Russian researcher Dm. Verkhoturov. Dm. Verkhoturov writes that “Iranists unanimously assert that in ancient times (until about the middle of the 1st millennium AD) Central Asia, Kazakhstan and Siberia were inhabited by Iranian peoples. It is often claimed that these territories were the "homeland of the Iranian peoples." This version dominates almost undividedly in the works of the Iranianists. But, among its oddities include the following:
- Absence of relic peoples with the Iranian language in the designated area. Especially if it is recognized as the homeland of the Iranian peoples, it is extremely unlikely that not a single Iranian people, even in the form of a fragment, has been able to stay in their original homeland.
- If you believe the Iranian theory, then it follows from it that around the middle of the 1st millennium AD. The Turks "left" from Altai, quickly captured and Turkified the huge "Iranian world", and they did it so well that no traces and fragments of the old world remained.
Meanwhile, it is quite clear that the formation of such a vast Turkic world took millennia. There is a very definite archaeological complex of the steppe peoples, first of all, burials under kurgans in wooden log cabins, burials with horses and corpse burnings with horses, which in the archaeological materials of Altai are quite clearly connected by continuity with the culture of undeniably Turkic peoples. The beginning of this continuity goes back at least to the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. There are a number of circumstances that allow us to say that the opinion about the Iranian nature of the population of the designated territory is greatly exaggerated.”
The famous Italian scientist M. Alinei believes that “the Turkic peoples were the first to successfully tame horses and passed this innovation on to neighboring peoples. This is confirmed by the presence of Turkic borrowings in the terminology of the horse in the Finno-Ugric languages, the antiquity of which has been proven by specialists, and this implies the antiquity of the Turkic presence in Eastern Europe.
Until now, unfortunately, there is no special study devoted to the pre-written history of the ancient Turks. I tried to determine the historical ancestral home of the ancient Turks on the basis of a comparative analysis of modern and ancient Turkic languages, by comparing the results obtained with the data of archeology, anthropology, ethnography and historical materials.
© Copyright: Gahraman Gumbatov, 2018
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Kumyks of the indigenous population on the plains of Dagestan. Live broadcast is concentrated in seven districts of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic:. Khasavyurt, Babayurtovsky Kizilyurt, Buynaksk, Karabudah-Kent Kayakentsky and Kaytagskom in six villages in 'near Makhachkala and the cities of Makhachkala, Khasavyurt, Buynaksk, Izberbash and Derbent A small group of Kumyksa lives in ASF in the Chechen Ingush. Finally, some Kumyk villages are part of North Ossetia.
The total number of Kumykov after the census in 1959 is 135 thousand people.
Kumyks neighbor in the north - Nogais, in the northwest and west - Chechens and Avars, in the southwest and south - Dargin, Tabasarans of Derbent and Azerbaijanis. The territory inhabited by the Kumyks faces the Caspian Sea in the east. The most important rivers in the Kumyk water system are the Terek, Sulak, Uluchay, Gamriozen, Shuraozen, Manasozen and the October Revolution Canal.
The climate here is moderate.
Kumyk belongs to the northwest (Kipchak) of the Turkish languages and is divided into three relatively close dialects: northern (Khasavyurt), middle (Buinaksk) and southern (Kaitag).
The Khasavyurt dialect is based on the Kumyk literary language. The differences between these dialects are currently unclear - literary language is everywhere.
Before the Great October Socialist Revolution, Kumyk was divided into three groups, namely the dialectical division.
The first group consisted of the so-called inhabitants of the Kumyk plains (the space between the Terek and Sulak, Aksai Verkhnyaya Seda St., the Caspian Sea and Ostrog Aushov Salatovsk and the mountains.) - modern Khasavyurt, Babayurt and partially Kizilevrovsky districts. The main part of this territory was once part of the former Terek region.
The second group, which was the most important, was Shamkhalizm Kumyk Tarkovsky, who in 1867 entered the region of Temir-Khan-Shura in the region of Dagestan.
This territory is modern Buynaksky, Karabudastansky and partially Kizilevrovsky districts. Finally, the third group was represented by the Kumits of the former property of Kaitag Utsmiya, and then they were transformed into the Kaitago-Tabasaran region.
Now the territory of this group is Kumyks-del-Kayakent and partly the Kaytagsky district.
The eponymous name of Kumyks-kyumuk 1. The etymological meaning of his time was not violated. Some historians have associated this term with the geographical conditions of the Kumi residence.
Others compared the terms Kumuk and Cuman, i.e. Polovtsy. The Kumyks' neighbors called them differently in the past. Dargin - Jandar (etymology unknown) and dirkalants (ordinary residents), Avars - larigals (residents), Nogais, Kabardians of Ossetia, Chechens, Balkars - only Kumyks.
The formation of the Kumyk people began in the second half of the 1st millennium.
e. The decisive role in the ethnogenesis of Kumikov belonged to an ancient tribe - the regions of flat Dagestan. Together with them, in the formation of the nationality of the Kumyks, tribal tribes especially appeared, especially the Kipchak (half), whose language was perceived by the local tribes. The decisive role of the autochthonous population in the emergence of the Kumi peoples is confirmed by the main characteristics of the culture and way of life of the Kumi and anthropological data.
Soviet anthropologists refer to the Kumyks of a European type and talk about the anthropological similarity of the Kumyks with other peoples in Dagestan and oppose them to the Mongolian peoples.
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Modern agricultural agriculture of the Kumyks meets the conditions of flat and smooth construction.
Due to the fact that agriculture has long been the main occupation of the Gumi, people have accumulated a lot of economic experience and developed their own methods of agricultural labor. Kumyk was the first known triple system and artificial irrigation of fields.
Nevertheless, agriculture among the Kumyksi before the revolution retained relatively backward forms. For example, a more primitive system was used on the stand. The main working tools are wooden plows with lemeha3 iron (at the base of the additional cork), wooden dams, moonstones with stones (squid), sickles, etc. Weed weed made motif or special hands..; Mix the grain with the soil that previously reached the cylinder.
Iron plows, steam sprayers, seedlings, etc., which began to appear from the middle of the nineteenth century, were found only on farms and turrets.
Low agricultural machinery, lack of water for irrigation predetermined low yields. Despite all this, Kumyksi, unlike other peoples of Dagestan, barely used soil fertilizers. The average yield on irrigated fields in many areas did not exceed 4-5 per capita, on non-irrigated crops - only -3.
An important role in the organization of agricultural work in Kumyk in the past was played by mutual assistance from neighbors or neighbours.
These customs were called Kumyksi from Bulke (gathering, teamwork). There is a chop bull (sliced, i.e. weed harvest), orak bulka (oracle srp,
E meet the harvest), gabizh dei bulka (gabizhdey -…. maize, namely the payment for harvesting and processing corn), etc. Wealthy relatives often use this practice for work, promising poor families only the treatment of work in the family. Poor and weak farmers unite into two or three households, sharing livestock and agricultural machinery.
Such mutual assistance was called a partner. Often there is a need for the treatment of cattle and tools that the poor people plundered in the fists of murmuring.
The victory of the collective farm system opened up great opportunities for the growth of agriculture.
Thanks to numerous activities - the development of new lands, the planting of wetlands, the construction of channels, including the name Power Channel. October Revolution - Kumyk cultivated land has grown greatly. 4. The Kumyk regions have become large grains of the economy of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Most of the Kumyk collective farms are irrigated.
A widespread use system is provided that allows you to supply water to the right field of the field and not split it into separate parts with permanent channels.
On the basis of cultivation, in a large kumik collective farm, as a rule, the specialization was highly specialized, which is usually only grain.
Now agriculture is developing in several ways; However, the leading industry in almost all regions of the Kumyk cultivation of agricultural crops, in particular, the cultivation of cereals. Of the cereals, the first is wheat, the other is corn and barley. In some areas (Khasavyurtovsky, Kizilevrovsky) rice was also grown.
Kumyks are engaged in horticulture and viticulture.
However, in the past, under conditions of small scattered farms, where soil cultivation is carried out in a primitive way, horticulture and viticulture cannot develop significantly.
Mass planting of fruit trees and vines and the introduction of Michurin varieties, which took place only on the collective farm. Now in the Buinak district itself there are 2,322 hectares under gardens. Kolkhoz im. Ordzhonikidze (the village of Nizhnyaya Kazan) in this area has gardens on the surface of about 450 hectares.
In the pre-revolutionary period, horticulture and viticulture in the Kumyks had practically no commercial significance.
As a rule, fruits are stored, dried and covered in winter for their own consumption. They were partly replaced in neighboring villages with grain and other products.
To the extent that the collective farms have every opportunity to sell their products, the export of fruits and grapes, as well as the production of wine, has reached a wide range.
On their own vehicles, collective farms are exported to sell fresh fruits, grapes and vegetables. An important role in the economy of the Kumyks is gradually acquiring horticultural crops. Kumyks cultivated watermelons, melons, pumpkins, cucumbers, various types of beans, onions, garlic, peppers, herbs and so on for a long time. D. However, in pre-revolutionary conditions, the cultivation of this plant is not sufficiently developed.
At present, the sown area under it has grown significantly. In 1958, collective farms in the Khasavyurt district planted 1,362 hectares of vegetable and melon crops. In addition to long known for crops and new ones. Tomatoes, cabbage, eggplant, potatoes, etc. Based on horticulture, viticulture and vegetables, canned fruits.
Canarian products Khasavyurt and Buynak are among the largest in the republic.
The machines are widely used in all branches of the Kumyk agricultural holding. Its role in Polish agriculture is especially high when all the main processes are fully mechanized. Old agricultural implements (heavy cork, rubber plates, wooden harrows) were avoided by heavy tractors, combines, sprayers, planters,
Kumyks are also engaged in animal husbandry, growing large and small cattle. Much attention is paid to the breeding buffalo, which is valued as a strong working cattle and buffalo - for good dairy crops and high quality milk. In the past, animal husbandry in the Kumyks was poorly developed. The shepherd and the shepherd were full of suffering.
In which pasture increased housing and facilities for animals, veterinary and medical centers, etc. Winter kuta and summer pasture in the mountains visiting art Ensemble and amateur performances. trade organizations supply livestock farmers with food, cultural and industrial products.
Poultry, beekeeping and seroculture are also very important.
These sectors of the economy have existed among the Kumyks for a long time, and at present a lot has developed.
Kumyk collective farms have different vehicles. The main ones are cars that serve both the transportation of people and the transfer of goods. Wagons and arbads are also used to transport goods over nearby distances. Field barges used bidar, carts and riding horses. The use of motor vehicles became possible due to the large construction of roads carried out during the years of Soviet power.
New comfortable roads were created on the territory of Kumyka, connecting all villages with regional centers and cities of the republic, as well as the Kumykov lowland with the mountainous regions of Dagestan. Economic relations Kumyks is a very important railway route that runs from north to south through the coastal part of the Kumyk region and the Makhachkala-Buinakskaya line.
From year to year, the number of power plants in the Kumyk collective farms is growing.
Many settlements are fully electrified. In addition to their energy installations (many Kumyk villages receive cheap electricity from nearby cities - Makhachkala, Izberbash, Caspian Khasavyurt, Buynaksk, which allows charging some labor-intensive processes in the economy.
If before noon the main production unit was strictly gender and age division of labor, the burden of labor was on women, now the production unit has become a farm and its members in one very friendly staff.
The distribution of labor between women and men in collective agricultural teams arises from the appropriateness of using male labor in more labor-intensive work. Thus, the division of labor on the farm has nothing to do with the old. The principle of socialist payments ensures that the productivity of labor is constantly growing.
Socialist competition is becoming more and more widespread. The parties and communist organizations, which are the initiators of the most important companies, actively popularize the experience of advanced collective farmers and collective farms. It is known that among the collective farmers the names of the Heroes of Socialist Labor are known, who have achieved high production rates and are known for their disinterested labor force.
The growing public economy contributes to a change in the nature of the personal economy of the Kumyks.
In collective parcels, collective farms mainly grow vegetables and gourds, feed meat and dairy cattle. Personal economic income began to play a supporting role in the family budget, which supplements only the main income from the state economy.
In some villages (Kumtorkale, Kayakent, Nizhny and Zgorni Kazanchtsy, Andreaula, etc.), women spend their free time in the college with clothes.
They are woven like pile and drip carpets, saddlebags, etc. from carpet products, especially the famous Kumyks, the docked one-sided carpet, the famous Shumak. Decorative carpets, especially geometric ones, are very original drawings and paintings.
Northern Kumyks also produce carved carpets adorned with geometric and floral decorations.
In the past, almost every Kumyk village had its own masterpieces, many of which were known for their products in the Caucasus. The name of the master Bazalai from the village. Upper Kazan, which lived in the first half of the 19th century. The centuries have become a home.
This name came to refer to the blades he made, which were very strong. Upper and lower Kazan and Andreaul were forging centers. In these villages, as well as in Erpel is Kafir-Kumuk Sultan Yangi Yurt and other zlatokuznechestvo circulates and in which engraving, black, filigree and silver casting. In the XVIII-XIX centuries. century. in the villages of Erpel and Andreyale flourishing pottery, degraded at a later time due to the predominance of factory products.
In the environment of economic activity of the Kumyk, one of the main places is now working in the industry.
The first industrial enterprises in the Kumyk region were formed in the pre-revolutionary period (oil and fishing industries, processing companies for local agricultural raw materials). However, the total number of employees and the number of employees of Kumy employees was very small.
There was a very small proportion of the Kumyk population of the port of Petrovsk (now Makhachkala), Temir-Khan-Shura (now Buynaksk), the village of Khasavyurt (now the city).
In Soviet times, the situation changed radically. The transformation of Dagestan into a developed industrial-agrarian republic also affected the economic life of the Kumyk people. Along with the creation of powerful industrial centers in the rapidly growing cities of the republic, several industrial enterprises were built in rural areas, including Kumyk.
Kumyk is now an important part of the working class of Dagestan. A third of the Kumyk population of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic lives in cities and in workers' settlements. This fact clearly reflects the grandiose movements / events in the life of the Kumyk people for 1 Soviet power.
Kumyks`Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov`
Kumyks, units Kumyk, Kumyk, m. One of the Turkic peoples in the Caucasus.
Kumyks`Explanatory Dictionary of Ozhegov`
Ov, unit -yk, -a, m. A people belonging to the indigenous population of Dagestan. II well. Kumychka, -i. II adj. Kumyk, -th, -th.
Kumyks` Explanatory Dictionary of Efremova`
1) The people of the Kypchak ethno-linguistic group living in Dagestan. 2) Representatives of this people.
Kumyks`Small Academic Dictionary`
Kumyks`Historical Dictionary`
(self-name - kumuk), people in the Russian Federation (277.2 thousand people), in Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia. The Kumyk language of the Kynchak group of Turkic languages.
Believers are Sunni Muslims.
Kumyks`Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron`
-ov, pl. (unit. Kumyk, -a, m.; kumychka, -and, pl. to at m ych to and, -check, -chkam, and.).
One of the peoples of the Dagestan ASSR, as well as persons related to this people.
Small academic dictionary.
M .: Institute of the Russian Language of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR Evgenyeva A. P. 1957-1984 Kumyks
the people of the Turkic tribe, belonging to its Pontic branch, live in the Dagestan region, north of Derbent, along the coast of the Caspian Sea, and in the Khasav-Yurt district. and the Kizlyar department of the Terek region, between the river.
Terek and Sulak. Some believe that K. from ancient times occupied the coast of the Caspian Sea and were known to Ptolemy under the name kami, kamaki, Klaproth sees in them the descendants of the Khazars, and Vamberi (“Das Türkenvolk”, Lpts.
1885) admits that they settled in the places they now occupy even during the prosperity of the Khazar kingdom, that is, in the VIII century. With regard to language and way of life, all K.
presently represent one ethnographic whole, but this can hardly be said about their origin. Local legends, in connection with the many surviving ethnographic terms ...
Kumyks`Russian Spelling Dictionary`
kum\'yki, -ov, kum\'yk, -a
Russian spelling dictionary.
/ The Russian Academy of Sciences. In-t rus. lang. them. V. V. Vinogradova. - M .: "Azbukovnik". V. V. Lopatin (executive editor), B. Z. Bukchina, N. A. Eskova and others.
Kumyks`Modern Explanatory Dictionary`
Kumykin people in Dagestan (232 thousand people). In total, there are 282 thousand people in the Russian Federation (1992). Kumyk language. Believing Kumyks are Sunni Muslims.
Kumyks`Dictionary of foreign words`
Turkic people. tribe in Dagestan and other places. Caucasus.
(Source: "Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language".
Chudinov A.N., 1910)
Kumyks`Great Soviet Encyclopedia`
people inhabiting mainly flat and partially foothill regions in the Dagestan ASSR. The number in the USSR is 189 thousand people, including 169 thousand people in the Dagestan ASSR (1970, census). The Kumyk language belongs to the Kypchak group of Turkic languages. The believers of K. are Muslims. Ancient tribes participated in the ethnogenesis of K. - the natives of Northeastern Dagestan and the newcomer Turkic-speaking tribes, especially the Kipchaks, whose language was adopted by the natives.
According to anthropological characteristics and the main features of culture and life, the K. are close to other mountain peoples of Dagestan. The most significant feudal formation of K.
in the 17-18 centuries. was Shamkhalism of Tarkov. Socialist restructuring of the economy in the Soviet…
Kumyks`Big Encyclopedic Dictionary`
Kumyks are a people in Dagestan (232 thousand people). In total, there are 282 thousand people in the Russian Federation (1992). Kumyk language. Believing Kumyks are Sunni Muslims.
Kumyks`Fasmer’s Etymological Dictionary`
Kumykikumyks (pl.) - Turk. nationality in the east.
parts of the Terek region and Dagestan (Korsh, Ethnogr. Obozr. 84, 115), Kumyk near Avvakum (149, 151), also Kumyks, Khozhd. Kotov (circa 1625), p. 79 et seq., Karach. kumuk "Kumyk", Balkar. kumuklu (KSz 10, 121; 15, 240). Associated with the name of the Turkkumans; see Moshkov, Ethnogr. Overview 44, 16. Cf. kumanin. Etymological dictionary of the Russian language. - M.: ProgressM. R. Vasmer1964-1973
Kumyks`Explanatory Dictionary of Kuznetsov`
Kumyks`Soviet Historical Encyclopedia`
(kumuk - unit.
h., kumuklar - pl. h.) - a nationality inhabiting the plains and partly the foothills of the Dag. ASSR. A small part of K.
lives in Checheno-Ingush. and North Ossetian. ASSR. Total number K. 135 vol. (1959). The Kumyk language belongs to the North-West. (Kipchak) group of Turks. languages and breaks up into three fairly close dialects. Believers in K. are Sunni Muslims. In the ethnogenesis of K., ancient tribes took part - the aborigines of the North-East.
Dagestan and alien Turkic-speaking tribes, especially the Kipchaks, whose language was adopted by the natives. According to anthropological signs and according to the main In terms of culture and way of life, K. are close to other mountain peoples of Dagestan. The most means. feud. The formation of K. was the Shamkhalate of Tarkov. K. are employed in the collective farm with. x-ve, as well as in the industry (petroleum, chemical, mechanical engineering) as workers and engineers and technicians.
personnel. The national literature, art, theatre, music, folklore; grew national intelligentsia.
Lit .: Gadzhieva S. Sh., Kumyks. …
Kumyks-ov; pl. One of the peoples of Dagestan; representatives of this people.
◁ Kumyk, -a; m. Kumychka, -i; pl. genus. - check date -chkam; and. Kumyksky, -th, -th. K. language. K-th literature.
Great Dictionary of Russian language. - 1st ed.: St. Petersburg: NorintS. A. Kuznetsov. 1998
Kumuk (self-name) . The number in Dagestan is 365.8 thousand, in Chechnya-Ingushetia-9.9 thousand, in sowing Ossetia- 9.5 thousand total number more than 500 thousand people(taking into account diasporas in foreign countries).
Kumy plain and foothills of Dagestan. They speak the Kumy language (one of the literary languages of Dagestan). It has dialects: Buynak, Kaitag, foothill, Terek, Khasavyurt .
Literary language based on the Khasavyurt and Buynak dialects. Until 1928 they used the general Dagestan writing system on an Arabic graphic basis (adjam), in 1928-1938 writing in Latin, from 1938 on a Russian graphic basis. Believers - Muslims - Sunnis.
Tribes played a certain role in the formation of the Kumyks Cimmerians(before the beginning of the 7th century BC), Scythians (VIII-III centuries BC), later - Turkic-speaking tribes, etc. The first mention of the ethnonym “ Kumyks ”, found in ancient authors Pliny the Elder, Claudius Ptolemy.
The final formation of the Kumyks as an ethnic group took place in the XII-XIII centuries. By the XVIII-XIX centuries. on the territory of the Kumyks settlement, there were several political formations: the Tarkov Shamkhalate, the Mekhtulin Khanate, the Kostek and Aksaev possessions. The southern Kumyks were part of the Kaitag Utsmiystvo. A special place was occupied by the Tarkovsky shamkhal, who was called the wali (owner) of Dagestan, who had unlimited power.
Since XVII, close trade and diplomatic relations of the Kumyks with Russia have been established.
After education Dagestan region(1860, center - the city of Temir-Khan-Shura) the political power of the shamkhal and khans was actually liquidated: instead, districts were created: from the Kaitan utsmiystvo and the Taba-Shurinsky district of the Dagestan region.
Kumyks made up the main population of more than (60%) Temir-Khan-Shurinsky and Khasavyurt districts , and in Kaitago-Tabasaran district about 15% of the population. In the 2nd half of the XIX century. Kumyks were a relatively highly consolidated people with developed ethnic characteristics: the spread of a single endoethnonym, the regularity of trade, economic and cultural relationships, etc.
the process of ethnocultural consolidation eliminated the presence of ethnographic groups of Kumyks.
At the end of the XIX century. come out first printed books in the Kumyk language. Around the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th century The Kumyk language has become the language of interethnic communication in the North-Eastern Caucasus.
The Kumyk language was the official language of correspondence with the Russian tsars, representatives of the Russian administration; he studied in high schools and colleges Vladikavkaz, Stavropol, Mozdok, Kizlyar, Temir-Khan-Shura and etc.
From Avar, Dargin, Lak and Russian villages, 8-10 year old boys were sent to the families of Kumyk-Kunaks for 2-3 years, where they studied the Kumyk language. Since 1921, the Kumyks have been part of the Dagestan ASSR (since 1991 - Rep.
Dagestan). In the 1950s and 1980s, large-scale organized resettlements and spontaneous migration of highlanders to the plains led to overpopulation Kumyk plain m Primorskaya lowland which exacerbated many of the socio-economic and national problems of Dagestan.
Kumyks have become an ethnic minority, which faced the problem of preserving their ethnic identity. In the spring of 1989, the Kumyk, the people's movement "Tenglik", was formed, its main goals are the declaration of national sovereignty with other socio-political organizations and movements of Dagestan and the Caucasus.
There are other socio-political organizations of the Kumyks.
In the 1860s, the dependence of some classes on others was destroyed, and representatives of the unprivileged classes were endowed with land under communal law. Kumyks were divided into a class of landowners - owners and people. Kumyks are all Sunni Muslims. The customs and mores of the Kumyks are generally similar to the customs and mores of other Caucasian highlanders, but they do not look at customs as an inviolable shrine and easily allow deviations from them.
Approximately on blood affairs it is arranged quite simply and easily.
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Kumiki are people in Russia who live mainly in the north and east of Dagestan, between the Terek and Uluchay rivers.
Number 422.4 thousand people (2002, inventory). They speak in Kumyk; According to the 1989 census, 99% of Kumyks were considered their mother tongue.
Russian is spoken by 90.8% of Kumyks. The Muslims are immersed in the Shahi Mahabab.
They are divided into groups of middle, northern and southern groups.
K. Middle (Buinaksk) Kumyks joined the Tarkovsky Shemkhalat, as in 1867 - in the Temir-Khan-Shurinsky district (Pushkinsky Budaksky 1923) in Dagestan. Northern (Khasaviurty, Zasulak) Kumyks live on the Kumyk plain between Terek and Sulak.
At the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th century, part of the Kumyks of the patrimony, separated from the Tarkovsky Shamkhalate and Endireevskoe khanate, formed at the end of the 17th century, split into Endireevskoe, Aksaevskoe Kostekovskoe and being kept by Ulla-Bis.
Since 1860, we entered Kumyk, in 1871 - into the Terek region of the Khasavyurt district. The southern (Kaitag) Kumyks, included in the Kaitag Ulsmiystvo, since 1860 - in the Kaitag-Tabasaran region (1928 Kaitag canton, 1929 - remote).
47% of Kumyks live in cities (Makhachkala, Buynaksk, Khasavyurt, etc.). According to the census in 1926, there were 94.5 thousand people.
Traditional culture is characteristic of the peoples of the Caucasus (see the article Asia).
They are engaged in the production of agricultural products (wheat, barley, millet, rice, cotton, corn, corn), day, gardening, viticulture.
Bread was exported to other regions of the Caucasus, and from the 18th century moraines were supplied to factories in St. Petersburg. In the XVIII century, corn was sown (its seeds were brought by pilgrims to Dagestan, who committed themselves, so the name Kumyk was called Hadji).
We used landfill irrigation, land irrigation. Cattle, sheep and goats, horses (mainly Turkish steppe and Karachay mountain breeds) are bred, sericulture, fishing, beekeeping, salt production, trade (including Persia, Armenia, Azerbaijan), glazed ceramics, copper utensils, weapons and firearms, cotton and silk fabrics, goods, saws and smooth (dum, ruby) carpets, jewelry, saddlery and other crafts.
The main craft centers are Tarki, Kazanistan, Endirai and Aksai; in Zasulak Kumykidzhi they felt and felt.
Traditional women's clothing - T-shirts, trousers (shalbar) or wide trousers skirt (same) Dress - Swing (buzma, headband, arsar) with kleshonoy wing and folding arms or closed with a slit (Polshi) or inserted into the chest (KABALAN, osetinler ), with metal.
dog (kamal), sachet bag (chutkuu). Until the 19th century, surviving associated associations (Taipei, Kavum, jeans), the division into classes Shamkhalov (the name Shamkhalo is passed from father to eldest son, and older age of all kinds), Krymshamkhalov (Shamkhal heir), Bolsheviks, Karachay- beks (Karachi beks) chunks, nobles (Uzden fats or Ulla-Uzden, dogerek-Uzden simple Uzden) dependent farmers (Chagari molecules) freedmen (Azat), domestic slaves (up to 1,868 years).
It was atalivo, kunachestvo, neighboring help (roll, ortak). The system of expressions of Turkish belonging with elements of the Caucasus: the bifurcation-linear principle is combined with descriptive constructions for patriarchal relatives.
The generating type "Omaha" and the current accounting of generations, characteristic of foreign objects, are lost. Families are divided by gender.
Islam spread in Kumykia from the 8th to the 12th century. There are traces of the cult of the highest god Tengir, belief in demonic beings, cosmogonic and etiological legends, fairy tales (emaklar) and others.
© The Great Russian Encyclopedia (GRE)
A. Kumyk dyes in saryns. M., 1955
Some information about the musical music of the Kumyks // History of Dagestan. Makhachkala, 1976
M. Oral folk art of koumiss. Makhachkala, 2005
Chesnokov Alexey Nikolaevich
editor
Tarki-Tau is a natural monument, a unique mountain, standing apart from a huge mountain monolith. There are legends and myths about her. On its plateau and slopes there are many sacred places, ziyarats - Valikyz pir, Kyyrkyz-bulak, Lok'a, Kutlukyz-bulak, Sangyz and others, highly revered by the locals. Only mounds around Tarki-Tau and at its foot there are 542, many of which are known to the inhabitants by name.
According to beliefs, in the old days there was a ban on pointing a finger at Tarki-Tau.
The favorable location of the Kumyk plane between the sea and the mountains, on the one hand, contributed to the development of agriculture and animal husbandry, trade and crafts, on the other hand, subjected the inhabitants of the plain to terrible trials by fire and sword of numerous hordes of conquerors of antiquity.
But our ancestors survived these battles, moreover, they enriched their culture and knowledge with the achievements of newcomers and preserved their land for future generations.
The Kumyks speak the Kumyk language, which has its own dialects: Buynak, Kaitag, foothill, Khasavyurt and Terek.
In tsarist times, the Kumyk language was studied in gymnasiums and schools in Vladikavkaz, Stavropol, Mozdok, Kizlyar, Temir-Khan-Shura. And today, many of the older generation of Avars, Dargins, Lezgins, Laks, Tabasarans, Chechens speak the Kumyk language.
The Kumyks have their neighbors: Nogais in the north, Avars and Dargins in the west, Tabasarans and Lezgins in the south.
Before Russia came to the Caucasus, in the 18th-19th centuries, the Kumyk settlements were called the Tarkov Shamkhalate, the Mekhtulin Khanate, the Zasulak Kumykia - the Endireev, Kostek and Aksaev possessions, in present-day Chechnya - the Bragun Principality; the southern Kumyks were part of the Kaitag Utsmiystvo.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Kumykia was annexed to Russia.
After the formation of the Dagestan region in 1860 with the center in the city of Temir-Khan-Shura, local feudal lords: shamkhals, khans and biys were left without power.
Instead of the former possessions, districts were created: from the Kaytag Utsmiystvo and Tabasaran, the Kaytago-Tabasaran Okrug was formed; on the territory of the Endireevsky, Aksaevsky and Kostek possessions, the Kumyk (later - Khasa-Vyurt) district of the Terek region was formed.
Kumyks were the main population of the Temir-Khan-Shurinsky and Khasavyurt districts.
Now more than half of the Kumyks are settled in 8 rural administrative districts of the Republic of Dagestan - Kumtorkalinsky, Karabudakhkentsky, Buynaksky, Kayakentsky, Babayurtovsky, Khasavyurtovsky, Kizilyurtovsky, Kaitagsky.
Kumyks are the oldest residents of the cities of Makhachkala, Buynaksk, Khasavyurt, Kizilyurt, Izberbash and Kaspiysk in Dagestan. Some of the Kumyks live in urban-type settlements: Tarki, Tyube, Leninkent, Kyahulai, Alburikent, Shamkhal, Mana-skent.
Relatively large groups, numbering more than 22 thousand people, Kumyks live in the Gudermes and Grozny regions of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and the Mozdok region of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania. A small part of them are settled in the Stavropol Territory, the Tyumen Region of the Russian Federation, as well as in neighboring countries - Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.
The natural world of the Kumyk plane, foothills and coast is extremely rich and diverse.
The main rivers crossing the lands of the Kumyks are Terek, Sulak, Shura, Ulluchay, Gamri, Manas, Aksai, Aktash. Terek and Sulak bring water to the Caspian Sea, other rivers dry up in summer or are completely taken apart for irrigation.
Forest species composition is quite diverse: oak, hornbeam, beech, poplar, alder, elm, ash, walnut, cherry plum, dogwood. Of the shrubs, medlar, wild rose, hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel (hazelnut), blackberry, and grapes predominate.
The fauna of Kumykia is also diverse.
Wild boars, saigas, wolves, jackals, badgers, foxes, hares, hedgehogs, weasels live here.
The bird world is represented by field sparrows, pigeons, eagles, magpies, swallows, tits, ducks, geese.
In river reservoirs and the Caspian Sea there are various types of fish: sturgeon, beluga, sterlet, carp, carp, pike, kutum, bream, salmon, rudd, mullet, asp, pike perch, perch, catfish.
Here, catching herring and sprat has long been of great commercial importance.
Great attention of the state and the public is demanded by unique natural monuments associated with the formation of the cultural heritage of the people. These include the sandy Sary-Kum mountain, the Tarki-Tau mountain, the Talgin, Kayakent mineral and mud springs, the Agrakhan Bay.
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P. Kalininsky, Kirzavod and Yangi-Yurt microdistricts of the city of Mozdok in the Mozdok region) and in Chechnya (Grozny and Gudermes regions - the villages of Vinogradnoye and Braguny). They make up the second largest national minority in the Chechen Republic (after the Russians) and the fourth in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania (after the Russians, Ingush and Armenians).
503.1 thousand people live in Russia in 2010, of which 431.7 thousand people live in Dagestan.
The Kumyks are the second largest Turkic-speaking people in the Caucasus after the Azerbaijanis, while being the largest Turkic people in the North Caucasus and the third largest people in Dagestan. The territory of their traditional settlement is the Kumyk plane, the western coast of the Caspian Sea and the foothill regions of Dagestan.
| The subject of the Russian Federation | 2002 | |
|---|---|---|
| population | population | |
| Dagestan | 365 804 | 431 736 |
| Tyumen region | 12 343 | 18 668 |
| 9 554 | 13 849 | |
| 2 613 | 4 466 | |
| North Ossetia | 12 659 | 16 092 |
| Chechnya | 8 883 | 12 221 |
| Stavropol region | 5 744 | 5 639 |
| Moscow | 1 615 | 2 351 |
| Moscow region | 818 | 1 622 |
| Astrakhan region | 1 356 | 1 558 |
| Rostov region | 1 341 | 1 511 |
| Volgograd region | 895 | 1 018 |
| entities with more than 1000 Kumyks are shown |
The origin of the ethnonym "Kumyk" ("Kumuk") is not completely clear. Most researchers (Bakikhanov, S. A. Tokarev, A. I. Tamai, S. Sh. Gadzhieva, etc.) produced the name from the Polovtsian ethnonym Kimaks or from another name for the Kypchaks - Kuman. According to P.K. Uslar, in the 19th century. in the North Caucasus, the terms Kumyk or Kumuk were used to refer to the Turkic-speaking inhabitants of the plain. In Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia, only Kumyks were called the terms Kumyk and Kumuk. B. A. Alborov derived the ethnonym "Kumyk" from the Turkic word "Kum" (sand, sandy desert). In turn, Ya. A. Fedorov, based on written sources of the 8th-19th centuries, wrote that the ethnonym "Gumik - Kumyk - Kumukh" is a native Dagestan toponym associated with the Middle Ages.
In the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, based on the works of the famous ethnographer and specialist in the Caucasus Sakinat Khadzhieva, the following version of the Kumyk ethnogenesis was indicated:
The most famous Caucasian scholar Leonid Lavrov questioned the version of the "turkishness" of the Kumyks:Ancient tribes participated in the ethnogenesis of the Kumyks - the natives of North-Eastern Dagestan and the newcomer Turkic-speaking tribes, especially the Kipchaks, whose language was adopted by the natives.
Great Soviet Encyclopedia: in 30 volumes / Ch. ed. A. M. Prokhorov. - 3rd ed. - M.: Sov. encycl., 1969 - 1978
It is unlikely that the Kumyks were Turkicized Dagestanis, as some claim. Rather, the Kipchaks, Khazars and, perhaps, other Turks of the early Middle Ages should be considered their ancestors. It would be desirable to find out whether the Kamaks, who lived in Northern Dagestan at the beginning of our era, are related to them
The great Russian orientalist Vladimir Minorsky put forward his version of the origin of the Kumyks:
The final formation of the Kumyk ethnos took place in the XII-XII centuries.
On the territory of the settlement of the Kumyk people, there were several states, of which the most famous were the Kingdom of the Huns, Dzhidan, Tarkov Shamkhalate.
Anthropologically, the Caspian subtype of the Caucasoid race is represented among the Kumyks. This also includes Azerbaijanis, Kurds of Transcaucasia, Tsakhurs, Muslim Tats. The Caspian type is usually regarded as a variation of the Mediterranean race or the Indo-Afghan race.
Ancient tribes participated in the ethnogenesis of the Kumyks - the natives of North-Eastern Dagestan and the newcomer Turkic-speaking tribes, especially the Kipchaks, whose language was adopted by the natives. According to anthropological features and the main features of culture and life, the Kumyks are close to other mountain peoples of Dagestan.
Soviet anthropologists attributed the Kumyks to the Caucasoid race and pointed to the anthropological similarity of the Kumyks with other peoples of Dagestan, contrasting them with the Mongoloid peoples. As noted by the Soviet and Russian anthropologist Valery Alekseev, the Caspian type, whose representatives include the Kumyks, in Dagestan almost always appears in a mixed form, and therefore the peoples of central Dagestan cannot be included among the typical representatives of this variety. Regarding the Kumyks, he writes that they "have the darkest pigmentation, which, in all likelihood, indicates the intensive participation of the Caspian type in the formation of their anthropological features" .
Among the dialects of the Kumyk language, Kaitag, Terek (Mozdok and Bragun Kumyks), Buynak and Khasavyurt stand out, the latter two forming the basis of the literary Kumyk language.
The Kumyk language is one of the old written literary languages of Dagestan. During the 20th century, the writing of the Kumyk language changed twice: the traditional Arabic script in 1929 was replaced first by the Latin alphabet, then in 1938 by the Cyrillic alphabet.
The closest to the Kumyk language are the Karachay-Balkarian, Crimean Tatar and Karaite languages. .
The Russian language is also common among the Kumyks.
Believing Kumyks profess Sunni Islam. Most of the Kumyks belong to the Shafi'i madhhab, and some to the Hanafi. In February 1992, as a result of a split in the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Dagestan, the Kumyk Spiritual Administration of Muslims was formed in Makhachkala.
The Kumyks are a people of a settled agricultural culture. Traditional for them are arable farming, horticulture, viticulture, cultivated since the 8th-9th centuries. Historically, they were engaged in cattle breeding. The land of the Kumyks can rightly be called the breadbasket of the whole of Dagestan; more than 70 percent of the republic's economy is concentrated here. Almost the entire industry is concentrated here (instrument making, mechanical engineering, canning, winemaking, etc.). Developed rice cultivation, fishing. The bowels are rich in oil, gas, mineral springs, raw materials for building materials (glass sand, gypsum, gravel, pebbles, etc.). There are considerable recreational resources (the Caspian coast, mud and mineral springs of medicinal properties). Among them are hydrogen sulfide (Talgi), hydrocarbonate-sodium (Kayakent), chloride, lime, etc..
18th century European traveler Johann Anton Gildenstedt gave a description of the life of the Kumyks of that time:
Everyone is engaged in agriculture and some cattle breeding. Their grain crops: wheat, barley, millet, oats and mainly rice, they also cultivate cotton quite often, while silk is mostly only for their own needs. Fishing is more important to them than to other Tatars, and they facilitate their subsistence by catching sturgeon and other fish. Many Armenians live among them, in whose hands there is a small trade in supplies [necessary] for life - Kumyk products and other necessary [things]. Their dwellings and villages, like the rest of the Caucasian ones described many times, are from a light checkered building with willow wickerwork.
In the folk memory of the Kumyks, samples of the epic (heroic, historical and everyday songs, songs of didactic content (yyr'y), fairy tales, proverbs, riddles) and lyrical (quatrain song (“saryn”) and “yas” (mourning, lamentation) or "yas-yyr") poetry. In the pre-revolutionary period, Kumyk literature was influenced by Crimean Tatar and Tatar literature, and after the revolution of 1917, the influence of Azerbaijani literature increased somewhat. In the early years of Soviet power, Kumyk literature continued traditional themes: the emancipation of man, the spiritual awakening of the people, the fight against ignorance, etc.
Men wore thin tunic shirts, trousers, Circassian, beshmet and sheepskin coats, and women wore dresses, leather shoes, galoshes and socks, and the clothes were decorated with silver buckles, buttons, belt. “Polsha” dresses, consisting of a bottom dress made of thin plain silk and an upper dress made of dense fabric with embroidery, embroidered scarves made of fine wool and silk scarves - “gulmeldas” with a characteristic pattern. Modern clothes are mostly urban.
original text(Russian)
The distribution of the Caspian group of populations in Dagestan falls on the central, eastern and southern regions. In other words, it is represented among the Lezgin-speaking peoples, among the Dargins-Kaitags and Kumyks. However, it has already been noted that neither by the color of hair and eyes, which is lighter than in the Azerbaijani groups, nor by the size of the zygomatic diameter, which is noticeably larger than in Azerbaijan, can the peoples of central Dagestan be included among the typical representatives of the Caspian type. In Dagestan, this type almost always manifests itself in a mixed form, revealing either by pigmentation, or by the width of the face, or by both of these signs taken together, a certain approximation to the Caucasian group of populations. Thus, the territory of Dagestan is the periphery of the range of the Caspian type, and, consequently, the formation of the anthropological composition of the listed peoples is the result of a different degree of mixing of representatives of the Caspian and Caucasian groups of populations. This, apparently, explains the local differences in the anthropological type of the Kumyks, Dargins and Lezgin-speaking peoples. Kumyks have the darkest pigmentation, which, in all likelihood, indicates the intensive participation of the Caspian type in the formation of their anthropological features, some Lezgin-speaking groups are moving closer to the Caucasian peoples.
original text(Russian)
Languages used at present or in the past as lingua franca in the Caucasus
Azeri in Southern Dagestan
Kumyk in Northern Daghestan
Avar in Western Dagestan
Nogay in Northern Daghestan
Circassian in Western Dagestan
Russian across the Caucasus (since the second half on the 19th c.)
...
Until the beginning of the 19th century Turkic Kumyk, beside Avar and Azeri, served as one of the Lingua francas in foothill and lowland Daghestan, whereas in Northern Daghestan this role was sometimes played by Nogay.
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Returning to Moscow from the army, Nikolai Rostov was adopted by his family as the best son, hero and beloved Nikolushka; relatives - as a sweet, pleasant and respectful young man; acquaintances - as a handsome hussar lieutenant, a clever dancer and one of the best grooms in Moscow.
The Rostovs knew all of Moscow; the old count had enough money this year, because all the estates were remortgaged, and therefore Nikolushka, having got his own trotter and the most fashionable trousers, special ones that no one else in Moscow had, and boots, the most fashionable, with the most pointed socks and little silver spurs, had a lot of fun. Rostov, returning home, experienced a pleasant feeling after a certain period of time trying on himself for the old conditions of life. It seemed to him that he had matured and grown very much. Despair for an examination that was not consistent with the law of God, borrowing money from Gavrila for a cab, secret kisses with Sonya, he recalled all this as about childishness, from which he was now immeasurably far away. Now he is a hussar lieutenant in a silver cape, with soldier George, preparing his trotter for a run, along with well-known hunters, elderly, respectable. He has a familiar lady on the boulevard, to whom he goes in the evening. He conducted the mazurka at the ball at the Arkharovs, talked about the war with Field Marshal Kamensky, visited an English club, and was on you with one forty-year-old colonel, whom Denisov introduced him to.
His passion for the sovereign somewhat weakened in Moscow, since during this time he did not see him. But he often talked about the sovereign, about his love for him, making it feel that he still did not tell everything, that there was something else in his feeling for the sovereign that could not be understood by everyone; and wholeheartedly shared the feeling of adoration common at that time in Moscow for Emperor Alexander Pavlovich, who at that time in Moscow was given the name of an angel in the flesh.
During this short stay of Rostov in Moscow, before leaving for the army, he did not get close, but, on the contrary, parted ways with Sonya. She was very pretty, sweet, and obviously passionately in love with him; but he was in that time of his youth, when it seems that there is so much to do that there is no time to do it, and the young man is afraid to get involved - he values \u200b\u200bhis freedom, which he needs for many other things. When he thought of Sonya during this new sojourn in Moscow, he said to himself: Eh! there are still many, many of these will be and are there, somewhere, still unknown to me. I still have time, when I want, to make love, but now there is no time. In addition, it seemed to him that something humiliating for his courage in women's society. He went to balls and sororities, pretending to do so against his will. Running, an English club, a revelry with Denisov, a trip there - that was another matter: it was decent for a young hussar.
At the beginning of March, the old Count Ilya Andreevich Rostov was preoccupied with arranging a dinner in an English club for the reception of Prince Bagration.
The count in a dressing gown walked around the hall, giving orders to the club housekeeper and the famous Feoktist, the head cook of the English club, about asparagus, fresh cucumbers, strawberries, calf and fish for Prince Bagration's dinner. The count, from the day the club was founded, was its member and foreman. He was entrusted from the club with organizing a celebration for Bagration, because rarely anyone knew how to organize a feast in such a wide hand, hospitably, especially because rarely anyone knew how and wanted to put their money if they were needed for a feast. The cook and housekeeper of the club, with merry faces, listened to the count's orders, because they knew that under no one, as under him, it was better to profit from a dinner that cost several thousand.
- So look, scallops, put scallops in the cake, you know! “So there were three cold ones? ...” the cook asked. The Count considered. “It can’t be less, three…mayonnaise times,” he said, bending his finger…
- So you will order the big sterlets to take? the housekeeper asked. - What to do, take it, if they do not yield. Yes, you are my father, I had and forgot. After all, we need another entree on the table. Ah, my fathers! He grabbed his head. Who will bring me flowers?
- Mitinka! And Mitinka! Ride on, Mitinka, to the Moscow region, ”he turned to the manager who had come in at his call,“ jump to the Moscow region and tell the gardener to dress up Maximka’s corvée. Tell them to drag all the greenhouses here, wrap them in felt. Yes, so that I have two hundred pots here by Friday.
Having given more and more different orders, he went out to rest with the countess, but remembered something else he needed, returned himself, returned the cook and housekeeper, and again began to give orders. At the door was heard a light, masculine gait, the rattling of spurs, and a handsome, ruddy, with a blackening mustache, apparently rested and well-groomed by a quiet life in Moscow, entered the young count.
- Ah, my brother! My head is spinning,” said the old man, as if ashamed, smiling in front of his son. - If only you could help! We need more songwriters. I have music, but can I call the gypsies? Your military brethren love it.
“Really, papa, I think Prince Bagration, when he was preparing for the battle of Shengraben, was less busy than you are now,” said the son, smiling.
The old count pretended to be angry. - Yes, you talk, you try!
And the count turned to the cook, who, with an intelligent and respectable face, looked observantly and affectionately at father and son.
- What kind of youth is it, Feoktist? - he said, - laughs at our brother old people.
- Well, Your Excellency, they only want to eat well, but how to collect everything and serve it is none of their business.
- So, so, - the count shouted, and merrily grabbing his son by both hands, he shouted: - So that's it, I got you! Now take a twin sleigh and go to Bezukhov, and say that the count, they say, Ilya Andreevich was sent to ask you for fresh strawberries and pineapples. You won't get anyone else. It’s not there yourself, so you go in, tell the princesses, and from there, that’s what, you go to Razgulay - Ipatka the coachman knows - you find Ilyushka the gypsy there, that’s what Count Orlov then danced, remember, in a white Cossack, and you bring him here to me.
“And bring him here with the gypsies?” Nicholas asked laughing. - Oh well!…
At that moment, with inaudible steps, with a businesslike, preoccupied, and at the same time Christian meek air that never left her, Anna Mikhailovna entered the room. Despite the fact that every day Anna Mikhailovna found the count in a dressing gown, every time he was embarrassed in front of her and asked for an apology for his costume.
“Nothing, Count, my dear,” she said, meekly closing her eyes. “And I’ll go to the Earless,” she said. - Pierre has arrived, and now we will get everything, count, from his greenhouses. I needed to see him. He sent me a letter from Boris. Thank God, Borya is now at headquarters.
The count was delighted that Anna Mikhailovna was taking part of his orders, and ordered her to pawn a small carriage.
- You tell Bezukhov to come. I'll write it down. What is he with his wife? - he asked.
Anna Mikhailovna rolled her eyes, and deep sorrow expressed on her face ...
“Ah, my friend, he is very unhappy,” she said. “If it’s true what we heard, it’s terrible. And did we think when we rejoiced so much at his happiness! And such a high, heavenly soul, this young Bezukhov! Yes, I feel sorry for him from the bottom of my heart and will try to give him the consolation that will depend on me.
- Yes, what is it? both Rostovs, the elder and the younger, asked.
Anna Mikhailovna sighed deeply: “Dolokhov, Marya Ivanovna’s son,” she said in a mysterious whisper, “they say he completely compromised her. He took him out, invited him to his house in St. Petersburg, and now ... She came here, and this rip off her head, ”said Anna Mikhailovna, wanting to express her sympathy for Pierre, but in involuntary intonations and with a half-smile showing sympathy rip off her head, as she named Dolokhova. - They say that Pierre himself is completely killed by his grief.
- Well, all the same, tell him to come to the club - everything will dissipate. The feast will be a mountain.
The next day, March 3, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, 250 members of the English Club and 50 guests were waiting for dinner for the dear guest and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagration. At first, upon receiving the news of the battle of Austerlitz, Moscow was perplexed. At that time, the Russians were so accustomed to victories that, having received the news of the defeat, some simply did not believe, others were looking for explanations for such a strange event in some unusual reasons. In the English Club, where everything that was noble, having the right information and weight, gathered, in the month of December, when the news began to arrive, nothing was said about the war and about the last battle, as if everyone had agreed to keep silent about it. People who gave direction to conversations, such as: Count Rostopchin, Prince Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgoruky, Valuev, gr. Markov, Prince. Vyazemsky, did not show up at the club, but gathered at home, in their intimate circles, and the Muscovites, who spoke from other people's voices (to which Ilya Andreevich Rostov belonged), remained for a short time without a definite judgment on the cause of the war and without leaders. Muscovites felt that something was not good and that it was difficult to discuss these bad news, and therefore it was better to remain silent. But after a while, as the jurors were leaving the deliberation room, the aces appeared, giving opinions in the club, and everything spoke clearly and definitely. Reasons were found for that incredible, unheard of and impossible event that the Russians were beaten, and everything became clear, and the same thing was said in all corners of Moscow. These reasons were: the betrayal of the Austrians, the bad food of the troops, the betrayal of the Pole Pshebyshevsky and the Frenchman Lanzheron, the incapacity of Kutuzov, and (they spoke slowly) the youth and inexperience of the sovereign, who entrusted himself to bad and insignificant people. But the troops, Russian troops, everyone said, were extraordinary and performed miracles of courage. Soldiers, officers, generals were heroes. But the hero of the heroes was Prince Bagration, who became famous for his Shengraben affair and retreat from Austerlitz, where he alone led his column undisturbed and fought off twice as strong an enemy all day. The fact that Bagration was chosen as a hero in Moscow was also facilitated by the fact that he had no connections in Moscow and was a stranger. In his face, due honor was given to the fighting, simple, without connections and intrigues, Russian soldier, still associated with the memories of the Italian campaign with the name of Suvorov. In addition, in giving him such honors, the dislike and disapproval of Kutuzov was best shown.
- If there was no Bagration, il faudrait l "inventer, [it would be necessary to invent it.] - said the joker Shinshin, parodying the words of Voltaire. Nobody spoke about Kutuzov, and some scolded him in a whisper, calling him a court turntable and an old satyr. Throughout Moscow repeated the words of Prince Dolgorukov: “molding, sculpting and sticking around”, who consoled himself in our defeat with the memory of previous victories, and Rostopchin’s words were repeated that the French soldiers should be excited to fight with high-flown phrases, that the Germans should be logically argued, convincing them that it's more dangerous to run than to go forward, but that Russian soldiers only need to be restrained and asked: be quiet! From all sides more and more stories were heard about individual examples of courage shown by our soldiers and officers at Austerlitz. He saved the banner, he killed 5 Frenchmen , that one loaded 5 guns. They also talked about Berg, who did not know him, that he, wounded in his right hand, took a sword in his left and went forward. Nothing was said about Bolkonsky, and only How close those who knew him regretted that he died early, leaving a pregnant wife and an eccentric father.
On March 3, in all the rooms of the English Club there was a groan of talking voices and, like bees on a spring flight, scurried back and forth, sat, stood, converged and dispersed, in uniforms, tailcoats and some others in powder and caftans, members and guests of the club . Powder-coated, stockinged and clogged footmen in livery stood at every door and tried hard to catch every movement of the guests and members of the club in order to offer their services. Most of those present were old, respectable people with broad, self-confident faces, thick fingers, firm movements and voices. This kind of guests and members sat in well-known, familiar places and met in well-known, familiar circles. A small part of those present consisted of random guests - mostly young people, among whom were Denisov, Rostov and Dolokhov, who was again a Semenov officer. On the faces of young people, especially military ones, there was an expression of that feeling of contemptuous respect for the elderly, which seems to say to the old generation: we are ready to respect and honor you, but remember that the future is still behind us.
Nesvitsky was right there, like an old member of the club. Pierre, on the orders of his wife, let go of his hair, took off his glasses and dressed in fashion, but with a sad and dejected look, walked through the halls. He, as elsewhere, was surrounded by an atmosphere of people who bowed before his wealth, and he treated them with the habit of kingship and absent-minded contempt.
By age he should have been with the young, by wealth and connections he was a member of the circles of old, respected guests, and therefore he moved from one circle to another.
Among the most significant old men formed the center of the circles, to which even strangers respectfully approached to listen to famous people. Large circles were formed around Count Rostopchin, Valuev and Naryshkin. Rostopchin talked about how the Russians were crushed by the fleeing Austrians and had to make their way through the fugitives with a bayonet.
Valuev said in confidence that Uvarov was sent from St. Petersburg in order to find out the opinion of Muscovites about Austerlitz.
In the third circle, Naryshkin spoke about the meeting of the Austrian military council, in which Suvorov crowed like a rooster in response to the stupidity of the Austrian generals. Shinshin, who was standing right there, wanted to joke, saying that Kutuzov, apparently, could not learn from Suvorov even this easy art - shouting like a cock; but the old men looked sternly at the joker, giving him the feeling that here and on this day it was so indecent to talk about Kutuzov.
Count Ilya Andreevich Rostov, anxiously, hurriedly paced in his soft boots from the dining room to the living room, hastily and in exactly the same way greeting important and unimportant faces, whom he knew all, and occasionally looking for his slender young son with his eyes, joyfully fixed his eyes on him and winked at him. Young Rostov stood at the window with Dolokhov, whom he had recently met and whose acquaintance he cherished. The old count went up to them and shook hands with Dolokhov.
- I beg your pardon, here you are with my good fellow ... together there, together we were heroes ... A! Vassily Ignatich… very old,” he turned to the old man who was passing by, but before he had time to finish his greetings, everything began to stir, and the footman who came running, with a frightened face, reported: welcome!
There were calls; the foremen rushed forward; the guests scattered in different rooms, like shaken rye on a shovel, crowded into one heap and stopped in a large drawing room at the doors of the hall.
Bagration appeared at the entrance door, without his hat and sword, which, according to club custom, he had left with the porter. He was not in a fawn cap with a whip over his shoulder, as Rostov saw him on the night before the battle of Austerlitz, but in a new narrow uniform with Russian and foreign orders and with a St. George star on the left side of his chest. He apparently now, before dinner, cut his hair and sideburns, which unfavorably changed his physiognomy. There was something naively festive on his face, which, combined with his firm, masculine features, even gave a somewhat comical expression to his face. Bekleshov and Fyodor Petrovich Uvarov, who had come with him, stopped at the door, wishing that he, as the main guest, would go ahead of them. Bagration was confused, not wanting to take advantage of their courtesy; there was a stop at the door, and finally Bagration still went ahead. He walked, not knowing where to put his hands, shyly and awkwardly, along the parquet floor of the waiting room: it was more familiar and easier for him to walk under bullets on a plowed field, as he walked in front of the Kursk regiment in Shengraben. The foremen met him at the first door, saying a few words to him about the joy of seeing such a dear guest, and without waiting for his answer, as if taking possession of him, they surrounded him and led him into the living room. At the door of the living room it was impossible to get past the crowded members and guests, who pressed each other and over each other's shoulders tried, like a rare beast, to examine Bagration. Count Ilya Andreich, the most energetic of all, laughing and saying: “Let me go, mon cher, let me go,” pushed the crowd through, led the guests into the living room and seated them on the middle sofa. Aces, the most honorable members of the club, surrounded the newcomers. Count Ilya Andreich, pushing his way through the crowd again, left the living room and appeared a minute later with another foreman, carrying a large silver dish, which he offered to Prince Bagration. On the dish were poems composed and printed in honor of the hero. Bagration, seeing the dish, looked around frightened, as if looking for help. But in all eyes there was a demand that he submit. Feeling himself in their power, Bagration resolutely, with both hands, took the dish and angrily, reproachfully looked at the count who was offering it. Someone obligingly took a dish out of Bagration's hands (otherwise he would have seemed to intend to keep it like that until the evening and so go to the table) and drew his attention to the verses. “Well, I’ll read it,” Bagration seemed to say, and fixing his tired eyes on the paper, he began to read with a concentrated and serious look. The writer himself took the verses and began to read. Prince Bagration bowed his head and listened.
"Glory to Alexander
And protect us Titus on the throne,
Be a terrible leader and a kind person,
Ripheus in the fatherland and Caesar in the battlefield.
Yes, happy Napoleon,
Having learned through experiments what Bagration is,
He does not dare to trouble the Alcides of the Russians more ... "
But he had not yet finished his poems, when the loud butler proclaimed: "The meal is ready!" The door opened, a Polish rumbled from the dining room: “Thunder of victory resound, rejoice, brave Russian,” and Count Ilya Andreich, angrily looking at the author, who continued to read poetry, bowed to Bagration. Everyone got up, feeling that dinner was more important than poetry, and again Bagration went ahead of everyone to the table. In the first place, between the two Alexandrovs - Bekleshov and Naryshkin, which also mattered in relation to the name of the sovereign, Bagration was planted: 300 people were seated in the dining room according to rank and importance, who is more important, closer to the honored guest: as naturally as water spills deeper where the terrain is lower.
Just before dinner, Count Ilya Andreich introduced his son to the prince. Bagration, recognizing him, said a few awkward, awkward words, like all the words that he spoke that day. Count Ilya Andreich joyfully and proudly looked around at everyone while Bagration spoke with his son.
Nikolai Rostov with Denisov and a new acquaintance Dolokhov sat down together almost in the middle of the table. Opposite them, Pierre sat next to Prince Nesvitsky. Count Ilya Andreich sat opposite Bagration with other foremen and regaled the prince, personifying Moscow cordiality.
His labors were not in vain. His dinners, lean and modest, were excellent, but he still could not be completely calm until the end of dinner. He winked at the barman, gave orders to the footmen in a whisper, and, not without excitement, awaited each familiar dish. Everything was amazing. On the second course, together with the gigantic sterlet (on seeing which Ilya Andreich blushed with joy and shyness), the footmen began to clap corks and pour champagne. After the fish, which made some impression, Count Ilya Andreich exchanged glances with the other foremen. - "There will be a lot of toasts, it's time to start!" - he whispered and took the glass in his hands - he stood up. Everyone was silent and waited for what he would say.
- The health of the sovereign emperor! he shouted, and at the same moment his kind eyes were moistened with tears of joy and delight. At the same moment, they began to play: “The thunder of victory is heard.” Everyone got up from their seats and shouted hurray! and Bagration shouted hurray! in the same voice with which he shouted on the Shengraben field. The enthusiastic voice of young Rostov was heard from behind all 300 voices. He almost cried. “Health of the Sovereign Emperor,” he shouted, “hurray! He drank his glass in one gulp and threw it on the floor. Many followed his example. And the screams continued for a long time. When the voices fell silent, the lackeys picked up the broken dishes, and everyone began to sit down and, smiling at their cry, talk. Count Ilya Andreich got up again, looked at the note lying beside his plate, and proclaimed a toast to the health of the hero of our last campaign, Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration, and again the count's blue eyes were moistened with tears. Hooray! again the voices of 300 guests shouted, and instead of music, choristers were heard singing a cantata composed by Pavel Ivanovich Kutuzov.
“All obstacles are in vain to the Russians,
Courage is a pledge of victory,
We have Bagrations,
All enemies will be at their feet,” etc.
The choristers had just finished, when more and more toasts followed, at which Count Ilya Andreevich became more and more emotional, and even more dishes were beating, and still more shouting. They drank to the health of Bekleshov, Naryshkin, Uvarov, Dolgorukov, Apraksin, Valuev, to the health of the foremen, to the health of the manager, to the health of all club members, to the health of all club guests, and finally, separately, to the health of the founder of the dinner, Count Ilya Andreich. At this toast, the count took out a handkerchief and, covering his face with it, completely burst into tears.
Pierre sat opposite Dolokhov and Nikolai Rostov. He ate a lot and greedily and drank a lot, as always. But those who knew him briefly saw that some great change had taken place in him that day. He was silent all the time of dinner, and, screwing up his eyes and wincing, looked around him, or stopping his eyes, with an air of complete absent-mindedness, rubbed the bridge of his nose with his finger. His face was sad and gloomy. He did not seem to see or hear anything going on around him, and he thought of one thing, heavy and unresolved.
This unresolved question that tormented him was the princess’s hints in Moscow about Dolokhov’s closeness to his wife and this morning the anonymous letter he received, in which it was said with that vile jocularity that is characteristic of all anonymous letters that he sees badly through his glasses, and that his wife's connection with Dolokhov is a secret only for him alone. Pierre resolutely did not believe either the hints of the princess or the letter, but he was now afraid to look at Dolokhov, who was sitting in front of him. Every time his gaze accidentally met Dolokhov's beautiful, insolent eyes, Pierre felt something terrible, ugly rising in his soul, and he rather turned away. Involuntarily recalling all the past of his wife and her relationship with Dolokhov, Pierre saw clearly that what was said in the letter could be true, could at least seem true, if it did not concern his wife. Pierre involuntarily recalled how Dolokhov, to whom everything was returned after the campaign, returned to St. Petersburg and came to him. Taking advantage of his revelry friendship with Pierre, Dolokhov came directly to his house, and Pierre placed him and lent him money. Pierre recalled how Helen, smiling, expressed her displeasure that Dolokhov was living in their house, and how Dolokhov cynically praised him for the beauty of his wife, and how from that time until his arrival in Moscow he was not separated from them for a minute.
“Yes, he is very handsome,” thought Pierre, I know him. It would be a special charm for him to dishonor my name and laugh at me, precisely because I worked for him and despised him, helped him. I know, I understand what salt in his eyes this must give to his deceit, if it were true. Yes, if it were true; but I do not believe, have no right, and cannot believe.” He recalled the expression that Dolokhov's face assumed when moments of cruelty were found on him, like those in which he connected the quarterly with a bear and let him into the water, or when he challenged a man to a duel for no reason, or killed the driver's horse with a pistol . This expression was often on Dolokhov's face when he looked at him. “Yes, he is a bully,” thought Pierre, it doesn’t mean anything to him to kill a person, it should seem to him that everyone is afraid of him, he should be pleased with this. He must think that I am afraid of him. And really I am afraid of him, ”thought Pierre, and again with these thoughts he felt something terrible and ugly rising in his soul. Dolokhov, Denisov and Rostov were now sitting opposite Pierre and seemed very cheerful. Rostov chatted merrily with his two friends, one of whom was a dashing hussar, the other a well-known brat and rake, and occasionally looked mockingly at Pierre, who at this dinner struck with his concentrated, absent-minded, massive figure. Rostov looked unkindly at Pierre, firstly, because Pierre in his hussar eyes was a civilian rich man, the husband of a beauty, in general a woman; secondly, because Pierre, in the concentration and distraction of his mood, did not recognize Rostov and did not answer his bow. When they began to drink the health of the sovereign, Pierre, thinking, did not get up and did not take a glass.
The origin of the Kumyks and a brief summary of the history of this people
There is no single point of view on the origin of the Kumyks. According to the scholar Klaproth, they are the descendants of the Khazars, so famous in medieval historical chronicles; one of the Kumyk tribes is still called "Shezary". According to other scientists, the Kumyks are Tatars who have long settled in the Caucasus and transformed into a powerful tribe called "Kumyks" and "Kazi-Kumyks" (we will talk about these latter later).
When the famous Tamerlane appeared, the Kumyks submitted to this conqueror, as did the Mam-Kat tribes, as Sheref-ad-din tells, speaking of Tamerlane's last campaign against Khan Tokhtamysh. From this we can conclude that the Kumyks, who acted on the side of Tamerlane, may have been descendants of the Kipchaks or one of the tribes of the Golden Horde. Ptolemy mentions the Kama people, or Kamaks, who lived in those places where the Kumyks are now settled.
Modern Kumyks speak a Turkic dialect, which is different from the dialect of the Nogais; for a long time they profess Sunni Islam and, although in manners, customs, clothes they look like mountaineers, as a result of mixing with them, they consider themselves Tatars by origin.
The first contacts of Russia with the rulers of the Kumyks date back to 1614, the archives mention a certificate of loyalty related to this year, sent by Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich to the Kumyk Khan Girey and his brothers; the following year, another document is dated containing information about the subordination of the Kumyks to Russia. In any case, it can be assumed that even before that time, some Kumyk tribes were already dependent on Russia, in particular in 1594, when a city was founded near Koisu during the reign of Fyodor Ioannovich, as well as in 1604, when fortresses on the Sunzha, in Enderi and in the vicinity of Tarka.
In the same year, the Kumyks rebelled and, uniting with the Circassians and Lezgins of Dagestan, forced the valiant governor Buturlin to retreat beyond the Terek and leave the aforementioned fortresses. Nevertheless, the Kumyks continued to maintain friendly relations with Russia until 1722, when Peter I undertook a campaign in Persia; then the Kumyks rebelled again, they attacked the Russians, but were defeated and punished for their betrayal by plundering the settlement of Enderi, in which there were then up to three thousand houses. Since that time, the Kumyks have been loyal to our government and have been calm and submissive all the time.
The territory of the Kumyks is located between the rivers Terek, Aksay, Koysu and the Caspian Sea, which is its eastern border. To the north, it is separated from the Kizlyar region by swamps in the lower reaches of the Terek; in the west, it is located on both banks of the lower reaches of the Aksai to the fortress of Amir-Adzhi-Yurt, located on the right bank of the Terek; in the south it borders on Dagestan and areas occupied by the Salatavs, Aukhs and Kachkalyks. The southern branch of the Sulak River, called "Kuru-Koysu" (Dry Koysu), separates the Kumyks from the territory of the Tarki Shamkhals.
The greatest extent of the territory of the Kumyks from west to east, from the Amir-Adzhi-Yurt fortress to Cape Agrakhan, is 120 versts; from north to south, from the ancient Terek (meaning the old channel) to Sulak - 60 versts, which is a total area of 7200 square versts.
Once Gudermes was the western border of the territory of the Kumyks, it flows into the Sunzha fifteen miles above the place where it flows into the Terek. But when the Chechens descended from their mountains, the Kumyk khans settled some of them on their territory at the foot of the spurs of the Caucasus, between Sunzha and Aksay. The Chechens, who settled down under certain conditions, began to be called kachkalyks (six villages). Then, with the arrival of new tribesmen, their numbers increased, and although the Kumyk khans still consider them their vassals, in fact, the Kachkalyks, taking advantage of the weakening of the Kumyk khans later, regained their independence. Thus, the entire territory between Gudermes and the Amir-Adzhi-Yurt fortress can be considered as an integral part of the territory occupied by the Chechen tribes.
Rivers, territory and soil quality
The territory of the Kumyks is irrigated by such rivers: Aksai (White Water), both banks of the Aksai belong to the Kumyks from the old settlement of Aksai to the confluence of Aksai with the Terek. The streams Yamansu and Yaraksu flow into Aksai. The small river Kasma, or Aktash, crosses the central part of the territory of the Kumyks, it flows down from the Lezgin mountains, from the ledge of Salatav, and at the foot of the Khana-Kaitau and Saukh-Bolak mountains many small streams flow into it; when it flows into the Caspian Sea, it is lost in swamps. Left bank of Koi-su (Lamb Water) ( Koiyun - ram, su - water (Turk.) ) from the settlement of Chir-yurt also belongs to the Kumyks. Sulak and Agrakhan - two branches of Koysu - are rich in fish, significant catches are noted here.
The territory of the Kumyks consists mainly of vast plains, turning closer to the Caspian Sea into swamps; the southern part is mountainous, represents the spurs of the Lezgin and Dagestan mountains, known here as the "Tavlinsky mountains". Valleys and plains serve as pastures for numerous herds; villages are located near streams. The soils of this region are considered the most fertile in the entire North Caucasus. The climate here is warmer than in other areas located at the same latitude; grapes ripen well in orchards, in the forests there are many wild fruit trees of all kinds, and. finally, rice is cultivated in the fields. Both banks of the Koisu are covered with forest.
The lowlands at the mouth of this river are overgrown with reeds, but there are also fat pastures, with which this region generally abounds, as well as lands suitable for agriculture.
Kumyks are divided into three tribal groups: Aksai Kumyks, Andreevsky and Kostek Kumyks. In addition to the Kumyks themselves, the Nogais also live there. The Kumyks live sedentary, the Nogais lead a nomadic life, and all their wealth consists of numerous herds of rams. To pay taxes to their masters, the Kumyk khans, the Nogais earn the money necessary for this by selling sheep and wool; in addition, as a tribute, they give annually 2-3 sheep from every hundred. These Nogais are the remnants of the Great and Small Hordes of the Nogais, whom we have already spoken about above and will speak about later.
There are also many trading Armenians and Georgians on the territory of the Kumyks.
The main settlement of the Aksai Kumyks is Aksai, numbering 800 houses, it is located on the right bank of the river with the same name, 20 versts from the Terek and 70 versts from Kizlyar. The territory of the Aksai settlement belongs to five ruling families of the same kind, their names are Alibekovs, Akhmatkhankaplanovs, Eldarovs, Utsmiyevs and Arslanbekovs. The last family is the most ancient and once owned a small state subdivision of the Kachkalyks, who later became independent. Many Chechens and other highlanders come to the Aksai settlement to do business. The dwellings of the khans were once surrounded by stone walls with towers and adapted for stubborn defense. Opposite Aksai on the left bank of the river is the fortress of Tash-Kichu.
The main settlement of the Andreev Kumyks is Enderi, or Andreevka, a large village with 1,500 houses, 30 versts from Aksai and 90 versts from Kizlyar, located on the right bank of the Aktash in the place where it flows down from the mountains. The place is very picturesque, there are several mosques built of stone; the houses of the khans are also built of stone, they are surrounded by stone walls with towers for defense. The location of this village is very convenient: it is located between the Aktash River and its two tributaries - the Acha and Chumli rivers. Endery, one might say, closes the mountain pass. In the vicinity of this village there are also several convenient places that were used to build the Vnepnaya fortress to the north-west of Enderi on the left bank of the Aktash. This fortress is of great importance, as it guards the exit from the mountains and inspires respect for the Circassians.
The most powerful khan families in Enderi are Kazanalipovs, Aydemirovs, Temirovs, Alishevs, Murtazali-Adzhievs. About the emergence of the village of Andreevka (Enderi) they tell as follows. After the collapse of the Cossack army of Yermak, a significant part of the Cossacks, united by Ataman Andreev, took refuge in the Caspian Sea, where they engaged in piracy. Later, this ataman Andreev, with three hundred Cossacks, discovered the remains of an ancient fortified city; he stayed there with his comrades, strengthened the means of protection, and by this stay there he gave the name to the settlement - Andreevka (Enderi). In vain did the Kumyks and Highlanders try to drive them out, the Cossacks stayed there until 1569, when by decree of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible they were transferred to the Terek, where their descendants, called the Grebensky Cossacks, still live.
Until now, you can still find the remains of an earthen fortress opposite the village of Enderi on the left bank of the Aktash at its exit from the mountains - this indicates that the advantageous position of this place was noticed by those who once occupied it.
Before the Russian conquest, the village of Enderi was the main market for the sale of prisoners of war, which the highlanders brought there. We will return to this trade in a separate section.
Kosteki, or Kostyukovka, is the main settlement of the district with the same name; this is a large village of 650 houses, located on the left bank of the Koisu River, which abounds here with all kinds of fish; even Kizlyar herring (shamakhi) is found here.
The Kumyk khans of the Alishev family, who own the area, make the most of their income from fishing, which is mostly rented by Armenians and Russian traders. Not far from the village of Kosteki, sulphurous thermal waters were found. Dozens of different sources have been spotted on the territory of the Kumyks.
Kazi-yurt is located on the left bank of the Koisu, where the river begins to fork. This village serves as a transit point on the way from Kizlyar to Tarki.
Chir-yurt is located on the right bank of the Koysu, it is located on the ledge that the river forms, turning to the west; Chir-yurt is a transit point on the way from Enderi to Tarki.
The Amir-Adzhi-Yurt fortress stands on the right bank of the Terek and is the extreme western point of the border of this territory.
Population
Here is the population of these three regions: Aksai settlement - 8 thousand souls; Enderi settlement - 28 thousand souls; settlement Kosteki - 2 thousand 800 souls.
Total: 38 thousand 800 souls, which can put up 4 thousand 500 armed foot soldiers.
Ethnographic details
The Kumyk rulers occupy a place immediately behind the Kabardian ones and, with the exception of these latter, are the most prominent in the Caucasus. Persian shahs and Russian tsars once chose the shamkhals of Tarki among them, and the Aksaev khans still maintain family ties with the Tarki shamkhals and khans of Avaria.
Without exception, the entire territory of this region is the property of the families of the Kumyk khans. These khans have their own peasants who have passed to them by inheritance, but they do not dare to sell them, but annually receive a load of timber from each family and worker for one day during sowing, reaping and haymaking; except for this, the peasants pay no tax. The Uzdens, who have subjects, consider themselves subordinate to the khan in whose territory they live, but nevertheless they do not pay any dues, just like the peasants.
Peasants have the right to leave one owner in order to come under the protection of another. It follows that the richest khan is the one with the largest territory and the largest number of peasants. Uzdens and peasants are obliged to accompany their khan during predatory campaigns and to war.
Kumyk khans can marry the daughters of the Uzdens and even the daughters of their subjects, but in this case their children have no right to inherit. Khan's daughters marry only khans. Kalym is also their custom, following the example of other mountain peoples. The most revered khans have 2-3 wives, while the law allows you to have up to 7 wives.
All Kumyks are Muslims of the teachings of Omar (Sunnis). The clergy enjoys special respect among them, especially from the people; it is represented by two groups - qadis (there are only three of them) and mullahs. Qadis receive annually from every family in their district two measures of millet or wheat and one sheep out of every hundred; mullahs contain qadis. Those who have been to Mecca are treated with special respect, as in the entire Caucasus, these people are called "hajiis", or "pilgrims".
Internecine strife and quarrels are considered megkema - the church court, in which the clergy sit, sometimes there are khans.
The income of the khans is supplemented by the rent for the land, which is given to the use of the Lezgins, who graze their cattle there during the cold season. Taxes from transit trade also go to the treasury of the khan.
We have already mentioned the excellent quality of the soil and its remarkable fertility. The Kumyks grow mainly wheat and millet, preferring millet, which gives them excellent harvests. Everywhere there are fields sown with millet, crossed by numerous irrigation canals, called here “tatauli”. Barley is grown in smaller quantities; rice is also cultivated in the area where the Kostek Kumyks live. Vegetable crops, although they grow successfully here, provide mostly a small income.
The Kumyks are rich in numerous herds of cattle bred for wool; flocks of sheep and goats are sent to the mountains for the whole summer. Kumyks keep huge herds - several hundred horses each, their best breed is called "Chepalovskaya", it is very much appreciated in the Caucasus. Herds of Chepalov horses belong to the Aksaev Khan Kaspulat. A huge number of horses are sold annually to Russians.
Kumyk men are prone to laziness and inactivity; they are only slightly engaged in trade, which is mainly concentrated in the hands of the Armenians. Their women are more industrious and make excellent carpets called "burmet"; linen woven from single-color coarse cotton, and silk fabrics for own use.
In Kizlyar, Kumyks sell timber and firewood, as well as poles for vineyards. They extract salt from Lake Turali, located on the territory of Shamkhals, and exchange it for millet and wheat. The Kumyk khans maintain close relations with the Chechens, in addition, they have long established trade relations with the Kabardians and Lezgi tribes living in the snowy mountains of the North Caucasus.
The Kumyks are on the whole more civilized than their neighbors, and only surreptitiously take part in their robberies.
Like other mountain peoples, the Kumyks also sometimes give their sons to be raised by foreigners - atalyks. From the age of 7-8, the young khan offspring makes long horse rides with his guardian; the saddle is made in such a way that the child cannot fall. The boy, together with his atalyk tutor, spends whole days in the saddle in order to contrive to steal a horse or a cow; if he succeeds and the owner of the cattle does not immediately catch him, he keeps the animal for himself and the next day he can no longer hide his theft; if the owner manages to catch it, the thief must return the animal. Then he only feels ashamed of his awkwardness.
The custom common to the entire Caucasus - to give children into the hands of foreigners - pursues a political goal of great importance, since the atalyk teacher then becomes a member of the family of the legal father and these family relations extend not only to representatives of the same clan, but also to all representatives of the people, to which atalyk belongs, throughout the Caucasus, so that in the midst of the enmity that reigns between them, they always look for and find means to receive support and help.
Kumyks never go on military campaigns for a long time, like other highlanders, and are not absent from home for more than two or three weeks. They do not follow any order in the campaign, but gather in small groups, each of which follows its own leader. In the camp, they also settle down at their own discretion, without, however, moving too far from their khan. The latter is accompanied by a herd of sheep or several heads of cattle to feed the khan himself and his retinue; the rest are required to have - each their own - food supplies, which, as a rule, are a small bag of millet or wheat tied to the saddle. Although the Kumyks have a reputation as good riders and brave people, they are still nowhere near as brave as the Kabardians and Chechens.
Kumyks make their own gunpowder and weapons. Daggers made in the village of Enderi are in great demand throughout the Caucasus; they buy lead from the Russians.
There are some obstacles on the roads of this region: the rivers, descending from the mountains, spread over vast valleys, which are then replaced by swampy areas; most of the rivers have muddy and clay bottoms and can only be crossed by bridges. In addition, the whole area is indented with an incredible number of irrigation canals - tatauli, especially in the vicinity of settlements; finally, the forests found there are very dense and overgrown with thorny bushes, which makes them practically impassable, there are only narrow paths along which one cannot go far into the depths for fear of tearing clothes or injuring themselves. Forests cover a significant part of the lowlands and valleys.
On the sale of captives in the Caucasus
We have already said, when talking about the settlement of Enderi (Andreevka), that this place is famous for the trade in captives, and although this trade stopped there 20 years ago, as well as the export of slaves to Turkey, thanks to the harsh measures of our government, it will be interesting to consider some details concerning this trade, and to give some idea of how it happened.
The trade in prisoners was carried out in the Caucasus according to the law of war: they sold those who were captured in battles, and since the highlanders still live in constant friendship with some and in a state of ongoing war with other neighbors, there was always something to support this trade, which, apparently has existed there since a very long time. During the reign of Emperor Justinian I, the Abkhazians deliberately stole boys from their neighbors for sale in Constantinople, where they were sold at a very high price, in connection with which the traffickers literally flooded Constantinople with these victims of oriental voluptuousness, which then led to the prohibition of this trade by Justinian. At a later time, there is no longer any information that any mountaineers of the Caucasus themselves brought slaves to Constantinople for sale.
The custom of turning prisoners of war into slaves and selling them as property is not only very ancient, but also, in general, very common in many countries. Only with the advent of Christianity in Europe did this shameful trade disappear, with the exception of Russia, where this practice passed to the descendants of prisoners of war, known as serfs and serfs, who, before the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, were never mixed with peasants or even with bonded serfs; these two categories of the population were regarded in Russia as free. Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible, after the conquest of Kazan, forbade the peasants to change their place of residence and move from one place to another, as a result of which the slavery of the peasants gradually began to be established in Russia. But still, in the Russian Empire there is no primitive law that allows the master to sell his peasants separately from the land to which they are attached. Boltin clearly proved that personal slavery and the sale of peasants were established in Russia out of the habit of observing custom, which was later enshrined in law ( Boltin. Notes on the history of Russia Leclerc. T. 1. S. 328-337, 474-475; T. 2. S. 206-213.).
The small digression that we made about the former position of the Russian peasants explains to some extent what we observed on this occasion in the Caucasus, since, comparing the position of the Russian peasants with the Caucasian, we see that the demarcation line between the peasants and the yasyrs (slaves ) is much less obliterated in the Caucasus than in Russia. Although the masters of the mountaineers can also abuse the right that they have over the peasants, they can nevertheless sell them only if they want to punish them for some crime, for example, for theft, murder, and this is done with the consent of their neighbors and the khan to whom they obey; therefore, the bridles of this region very rarely sell their peasants, especially since, according to custom, this action is considered reprehensible.
Quite rare at first were cases when parents sold their children out of poverty or, more rarely, out of cruelty. However, as historical facts testify, some victims of parental cruelty were then able to reach a high position in the countries where they were trafficked - in Egypt or Turkey. Such examples are quite numerous. Sultan Barkok was of Circassian origin, he founded in 1382 the second dynasty of the Mamluks, called the dynasty of the Borgites, or Circassians, which ruled until the 16th century.
Part of the Egyptian rulers and many of the Turkish pashas were of the same origin. If we take into account what a fortune the amount of 100-200 ducats was for the highlanders, which they received for especially beautiful boys and girls, it is not surprising and understandable that such a temptation could not be resisted. In addition, fathers often sold their children in order to feed their younger ones and so that they would not be kidnapped by neighbors, which could always happen and was to be feared if the children were beautiful and well built. Nevertheless, it must be admitted, for the consolation of mankind, that these two sources of trade - the sale of peasants by their masters and the sale of children by their parents - were not the basis of the slave trade. This trade was carried out by other means, which we will now focus on.
During the strife between the two tribes, the custom allowed mutual raids on the territory of the enemy, which were carried out either in small detachments or alone with the aim of kidnapping people and animals in retaliation for the insults suffered; the highlanders call it "baranta". This civil war supplied many captives; the richest and most famous were ransomed by their relatives, the rest were sold or left as domestic slaves, in the latter case they were used in the household or worked as shepherds. These raids are still going on, and since the Highlanders can no longer sell their prisoners to the Turks, they sell them to each other if they do not want to keep them as their own slaves. Our captured soldiers were treated exactly like this: they were either forced to work as shepherds, or used to cultivate the fields, collect brushwood and other work.
Highlanders raided the territory of their Christian neighbors, especially Georgia. Their main task was to capture prisoners; their raids on the right bank of the Kuban and the left bank of the Terek pursued the same goal, and we have already talked about how they captured individuals and transported them to the mountains (see the section on the Chechens).
In Mingrelia and Guria, mountain princes and Uzdens obtained captives for themselves by the ram method and, in order to satisfy their passion for gold, even sold their own slaves. King Solomon I legally forbade the sale of prisoners in Imereti, and since the establishment of the Russian protectorate over Georgia, the Lezghins could no longer capture many prisoners in this country.
The secret abduction of people in peacetime from neighbors or even acquaintances was considered commendable for a brave mountaineer, so long as this theft was by no means known. Otherwise, retaliatory measures were taken and a blood feud was declared, which ended in the death of one of the two opponents. Quite often there were cases when a friend abducted his son or daughter from a friend in order to sell them in Anapa or Sukhum-Kala, and this theft became known only many years later, when fate returned the kidnapped to his homeland.
Thanks to these three sources, which we have just talked about, a large number of captives were obtained, who, passing from hand to hand, ended up in Anapa, Kodos, Isgauri, Sukhum-Kale, Poti and Batum for sale to Turkish merchants who took them to Constantinople. , and from there to Egypt and the ports of the Levant.
For Egypt, the most well-built men were chosen to replenish the number of Mamluks. The most beautiful girls were sold at a high price to the rich for the pleasures of the harem, and ugly or poorly built captives of both sexes were sold at fairly moderate prices as simple slaves for domestic and hard physical work.
Volney says that the price of men in Egypt changed depending on their nationality and decreased in this order: Circassians, Abkhazians, Mingrelians, Georgians, Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Germans, etc. The highlanders themselves adhered to approximately the same order, and , based on the physical strength, beauty and good physique of a person, the price of a captive decreased in this order: Circassians, Mingrelians, Georgians, Abkhazians.
Among women, preference has always been given to beautiful Circassians. The Mamluks did not marry Coptic girls, they bought their compatriots for themselves, but, according to Volney, due to the Egyptian climate, the Mamluks degenerated in the second generation, so the beys were forced for a long time to understaff this military militia with young people from the Caucasus in order to have a brave cavalry through which they could maintain their power. The French invasion of Egypt and later the betrayal of Mehmet-Ali led to the disappearance of this purchased militia.
Since most of the captives were too far from the shores of the Black Sea and sending them to one of the ports of this basin was associated with great difficulties, two large markets for the sale of slaves were arranged in the Caucasus itself, namely: in Enderi (which we have already mentioned above) and in Dzhari, the main settlement of the Dzhar-Belokan region, inhabited by Lezgins. It was to these two markets that the captives were brought, who were then bought by Turkish merchants and sometimes Armenians. From Enderi, the prisoners were transported chained in two by hand through the lands of the Chechens, Ingush, Circassians, along the Russian posts to Anapa. This path was made under the protection of a convoy with a sufficient number of soldiers and passed along secret paths. The carefully guarded women rode horses, while the men walked; on the road they were well fed to maintain their strength on the way. Once the captives were transported in this way from Enderi to the Crimea through the Kuma and Kuban steppes and Taman, from there they were taken to Constantinople, but this road was closed to them when the Crimean peninsula became part of Russian territory.
The Lezgins transported the captives from Dzhari through Georgia along secret mountain paths and through forests to Akhaltsikhe, and from there to Batum and Poti. In order to increase the number of their captives, they were divided, passing through Georgia, into several groups, one of which escorted the prisoners, and the rest scattered around Georgia in order to capture new captives. As a rule, they tried to return to their homes before the onset of winter, otherwise, if the cold season found them in Akhaltsikhe, they entered the service of the pasha of this pashalik:!, but with the condition that they would be allowed to raid Georgia, Imeretia , Mingrelia to kidnap people; they were never denied permission to do so. Thus, the friendly relations of the Lezghins from the Jaro-Belokan region and the Akhaltsikhe Pashalik were maintained to the death of Georgia, until its admission to Russia. These ties were completely interrupted only when Russia took possession of this pirate lair (Akhaltsikhe was taken by storm on August 15, 1828, the Jari region was annexed to the Russian Empire on March 1, 1830). At three thousand people, the number of slaves annually sold to the Turks in the ports of the eastern coast of Pontus Euxinus is estimated before the admission of Georgia to Russia. Later, this number was significantly reduced as a result of the fact that the highlanders began to encounter obstacles, passing through the military lines in the Caucasus and along this chain. This shameful trade finally stopped after the conclusion of the Adrianople peace treaty, according to which Russia received the possession of Akhaltsikhe and the entire eastern coast of Pontus Euxinus. Turkish ships approaching these shores from time to time for trade are in most cases detected and driven off or destroyed by our ships before they can receive cargo.
Having given some information about the sale of slaves in the Caucasus, we will say a few words about how this trade was conducted in Endery until 1818 - the time when General Yermolov captured this settlement, built the Vnepnaya fortress nearby and put an end to this trade.
The Russian government, which until that time could not completely prevent the sale of slaves in Enderi, nevertheless adopted several laws that tried to alleviate the lot of Christian slaves.
The inhabitants of Enderi, having bought the captives brought by the Chechens, Lezgins and other highlanders, sold them at the same place to the inhabitants of Kizlyar or took them to this city to sell them there on certain conditions that applied to all captives, whether they were Christians or not (Russians subjects were an exception).
A resident of Kizlyar, buying one of the prisoners, wrote down his name and the name of the prisoner in the city police and indicated the amount of the ransom. From that moment on, 24 silver rubles were deducted from the total amount annually as payment for the work of the prisoner, in addition, the owner was obliged to feed and clothe him; the captive remained in the service of the owner until the full amount of the ransom was paid. After that, the prisoner became free and could choose the way of life that he liked, he enjoyed all the rights of a nonresident settler. Thus, if his price reached 240 silver rubles, he had to work for 10 years to become free.
Most of these captives were Georgians, Mingrelians, Armenians, but there were also highlanders captured during baranta, or children sold by their parents because of poverty. Since the usual price of a prisoner was about 150-200 silver rubles, the prisoner received freedom after 6-8 years. This trade greatly enriched the inhabitants of Endery, and the inhabitants of Kizlyar also benefited greatly from this trade, as they took advantage of the current state of affairs in order to obtain workers for their vineyards for very moderate wages.
The problem of the origin of the Kumyks in Soviet ideology and historiography
Over the past century, much has been done in the study of the ethnogenesis and ethnic history of the Turkic peoples of Russia. However, the Marxist-Leninist methodology adopted by the communists after the establishment of their power in Russia and carried out for several decades "Leninist national policy" opened the way to various pseudo-historical hypotheses and shameless falsifications of the history of these peoples.
The favorite object of the communist ideologists and historians of this school were the questions of ethnogenesis and ethnic history of the Kumyks, according to Academician. A.N. Kononova, "one of the most ancient, Turkic peoples of the Caucasus".
To understand the reasons for this, it is necessary to make a short digression into history and understand the essence of ethnogenetic concepts that have grown, so to speak, on "experimental field" world-assimilatory "communist project" creation of a new Eurasian historical community in the face of the Soviet people and its regional specific subcommunities according to the Moscow Kremlin patterns.
The issues of studying the origin of the Kumyks in Russia and abroad have a solid history. Kumykia and Kumyks were included very early in their "scientific ecumene". Since the time of Adam Olearius, Evliya Celebi, Jacob Reinegs and M.V. Lomonosov, scientists have been interested in the origin of the Kumyks and their rulers. And since the beginning of the nineteenth century. This topic was paid tribute to by the Germans J. Klaproth, Blaramberg, the French Leon Cahen, De Guignes, the Englishman Arthur Lamley Davids, the Pole S. Bronevsky, the Russians I. Berezin, B. Lobanov-Rostovsky. In this row are our Devlet-Mirza Sheikh-Ali and Abas-Kuli Bakikhanov. In the future, domestic and foreign scientists A. Vamberi, Dzhevdet Pasha, R. Erkert, N. Aristov, I. Pantyukhov, P. Svidersky, Dzhamalutdin-Khadzhi Karabudahkentli and others contributed to the development of the problems of the origin of the Kumyks.
In many ways generally accepted concept in pre-revolutionary (before 1917-1920) historiography was the concept of the Hun-Khazar (Turkic) origin of the Kumyks and their language, supported by a solid source study and research base.
The repressions of the 30s almost completely eliminated the first generation of the national intelligentsia of the Kumyks, Balkars, Karachays, including historians, archaeologists, ethnographers, linguists, on charges of "pan-Turkism" precisely because they studied the history, folklore, language and national culture of their peoples, emphasized their historicity, ethno-cultural identity, heroic past, Turkic-genetic kinship and the need for unity and closer cultural ties between kindred peoples.
Although in the post-war 50s "Marrism" itself in science and, in particular, in linguistics, was criticized and rejected by Stalin himself, Marr's "concept" of the origin of the Kumyks, Azerbaijanis, Karachays, Balkars, Meskhetian Turks, along with the bogey of "Pan-Turkism" in the Soviet propaganda was revived and in demand, obviously, for the same political "nation-building" purposes. According to the logic of "neo-Marrist" historians, it turned out that neither the Turkic people in the Caucasus, but all "Turkicized" Caucasians (Avars, Albanians, Dargins, Alan-speaking Ossetians, Georgians and others) and little in common (except, of course, taken by them in "duty" of the native language) have with other Turks. What are the reasons for such "triumphal procession" Marrovian ideas in Soviet historical science? As we think, there were several non-academic, parascientific reasons, internal and external.
However, in the early 1950s, in connection with the well-known "dekemalization" of the country and the official course towards the approval of the Western European liberal-democratic multi-party model in Turkey, in the socio-political and cultural life of the country, Turkism, the main ideologist of which is the famous Turkish writer Nihal Atsiz (1905-1975). In these years, he develops vigorous activity in the propaganda of Turkism, which, obviously, was noticed by the USSR.
On the other hand, after the death of Stalin and in connection with the process of "de-Stalinization" there is a revival of the socio-political and cultural life of the Turkic peoples in the USSR, which, apparently, frightened the orthodox leadership of the CPSU quite a bit. In the 2nd Great Soviet Encyclopedia (BSE, 1955), published during these years, the following definition is given by inertia: "Pan-Turkism is a chauvinist doctrine of the Turkish reactionary bourgeois-landlord circles, which aims to subjugate all peoples speaking Turkic languages to the power of Turkey: The apologists of pan-Turkism, by falsifying history, tried to prove their thesis about "national unity" of all Turkic-speaking peoples and about their "racial superiority" (23, vol. 32, p. 13). From this it followed that Turkism must be fought mercilessly, especially against the falsifications of history, against the idea of the unity of the origin of the Turkic peoples.
In 1955, a collection was published in Moscow "Peoples of Dagestan", the materials of which were subsequently completely included in the collection "Peoples of the Caucasus"(M. 1960). Both publications, of course, were sanctioned by the ideological department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and underwent the necessary peer review. The section devoted to the peoples of Dagestan of the second collection was provided with an introductory article by the then First Secretary of the Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks A. Daniyalov, which gave the articles in this section the status of officially accepted materials. In an essay on the Kumyks, the then beginning historian S.Sh. Hajiyeva for the first time after N. Marr and, quite understandably, without reference to the genius of parascientific hoaxes exposed by the "leader of the peoples" himself, nevertheless reproduced his "concept" of the origin of the Kumyks. We reproduce in full a fragment of the essay related to the issue under consideration:
Nevertheless, it is clear that the position and argumentation of the above scientists in that particular situation of the dominance of ideology over historiography and the focus of Soviet national policy on achieving metahistorical goals could not be supported and developed. Moreover, they deserved to be condemned as "anti-scientific".
What goals and objectives were set for the developers of the new concept of the origin of the Kumyks? We can assume that, developing this "theory", Ya. Fedorov and his followers pursued a dual goal: 1) to justify the possibility of the Kumyks breaking away from the Turkic world and Turkism, and thereby inflict the second crushing blow on the Crimean Tatars, Karachays and Balkars after the deportation Turkism in the South of Russia and the North Caucasus; 2) "dissolve" the Kumyks in the new Dagestan community, and their history (and the history of the Turks in general) in the general Caucasian history or the histories of the respective territories.
Voicing the tasks of scientists-scientists in those years, one of the famous Dagestan historians wrote the following:
In fact, this meant not scientific opposition, but a political "sentence" to all those scientists (A. Satybalov, S. T. Tokarev, L. I. Lavrov, etc.) who "dared to have their own opinion" and did not share the "Dagestan" the concept of the origin of the ancestors of the Kumyks. For, according to the logic of our scientist, it turned out that their views, which did not correspond to the official concept, fell under his own definition "anti-scientific fabrications of modern ideologists of pan-Turkism". And there is nothing to say about Turkish scientists (their works were hardly accessible to Dagestanis, including this scientist himself at that time), they didn’t deserve anything by their mere belonging to the Turks (“unreasonable Khazars”, “filthy Polovtsians”) other than labeling "reactionary historians".
Thus, we can see that the Khrushchev "thaw" on the development of historical science in Dagestan, although it had a significant impact, practically made little change in the writing of genuine ethnic histories of peoples, including the Kumyks.
Local historical and historical-ethnographic works ("Derbent-name", "The story of a Kumyk about Kumyks", Tarikh-i Karabudakhkent va Kafkasia") were not in demand and were introduced into scientific circulation. The work of the historian A. Tamai's "Essay on the history of the Kumyks" (volume - 10 author's sheets) remained unpublished.
In 1957 were first published "Essays on the history of Dagestan", which again represented not the history of peoples, but the history of the territory occupied by the republic. The main purpose of the publication was to find an adequate past for this territory. They also carried out a direct or indirect ban on covering certain topics (the Khazar Khaganate, the national liberation movement, Turkism, etc.). "the idea of Caucasian Albania (Dagestan as part of Caucasian Albania), as the ancestral home of the ancestors of the Caucasian-speaking Dagestanis. And at the same time, in the "essays", quite in the spirit of the struggle against "pan-Turkism" and for many centuries, the tested channel of the previous Turkic-phobic negativist concepts, the role of the Huns, Khazaria, and all Turkic-speaking tribes was considered. Another scientific refinement, or "achievement" of scientists who were afraid to accidentally shake up the historical memory of the Turks, was only the idea that "in some sources under the name "White Huns" (obviously, from the fact that they are still called white in the sources. - K.A.) it is the local population (it should be understood: Dagestan-speaking. - K.A.) of the North-Eastern Caucasus that has become dependent on the northern nomads that stands out" (See: pp. 30, 31, 40). In the "essays" questions of ethnogenesis and ethnic history of the peoples of Dagestan were diplomatically bypassed. Another distinctive feature of the "essays" was that the ethnically impersonal "peoples of Dagestan" ".
At the end of the 70s, based on the revision of "Essays on History", an academic four-volume book was published "History of Dagestan" (M. 1967). In terms of showing the ethnic history of the peoples of the republic, it also did not give anything new, rather, on the contrary - in some respects in this work, a step was taken backward in comparison with the "Essays", which, for all their shortcomings, were still the brainchild of the "thaw". In the publication, historical events, as before, were mainly adjusted to the all-union scheme, national and regional features were not revealed. As an exception, perhaps, one can consider the work "Kumyks" by S. Sh. Gadzhiyeva. For that time, the very fact of generalizing the aggregate material about individual peoples was of great importance, despite the vulnerability of some methodological positions, and especially on the problem of the ethnogenesis of the Kumyks (more on this below).
Perhaps, in the same row, it should be noted the first edition of the ethnographic essay by the Kumyk historian of the 19th century, carried out by S. Sh. Gadzhiyeva. Devlet Mirza Sheikh Ali "The story of a Kumyk about Kumyks"(M.-la. 1993), as well as the edition (the same for the first time since the edition of 1896) "Derbent-name" Mukhammat Avabi Aktashly, carried out in 1992 by the orientalist G. M.-R. Orazaev. Earlier, he himself published the text of this historical work with comments in the Kumyk literary and art magazine "Tang-Cholpan".
Nevertheless, these works, with all their inevitable errors and shortcomings, in their totality, nevertheless seriously shook the positions of Dagestan historians ("Marrists") and made it possible to comprehend in a fundamentally new way, more voluminously and adequately look at the ethnogenesis and ethnic history of the Kumyks. In fact, as a result of the efforts of the primordially national Kumyk intelligentsia, which had revived by this period, by the 70-80s, the phenomenon of Turkism arose (revived) in the public mind, if you like, its variety - Kumykism. But a completely different topic that requires separate consideration.
What is this concept today, and on what main provisions is it based? Briefly, its essence is as follows.
According to one hypothesis existing in Dagestan studies, on the territory of Kumykia, that is, the present lowland Dagestan, starting from the 7th century. BC e. and until the 11th-13th centuries, supposedly ancient Dagestan tribes were settled, speaking related languages, by which ancient sources already meant "legs" and "gels". Only later, mainly in connection with the penetration and dominance in Northern Dagestan in the 11th-13th centuries. Kipchaks, here - as a result of the linguistic assimilation of the Dargin-speaking ("Gela") population in the south (S. Sh. Gadzhieva, G. S. Fedorov-Guseinov) and the Avar-speaking ("Legi") in the north (O. M. Davudov) - the modern Turkic Kumyk people arose.
This concept consists of several main provisions, namely: 1) total Caucasian speaking ancient and early medieval settled population of Kumykia, i.e. flat Dagestan; 2) the first and permanent inhabitants in the territory of the North-Eastern Caucasus from the primitive communal system are Dagestan-speaking tribes (the authors of such a "discovery" were ridiculed by the Kumyk prose writer H.I. kumycosaurs); 3) alienation all foreign-speaking (Scythians, Sarmatians, Turks) tribes in the North-Eastern Caucasus; 4) the Mongoloid nature of all Turks (Hunno-Bulgars, Khazars, Polovtsy and others) in their anthropological type; 5) Turkishization (deethnization) the supposedly Caucasian-speaking autochthonous population of the plains and foothills that dominated here; 6) the Kipchak-speaking Turkic tribes, who played a decisive role in the Turkification of the Caucasian-speaking ancestors of the Kumyks, first penetrated the North Caucasus only in the 11th-12th centuries; 7) denial of the existence of an ethnonym "kumuk" before the sixteenth century. and its construction to the name of the settlement Kumukh in the current Laksky district of Dagestan.
If, in fact, this concept is a mechanical combination of these separate provisions without a detailed analysis of all available historical facts that are not consistent with this concept, without taking into account linguistic and onomastic data, and most importantly, without determining the ethnic composition of the population, ethnic components and their correlation in the ethnogenesis of the Kumyks in various historical periods and without a specific historical periodization of the ethnogenetic process that led to the formation of the Kumyk early feudal people and its language.
We will not dwell on these provisions in detail, because for each of them there are many counterarguments. However, let us briefly present the arguments pointing to the inconsistency of this seemingly recognized concept.
From here it is not difficult to notice that the thesis about the Turkicness of the Kumyks "sags" in the air. It is known that the main language thesaurus is usually inherited from the language of the component that was leading and decisive in the ethnogenesis of a given ethnos. The Kumyks are originally a Turkic people, in whose ethnogenesis the Turkic component was the leading and decisive one. For this reason, the Kumyk language is the closest of the Turkic languages to the ancient Turkic language. In the Kumyk language, its grammatical structure and the main vocabulary are the development of the heritage received from the base language of the ancient Turkic tribes of the first centuries of our era, until the beginning of their intense dialectal divergence.
Thus, the Caucasoid nature of the Kumyks by anthropological type is not an argument against their Turkic affiliation.
And finally about the thesis of the alienity of the Turks, with which the supporters of the concept we are criticizing like to speculate, accusing their opponents, who insist on the Turkic origin of the Kumyks, of almost “undermining” the ethnic roots of the Kumyk people in their “original lands”. Dagestan scholars are right that the Kumyks are indeed a local, autochthonous people. And you have to agree with them. But, agreeing with them, it should be said that the Kumyks, in addition to this, are also originally a Turkic people in the Caucasus.
It is also generally recognized that the Dagestan-speaking peoples themselves are "newcomers" (from Western Asia) on the territory of Dagestan. In addition, these opponents should take into account that According to international law, indigenous peoples are those who lived in a certain territory before the beginning of the colonial era in the 15th century. As you can see, civilized societies do not consider it necessary to lower the problem of "originality" deeper than this date - a matter, you see, in vain. I'll give you an example. In ancient times, the Celtic language was spoken in France, but the ancient Romans captured this territory and the local language became Latin. The modern French language was formed on the basis of Latin. Then the Frankish tribes captured the territory, the name of the country changed. England in the eleventh century captured by the Normans. But, in turn, the Anglo-Saxons, their predecessors, were also conquerors, because Celtic tribes lived there before them. So, which of them should be considered non-native, "eternal" Englishmen? Let's take our own story. In the first centuries of our era, the Scythian-Sarmatian tribes dominated the North-Western Caspian Sea and the North Caucasus, then dominance alternately passed to the Turkic (Hunnic, Hun-Bulgarian, Khazar, Kipchak) tribes, which, as you know, were "builders of steppe empires", settled and equipped for centuries, considering "Eternal Turkic El", a vast geographic space of Eurasia from Altai to the Danube. So can they be considered "alien" in Eurasia? Where is their original "own" land? In any case, not only in Altai and not only in the North-Eastern Caucasus. Therefore, it is preferable for our historians to talk about the homeland of the Turks, including the ancestors of the Kumyks, not with the size of several hectares of kutans, leased from ancient times by Shauhal Tarkovsky, but about the vast historical ethno-area between the Danube, Crimea, Temir Kapu (Derbent), the Volga, Middle Asia and Altai. After all, it is well known that the thesis about "alienity" was invented not for good purposes, but to justify someone's expansionist plans.
Thus, a critical analysis of the above concept of the Kumyks leads us to the conclusion that it is not suitable for explaining the ethnogenesis of the Kumyks. Moreover, this concept excludes from the ethnic process on the territory of the lowland Dagestan not only the proto-Turkic tribes, but also the Scythians and Sarmatians, who undoubtedly played an important role in the ethnogenetic processes throughout the North Caucasus and, as scientific research has irrefutably established, were partly Turkic-speaking.
It is this proto-Turkic ethnic core that should be considered the original ancient component of the Kumyks, which later, in the early Middle Ages, consolidating with the new wave of Turks who penetrated here, laid the foundation for the formation of the Kumyk people. It is clear that if there had not been such a Turkic core here already in the first centuries AD. e., the "Huns of Attila" could not have been here already in the III-IV centuries. to consolidate and create the first well-known Turkic state formation in the entire Caucasus and Western Asia - the Caucasian Hunnia.
Summarizing, it should be noted that the French geographer Albert Sorel at the beginning of the past century wrote that the twentieth century began with the discovery of the Turks in history and geographical poles in science. By analogy, it can be said that for the Kumyks the 20th century began with their active involvement in the movement of the all-Turkic cultural revenge and the triumphal march of the new method (usul-i dzhedid) education among the Kumyks (as a result, as the 1926 census shows, they were the most literate people in the Northern Caucasus), book printing and the wide dissemination of book culture among the population. This century ended after 70 years of their wandering on the paths of achieving the ephemeral triumph of the "kingdom of freedom" (socialism) return to Turkism and the revival of their original ethno-civilizational identity... This is a difficult and long way of self-preservation and self-renewal. But it is followed by all the peoples who want to be "not only well-fed, but eternal" (Ch. Aitmatov).
For the uninitiated, the confrontation between the two currents in the study of ethnogenesis and ethnic history of the Kumyks, perhaps, remains a mystery: opinions are expressed that all this is “from the evil one” and an unnecessary waste of time, because in Dagestan and wider in Russia a “divorce” of ideology and historiography is hardly achievable . But one thing is clear: there is a struggle going on between the nationally self-conscious part of our scientific intelligentsia and the ideologically biased group of traditionalist scientists who, as they say, came out of Stalin's "overcoat". It is clear that behind the ideological confrontation is the desire of scientists who think in a new way to change the national self-consciousness of the people through the transformation of their historical consciousness, in the past period, in favor of world-assimilatory projects, subjected to severe deformation. They are well aware that if the ethnogenetic constructions of the "neo-Marrists" continue to dominate in the coverage of the origin and ethnic history of the Kumyks, then their people will inevitably de-ethnicize, perhaps forever losing their original Turkic identity and ethnic self-consciousness. We all need to realize this very clearly and realizing it with all our might to counteract it.
These Marrovian "utopias" had profoundly negative consequences for the Kumyk national self-consciousness. Moreover, they had a negative impact on the spiritual state of the people, negatively influenced not only the study of the issues of their origin, but also the coverage of the stages in the development of history and culture. They led to the deheroization of their glorious ancestors, breaking the connection between times and generations, introducing the image "unreasonable Khazars", "filthy Polovtsy", the image of "predatory conqueror and destroyer of civilizations". All these falsifications of the ethnic history of the Kumyks, especially the false, tendentious etymologies of their self-name, the search for and "suggesting" them of other people's ancestors and genealogies, preventing the development of their truly national self-consciousness, inspires a certain part of the Kumyks with complexes of inferiority and inferiority.
