Bashkirs

“ By mode of life the Bashkirs are divided into settled and nomadic. The former are engaged in agriculture, cattle-rearing and bee-keeping, and live without want. The nomadic portion is subdivided, according to the districts in which they wander, into those of the mountains and those of the steppes. ”

“ The southern portion of the Altaic mountains has long been inhabited by the Bashkirs, a race considerably mixed with Mongolic blood, savage and ignorant, subjects of Russia, and Mohammedans by faith. Their land is divided into four Roads, called the Roads of Siberia, of Kasan, of Nogai, and of Osa, a place on the Kama. Among the Bashkirs, and in villages [pg 304] near Ufa, is now settled a Turkish tribe, the Mescheräks who formerly lived near the Volga.
The tribes near the Lake of Aral are called Kara-Kalpak. They are subject partly to Russia, partly to the Khans of Khiva. ”

“ This confirms the notion that the division into tribes and sub-tribes may have been less Majiar and more Turk than it seems to be.
The Bashkirs of Hungary are a difficult population. In the thirteenth century, the Arabian writer Jakut, writes that he found in the city of Aleppo some florid-faced Mahometans, who were called Bashkirs, and came from Hungary.
Now, the present Bashkirs are the occupants of those parts beyond the Uralian Mountains from which the Majiars came: their language being Turk. ”

“ Why is Bailogorsk not safe? Thank God, we have lived in it for two-and-twenty years! We have seen Bashkirs and Kirghises; perhaps we shall also escape the clutches of Pougatcheff.”
“Well, mother,” replied Ivan Kouzmitch, “stay if you like, if you have such confidence in our fortress. But what shall we do with Masha? All well and good if we offer a successful resistance, or can hold out till we obtain help; but what if the villains should take the fortress?”
“Why, then——”
But at this juncture Vassilissa Egorovna began to stammer and then remained silent, evidently agitated by deep emotion. ”

“ He got up, roused his man (who was sleeping in his cart) , bade him harness; and went to call the Bashkirs.
“It’s time to go to the steppe to measure the land,” he said.
The Bashkirs rose and assembled, and the Chief came, too. Then they began drinking kumiss again, and offered Pahom some tea, but he would not wait.
“If we are to go, let us go. It is high time,” said he.
VIII
The Bashkirs got ready and they all started: some mounted on horses, and some in carts. Pahom drove in his own small cart with his servant, and took a spade with him. ”

“ Every day the Bashkirs fell upon them; every day the same unprofitable battle was renewed; as a matter of course, the Kalmucks recalled part of their advanced guard to fight them; every day the battle raged for hours, and uniformly with the same result. For, no sooner did the Bashkirs find themselves too heavily pressed, and that the Kalmuck march had been retarded by some hours, than they retired into the boundless deserts where all pursuit was hopeless. ”

“ As often as the Bashkirs collected into 'globes' and 'turms' as their only means of meeting the long line of descending Chinese cavalry—so often did the Chinese governor of the fort pour in his exterminating broadside; until at length the lake at the lower end, became one vast seething cauldron of human bloodshed and carnage. The Chinese cavalry had reached the foot of the hills: the Bashkirs, attentive to their movements, had formed; skirmishes had been fought: and, with a quick sense that the contest was henceforwards rapidly becoming hopeless, the Bashkirs and Kirghises began to retire. ”

“ To this residence among the Bashkirs we are indebted for that piercingly vivid story: “How much land does a man want?” which will be found in my former volume of selections, entitled “Tales from Tolstoi.”
Tolstoi presently exchanged the rough hospitality of the nomadic Bashkirs for the comfort of a home of his own. On September 23rd, 1862, he married Sophia Behr, the second daughter of a Moscow physician. ”

“ Peace at once changed to war. Over a field from thirty to forty miles wide, fighting, flight and pursuit, rescue and death, went on at all points. More than once were the khan and Zebek-Dorchi in peril of death. At one time both were made prisoners. But at length, concentrating their strength, they forced the Bashkirs to retreat. For two days more the wild Bashkir and Kirghis cavalry continued their attacks, and the Kalmuck chiefs, looking upon these as the advance parties of the Russian army, felt themselves obliged to order a renewal of the flight. ”

“ Touching the Bashkirs, another irregular and half-savage militia, serving to swell the ranks of Russia's enormous army, Mr Erman, who made some stay at Yekaterinburg, the northern limit of their residence, gives curious particulars. They are the only aboriginal Siberian tribe whose mode of life regularly alternates from the nomadic to the fixed. Their winters are passed in permanent villages of wooden huts, erected usually upon the skirt of a forest. But when spring approaches, they collect their flocks and herds, strap hair tent-cloths upon their saddles, and are off to the plains. ”

“ They gave him tea and kumiss, and had a sheep killed, and gave him mutton to eat. Pahom took presents out of his cart and distributed them among the Bashkirs, and divided amongst them the tea. The Bashkirs were delighted. They talked a great deal among themselves, and then told the interpreter to translate.
“They wish to tell you,” said the interpreter, “that they like you, and that it is our custom to do all we can to please a guest and to repay him for his gifts. You have given us presents, now tell us which of the things we possess please you best, that we may present them to you.” ”

“ The Corporal returned after an absence of two days, and declared that he had seen on the steppe, sixty versts from the fortress, a great many fires, and that he had heard the Bashkirs say that an innumerable force was advancing. He could not tell anything definitely, having been afraid to venture farther.
Great agitation was soon after this observed amongst the Cossacks of our garrison. They assembled in groups in the streets, speaking in a low tone amongst themselves, and dispersing as soon as they perceived a dragoon or other Russian soldier. Orders were given to watch them. ”

“ Agriculture certainly requires less land than sheep-farming, but it requires very much more labour, and to hard work the Bashkirs were not accustomed. They could bear hardships and fatigues in the shape of long journeys on horseback, but the severe, monotonous labour of the plough and the sickle was not to their taste. At first, therefore, they adopted a compromise. They had a portion of their land tilled by Russian peasants, and ceded to these a part of the produce in return for the labour expended ”

“ Upon this last morning, at the sight of the hills and the forest scenery, which announced to those who acted as guides the neighborhood of the Lake of Tengis, all the people rushed along with maddening eagerness to the anticipated solace. The day grew hotter and hotter, the people more and more exhausted; and gradually, in the general rush forwards to the lake, all discipline and command were lost,—all attempts to preserve a rearguard were neglected. The wild Bashkirs rode in amongst the encumbered people and slaughtered them by wholesale, and almost without resistance. ”

“ The Bashkirs are chiefly cattle-breeders, but of late they have been driven more and more to tillage, owing to the appropriation by speculators of their extensive pasture-lands. Bee-keeping is largely carried on, and hunting is still an important source of income to the Bashkirs. ”

“ Harm may befall you, if you get into their drunken hands. Good-bye, Piotr Andrevitch; what is to be, will be. Let us hope that God will not forsake us."
She left me. I returned home, my anxiety being slightly relieved. Passing by the square, I saw several Bashkirs gathered at the foot of the gallows, and drawing the boots off the corpses that were hanging; I restrained, with difficulty, an outburst of indignation, feeling that any interference on my part would have been useless. The fortress was in the possession of the robbers, who were plundering the officers' houses. ”

“ Near their western frontier, it is true, they annually let patches of land to the Russian peasants for the purpose of raising crops; but these encroachments can never advance very far, for the greater part of their territory is unsuited to agriculture, on account of a large admixture of salt in the soil. This fact will have an important influence on their future. Unlike the Bashkirs, who possess good arable land, and are consequently on the road to become agriculturists, they will in all probability continue to live exclusively by their flocks and herds. ”

“ As these independent Tatar states were always jealous of each other, and their jealousy often broke out in open hostility, it was easy to prevent any combined action on their part; and as in each khanate there were always several pretenders and contending factions, Muscovite diplomacy had little difficulty in weakening them individually and preparing for their annexation. In the case of Kazan and Astrakhan the annexation was effected without any great effort in 1552-54, and two years later the Bashkirs, who had likewise formed part of the great Mongol empire, consented to pay tribute. ”

“ To know how best to profit by the distresses of his neighbours was the sum and substance of his policy, and just in proportion as they were desirous of propitiating Russia, did Russia refuse to be easily propitiated. So it happened that, after the plunder and massacre of the Calmucks and Bashkirs, Aboulkhair humbly sued for pardon,—for a new bugbear had risen in the person of the warlike Galdane Tsyrène, Khan of the Zungars, who held hostages both from the great and middle hordes ”

“ In the city of Aleppo, I met a large number of persons called Bashkirs, with reddish hair and reddish faces. They were studying law according to the school of Abū Ḥanīfah (may God be well pleased with him!) I asked one of them who seemed to be an intelligent fellow for information concerning their country and their condition. He told me, ‘Our country is situated on the other side of Constantinople, in a kingdom of a people of the Franks called the Hungarians. ”

“ At the moment when the states of Kutchum were to become the conquest of the Russian Pizarro—as redoubtable for the savages as he of Spain, but less terrible for humanity—the Prince of Pelim with the Vogulitches, the Ostiaks, the Siberian Tartars, and the Bashkirs made a sudden irruption upon the borders of the Kama. He destroyed the Russian colonies near Tcherdin, Ussolie, as well as many other new fortresses of the Stroganoffs, and put to death or dragged into captivity a great number of Christians who were deprived of defenders. ”

“ Ba`shan, a fertile and pastoral district in NE. Palestine of considerable extent, and at one time densely peopled; the men of it were remarkable for their stature.
Bashahr, a native hill state in the Punjab, traversed by the Sutlej; tributary to the British Government.
Bashi-Bazouks`, irregular, undisciplined troops in the pay of the Sultan; rendered themselves odious by their brutality in the Bulgarian atrocities of 1876, as well as, more or less, in the time of the Crimean war.
Bashkirs, originally a Finnish nomad race (and still so to some extent) of E. Russia, professing Mohammedanism ”

“ Ivan Ignatitch went to fetch the Bashkir, who was confined in the loft, under lock and key, and a few minutes afterwards he was led prisoner into the ante-room. The Commandant ordered the captive to be brought before him.—
The Bashkir stepped with difficulty across the threshold (for his feet were in fetters) and, taking off his high cap, remained standing near the door. I glanced at him and shuddered. Never shall I forget that man. He appeared to be about seventy years of age, and had neither nose nor ears. His head was shaved, and instead of a beard he had a few grey hairs upon his chin ”

“ It is not the first time thou playest the rebel, or thy head would not be so well shaven. Come nearer; speak; who sent thee?"
The old Bashkir remained silent and looked at the commandant with a vacant stare.
"Why dost thou not speak?" continued Ivan Kouzmitch. "Dost thou not understand Russian? Youlaï, ask him in your language, who sent him into our fortress?"
Youlaï repeated the question in Tartar. But the Bashkir looked at him with the same expression, not saying a word in reply.
"Yakshee!" [3] said the commandant. "I shall make thee speak. ”

“ Bashkala, which will be found upon the map, is the seat of government for the district; and this place is inhabited mainly by Jews, who are, as always, the financiers and merchants of the land. It is a postal centre, principally remarkable for the fact that the post goes to that point from Van, for distribution to such centres as Julamerk, Neri, and Diza; but only strays on to them, when a zaptieh or policeman happens to be going in that direction. ”

“ After Karr's defeat he had an open road to Moscow, where his appearance was awaited by [Pg 39] 100,000 serfs burning to shake off the yoke of the aristocracy, and form a new Russian empire. Forty million helots awaited their liberator in the rebel leader. Then, of a sudden, he cast away from him the common sense he had possessed until now—for the sake of a pair of beautiful eyes!
After the victory of Bugulminszka a large number of envoyés from the leaders of the Baskirs appeared before him, and brought him, together with their allegiance, a pretty girl to be his wife. ”