2025, vol. 13, no. 4. Samigulov G.Kh.

2025, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 901-927

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22378/2313-6197.2025-13-4.901-927

EDN: https://elibrary.ru/NXFTRK

   THE TRANS-URALS IN THE 16th–17th CENTURIES:
TRANS-URAL TURKIC PEOPLES OR BASHKIRS?

G.Kh. Samigulov
South Ural State University
Chelyabinsk, Russian Federation
gayas_@mail.ru

Abstract. This publication is a response to the text of our Ufa colleagues, where they tried to prove that the representatives of the Turkic population in the Trans-Urals during the 16th–17th centuries were definitely Bashkirs. They tried to demonstrate this using the example of the Tersyak and Synryan clans. I adhere to the position that the bulk of the Turkic population in the Trans-Urals during that time identified themselves with the clans: Tabyn, Tersyak, Synryan, Bakatin, etc. In the records of the late 16th–17th centuries (and later), the concepts of “Bashkirs” and “Tatars” are class designations. The word “Bashkirs” was used to refer to the yasak population in the Ufa district, and the word “Tatars” refered to the same population of the Tyumen, Turin, and Tobolsk districts (uezd’s). The formation of the Bashkirs and Siberian Tatars in their modern composition took place within the framework of the class groups of the Moscow State / Russian Empire, and administrative boundaries played a decisive role in the consolidation of these groups. At the same time, class designations began to be perceived as ethnic over some time.
B.A. Aznabaev and co-authors disagreed with this point of view and tried to show that the representatives of the Synryan and Tersyak clans had been Bashkirs since the time of Ivan the Terrible. They based their arguments on the fact that in documents the Tersyak and Synryan, as well as representatives of other Turkic clans of the Trans-Ural part of the Ufa uezd, were named as holders of patrimonial (votchina) rights to land. The authors of the text under consideration are convinced that only the Bashkirs had patrimonial rights to land in the Moscow State. In this case, the Bashkirs are the people, not a class or class group. But a sufficiently large number of publications have already shown that votchina rights to land in the 16th–17th centuries were characteristic of yasak people from the river Volga area to Western Siberia and were in no way connected with their cultural or linguistic affiliation. The existence of votchina rights in the period under consideration cannot serve as a basis for interpreting the ethnic affiliation of the people.

Keywords: clans, estates, Synryan, Tersyak, Sylven Tatars, Bashkirs, Tatars, yasak, volost, uezd

For citation: Samigulov G.Kh. The Trans-Urals in the 16th–17th centuries: Trans-Ural Turkic Peoples or Bashkirs? Zolotoordynskoe obozrenie=Golden Horde Review. 2025, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 901–927. https://doi.org/10.22378/2313-6197.2025-13-4.901-927 (In Russian)

Financial Support: The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant no.  24-18-20055, https://rscf.ru/project/24-18-20055/

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gayaz Kh. Samigulov – Cand. Sci. (History), Senior Research Fellow of the Eurasian Studies Research and Education Centre, South Ural State University (National Research University) (76, Lenin Avenue, Chelyabinsk 454080, Russian Federation); OCRID: 0000-0002-4695-5633, ResearcherID: T-6331-2017. E-mail: gayas_@mail.ru

Received  25.09.2025
Revised  01.12.2025
Accepted  02.12.2025