Volga Region

Работа посвящена исследованию различных, главным образом историографических, аспектов этногенеза кереитских групп и их потомков, вошедших в состав различных современных народов Евразии. Книга предназначена историкам, филологам, этнологам, антропологам, а также всем интересующимся путями сложения современных монголо-, тюрко- и тунгусоманьчжуроязычных народов.

The Mongolic-speaking Kalmyks currently inhabiting the steppes of the Volga region have Central Asian ancestry and are organized into the tribal groups. The genetic relationships among these tribes and their origin have remained obscure. We analyzed 17 short tandem repeat and 44 binary polymorphisms of Y-chromosome in 426 individuals mainly from three major tribes of the Kalmyks (the Torguuds, Dörwöds and Khoshuuds). Among these tribes, the Dörwöds and Torguuds, as well as the Kalmyks collectively as an ethnic group, showed relatively close genetic affinities to each other and to the Mongols and Altaian Kazakhs, whereas the Khoshuuds were clearly separated from all of them, gathering with the Manchu, Tibetans or Evenks (depending on the algorithm used to calculate genetic distances). The genetic results also indicate that paternal gene flow from East Europeans to the Kalmyks is very little, despite their cohabitation in the North Caspian Steppe during the last 380 years. The occurrence of unique cluster of N1c-Tat haplotypes in the Khoshuuds, which dates to about 340 years and is likely to have East European ancestry, is considered as a result of interethnic contacts occurred soon after the appearance of the Kalmyk tribes in the Volga-Ural region.

This book deals with the history of the folk mystical movement - or rather mystical sects khlysty and eunuchs, which existed in the Middle Volga during XVIII - XX centuries. We consider the origins, history and religious practices of the mystical sectarianism. For scientists working in the field of folk religiosity, graduate students, all interested in the history of religion.
Настоящая работа посвящена истории народных мистических движений, а точнее – мистическим сектам хлыстов и скопцов, существовавшим в Среднем Поволжье на протяжении XVIII – XX вв. Рассматриваются истоки, история и религиозные практики мистического сектантства. Для ученых, работающих в области изучения народной религиозности, аспирантов, студентов, всех интересующихся проблемами истории религии.

The paper features the materials of burials with beads from the Anatkasy burial ground corresponding to the medieval Mari culture. The site is located on the B. Tsivil river, right tributary of the Volga river. A total of 33 burials, 2 sacrificial complexes and 2 pits with traces of ritual activities were revealed during excavations. The total number of discovered beads is 340 items, which were located in following six burials with beads: No. 2, 3, 5, 22, 24, 31. The article contains a classification of beads on the basis of Yu.L. Shchapova's work “Ancient glass. Morphology, technology, chemical composition” (Shchapova, 1989). On the basis of numerous counterparts, the authors conducted dating of the bead material representing an important chronological indicator of the site. This is the first introduction of the material from these burial complexes with beads into scientific discourse.

VOLGA BULGARIA AND THE KAZAH KHANATE IN THE GEOGRAPHIC MAPS OF THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE EARLY MODERN TIMES

The present research is the first of its kind and it has gathered about 100 ancient European and Arab maps, from Middle Ages to the Early Modern Times, which illustrate the cartographic notions of the region of Middle Volga, the 10th-16th century state of Volga Bulgaria and its immediate successor – the Kazan Khanate. The aim of this research is to visualize the ‘appearance’ and ‘disappearance’ of particular realia in these lands as a result of objective historical processes or gradually accumulated knowledge.
The analysis of the cartographic sources conducts to several important conclusions about the ‘cartographic images’ of Volga Bulgaria and the Kazan Khanate.
First of all, Volga Bulgaria appeared for the first time as a state structure on the map of the Arab geographer Al-Idrisi (1154) as late as the 12th century. The cartographic ‘image’ of the Kazan Khanate also appeared too late as compared to its actual history and was registered as late as the 16th century. Since the second half of the same century both state structures have been depicted as ‘neighbours’, living in parallel along the middle reaches of Volga. This probably is due to the fact that Early Modern Times’ cartography is often based on old data which leads to the ‘synchronization’ /re-covering/ of these two states in contradiction to the historical facts.
On the other hand, the Kazan State has never been identified as a ‘khanate’ but had the status of a kingdom (Regnum). Volga Bulgaria has been denoted by cartographers as ‘Great Bulgaria’ (16th century maps), ‘The Kingdom of Bulgaria’ (18th century maps), or just ‘Bulgaria’. Both states had been present in West European cartography up to the 19th century.
Finally but not lastly of importance is the urbanization structure of Volga Bulgaria and the Kazan Khanate, represented in cartography to a certain extent. The town of Bolgar appeared for the fist time on the map of the Turkic author Mahmud Al-Kashgari in his work Diwan lughat al-Turk (1076). Up to the age of Ortelius and of Mercator (the second half of the 16th century) Bolgar appeared under the name of Borgar, Blagar, Bulgal and was rarely present on the European maps. At a later stage Bolgar, along with Kazan, became the most frequently mapped town centre along Middle Volga.
Since the beginning of the 17th century European cartographers have frequently placed Bolgar on the location of Bilyar. There even was a case of Bolgar replacing Kazan. On a West European map of the early 17th century Bolgar appeared under its local name of Veliki [Great] Bolgar (Bulgar Weliki), and in another one it was called paganzina. In the early 18th century the Map of Europe of Carel Allard featured the toponym Lanjer instead of Bolgar.
In the 18th century Bolgar was often referred to as Bulgar or Belojer and gradually disappeared from the geographic realia of the region of Middle Volga.
For the first time Bilyar appeared on the 1367 map of the Picigano Brothers, with the inscription Cintas que Marmorza. In the same way the town appeared on the Anonymous Map of the World (1570) and on the Map of Europe by N. Sanson (a century later). Bilyar also appeared with its Russian name Bilyarsk on the 1749 map of John Schreinbern. The absence of the town on the geographic maps may be explained by its gradual replacement with Bolgar as well as with the fading life in Bilyar at the end of the 13th century.
For the first and only time Suvar was registered on the map of the world by Mahmud Al-Kashgari (1076). West European cartographic tradition does not know well the town and therefore it is left unregistered on the maps. That was probably due to the fact that Suvar had a relatively short existence within the frames of pre-Mongol Volga Bulgaria period in the 10th-13th centuries.
The problem of the cartographic ‘appearance’ and ‘existence’ of Kazan is far more complicated than that of the other settlements in the state of Volga Bulgarians. On a number of maps it is not present at all, while on others it appears under various names. On the world map of the Picigano Brothers (1367) a settlement with the name of Qormancucto appears instead of Kazan. Kazan was also known by names with Latin roots meaning ‘a fortress’, probably related to the fortified appearance of the town – Castrama (Catalan Atlas of Abraham Crepques, 1375), Kostruni (Borgian map, 1452), Castorma (Catalan world map, 1460), etc.
For the first time the toponym of Kazan was registered on a 1500 anonymous map of Russia. Later on it is also known as Kazan Castrum or in its Russian version – Casane gorode. Of particular interest are the maps where Kazan appears on the geographic location of Bolgar (Maps of the Moscow Region of Giacomo Gastaldi, and of Girolamo Ruscelli of the 16th century, etc.).
In brief, the cartography of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Times contains interesting data on the gradually evolving notion of the historical life, status, ethics and urbanization structure of the region of Middle Volga. Despite the fact that those special types of ‘geographic myths’ are often neglected in the works of historiography, their analysis undoubtedly shows the importance of these sources in the overall reconstruction of the image and the ‘vision of the Others’ for ‘Second Medieval Bulgaria’.

he article features a description of a personal archive of Petr Nikolayevich Starostin, a renowned archaeologist and researcher of Early Medieval period in the Volga-Kama Region. The archive is deposited in the Institute of Archaeology of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences of (Collection No. 14). The archive consists of nine inventories. The Inventory 1 contains the following research documents: PhD thesis and related materials, the reports on the results of archaeological fieldwork and publications. The Inventory 2 reflects the researches and administrative activities of P.N. Starostin, his work at the Mari Republican Museum of Local Lore, the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Kazan Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Institute of History of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, and in the Society for the Preservation of Heritage. The Inventory 3 contains biographical materials, the 4 – the correspondence; the 5 and the 6 - sketches of finds and extracts from publications and reports; the 7 – the materials by other authors deposited in the archive, the 8 – miscellaneous documents, and the 9 – publications on P.N. Starostin.

Among the categories of products from the territory of medieval Bolgar the items made of wood are considered the most rare. It is connected, first of all, with not possibility of preservation of organic matter (including wood) in the cultural layer of Bolgar. The exception is considered for the items affected by fire. This study has been intended to fill in information about the development of the craft for the treatment of wood turning and craft production at Bulgar during the Golden Horde period. The findings made of wood derived from the territory of the trade and craft quarter and the building of urban market are examined in the paper: the case for sales of inventory, parts, moucharaby (mashrabia), double-sided ridges. All these items were found in objects and layer of fire which have been associated with the capture of the town by Bulak-Timur in 1361. The technique of selection, preservation and research of samples from charred wood are presented by the authors. Samples of parts, moucharaby and bilateral ridges allowed to determine the type of wood from which were made presented products. For this purpose, three sections in transverse, radial and tangential directions were made on each of the samples. In a number of cases scraping from samples in the specified directions was used. As a result, the authors are able to establish that the masters of wood processing used local species of deciduous trees: maple and birch as well as imported wood – boxwood.

The discovery of a hoard of astragalus is not a common occurrence at medieval archaeological sites in the Volga region, and it therefore required individual research. The context of the find (by the wall of a building in the center of the settlement) very likely implies that it was left by the Bolgar population. Presumably, those who left this hoard were performing a ritual. But one cannot rule out the possibility that it was a cache for a game set or a child's hiding place. Three of the 26 astragalus have graffiti on their surface which can be defined as a combination of two “fur trees”, a cross and a combination of a lattice and ladder. These symbols were associated with protection and have parallels with the symbols of home, fish net and family. The results of an analysis demonstrate that before the astragalus were buried they could have been used as cue ball game items, amulets, smoothing tools, fortune-telling or game dice. In an 11th – 12th centuries, astragalus were losing their magic role due to the spread of the Muslim religion. Thus, they were used for various activities without any controversy. The numerous stones found in the dwelling layer confirm the transitionary stage of the use of astragalus.

The paper addresses the search for a burial mound, explored in 1926 by the members of the Samara Society of Archaeology, History, Ethnography and Natural Science under the general guidance of V.V. Golmsten. The finds from this significant site include a unique copper cauldron of the late Bronze Age. Over the years, information about the location of this site has been lost. The search was carried out with the use of an analysis of archival and modern space images, a spatial analysis, and an analysis of a digital terrain model. The results were verified by field surveying. For the first time, the search of steppe mounds was successfully aided by thermal imaging using unmanned aerial vehicles. Convincing verification of the site in the field allows to use this complex technique is searching for archaeological sites which have been previously discovered, but are considered lost.

“At the Press Conference of Dr. Heinrich Groth on the Occasion of Resigning from His Leadership Position (Moscow, Russia, December 20, 1993).”

Translated and edited by Eric J. Schmaltz.

The original German source:  “Zur Pressekonferenz von Dr. Heinrich Groth anlässlich der Niederlegung seiner Vollmachten,” St. Petersburgische Zeitung (Russia), No. 1 (Feb. 1994):  pp. 1-3.

https://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/research/scholarly/non_peer/press.html

A translation of this document with revised and expanded commentary was later published as:  “At the Press Conference of Dr. Heinrich Groth on the Occasion of Resigning from His Leadership Position (Moscow, Russia, December 20, 1993).”  Trans. and ed. Eric J. Schmaltz.  Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia 37:3 (Fall 2014):  pp. 27-30.

Also, one point of clarification or correction in the AHSGR article:  Dr. Heinrich Groth was born to exiled Volga German parents in Soviet Central Asia in 1951, but later his family moved to the Volga Region and eventually settled in Berdyansk, Ukraine, along the Sea of Azov.  Groth spent his later youth and most of his adulthood in Berdyansk, becoming a professional biologist and ultimately an ethnic activist. 

Many scholars are unaware of the resources available at the AHSGR.  See link to AHSGR Website for this and so many other fine research materials: 

https://ahsgr.site-ym.com/store/default.aspx?

In 2018, geneticists presented the results of a special study conducted within the framework of studying the problem of the origin and evolution of Yersinia pestis – the bubonic plague. Apparently, the most ancient strain of this virus known to date comes from the Mikhailovsky II burial mound located in Samara Oblast. Excavations of three barrows at this site in 2015 revealed materials from the initial stage of the Late Bronze Age associated in the steppe Volga region with the Pokrovka type of the Srubnaya cultural and historical community. The authors publish information about the burial complexes of barrows 2, 3, 7, three of which (barrow 3, burials 2, 5, 9) actually contained remains with the gene samples of the Yersinia pestis strain. Along with descriptions of burials and grave goods from the excavated portion of the Mikhailovsky II burial mound, the paper features details of the ceramics manufacturing technology, as well as the results of anthropological studies. The fact that the most ancient form of plague was discovered in the materials of the Srubnaya culture, perhaps, makes another contribution to the range of issues related to the study of the Late Bronze Age of Eurasia.

The publication concerns an iron dagger unique for the region in question - a baselard originating from excavation CLIII in the territory of Bolgar fortified settlement. It is a double-edged diamond-shaped blade with two lobes converging towards the center. The find was discovered in the upper horizons of the late Golden Horde layer dated the end of 14th - the first half of 15th centuries. Such daggers are not typical for the monuments of the region, and have not been discovered in the territory of Volga Bolgaria or the Golden Horde. However, similar daggers have been found in England and northern Germany. This type of blade was widely spread in Central and Western Europe in the 14th – 15th centuries, the appearance of which has been traditionally associated with the Swiss town of Basel. The dagger is an imported item, and its appearance in the medieval city of Bolgar is most likely associated with European traders.