Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus, &c.

by Xavier Hommaire de Hell; Adèle Hommaire de Hell

In later times, after the invasions by Genghis Khan and his sons, the Europeans, through ignorance or heedlessness, gave the name of Tatars not only to the tribes who had figured in those Asiatic irruptions, but also to the Mahometans, who had once been masters of the regions adjacent to the Caspian and the Black Sea, and had been subjugated by those conquerors; hence have arisen in a great measure all the mistakes and discussions respecting the origin of the Tatars. After the Mongol torrent had subsided, Europeans persisted in giving the appellation of Tatars to all those Mussulman nations originally of Turkish origin, that to this day occupy the territory of Kasan and Astrakhan, the Crimea and the region called Turcomania, situated between the Belur Mountains, Lake Aral, and the Caspian Sea; and as all these nations exhibited a religious, political, and moral character peculiar to themselves, people were naturally led to distinguish them from the Mongols, and to attribute to them a special origin. Thus Pallas and many other travellers, after visiting the Mahometans of Southern Russia, and comparing them with the Kalmucks, have made of the Tatars and Mongols two distinct races; and Malte Brun, in his geography, has given the name of Tatar to all the tribes established in our day in Turkistan, applying that of Mongol exclusively to the nations inhabiting the central tableland of Asia, from Lake Palcati and the Belur Mountains to the great wall of China, and to the Siolky Mountains which separate them from the Manchous, a tribe of the great race of the Tongouses. All these writers have failed to observe, that the appellation Tatar lost all signification in Asia under the destroying power of Genghis Khan, and has ever since existed only in the European vocabulary.

Doubtless, Genghis Khan and his successors did not achieve all their conquests by the arms of the Mongols alone; and after having subjugated all the Mahometan nations occupying the vast regions of Turcomania and a part of Western Asia, they of course incorporated them with their hordes, and employed them in their European invasions.

What, then, are we to suppose is the origin of all those tribes who, under the name of Tatars, now inhabit the south of Russia? We agree entirely with the opinion put forth in Courtin's "Encyclopédie Moderne," that these Tatars are nothing but Turks, Comans, or Petshenegues, who having been at the commencement of the thirteenth century masters of all the countries north and west of the Caspian Sea as far the Dniepr, were afterwards subdued by the sons of Genghis Khan, and contributed towards the foundation of a new empire comprised between the Dniepr and the Emba, to which was given the name of Kaptshak, or Kiptshak, a designation which appears to have been originally that of the territory.

The princes of this empire were Mongols or Tatars, but the majority of their subjects were Turks. It appears even that the latter formed a large portion of the armies of Genghis Khan in his late expeditions. The Turkish language thus remained predominant throughout the Kaptshak, Little and Great Bokhara, and among the Bashkirs and Tchouvaches. A few Mongol words are still found in the Turkish dialect of the Russian Mahometans, but they are extremely rare, and this may be easily explained. The soldiers of the Mongol army were of course bachelors, and when they married Kaptshak women, their children adopted the language of their mothers. The sovereigns themselves of this new empire soon embraced Mahometanism. Bereke, the brother and successor of Batou, set the first example; Usbeck Khan, who reigned in 1305, followed in his steps, and declared himself the protector of Islam, which thenceforth became the creed of the conquerors as well as of the conquered.

It must not be inferred from the preceding statement that the Turks and Mongols may not, in more remote times, have belonged to one and the same race; we are not quite of that opinion; we have considered the Turkish race only under the conditions in which it appeared in Europe and Asia about the twelfth century, that is to say, modified by long contact with the Caucasian nations, and we have left altogether out of view what it may previously have been. Moreover, if De Guignes is rightly informed, the inhabitants of the Kaptshak are really of Mongol origin, and the soldiers of Genghis Khan took pains to prove to them that they were their countrymen.

Towards the close of the fifteenth century, the empire of the Kaptshak was divided into several khanats—Kasan, Astrakhan, and the Crimea, the rulers of which, descended from Genghis, were all Mongols; but then they had no longer armies drawn from the interior of Asia, and the Turkish element finally prevailed throughout the whole population. Still, it cannot be denied that the Mahometan hordes of Russia present some resemblance to the Mongols, and this tends to confirm the ideas we have expressed above. But then it is obvious that two nations that served so long under the same banners, and lived under the same government, must have intermarried with each other, and that their blood must have been frequently mingled. Moreover, it is a most remarkable fact, with what pertinacity the Mongol type maintains its identity in spite of the mixture of many generations; a few marriages are sufficient to spread traces of it in the course of a certain time, over a whole nation. I have seen one example of this in the Cossacks, who have been living amidst the Kalmucks for about two hundred years.

The Tatars in the mountains of the Crimea more rarely exhibit Mongol features; the Greek profile is frequently found among them. This difference is owing to their mixture with the Goths, the Greeks, and the remnants of other nations that have successively overrun the peninsula.

The Nogais, who inhabit the plains of the Crimea, and the steppes of the Sea of Azof, are unquestionably the nearest in appearance to the Mongols of all the Tatars, and generally their physiognomy is such as cannot be attributed to any other origin. Moreover, according to their own traditions, they never made part of the Kaptshak, nor did they arrive in Europe until subsequently to the death of Genghis Khan, after having dwelt from time immemorial, if not with the Mongols, at least in their vicinity.

According to Lesvèque, the horde of the Nogais, long the most celebrated of the west after that of the Kaptshak, was constituted in the thirteenth century by Nogai, a Tatar general, who, after conquering the countries north of the Black Sea, succeeded in forming a state independent of the Kaptshak. The traditions I collected among the Nogais themselves, make no mention whatever of a general of that name; their chronicles allege that the name of the nation is derived from neogai (which may be translated by the phrase, mayst thou never know happiness), and that it was bestowed on them in their old country, on account of their precarious and vagabond life.[58] I am inclined to adopt this opinion; for considering the importance which the Nogais attach to nobility and to antiquity of race, it would be very extraordinary that they should not have preserved the name of the founder of their power. The same traditions relate that after the death of Genghis Khan, the horde whence the Nogais of the Crimea are descended, arrived under the command of Djanibek Khan on the Volga, the left bank of which it kept possession of for many years. Part of this horde afterwards crossed the river, and advancing to the foot of the Caucasus, settled on the Kouma and the Terek. The principal tribe of these Tatars, and the same of which we are about to speak, soon forsook those regions, and after crossing the Don, the Dniepr, and the Dniestr, finally settled in Bessarabia, in the country called Boudjiak. There it remained more than half a century; but being continually harassed by the Turks and Moldavians, it abandoned its new country, retraced its steps, and under the command of Jannat Bey, traversed the Crimea and the Straits of Kertch. After reaching the banks of the Kouban, the horde was broken up, by internal dissensions, into three branches, the largest of which remained on the Kouban, and the others recrossed the straits. One of these tribes fixed itself on the plains of the Crimea, and the other returned to Bessarabia, partly by land, partly by sea.

The Nogais of the Kouban again divided into several tribes, some of which connected themselves with the Kalmuck hordes, others with the mountaineers of the Caucasus. During all these emigrations, they were successively commanded by Jam Adie, Kani Osman, and Kalil Effendi, the Tatar of the Crimea. The latter, at the head of one of the principal tribes the Kouban, marched along the eastern coast of the Sea of Azof, crossed the Don, and encamped on the banks of the Moloshnia Vodi, where he died; his tomb still exists near the Nogai village of Keneges, on the Berda. He was succeeded by Asit Bey, who ruled for seventeen years, and was the last Tatar chief; he died in 1824. But long before his death, in the time of Catherine II., these Nogai hordes were completely subjected to the laws of the empire, and were under the management of Russian officials. Count Maison, a French emigrant, was appointed their governor in 1808, and he it was, who by dint of perseverance, made them renounce their nomade ways, and settle in villages.