Bashkirs

The Bashkirs are a Turkic-speaking people, living primarily in Bashkorostan (Baskiria; Baskihkir Republic) in the southern Ural Mountain region of European Russia. They originally settled the region between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains as part of the Kipchak khanate, ruled by Mongols and their vassals the Volga Bulgars, in the 13th century They are included among the people known as TATARS, descended in large part from the TURKICS. Their language is of the Uralian group of the Northwestern (Kipchak) Turkic family Some of them may be descended from FINNICS.

In the second half of the 16th century the Bashkir homeland was colonized by Russian Slavs, who founded Ufa. Bashkir uprisings led to Russian repression and the dispersion of many tribal members. In 1919 the Bashkir Autonomous Republic was formed, among the first such republics in the Soviet Union (USSR); after the breakup of the Soviet Union it became the Republic of Bashkorostan (or Bashkir Republic), part of the Russian Federation.

Originally nomadic herders, the Bashkirs became largely sedentary agriculturalists living

A Bashkir woman sits in front of her house in 1910. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-DIC-prok-10657])

In small villages. Although traditionally Islamic, some among them are Russian Orthodox Christians.

See also Russians: nationality.

Further Reading

Allen J. Frank. Islamic Historiography and “Bulghar" Identity among the Tatars and Bashkirs of Russia (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic, 1998).