Situation of Tatars and other Muslim minorities in communist Bulgaria

The article examines the situation of the Tatars and other Muslim minorities in Bulgaria during the communist period. The policy of the state in relation to Muslim minorities after the proclamation of the People`s Republic of Bulgaria and the establishment of socialism in the state according to the Soviet model, when the political, economic and social models of the USSR were imported and introduced without taking into account the national characteristics of Bulgaria, are analyzed. As in the Soviet Union (especially in the early stage of its formation, religion was banned and this applied to all confessions without exception. The Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) made every effort eradicate religious identity and, in particular, Islamic identity. It was planned to replace the religious ideological fragment with a socialist one, and then, on its platform, form and stimulate the development of the national, modernist and Soviet identity of Muslims. Moreover, the emphasis was also placed on improving the way of life and the material situation of the Muslim population, which, according to the Marxist theory of culture, should have contributed to a more effective formation of socialist consciousness. The ruling party saw in the Muslim religious consciousness and rudiments of the Ottoman past, an obstacle on the way of socialist progress and formation of socialist consciousness. Emasculating elements of the religious worldview from the mind of people, the BCP set itself the task of creating a modern, secular, socialist personality. To this end, in 1946–1989 the government implemented a number of economic, educational and cultural establishments.

Unknown works of Crimean Tatar writers of the early XX century

For more than a hundred years many works of the classics of Crimean Tatar literature of the early XX century have remained inaccessible to their contemporaries. One of such authors is Abdulhakim Aji Arif oglu Khilmiy (1884–1962). The article is devoted to the scientific development of the writer of the period 1914-1917. The sources were both: newspaper and archival materials related to this period. Also involved are the published works of Khilmiy`s contemporaries. As an example, is cited a small work by the author of “Revolutionary excitement” (“Inkilyabiy asabiyetler”), published in 1917 and unknown to modern researches. Transliteration of the text from the Arabic script is accompanied by glossaries of rare Arab-Persian borrowings in the Crimean Tatar language.

"The summary of the Crimea`s history" from its origins, under the Abbasids, to Mengli Geray (870/1465). Part 2

Recently, a new source on the history of Crimean Khanate and the Golden Horde has received open access for the scientific world. The digitized manuscript is dated 1701 and has the title “Résumé de l’histoire de Crimée” des origines, sous les Abbassides, à Mengli Giray (870/1465) (“The summary of the Crimea’s history” from its origins, under the Abbasids, to Mengli Geray, 870/1465). The location of the manuscript is the University Library of Languages ​​and Civilizations (Bibliothèque universitaire des langues et civilizations). The source is presented in the collection of the Ottoman Turkish manuscripts (Fonds de manuscrits turcs ottomans) under the code MS.TURC.110g.

Statistical information on the socio-economic development of Bakhchisarai at the end of the 18th – beginning of the 20th centuries

The city of Bakhchisarai turned into a district town in the Tauride province after the annexation of the Crimea to the Russian Empire. This article analyzes the picture of urban life, including the dynamics of population growth, an increase in the number of religious and educational institutions, based on archival materials and statistics. Crimean Tatars supported the local traditions of craft production, based on the use of local and partly imported raw materials. Handicraft workshops and trade shops defined the trade and handicraft character of the eastern Islamic city. After the annexation of the Crimea to Russia the city’s industry has developed rapidly, the number of townspeople grew. The rates of development of trade and industrial establishments of Bakhchisarai are demonstrated, the specialization of the former capital as a trade and craft center is shown, on the basis of statistical collections. The city of Bakhchisarai gradually integrated into the economic, cultural and economic space of the Russian Empire.

The influenceof the natural and geographical specifics of Crimea on the formation of some characteristic features of traditional Crimean culture: matrix of interaction between: “Local” and “Alien” ethnic groups on the peninsula

The usual Crimean studies have formulated a concept of lack of the genesis of traditional Crimean culture due to its approach to an ethnic history of Crimea as a replacement of a number of various and distinguished substituting ethnic groups with neither biogenetic nor cultural and linguistic continuity between them. That point was artificially implanted by the political reasons as a scientific pseudo-justification of the en-masse deportation of some Indigenous Peoples of Crimea and Northern Caucasus realized by the Soviet Power in 1940s. However, the attentive studying of the historical process in Crimea during the thousands of the years, inevitably leads to the conclusions that there were not series of total genocides among ethnic groups populating the territory of the Crimea in different times. Despite of military clashes, invasions, periodical conquests, the very natural and geographical conditions of the peninsula predetermined the inevitable involvement of different ethnic groups in economic, cultural, political, and biogenetic, and eventually even kinship relations. This was main way how a new stage of Crimean culture and inhabitants was being formed during centuries. This was the fundamental tendency of the genesis of the traditional Crimean culture and indigenous peoples of the Crimea, mainly formed by the end of the 18th century. The mechanism of the impact of these factors and the resulting matrix of interaction between the “local” and “newcomer” ethnic groups in the Crimea is analyzed in this article.

Formation of the system of orthology of the Crimean Tatar literary language

The modern Crimean Tatar literary language as a processed supra-dialectal version of the common language has a long history of formation and development. The foundation of the orthology, the rules for the use of linguistic units in speech, that is, combinations with the other, changes in spelling and pronunciation, were laid in the 20–30s of the last century. The subsequent tragic events (Great Patriotic War, total deportation of the Crimean Tatars and others) delayed the discussion of these problems at the official level for almost half a century. Separate proposals aimed at optimizing the norms of the literary language were made repeatedly in private. So, in the 70s of the last century U. Kukchi in Tashkent read lectures for writers and journalists on the state of the Crimean Tatar literary language, which in 1986 were published in a book format. With the beginning of the process of repatriation of the Crimean Tatars (the end of the 80s of the XX century), interest in the problem of the Crimean Tatar orthology has again intensified. Some of the textbooks published in the 30–40s last century were republished in a modified and supplemented way. In 2010, on the basis of the “Crimean Engineering and Pedagogical University” a draft of the spelling and pronunciation rules was developed and published using the new Latin alphabet. In the Crimean Tatar linguistics there is still no complete and correct set of different types of norms of the Crimean Tatar literary language. All the existing rules in new socio-political conditions are not legitimate.

“Treason of the Crimean Khan” in the battle of Berestechko: myths and facts

On the climax of the battleunder Berestechko (June 30, 1651) the Crimean Tatars fled, leaving their allies, the Ukrainian Cossacks, in the battlefield. According to the almost unanimous opinion, the cause of the defeat of the allied forces was the successful actions of the Polish army under the leadership of the king John II Casimir, who dealt the main blow to the Crimean cavalry. Under the enemy`s cannonballs, the Crimeans suffered heavy losses and fled, and khan Islam III Giray himself was nearly killed. But there is no evidence that the Tatars deliberately abandoned the Cossacks.

Report on the vakuf property of mosques, mesjids and mektebs of the city of Bakhchisarai (From the inventory of the former Mufti Efendi)

To readers attention is offered a small fragment from the message of the Mufti of Crimea Musallaf Efendi, which provides brief data of the state of vakuf property of Muslim religious sites for 1785–1786 , prepared by the Qadies (Judges) of 5 kaymakans of the Crimean Khanate: Bakhchisarai, Kezlev, Kefe, Akmesjit and Or-Kapu. The message of Mufti Efendi is presented in Arabic script in the Crimean Tatar language. Part of the message, translated from the Arabic script into Cyrilic alphabet, includes a list of recorded vakuf property belonging at that time to Bakhchisarai: the political and administrative center of the Crimean Khanate. The given information makes it possible to establish the number and names of administrative units of the city–mahalla, the variety and location of the vakuf property, recorded not only within the city limits, but also outside it. The message also contains data on the funds, allocated to the minister of the city`s Muslim religious buildings.

Publication of Works of the Classic of the Crimean Area Studies is Completed: Collected works of Usein Bodaninsky in 3 volumes (2018–2020)

The reviews is devoted to the three-volume collection of the well-known Crimean Tatar ethnographer and Turkologist, the first director of the Bakhchisarai Palace Museum Usein Bodaninsky, whose works were published by Sh. Mardzhani Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan in Kazan and Simferopol in 2018–2020. The first volume, which appeared in 2019, includes different research works published by Bodaninsky from 1917 to the beginning of the 1930s. The second volume (2018) contains unpublished diaries of the Bakhchisarai Palace Museum written by Bodaninsky in 1924–1926, when he was the director of this scientific and cultural institution. The third volume (2020) is divided into three parts. The first of them includes commented written materials, ethnographic and archeological sketches in facsimiles of the expeditions carried out by Bodaninsky in the Crimea in 1925–1928, as well as his notes of the Crimean earthquakes happened in 1927. The second part includes unpublished documentation, annual reports and plans of the Bakhchisarai Palace Museum dated 1922–1929 and the beginning of 1934. The third section contains letters, statements, notes composed by Bodaninsky from 1920 to 1932. The materials published in three volumes should be evaluated as a valuable contribution to the study of the history and ethnography of the Muslim Crimea, archeology and early Soviet museum work among the Crimean Tatars.

Ethnocultural basis of the formation process of the Crimean Tatar art culture and decorative and applied art (part one)

Based on the research results of Russian, Soviet and foreign archaeologists, anthropologists, geneticists and art historians, an attempt has been made to trace the process of formation of the artistic culture and decorative and applied art of descendants, who by the 10th –11th centuries took part in shaping of the Crimean mountain people, the Tats of the Crimea, the ancestors of the ethnographic groups of the modern Crimean Tatar people – the southern coastal and mountain Crimean Tatars, as well as of the Greco-Tatars – the Urums of the Azov region. And also to try to characterize the culture and decorative arts of the aboriginal and immigrant ethnic groups of the Crimean peninsula, who later took part in the process of ancient cultural genesis of the population of the mountainous and southern coastal Crimea. It also shows the initial stage of the process of cultural genesis of the steppe and foothill Crimean Tatars, which was going on parallel to the process of cultural genesis and formation of the artistic culture of the Tats of the mountainous and southern coastal Crimean Tatars.