Not grey wolves but the pagan Tatars: the 'Khinova' comes to Rus
Editorial contextThe poet builds the Horde's approach from omens: creaking carts between the Don and the Dnieper, the 'Khinova' marching on the Russian land, grey wolves howling by the river Mecha. Then he turns the image: those were not grey wolves but the pagan Tatars, come to take the whole Russian land. Sreznevsky's commentary suggests 'Khinova', an old poetic name for steppe enemies also used in the Lay of Igor, may hide the name of the Huns.
The Khinova is marching on the Russian land. Grey wolves are howling; by the river Mecha they mean to cross into the Russian land. Those were not grey wolves: the pagan Tatars have come, they mean to pass through making war and take the whole Russian land.
Working translation
Original wording
Идетъ Хинова на Рускую землю. Сѣріе волци воютъ, на рѣкѣ хотятъ на Мечи поступити въ Рускую землю. То ти были не сѣріе волци, придоша поганые Татарове, хотятъ проити воюючи, взяти всю землю Рускую.
About Golden Horde army of Mamai (Tatars)
Keep in mind
Poetic imagery. The manuscript reads 'хинела'; 'Хинова' is Sreznevsky's correction (footnote on the same page), and the Huns etymology is his guess (commentary, n54 p.49).
The scan is too rough to double-check this quote by machine. Compare it with the page.
Stone figures 'in Tatar shape' on the Don mounds
Editorial contextNear the Cossack settlement of Babskaya on the Don, Gmelin saw two stone statues standing on burial mounds, one of a man and one of a woman 'in Tatar shape', so weathered that little more could be made out than that they were carved from gypsum stone. He was told many more stood between there and Bakhmut, and that in such mounds the dead lay facing east, men with swords and gold and silver rings, though Cossack treasure-hunters had already emptied most of them.
Not far from the Babskaya stanitsa I saw on two kurgans two statues, one of which shows a man and the other a woman in Tatar shape. … In the kurgans on which such memorial columns stand, the bones of the people buried inside are always found laid towards the east
Working translation
Original wording
Ohnweit der Staniza Babskaja sahe ich auf zwei Kurganen zwei Statuen davon die eine einer Manns- und di … eine Weibs-Person in Tatarischer Gestalt vorstellt. … In den Kurganen, auf welchen solche Ehren-Säulen stehen, findet man die Knochen der darinnen begrabenen Menschen allezeit nach Morgen zu gelegt
About Tatars (as Gmelin reads the statues and graves)
Keep in mind
The right edge of the page is cut off in the scan. 'Tatar shape' is Gmelin's impression; such steppe statues were made by several earlier peoples.
Magyars: 'a race of the Turks' living in tents
Editorial contextBefore they moved to Hungary, the Magyars lived on the steppe north of the Black Sea. Ibn Rusta calls them a race of the Turks, says their chief rides out with twenty thousand horsemen, and that they have tents (qibab) and move with the grass and pasture. In winter they camped by the rivers and fished.
The Majghariyya are a race of the Turks; their chief rides out with about twenty thousand horsemen … They have domed tents and travel with the grass and the pasture, and their country is wide.
Working translation
Original wording
والمجغرية جنس من الترك ويركب رئيسهم فى مقدار عشرين الف فارس … ولهم قباب يسيرون مع الكلأ والخصب وبلادهم واسعة
About Magyars (Hungarians), called Turks
Keep in mind
'Turks' here is a broad label for steppe horsemen; the Magyars spoke a Finno-Ugric language.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of the Arabic is garbled); vowel marks omitted.
A giant's grave and a stone table on the Don
Editorial contextOn the upper Don the book lists a 'Volotova mogila', a giant's grave (volot is the old Russian word for a giant), at the mouth of the Mecha, and further down the 'Don beseda' (Don meeting-place), 'a stone table and stone vessels'. Nearby were the Tatar fords into Rus. These folk names for kurgans and rocks sit side by side with military route data.
and at the mouth of the river Mecha, on the upper side, is the Giant's Grave. … And below the mouth of the Sosna, on the Don, is the Don Meeting-place, a stone table and stone vessels.
Working translation
Original wording
а устьѣ рѣки Мечи съ вышія страны Волотова могила. … А ниже устья Сосны, на Дону, Донская бесѣда, каменной столъ и каменныя суды.
About Unnamed (folk landmarks on the Tatar frontier)
Keep in mind
The 1838 edition reads 'Bolotova' (marsh) where the 1773 edition reads 'Volotova' (giant's).
A trading city drowned by diverting its river
Editorial contextCarpini tells how the Mongols took the rich, crowded city of Orna, a port full of Christians and Muslim merchants: finding it hard to storm, they dammed the river that ran through it and drowned the city with everything in it. He goes on to the sack of Kiev and the Russian towns.
After that they came before the city of Orna, which was very populous, and there were many Christians there, Khazars, Russians, Alans and others, and some Saracens … The Tartars, seeing that it was hard to take by force, decided to stop the river that runs through the city, and so they drowned it with everything that was in it.
Working translation
Original wording
Aprés cela ils vindrent deuant la cité d'Orna qui estoit fort peuplée, & là y auoit plusieurs Chrestiens Gazares, Russes, Alans, & autres, & quelques Sarasins … Les Tartares voyans qu'il estoit difficile de la prendre de force, ils s'aduiserent d'arrester la riuiere qui passe par ceste ville, & ainsi la submergerent auec tout ce qui estoit dedans.
About Tartars (Mongol armies); Khazar, Russian and Alan Christians; Muslim traders
Keep in mind
Carpini places Orna on the Don, but the story matches the Mongol flooding of Urgench in Khwarazm (1221), and historians have often suspected a confusion; treat the location as uncertain.
Stone statues on the burial mounds
Editorial contextAlong the Tashla Pallas saw the rough-hewn stone statues that stand on burial mounds across the steppe from the Kuban to the Dnieper, always facing east. From their dress and faces he judged that a people related to the Mongols made them. In a footnote on the next page he quotes Rubruck, who credited them to the Cumans, and argues that different monuments on the steppe came from different nations. (Most are now thought to be Cuman (Polovtsian) work of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries.)
If we may judge from the costume and form of the face, they uniformly appear to have been made by a people related to the Mongolians, who formerly inhabited those countries. … All these statues are erected on moderately large sepulchral hills, and their faces are exposed towards the East.
About a people 'related to the Mongolians'
Continue in this sourcePallas's travels through southern Russia and the Crimea1793 to 1794 · 20 passagesA grave mound with furnaces: laboratory or metalworker's tomb?
Editorial contextNear a Don Cossack farmstead Lepekhin examined a grave mound that had been dug open. The top of the page is damaged, but it can be made out that inside were furnace-like structures, slag, pieces of crucibles and a human skeleton, and that much iron had been found. He decides it is more likely a tomb than a workshop, because 'the old Tatars' buried people of rank with the tools of their trade, and concludes that the old inhabitants of the Volga were skilled in all the useful arts.
that the old Tatars had the custom of burying persons of distinguished rank and station with all the tools and gear they had chiefly worked with in their lifetime. For the rest, this mound may be a Tatar laboratory or the tomb of a famous metallurgist among them; it is all one to me.
Working translation
Original wording
daß die alten Tatarn im Gebrauch hatten, Personen, deren Rang und Stand sich auszeichnete, mit alle dem Geräthe und Zubehör zur Erde zu bestatten, womit sie in ihrem Leben vornehmlich zu schaffen gehabt hatten. Uebrigens mag dieser Hügel ein tatarisches Laboratorium, oder das Grabmahl eines berühmten Metallurgen unter ihnen seyn; das ist mir einerley.
About 'The old Tatars' and the ancient inhabitants of the Volga country
Keep in mind
Calling the mound Tatar is Lepekhin's inference from what he had read about Tatar burial; the damaged scan hides the full description of the finds.
'The Cossacks are a species of Tartars'
Editorial contextPassing through Cossack villages on the Khoper, Hanway describes clean, well-dressed people and women with crescent-shaped caps. He then files the Cossacks under 'Tartars', explaining that their name means freebooters. It shows how loosely an eighteenth-century Englishman used 'Tartar' for any steppe people on Russia's frontier, even Orthodox Russians.
The Cossacks are a species of tartars: their name signifies free-booters; but in these parts they are civilized, and faithful to the Russian government,
About Don Cossacks
Continue in this sourceJonas Hanway's history of British trade over the Caspian1743 to 1745 · 17 passages