Proof that Madzhar was built by Kipchak Tatars
Editorial contextKlaproth sets out his evidence that Madzhar was a Tatar town: the shape of its buildings and burial chapels, which match a Tatar cemetery near Tbilisi; walls decorated with coloured glazed tiles, a Tatar and Mongol fashion; Arabic gravestones; coins of the Golden Horde; and mentions in Asian histories. He also opened a brick vault himself and found a wooden coffin.
The following facts, however, afford incontestable proofs that Madshar was a town built and inhabited by Ckipdshack Tartars. I. The form of the buildings and sepulchral chapels is characteristic of Southern Asia… The fashion of adorning the walls with tiles, which are glazed on one side with different colours, is also Tartar and Mongol.
About Kipchak Tatars (Golden Horde)
An octagonal stone tomb with a Tatar inscription
Editorial contextNear the rivulet Jaman-Kul, Klaproth describes the oldest monument of Little Kabarda: an octagon of hewn stone about twelve feet high with an arched door, windows and a collapsed vault, ringed by about a hundred earth mounds. Its Tatar inscription names 'Ckoban-Chan son of Berdi-beg' and the Islamic year 860 (1455).
It is an edifice of hewn stone, and round it are about a hundred hillocks of earth called Bugri… The building is an octagon, each of its sides measuring six feet… On the stone inserted over the door is engraved a Tartar inscription in three lines, of which only these words ‘Ckoban-Chan son of Berdi-beg, in the year 860’ (A. D. 1455) are legible.
About Tatars of the Kipchak khanate
God called Tagri and sacrifices to the prophet Elijah
Editorial contextKlaproth says the ordinary Bassian Tartars had no fixed religion: they called God 'Tagri' rather than Allah, offered lambs, dairy and beer to the prophet Elijah on mountain tops with song and dance, ate pork and kept sacred springs. Like other Tartars they foretold the future from sheep's shoulder-blades cracking in the fire. Only their chiefs had been made Muslim by the Circassians.
The common people have, strictly speaking, no established religion, but worship God, whom they call Tagri and not Allah, as the giver of all good, and the prophet Elijah… who, according to them, frequently appears on the summits of the highest mountains, and to whom they offer sacrifices of lambs, milk, butter, cheese, and beer (ssra), accompanied with singing and dancing.
About Bassian Tartars (Balkars)
Keep in mind
Based on informants' reports rather than long residence.
A Muslim gravestone dated 1346
Editorial contextKlaproth read Arabic gravestones at Madzhar: one for 'Sina, son of Mohammed, son of Chalil' of AH 747 (1346-1347), another for a judge of AH 777 (1375-1376), which he carried away. All dated stones he saw belonged to the 8th Islamic century. He notes Pallas missed them because peasants had built them into their yards.
Here is buried the deceased, who needs the mercy of God in eternity, Sina, son of Mohhammed, the son of Chalil..... in the year of the era seven-and-forty and seven hundred.
About Muslim Tatars of the Golden Horde
Karachay marriage and the 'price of blood'
Editorial contextKlaproth describes the Karachay as usually monogamous and unusually kind to their wives. As among other Tartars, the bride's parents receive a kalym (bride price), here called 'the price of blood'; a rich groom sends the bride a full outfit and she is brought to him at night, followed by three days of feasting and dancing.
In general they take only one wife… so that here, as among the Europeans, the wife is the companion, and not the menial servant, of the husband… Among them, as among the other Tartars, the parents, on the marriage of a daughter, receive a kalim, which is here termed the price of blood.
About Karachay Tartars
Keep in mind
Klaproth's Karachay material came mainly from one Armenian informant.
Mountain Tartars who remember a lost capital
Editorial contextKlaproth reports the origin tradition of the Turkic mountain peoples the Georgians called Bassiani: their elders say they once lived on the steppe of the Kuma up to the Don, with a magnificent capital, Ckirck Madshar ('forty stone buildings'), which they identify with the ruins at Madzhar, before being driven into the high mountains.
Their elders report that they were long ago settled in the steppe of the Kuma as far as the Don… Their capital, which is said to have been very magnificent, was named Ckirck Madshar, which in their language signifies the forty stone buildings, or the forty four-wheeled waggons… They assert that the ruins of Madshar, which yet subsist, are the remains of this city.
About Bassian Tartars (Balkars and Karachay)
Keep in mind
An oral tradition; the dates are uncertain even to the tellers.
A name Tatars called dishonourable
Editorial contextIn the written instructions the Academy gave Klaproth, a scholar remarks that peoples sometimes adopt names their neighbours use: just as the Tartar nations in Russia call themselves 'Tartars' for outsiders, though at home they consider the name dishonourable.
They perhaps assume it for the purpose of accommodating their neighbours, as the Tartar nations in Russia give themselves the name of Tartars, which in their own countries they consider as dishonourable.
About Tatar peoples of Russia
Batu's 'Mongol' army had very few Mongols
Editorial contextIn footnotes to his account of Batu's conquest of Russia and sack of Kiev in 1240, Klaproth points out that Batu's army contained very few Mongols and that he ruled as prince of the Kipchak Tartars. The khans of Kipchak called themselves Tartar sultans and lived at Sarai on the Akhtuba; after their empire split, the khans of Kazan, Astrakhan and Crimea kept the title.
Batu-chan had very few Mongols in his army, and had become prince of the Kipdschak Tartars… The chans of Kipdschak styled themselves Tartar sultans, and resided in the city of Sarai or Saratschik on the river Achtuba; an arm of the Wolga, till the division of their extensive dominions.
About Kipchak Tatars; Golden Horde
The myth that Hungarians came from Madzhar
Editorial contextKlaproth traces a legend: in 1728 Gerber saw 'handsome stone houses' at Madzhar and guessed from the name that the Hungarians (Magyars) came from there, a notion copied onto maps. Klaproth calls it absurd: the name is Tatar for stone buildings, and the ruins are Golden Horde.
It is yet called Madshar, an appellation which is given by the Poles and Turks to the Hungarians, and by which the latter commonly distinguish themselves. It is probable that the founders of the kingdom of Hungary were originally from this country. Thus we see that Gerber was the first who broached the absurd opinion that the Hungarians derived their origin from Madshar
About Hungarians (Magyars); Golden Horde Tatars
Keep in mind
A name-based origin legend that Klaproth rejects.
The long-haired forest goblin who boiled two children
Editorial contextAmong the Karachay's many tales of mountain demons, Klaproth records the Ssalmasti, a long-haired female spirit of the woods. A villager caught one and enslaved it by hiding its cut hair, until his children revealed the hiding place; the spirit threw them into the boiling pot and fled back to the forest.
A malignant spirit in female shape, and having very long hair, which they call in their language Ssalmasti, is reported to reside in a certain wood. About twenty-five years ago one of the inhabitants of the village caught this goblin, carried it home with him, and cut off its hair, which he carefully hid, and by which means he rendered the spirit subservient to him.
About Karachay Tartars
Keep in mind
A folk tale passed on through an informant.