The ''Cäğfär Taríxı'' ( Tatar Cyrillic: Җәгъфәр тарихы, pronounced ;

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

: Джагфар Тарихы, in English generally ''Djagfar Tarikhy,'' via the Russian transliteration of the Volga Tatar name;

Tatar language Tatar ( ; or ) is a Turkic languages, Turkic language spoken by the Volga Tatars mainly located in modern Tatarstan (European Russia), as well as Siberia. It should not be confused with Crimean Tatar language, Crimean Tatar or Siberian Tatar ...

for ''History of Cäğfär'') is a Russian language partial translation of a supposed 17th-century Volga Tatar compilation of early historical material on the

Bulgars The Bulgars (also Bulghars, Bulgari, Bolgars, Bolghars, Bolgari, Proto-Bulgarians) were Turkic peoples, Turkic Nomad, semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between the 5th and 7th centu ...

Khazars The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, a ...

Magyars Hungarians, also known as Magyars, are an ethnic group native to Hungary (), who share a common culture, language and history. They also have a notable presence in former parts of the Kingdom of Hungary. The Hungarian language belongs to the ...

and other

Eurasian nomads Eurasian nomads form groups of nomad, nomadic peoples who have lived in various areas of the Eurasian Steppe. History largely knows them via frontier historical sources from Europe and Asia. The steppe nomads had no permanent abode, but travelle ...

. Most scholars view the work as a fabrication, while others view the work as authentic — a unique ancient source containing a lot of completely unknown information about the history of the peoples of Eastern Europe from the I millennium AD to the XVI century.

History

According to its publisher, Fargat Nurutdinov, the Cäğfär Taríxı was written in its present form in

Bashkortostan Bashkortostan, officially the Republic of Bashkortostan, sometimes also called Bashkiria, is a republic of Russia between the Volga river and the Ural Mountains in Eastern Europe. The republic borders Perm Krai to the north, Sverdlovsk Oblast ...

, by Baxşi İman, secretary of Cäğfär, the leader of a Tatar

liberation movement A liberation movement is an organization or political movement leading a rebellion, or a non-violent social movement, against a colonial power or national government, often seeking independence based on a nationalist identity and an anti-imperiali ...

that supposedly flourished there at the time. Nurutdinov states that the original, written in "Bulgar Turkic" (here equated with the language of the Volga Tatars), in the

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ...

, was translated into Russian in the late 1930s by his uncle I.M.-K.-Nigmatullin, who did this in order to save it from an

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

campaign of confiscation and destruction of old Bulgar documents written in the

. The manuscript containing the Bulgar text was destroyed by NKVD agents. Nigmatullin himself was killed in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, and the translation was preserved by his mother, who eventually passed it over to her grandson, Nurutdinov, in 1976. He managed to copy parts of the translation, but the original translation and some of the copies were stolen from his father's country house in the 1980s by unknown perpetrators. Finally, Nurutdinov published the remaining text.

The text refers to numerous persons and historical events unattested in other sources; for example, it makes references to mid 7th century

Khazar The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, an ...

rulers named Khalga and Kaban, who do not appear in the account of

al-Tabari Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr ibn Yazīd al-Ṭabarī (; 839–923 CE / 224–310 AH), commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Sunni Muslim scholar, polymath, historian, exegete, jurist, and theologian from Amol, Tabaristan, present- ...

, in the Schechter Letter, in the Khazar Correspondence, or any other extant document. It also associates the Bulgars with what Nurutdinov interprets as references to

Troy Troy (/; ; ) or Ilion (; ) was an ancient city located in present-day Hisarlik, Turkey. It is best known as the setting for the Greek mythology, Greek myth of the Trojan War. The archaeological site is open to the public as a tourist destina ...

Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization, located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. ...

and

America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

.БАХШИ ИМАН ДЖАГФАР ТАРИХЫ ТОМ ВТОРОЙ РЕДАКЦИЯ ВЕСТНИКА "БОЛГАР ИЛЕ" ОРЕНБУРГ 1994. Ответственные редакторы Ф. Г.-Х. НУРУТДИНОВ и Р. Ш. ШАРИПОВ
/ref>

References

External links

Text of the Cäğfär Taríxı
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cagfar Tarixi History of Tatarstan Volga Bulgaria

History

Contents

References

External links