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

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

: 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 Volga Tatars, 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 Tat ...

for ''History of Cäğfär'') is a Russian language partial translation of a supposed 17th-century

Volga Tatar The Volga Tatars or simply Tatars ( tt-Cyrl, татарлар, tatarlar) are a Turkic ethnic group native to the Volga-Ural region of Russia. They are subdivided into various subgroups. Volga Tatars are Russia's second-largest ethnicity after t ...

compilation of early historical material on the

Bulgars The Bulgars (also Bulghars, Bulgari, Bolgars, Bolghars, Bolgari, Proto-Bulgarians) were Turkic semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region during the 7th century. They became known as nomad ...

Khazars The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...

Magyars Hungarians, also known as Magyars ( ; hu, magyarok ), are a nation and ethnic group native to Hungary () and historical Hungarian lands who share a common culture, history, ancestry, and language. The Hungarian language belongs to the Uralic ...

and other

Eurasian nomads The Eurasian nomads were a large group of nomadic peoples from the Eurasian Steppe, who often appear in history as invaders of Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, Eastern Asia, and South Asia. A nomad is a member of people having no permanent ...

. Most scholars view the work as a mixture of (previously known) factual data and outright fabrications, while others view the work as authentic.

History

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

Bashkortostan The Republic of Bashkortostan or Bashkortostan ( ba, Башҡортостан Республикаһы, Bashqortostan Respublikahy; russian: Республика Башкортостан, Respublika Bashkortostan),; russian: Респу́блик� ...

, 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-imperi ...

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 and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...

, 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 (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

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, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, 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 ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...

rulers named

Khalga and Kaban Khalga and Kaban were two Khazar Khagans listed in the ''Cäğfär Taríxı'', a Tatar language book purporting to be a history of the early Turkic peoples. According to that work they ruled during the 660s. They are not mentioned in any other h ...

, who do not appear in the account of

al-Tabari ( ar, أبو جعفر محمد بن جرير بن يزيد الطبري), more commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Muslim historian and scholar from Amol, Tabaristan. Among the most prominent figures of the Islamic Golden Age, al-Tabari ...

, in the

Schechter Letter The "Schechter Letter" (also called the "Cambridge Document") was discovered in the Cairo Geniza by Solomon Schechter. The Letter The Schechter Letter has been interpreted as a communique from an unnamed Khazar author to an unidentified Jewish d ...

, in the

Khazar Correspondence The Khazar Correspondence is a set of documents, which are alleged to date from the 950s or 960s, and to be letters between Hasdai ibn Shaprut, foreign secretary to the Caliph of Cordoba, and Joseph Khagan of the Khazars. The Correspondence is ...

, or any other extant document. It also associates the Bulgars with what Nurutdinov interprets as references to

Troy Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite language, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite language, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in prese ...

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

and

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

.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

See also

References

External links