Kriashen Tatars

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Kriashen Tatars

ETHNONYMS: Kräshenlär, Kreshchenye Tatary, Starokreshchenye Tatary

Orientation

Identification. The Kriashens are an ethnic group inhabiting the middle Volga region in the extreme eastern part of European Russia. Because they ceased being recognized as a distinct nationality by the Soviet authorities after 1930, there is no administratively defined Kriashen ethnic territory.

Location. The Kriashen settlements are located in the Kama Basin of the Tatar Republic, in the Bashkir and Chuvash republics, and in the Cheliabinsk and Kuibyshev oblasts of the Russian Republic. Kriashen villages have tended to be in the forest-steppe zone or in the steppe zone itself. The climate in the Kriashen ethnic territory is Continental, with long cold winters and hot dry summers. The growing season is from late April or early May until mid-September.

Demography. In 1910 the Kriashens numbered 122,000. No demographic information on the Kriashens has been published since the Soviet census of 1926, according to which they numbered nearly 100,000. Bennigsen and Wimbush (1986, 234) estimate the current Kriashen population to be at most 250,000. The Kriashens fall into three culturally distinct subgroups. The largest of these is the Kama Basin subgroup, which chiefly inhabits the Tatar and Bashkir republics. The second is the Nagaibak subgroup, which inhabits Cheliabinsk Oblast and which numbered approximately 6,000 at the end of the nineteenth century. The third subgroup, the Molkeevsk Kriashens, inhabit the Chuvash Republic. They speak a Mishär Tatar dialect and are integrated into Chuvash society. At the end of the nineteenth century the Kriashens were 98 percent rural dwellers, inhabiting their own Kriashen villages. Information on the contemporary degree of urbanization of Kriashens is not available.

Linguistic Affiliation. The Kriashens speak differing dialects of the Volga Tatar language, which is part of the Kipchak Branch of the Turkic Language Family. These dialects differ considerably from one another but are all mutually intelligible and are distinguished mainly by phonetic and lexical peculiarities. The languages most closely related to Volga Tatar are Bashkir and West Siberian Tatar. The Kriashens use the Kazan dialect of Volga Tatar and Russian as their literary languages. Before 1930, however, there were attempts to create and employ a Kriashen literary language. At the very end of the nineteenth century various religious texts were published by the Russian Orthodox church in a modified Cyrillic script. From 1927 until 1929 a Kriashen newspaper was published in Kazan.

History and Cultural Relations. The history of the Kriashens as such begins with Ivan IV of Muscovy's conquest of the Islamic Kazan Khanate in 1552. The incorporation of large non-Orthodox populations into the Muscovite state resulted in the attempt by that state and ecclesiastical authorities to Christianize the Muslim and animist communities of the former Kazan Khanate. Throughout the second half of the sixteenth century, employing financial and more coercive incentives, the Muscovites managed to effect nominal conversions of Islamic Tatars and various animist Chuvash and Finnic groups. Indeed, Nagaibak tradition tells of their forced conversion by Ivan IV. Presumably, the level of Islamicization in these Tatar communities was quite low. These converts formed the basis of the first Kriashen communities and are referred to in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Russian sources as "Novokreshchenye" (new converts). These communities considered themselves distinct from the Islamic Tatars; the Kriashens gradually became known in Russian sources as "Starokreshchenye" (old converts). Those Tatars who converted after 1740 failed either to integrate into Kriashen society or to form their own communities; as a result, these Novokreshchenye became Russified or apostatized. Before the early eighteenth century the Kriashens were listed in Russian tax registers as iasachnye liudi (payers of iasak, "tribute"). The imposition of enserfment, which immobilized the Kriashen peasantry and imposed taxation upon them, resulted in the flight of Kriashen and other peasants to the Bashkir and Kazakh steppes, where state control was more tenuous. The Kriashen serfs were emancipated in 1861, as were all serfs in the Russian Empire. There is little information on the Kriashen peasantry during the Soviet period. After 1930 the Soviet authorities tended to determine nationality according to linguistic, rather than religious, affiliation.

The very existence of a distinct Kriashen culture has been predicated on their separateness from Islamic Tatar culture at large. In the middle Volga region religious practices have been the criteria for communal distinctions, not only among the Tatars, but among the region's Finnic and Chuvash populations as well, even to the present. Furthermore, in the nineteenth century some Kriashen communities used religious practices as the basis for distinguishing their community from other Kriashen settlements. As a result of the isolation of Kriashen communities from one another, Kriashens maintained close relations with neighboring villages and marriages between Kriashens and Chuvash were especially common. Islamic mullahs or Russian priests were also frequently invited to officiate at Kriashen religious rituals.

Settlements

There are very few sources that discuss the nature of Kriashen villages, and even their precise locations are unclear. Kriashens appear to have traditionally located themselves near streams or springs, building one-or two-story houses along narrow, straight streets. Their houses were for the most part wooden and had elaborately carved facades. In front of the houses were carved picket fences and low gates.

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. Before 1930 the Kriashens tended to rely on a wooden plow (saban ); iron plows were slowly being introduced by that time. Until 1930 the Kriashens practiced subsistence-level agriculture, which consisted primarily of rye and wheat cultivation. This cultivation was supplemented by vegetable and fruit growing and by raising sheep, pigs, cattle, horses, and poultry. Agriculture was marginally supplemented by fishing and gathering, and, to a smaller degree, by hunting. The collectivization of the Kriashen villages in the early 1930s undoubtedly had a detrimental effect on overall food production in these villages. The Kriashen diet consisted chiefly of bread supplemented by vegetables and of meat consumed during festivals involving sacrifices. It appears that dairy products were important in the Kriashen diet. Certain dishes, such as porridge (butga ) and fish pies, had an important ritual significance.

Industrial Arts. The material for the manufacture of most utensils, furniture, and tools was wood. As with the Islamic Tatars, many Kriashens were accomplished leatherworkers. Clothes and rugs were woven by the villagers.

Trade. Until 1930 money was not the main medium of exchange in Kriashen villages. Consequently, trade was not a major facet of the Kriashen economy. Nonetheless, it seems that there were markets in the Kriashen villages, and incomes were supplemented by the sale of surplus handicrafts and agricultural produce.

Division of Labor. In traditional Kriashen society much of the outdoor agricultural work such as plowing, certain crafts, metalworking, and fishing and hunting was done by men. Food preparation, weaving, gathering, and much of the harvesting was done by women. Daughters-in-law living with their husband's family performed a disproportionately large share of the household chores. The first sowing of the year was usually done by the senior member of the family.

Land Tenure. Little is known regarding Kriashen land tenure before their enserfment in the eighteenth century, except that Russian tax registers seem to indicate that plots, to some extent, were owned communally. After the emancipation of 1861 land was owned by the village commune and was periodically redistributed among the villagers. From 1905 until collectivization in 1930 land was under private ownership.

Kinship, Marriage, and Family

Kinship. Although the tribal kinship system among the Volga Tatars had atrophied well before the Russian conquest, the Kama Basin Kriashens maintained festivals that were collectively observed by a number of genealogically related villages, usually from four to ten. Kinship is not shared with Islamic Tatar villages, although they have a similar institution of a multivillage festival. Both the Kriashen and Islamic Tatars refer to the institution as jïyïn. The main kinship group was traditionally the extended family descending from a grandfather.

Kinship Terminology. The kinship terms of the Kama Basin Kriashens differ from those of Tatars in general. The terms for all maternal relatives were prefixed with jïraq, meaning "far." Thus, the paternal grandfather was called babay ; the maternal grandfather was called jïraq babay, and so forth.

Marriage. Traditional marriages were usually arranged between the respective families, although elopement was also common, as was bride-abduction. An arranged marriage required the payment of a bride-price (galïm ) to the bride's family. Residence was patrilocal. Christian prohibitions of divorce were usually disregarded before the Revolution.

Domestic Unit. The traditional domestic unit was the extended family, which could number as few as twelve or as many as forty members. The extended family would usually reside in a single dwelling, but sometimes would inhabit two or more neighboring buildings.

Inheritance. Very little is known about Kriashen inheritance. Property was controlled by the senior male in the extended family, and the property appears to have remained in the household as long as the household was intact. When an extended family fragmented, the departing members had a right to take with them only the property necessary to establish their new household. This traditional system ended with the privatization of the economy in the early twentieth century and was replaced with direct inheritance.

Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization. The basic social unit above the family level was the village council, which was comprised of the aqsaqallar (the senior male members of the community). The most senior member of the council was called abïz. Traditionally, this council, which corresponded to the Russian mir, arbitrated disputes, periodically redistributed land, and organized communal religious rituals, such as animal sacrifices. After the Bolshevik Revolution the village council was supplanted by the village or collective-farm soviet. This transition presumably reduced the authority of the village elders.

Political Organization. Kriashen villages were integrated into the czarist, then the Soviet political structure. In the czarist period political institutions in the Kriashen regions were dominated by the Russian nobility, and in the early twentieth century by Russian and Islamic Tatar political organizations. Kriashens were subject to the same tax and military obligations as other peasants in the former Russian Empire. The fact that Kriashen nationhood was not recognized in the Soviet period has deprived the Kriashens of those political institutions afforded the other nationalities of the middle Volga region.

Social Control. Traditionally, social control was exercised by communal opinion, in more extreme cases by the village council or local courts. In the Soviet period social control was exercised by judicial and law-enforcement authorities.

Conflict. The Kriashens participated in all of the major uprisings against czarist authority in the middle Volga region, most notably the Stenka Razin Revolt in the seventeenth century and the Pugachev Uprising of the eighteenth century. Little is known of agrarian unrest in the Kriashen villages during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Religion and Expressive Culture

Religions. Although the Kriashens were members of the Russian Orthodox church, it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that church authorities made any effort to introduce Christian dogmas into Kriashen practices. The few resident Russian priests in Kriashen villages rarely commanded the local languages. Traditional Kriashen religion was characterized by agricultural rites, ancestor worship, the cult of heroes (Kirämätlär), and animal sacrifices. Kriashen communities that resisted Christian and Islamic influence in their practices referred to themselves as "Chey Kräshenlär" (real, or pure, Kriashens). The community, both living and dead, was the focal point of religious life; the most important rituals involving the entire village were held in the fields, cemeteries, or sacred groves. Religious specialists (küräzä ) consisted of seers and healers. The former would practice divination and recover lost articles. Village elders, in some communities including women, officiated at the major sacrifices. Kriashens would frequently enlist the aid of powerful religious specialists from neighboring, non-Kriashen, villages. There were also important ancestor-worship ceremonies at the family level. Important festivals were Nardughan (New Year's), Olï Kön ("Big Day," Easter), and Sabantuy (the summer plow festival). These practices were retained well into the 1930s, and some certainly continue to exist to some degree.

The chief deity, corresponding to the Christian god, was called Koday. The spirit world was quite populous; spirits existed for all natural phenomena. The most important of these were spirits of the house, fields, forest, and water. Adults were considered to have at least two separate and distinct souls.

Arts. Very little Kriashen folklore has been recorded, except for wedding songs and certain other folk melodies. Kriashens have a tradition of intricate carving and embroidery. Kriashen embroideries contain many Finno-Ugric and Turkic elements, which are not evident in those of the Islamic Tatars.

Medicine . Traditional medical techniques consisted of spells and incantations, since it was believed that most illnesses were caused by spirits or spirit possession. Modern empirical medicine was probably not consistently available in the Soviet period, and, consequently, traditional techniques remain in use.

Death and Afterlife. The community was traditionally believed to consist of both the living and the dead, and great care was taken to see to the needs of the latter. Death and burial rituals were complex and carefully followed. Funeral repasts, at which the soul of the deceased participated, were held on the third, seventh, ninth, and fortieth days after burial. Annual memorial feasts were also held in both the house and in the cemetery for family and village ancestors. The Kriashens had no concept of heaven; they believed spirits resided in the spirit world and yet could interact with the living.