17 Facts About Bashkirs

Bashkirs are a Kipchak Turkic ethnic group, indigenous to Russia.

Bashkirs are mainly Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab, or school of jurisprudence, and follow the Jadid doctrine.

Previously nomadic and fiercely independent, the Bashkirs gradually came under Russian rule beginning in the 16th century; they have since played a major role through the history of Russia, culminating in their autonomous status within the Russian Empire, Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia.

Around 40 Turkic Tiele tribes were named in the section "A Narration about the Tiele people"; Bashkirs might have been included within that narration, if the tribal name ?? were read as ??, according to Chinese scholar Rui Chuanming.

Ibn Rustah, a contemporary of Abu Zayd al-Balkhi, observed that Bashkirs were an independent people occupying territories on both sides of the Ural mountains ridge between Volga, Kama, and Tobol Rivers and upstream of the Yaik river.

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Apparently, Islam had already begun to spread among the Bashkirs, as one of the ambassadors was a Muslim Bashkir.

The Bashkirs rose again in 1707, under Aldar and Kusyom, due to perceived ill-treatment by Imperial Russian officials.

In 1786, the Bashkirs achieved tax-free status; and in 1798 Russia formed an irregular Bashkir army from among them.

Bashkirs appear close to Mongoloids in allele and haplotype distribution.

However, Bashkirs cannot be labelled either as typical Mongoloids or as Caucasoids.

Bashkirs showed no features of populations with a substantial Finno-Ugric component, for example, Chuvashes or Russian Saami.

Bashkirs are characterized by East-Asian admixture, which dates from the 13th century, according to an analysis of the identical-by-descent segments.

Example, the dialects spoken by Bashkirs, tend to have an accent which mostly resembles other Kipchak languages, like Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Nogai, Karakalpak, and many other languages of the Kipchak sub-group, while the dialects spoken by Idel Tatars, have accents more resembling the original Oghuric Volga-Bulgar language spoken before the Cuman invasion.

The half-nomadic Bashkirs travelled through either the mountains or the steppes, herding cattle.

Bashkirs have a rich folklore referencing the genesis and early history of the people.

Bashkirs have a style of overtone singing called ozlau, which has nearly died out.

The final assertion of Islam among the Bashkirs occurred in the 1320s and 1330s during the Golden Horde period.