Moscow, Nauka Publishing House. 1974. 572 pp. Circulation of 2,400 copies. Price 2 rubles 49 kopecks.

The work of the Deputy chairman of the Bashkir branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences R. G. Kuzeev was carried out in historical and ethnographic terms, in a wide historical range, based on the integrated use of various types of sources. Among them, a large role belongs to both field materials and research.-

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materials of the Institute of History, Language and Literature of the Bashkir branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, accumulated and implemented with the participation of R. G. Kuzeev. Special attention should be paid to the use of data on shezhere and tribal ethnonymy, which, unfortunately, are sometimes not only underestimated, but also undeservedly ignored. Shezhere (genealogies) of Bashkirs, as defined by R. G. Kuzeev, are original written monuments of the XVI - XIX centuries, and sometimes earlier. But there are also oral shezhere both among Bashkirs, Kazakhs, Turkmens, Kirghizs and other peoples .1 Kin-tribal ethnonymy of the Bashkirs is widely used in the book to clarify the ethnic composition of the Bashkirs in different periods of their ethnic history, their ethnogenetic relationships.

The stability of ancestral and tribal ethnonyms, their preservation in the memory of the older generation of many modern peoples who conducted a nomadic or semi-nomadic economy in the recent past, place them in a number of outstanding historical and ethnographic sources, the reliability of which is usually confirmed by relevant comparative material and data from multilingual written sources of various antiquities. This type of source is used fruitfully by many Soviet researchers .2 The author expresses new ideas about Bashkir ethnonymy, which reflects popular ideas about its ethnic and social history. He believes that the ethnic history of the Bashkirs, which goes back to the distant past, reflects tribal ethnonyms, and generic ethnonymy is mainly ethnic processes of various historical epochs, up to the latest. However, this interesting observation requires verification on the material of other peoples. It is not confirmed by the material of the Sayan-Altai Turkic-speaking peoples, for example. In close connection with the kin-tribal ethnonymy, R. G. Kuzeev widely uses the tamga as a source. By the way, it would be highly desirable to publish a set of Bashkir ethnonyms and tamgs as a valuable historical and ethnographic source, which will be used by researchers of various profiles.

The book deals with a number of important and complex problems related not only to the ethnogenesis, ethnic and social history of the Bashkirs, but also with the intensive ethnic processes that took place on the territory of Bashkiria, its neighboring and more remote regions. Such, for example, is the problem of dating and ways of penetration of Turkic-speaking ethnic elements in Eastern Europe in general and in the Volga-Kama region in particular. Of considerable interest is the question of the role and significance of the Kipchak ethnic complex, whose influence on the ethnic processes that took place in the Middle Ages on the territory of the steppe belt stretching from Central Asia to the Black Sea region was very great. The author did not avoid such problems as the ancestral homeland of the ancient Hungarians, the Bulgar-Ugric and Bulgar - Magyar ethnic components in the ancient Bashkir ethnic group. He also touched upon the theory of Bashkir-Magyar kinship and many other issues related to the characterization of ethnic predecessors of certain modern peoples of the Volga-Kama basin. The book contains 18 maps in which R. G. Kuzeev synthesized extensive ethnogenetic material and conclusions.

It is necessary to support the author's position on the question of the time of the appearance of Turkic ethnic elements in the above-mentioned area (the middle of the 1st millennium BC). R. G. Kuzeev convincingly refutes the claims about their autochthonous or very early presence here. He considers the earliest penetration of Turkic-speaking elements into Eastern Europe to be gradual and went in two directions. For the VI-VIII centuries, this was the penetration from the Trans - Urals and settlement of some Turkic-speaking groups as part of the general Ugric or Ugric-Samoyedic mass, followed by the Bulgars, who had experienced Hunnic influence before coming to the Volga and then played a major role in the ethnic history of the Bashkirs. Another direction of penetration of the ancient Turks, which had an even greater impact on the ethnogenesis of the Bashkirs, was the intensive migration of Turkic nomads (consolidated in Central Asia in a number of tribal associations) to the Aral Sea region, the Caspian steppes and the North Caucasus. As they moved, they introduced their culture to the local tribes that lived on their way. The time of their promotion is dated by the author to the VIII-IX centuries. This hypothesis is supported to a certain extent by archaeological material.

1 For more information about shezhere, see R. G. Kuzey v. Bashkir shezhere. Ufa, 1960.

2 See, for example, S. M. Abramzon. Kirghiz people and their ethnogenetic and historical-cultural relations, L. 1971.

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But it almost does not take into account the participation in this process of small but numerous groups of nomads, who in the era of the Turkic khaganates are generally referred to in the sources as "tele", although among them there were"different names of genera". In the west, Tele groups reached the Caspian Sea. One of them is called pei-ju-ku-li and is identified by some scientists with the ethnonym Bashkir3 . Among archaeologists, there is an increasingly strong opinion that the widespread use of the rite of burial of the deceased with a horse by the method of placing the corpse within the boundaries of the political influence of the khaganates is connected precisely with "tele".

Much attention is paid to the ethnic history of the Bashkir tribes and the composition of the ancient Bashkir ethnic group. When studying this complex and time-consuming problem, R. G. Kuzeev outlined and justified four geographical groups of Bashkirs: south-eastern, north-eastern, south-western and north - western. For each of them, he looked at the ethnic composition, ethnic history, and settlement in retrospect. Based on the areal study and mapping of some elements of the traditional Bashkir culture, the author identifies four historical and ethnographic areas, the idea of which was developed by Soviet ethnographers. Their borders coincided with geographical groups. The main results of the study of each group of Bashkirs are summarized and formulated in brief conclusions. The main result of the study is that R. G. Kuzeev proved a very mixed ethnic composition of all Bashkir groups and even their individual tribes. For example, in the north-eastern group, Turkic, Mongolian, and Finno-Ugric components were identified, reflecting various stages of the ethnic history of the Bashkirs. In the northwestern group, the author identifies both the early tribal components of the Bashkir ethnos, whose origin is associated with the Volga-Bulgarian and Ugric (Magyar) ethnic environment of the VIII - IX centuries, and the late Kipchak elements that assimilated the Bulgar - Ugric and ancient Bashkir local population.

The scientific significance of this result is wider than the limits of Bashkir history. The concept of ethnic mixing and the emergence of new forms and types of ethnic community on a mixed basis reflects the historical reality of the life of nomads with an unstable ethnic composition of tribes and peoples, military-political and state formations. The reasons for this lie in the specifics of the method of production of material goods and socio-economic relations among nomads. This concept places the importance of migrations among nomads in their proper place, which were not a decisive reason for explaining the nature of ethnic composition, but could sometimes be one of the factors that influenced it. The impact of migration on ethnic processes depended on the socio-economic conditions in which groups of migrants found themselves. The concept described in the book also follows from specific studies of the ethnogenesis and ethnic history of Altaians, Khakass, Tuvans, Yakuts, Kirghizs, Kazakhs, Karakalpaks, etc. Obviously, the time has come to formulate it as a pattern of the ethnic history of nomads.

In the mixed ethnic composition of the Bashkirs, the author was able to identify a large number of Turkic-Mongolian ethnic elements of Central Asian, including South Siberian or Sayan-Altai, origin, and primarily Kipchak. Much has been written about the participation of the Kipchaks in the formation of various Turkic-speaking modern peoples. But no one before R. G. Kuzeev has shown their role and significance in the formation of a particular nationality so well. Now this is not a hypothesis, but a proven fact. The author was also right in assuming a similar role of the Kipchaks in the ethnic history of a number of Central Asian peoples.

Common in almost all groups is a component called "tabyn", which makes up a whole group in the north-eastern Bashkirs. The author cites the traditions of the Tabyn people about Altai as their ancient homeland, where they lived together with the Uyghurs. We should add that at the beginning of the 17th century, some of the Tabyn people lived in the area of the left bank of the Yenisei River from the Abakan River downstream. This is reported by Russian ambassadors to Altyn Khan, who passed through the "Tabyn land" in 1616, as well as records of yasach books of the XVII century. Kuznetsky uyezd 4 . The Tabyn people were assimilated later among the Beltiri of Levobe-

3 Liu Mau-Tsai. Die chinesischen Nach-richten zur Geschichte der Ost- turken (T'u-kue). Wiesbaden. 1958. Bd. I, S. 127 - 128; Bd. II, S. 567 - 570.

4 L. P. Potapov. Origin and formation of the Khakass people. Abakan, 1957.

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the sons of Abakan, in whom the Taban-Beltir family was considered indigenous. At the same time, it is impossible to agree with R. G. Kuzeev about the validity of comparing the ethnonym "tabyn" with the Tatabi mentioned in the Orkhon ancient Turkic inscriptions. By the latter, sources refer to a special tribe of eastern Xianbians, who often attacked the Khitan. They were nomads and hunters, and the dead were buried in trees .5
The author should have paid attention to the new archaeological materials attributed to the Kimaks. We are talking about monuments of the Srosta culture (IX-X centuries), identical to the synchronous monuments of East Kazakhstan, which are unanimously attributed by researchers (S. S. Chernikov, F. Kh. Arslanova, etc.) to the Kimak culture. This will allow us to expand our understanding of the Kimaks and their role in the Kipchak environment and their penetration into the Bashkiria region. Finally, about the ethnonym " bashkort "(Bashkir). The author convincingly proves its Turkic origin, linking the etymology of the term in its second lexeme kort (kurt) with the name wolf, reflecting the cult of the wolf, and mythology with the central image of the wolf. However, it is hardly possible to speak about the totemic character of this name after the consideration of this issue by the English Turkologist D. Clawson6 .

5 See: Liu Mau-Tsai. Op. cit. Bd. I, S. 124; Bd. II, S. 564.

6 G. Clauson. Turks and Wolves. Helsinki. 1964. Studia Orientalia. Edidit Societas Orientalis Fennica. XXVIII:2.

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