Bashkir People | History, Culture & Language

Two people in traditional Bashkir dress c. 1872.

The national symbols of the Bashkir people provide insight into their culture. The first of these symbols of note is the kurai, an end-blown wind instrument akin to a flute but with only seven holes. There is even a kurai flower named after this instrument that serves as a national symbol as well.

Bashkir tradition holds that the stylized form of the kurai flower has seven petals to signify the seven Bashkir clans that united when they formed an agreement to join Russia centuries ago. The kurai flower is on the national emblem of the Bashkir people and the flag of the Republic of Bashkortostan.

Regarding religion, the Bashkir people have long been predominantly practitioners of Sunni Islam, though some Bashkir people practice Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Like many cultures around the world, ancient beliefs are akin to shamanism (magical and spiritual healing) and animism (belief in spirits within nature). These are reflected in their national epics and elements of their culture.

The Bashkir people have two national epics. The first is the Ural-batyr, which modern scholars often connect to Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic religion in the world. Like many other world religions, it begins with the story of a Great Flood. Then, it traces three generations of magical heroes and their trials and adventures. The second epic is Akbuzat, a sequel of sorts to the Ural-batyr. Both have since been (re-)recorded in many forms, with the Akbuzat even written as an opera.

The Bashkir people are known for their work with horses in many areas of life.

Some of the most well-known elements of the Bashkir people's culture include their long history of working with horses and bees. In old stories of Bashkir warriors, they are often on horseback; horses are a fundamental element of the Bashkir culture, used for work, farming, fighting (i.e., cavalry-style defense), and more.

The Bashkir people also are still practicing apiculture, specifically an ancient form of wild-hive beekeeping, mostly in their more remote villages. Many of their foods and drinks incorporate honey in some form.

Finally, while other forms of housing are used by the Bashkir people today, they are known for traditionally having lived in Mongolian and Turkish styles of yurts. Yurts are large, round tents that can be collapsed and put up again in new locations, hence their popularity with nomadic groups as the Bashkir people once were.

The Bashkir language is often referred to as Bashkort in English texts, though it is known in Bashkort as Başqort tele (Башҡорт теле‎) or Başqortsa (Башҡортса‎). It is part of the western branch of the Turkic language group (which is, itself, part of the proposed larger Altaic language group). Specifically, it is in the Uralian subgroup alongside languages like Chulym and Tatar, also spoken in the Russian Federation.

There are two dominant dialects of Bashkort: the Yurmatin, or Steppe, dialect in the southern regions and the Kuvakan, or Mountain, dialect in the northern regions. There is also a western dialect called Burzhan. In total, the speakers of the Bashkort language total 1,180,940, with the majority (1.09 million) of these speakers in Russia. Russian Bashkir people also tend to speak Russian as a primary or secondary language; the Bashkort language is often perceived today as a language of the older generations.

The Bashkir people, or Başqorttar (Bashkort: Башҡорттар), are a minority ethnic group native to Russia and some of the countries bordering Russia. There are about 2 million Bashkir people today, with most of them located in Russia. Historically, their homeland included regions such as present-day Kazakhstan, the Chelyabinsk Oblast in Russia, the Russian steppes, and the present-day Republic of Tatarstan in Russia. Today, many Bashkir people live in the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan (Башҡортостан). The flag for the Republic of Bashkortostan uses the symbol of the kurai flower, named after their national flute-like instrument, with seven petals to indicate the seven Bashkir clans that united when they joined Russia.

In addition to Russian, some Bashkir people speak the Bashkir language called Bashkort, natively known as Başqort tele (Башҡорт теле‎) or Başqortsa (Башҡортса‎), which is written using an extended form of the Cyrillic script. Other important cultural elements include their reputation for work with horses, their wild-bee keeping, and their use of Turkish and Mongolian styled yurts, which are large, round, temporary housing often used by nomadic peoples in that region. They also have two national epics called the Ural-batyr, which modern scholars often connect to Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic religion in the world, and its sequel, the Akbuzat. Both have been recorded in several forms for centuries.