Scratch a Russian Word...

 “For our sins, unknown tribes came, whom no one exactly knows, who they are, nor whence they came, nor what their language is, nor of what race they are, nor what their faith is; but they call them Tartars....”

These words were written by a scribe in 1224, in the Novgorod Chronicles, as a tribe of horsemen swept into the lands of Rus from the East.

Today these “horsemen from the East” are usually called the Mongol-Tatar armies. They first conquered Ryazan in 1237, then quickly took Vladimir and Moscow. By 1240 they had conquered Kyiv, too. They remained overlords of much of the lands of Rus until their final defeat on the Ugra River in 1480.

Their role in Russian history and influence has been ignored, argued about, or mythologized ever since.  The historian Donald Ostrowski has identified eight paradigms used to describe this period in ancient Russian history. They range from the Orthodox Church view that the Mongol-Tatar invasion was the manifestation of the wrath of God — “for our sins” — to the opposing view that the invasion ultimately strengthened church and state.

But one group dominated the discourse: the Russian nationalists. They either believed the Mongol-Tatar people had no influence on the development of Russia or believed that they were responsible for every evil in Russian society. Nineteenth-century historian Sergei Soloviev wrote that “we have no reason to assume any great influence of the Mongols on Russia’s internal administration, as we do not see any traces of it.” Nikolai Karamzin held the rather perverse view that the invasion was a “blessing in disguise,” since it forced the Russian princes to band together and eventually form the Russian state and empire.

One of Russia’s most renowned historians, Vasily Klyuchevsky, simply ignored the Mongol-Tartar rule, as if it was inconsequential. And Nicholas Riasnovsky, whose textbook on Russian history stood on the shelves of generations of students in the U.S., considered the role in Russian social, political, and economic development to be almost non-existent. He called the Mongol states “not particularly well organized, efficient or lasting” and wrote that they suffered from “arbitrariness, corruption and misrule in general.”

The problem with these theories is that the Russian language contains abundant proof to the contrary.

But first a question of language. The original army of Genghis Khan was Mongolian with many Tatars from a nearby Turkic tribe. Over the decades these Tatars — sometimes spelled Tartar — and men from other Turkic tribes joined the ranks of the army and were part of the forces that invaded Rus, led by Batu, Genghis Khan’s grandson.

Descendants of Batu ruling the Russian lands from the city of Sarai were called the Золотая Орда, translated as Golden Horde. But the swarming, mindless “horde” is a derogatory and incorrect translation of орда, a Turkic word meaning a camp, palace or headquarters. It was called golden for the color of their tents. Орда found its way into Moscow place names — the street Большая Ордынка (Bolshaya Ordynka) was the road south that led from the Kremlin to the орда.

Over the centuries, the ethnic composition of the Golden Horde changed, and by its demise in the fifteenth century, it was a Khanate almost entirely made up of Turkic peoples, and the languages used were Arabic and Tatar. Although a few Mongolian words entered Russian, most of the borrowed words are from Turkic languages, which includes Tatar.

A certain Professor Sergei Platonov, who taught Russian history at the University of St. Petersburg from 1889 to 1916, stated unequivocally that the Tatars did not and in fact could not have had a serious influence on Russia because “the Tatars lived far off, did not mix with the Russians, and appeared in Russian only to gather tribute or as an army…”

Sorry, professor, but the evidence is against you. Men (and women) in Russia might wear a кафтан (caftan), халат (robe), sometimes чулки (stockings) and shoes or boots that have a каблук (heel). On chilly nights they might go to sleep wearing a колпак (nightcap).

Men wear штаны (pants) or шаровары (loose pants that narrow at the ankle). A woman might wear a сарафан (now a sleeveless dress). If it’s very cold, they put on a тулуп (sheepskin coat). They press their clothes with an утюг (iron) and then put them in the чулан (closet) or pack them away in a сундук (trunk).

All of these words are of Turkic origin, which suggests a far greater integration than Professor Platonov imagined.

If you wonder what Russian men wore before they donned a кафтан and штаны, they wore a loose tunic that fell about to the knees called a зипун and pants called порты or портки. Today you might know that word from the expression пришёл марток – надевай семь порток (March has come, don seven pairs of pants). If you have ever experienced a “Moscow spring,” you understand.

After getting dressed, a well-dressed medieval Russian couple might have relaxed on their диван (couch) placed on a warm ковёр (rug), both words of Turkic origin.

Turkic words can be found in Russian terms for construction and structures. Men on scouting or other missions might spend the night in a шатёр (tent) or шалаш (a lean-to or other shelter).

Sturdier constructions were made out of кирпичи (bricks) and might be topped with a чердак (an attic, originally чардак — a balcony — probably from the Persian word for a four-post summer house). 

Sometimes Turkic words came to Russian via Europe, like киоск (kiosk), which was borrowed either from German or French. And sometimes a word settles in one place but not another. For example, майдан is from a Tatar word that meant a clear, flat place and then came to mean a market square. Now it is the main square in Kyiv. For other markets, Russian uses the word базар (bazaar), a Tatar word that came from Persian.

 All those гроши and алтыны (two and three kopek coins, respectively) were kept in the state казна (treasury, from a Mongolian word), which was overseen by the казначей (burser). In another part of the government, товары (originally a Tatar word meaning livestock) might have been kept in an амбар (storehouse or barn) before being dealt with at a таможня (customshouse).

In all of these cases, it is not clear if Russians just borrowed the words to describe what they had or if they borrowed the institutions themselves — or perhaps reshaped their institutions under the influence of the Golden Horde and then used the Turkic word to describe them. But there are two words that describe practices and people that were unique to the Tatar-Mongol rulers. One is ярлык, an edict or certificate granting rights to rule at the local level. Over many centuries that meaning got diminished to its present meaning of a label, either literal or figurative. The other word is ямщик, a rider that sped from one ям (way station for mail, people and important shipments) to another. Now the term ямщик is obsolete, but in recent centuries it meant a coachman.

And here’s a surprise — that quintessential Russian hero богатырь is a Turkic word that means “a brave man.”

These are just a few of the several thousand words in Russian borrowed from the Mongolian and Turkic languages. Their adoption indicates a deep level of integration and the possibility that these “horsemen from the East” contributed to the institutional development of the early Russian state.