Tartary – the prototype of the Eurasian Union in the 21st century

September 25, 2018

“What will history tell?” – asked Bernard Shaw. And he answered his own question: “History, sir, lies, as always.” In this regard, I would like to make a few observations on the existence of a country whose name can not be found in any textbook on national history. Tartary and its peoples are not simply forgotten. The historical canvas of the genuine events of the “pre-Petrine era” has been so carefully wiped out that it is difficult to discern even the most insignificant hints of reality.

The Kremlin Gift

How to see the past without distortion? Rabindranath Tagore very accurately noted that “a person does not reveal himself in history: he breaks through it.” Let’s take this as a methodological postulate and try to look at the past of our country from the standpoint of the fact that all the genuine one way or another breaks through a heap of political speculation, deliberate silence and purposeful distortion of reality.

There is an old misconception that time will put everything in its place.

I think that people from time to time place themselves in their places, capable of rising above political considerations for the sake of historical truth.

 

Such unexpected for many step towards historical truth was a gift to the first president of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev, who on his 80th birthday was presented at the Kremlin by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.

It was not a familiar vase or rug with the image of the hero of the day.

It was a map of Tartaria!

In the media, then they wondered what is the meaning of Putin’s gift to Shaimiev? So, for example, experts of the newspaper “BUSINESS Online” expressed the opinion that “the ancient map symbolizes the Eurasian turn: the history of the country can not be deduced only from Kiev and Moscow”.

I will not comment on this conclusion. I will only say one thing: Putin’s gift, indeed, was not accidental, and behind him is the intention to designate a new vector in the understanding of domestic history.

Vice President and Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan  Rafael Khakimov, recalls: “Once, several years ago, Putin stood near this map and studied it carefully.” Continuing the discussion on this topic, Rafael Khakimov asks quite a fair question (and this, I hope he sounded to the president): “if Russia did not have such a prehistory, how would an empire emerge?” It  can not arise from a small town. How to bring the history of Russia from Kiev, Novgorod or from the Crimea? It is impossible, the empire does not arise like this. The empire should have a basis in the form of economy, budget, roads, qualified leaders, troops and so on. And Tataria (Tartary is a Latin spelling) is the real basis for the emergence of the Russian Empire. ”

Thus, Putin’s gift to Shaimiev has its own prehistory, which, undoubtedly, is filled with much more interesting and important details than presented here

 

 

…The first thing that I think we should pay attention to is the polyethnic essence of the phenomenon of Tartary, a country that occupies almost the entire space of Eurasia, except for a barely visible (against its background) geographic formation in the form of Western Europe.

What ethnos in the endless expanses of Tartary was systemically important?

At the initial stage, of course, it was the Turks, most of whom were Tatars, but as the integration in the west of Tartary began to form a system-forming Turkic-Slavic superethnos.

This process was especially active under the famous Baty Khan. Suffice it to say that after the “conquest of Rus  by Khan Baty, “the clergy, church property and the population that was registered with the churches were released from payment of tribute,” and the famous Horde army, in its overwhelming majority, consisted of Slavic warriors.

Blooming  complexity

Can Tartaria become a new brand of the development of “Eurasianism”, which will re-focus the accents in the history of Russia, let us talk about Russian civilization as a planetary phenomenon?

I think that this has every reason for it, and above all, because it is Tartariya that is the key evidence that the prototype Eurasian Union not only existed, but also has  been  developing  successfully for many centuries long before our time!

In the light of the likely recognition of Tartary as a prototype of the Eurasian Union – a kind of commonality of peoples united by a long, continuous history, it seems logical that Russian President Vladimir Putin invariably refers to the works of the great Russian Eurasians – Lev Gumilev and Konstantin Leontiev, emphasizing that Russia has always evolved as a “blooming complexity”.

 

Recognition of Tartary as a historical matrix of the Russian Federation can be the basis:

• self-determination of Russia as a separate independent civilization,
• formation of the expanded Eurasian Union with the leading role of the Russian state in it,
• the emergence of a new geopolitical reality on the Planet.

 

 

Culturologist, writer-publicist, public figure,

co-chairman of the Council of Cinema and Television Broadcasters  of  Eurasia under the “Assembly of the Peoples of Eurasia”

Member of the Presidium of the Eurasian Television Academy

Ismagil Shangareyev