Tatars-Mishars of Nizhny Novgorod (Nizhgars) - one of the specific groups of the Tatar people, formed not only and not so much on a regional basis, but also representing a subethnos with its own ethnogenetic, linguistic and cultural characteristics. The Nizhgars differ from other Tatar subethnoses in their special mentality, dialect (they have a special clucking dialect of the Mishar or Western dialect of the Tatar language), and rather strict marital endogamy, which lasted until the 1960s .

Ugric-Majar Turkicized peoples include researchers of different pre -Mongol ancestral periods of their number in studies. They are dedicated to a small number , including the clarified, not fully understood and controversial issue - the Tatar-Mishars origin in general In the (Mozhar) Khazars, Kipchaks and Burtases. This article is intended to highlight some of the storylines related to these versions.

words: Key Khazars, Kipchaks, Burtases, Bulgars, Mishars, Nizhny Novgorod Tatars, Khazar Khaganate, Desht-i-Kipchak, Volga Bulgaria, Purgasova parish.

In Poochie, where one of the stages of Mishar ethnogenesis took place, ancient Turkic tribes are recorded quite early. For example, in the Miloslavsky district of the Ryazan region, the Artsybashev burial site, or "horseman's grave", is an archaeological monument left by nomadic Turks of the 7th century. The remains of the Saltovo-Mayak culture, which is associated with the culture of the Khazar Khaganate, were also found at this place. However, a second study of these ceramics showed that they were included in the complex by accident: apparently, there was a settlement on the site of the Artsybash burial even later, in the Khazarian era [Sudakov, 2009, p. 26].

As archaeologists point out on the basis of recent studies, " in the VII-VIII centuries, the peoples of the Saltovo-Mayak culture, whose formation is associated with the Alanian and Turkic-Bulgarian tribes of the North Caucasus and the Don region, began to actively influence the development of material culture in the region. This is evidenced by the presence of numerous objects of this culture in the burial grounds of Mordovia, as well as the appearance of barrow and mound-free nomadic burials, including the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod region "(Akhmetgalin, Sitdikov, Khuzin, 2008).

Scientists thoroughly connect these monuments with the Bulgars, who are identified as the main carriers of this culture, and assume the presence of cultural and political ties with Khazaria.

Local administration in the Khazar Khaganate was in the hands of local princes and leaders (as, for example, in Volga Bulgaria, the regions of Vyatichi, Northerners, Radimichi, Polyans, nomadic Hungarians of the IX century, Burtases) and representatives of the central government-Tuduns ("close assistant"). In addition, there was, apparently, another title, which in the Cambridge document is designated as bul-sh-chi (Kokovtsov, 1932, p. 120). The exact meaning of this word is unknown, but it is etymologically identical to the Nizhgar dialect bulyshutsi - "helper" (Khayretdinov, 2007, p. 187).

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The story about the possibility of penetration to the Burtas (people who were one of the ancestors of the Mishars Tatars)has not been studied at all in science the state religion in the khaganate was Judaism. Indeed, of all the peoples under the Khazars ' control, the Burtas were geographically one of the closest to them. It is not by chance that in the lengthy version of the letter of the Khazar King Joseph to the Kordov vizier Hasdai bin Shafrut (mid-tenth century), the Burtases are at the top of the list of subordinate tribes (Pletneva, 1976, p. 9). Consequently, their religious influence (the Khazars themselves were no strangers to missionaries, as is known from the example of their preaching at the court of the Kievan Grand Duke Vladimir) should have been felt more strongly in the Burtas environment than on the periphery of the khaganate.

Actually, there is only one direct and several indirect indication on this topic. I'll start with the latter. For example, the system of names of the days of the week among Tatar Mishars, according to some researchers, is a synthesis of Rabbinic ideas about the creation of the world and Persian-Muslim names of individual days (Orlov, 2001, pp. 58-59). A mixture of Jewish and Muslim names is observed in Mordovian legends [Memorsky, 1889, p. 5], which tell about the founder, or military leader, of Abramov (Ibragimov) gorodok - the alleged predecessor of Nizhny Novgorod [Tatishchev, 2005, p.519]. The double name [Milvorsky, 1911, p. 2-3] and the frequency of using the names Abram and Abramov gorodok in legends in comparison with Ibragim and Ibragimov gorodok (13:3) indicate that Volga Bulgaria took control of the fortification fortress that had existed since the time of the Khazar Khaganate, the last point of the Volga trade route, which was located on the Volga River. in the sphere of influence of Khazaria.

Finally, tsokanye-a characteristic feature of the dialect of the northern Mishars-was a prominent phonetic feature of the Khazars. This is evidenced, for example, by the name of the Mari people in the letter of Tsar Joseph: ts-r-mis (for us, the name "cheremis" is more familiar, which was used in pre-revolutionary Russia among the Kazan Tatars and Russians). It is appropriate to recall the opinion of the prominent turkologist N. A. Baskakov: tsokanye was characteristic of the languages of the Turks of the Savir-Khazar union and was associated with the linguistic features of the ancient Khazars [Baskakov, 1960, p.110]. Perhaps this circumstance led the archaeologist and turkologist A. G. Mukhamadiev to conclude that the Mishars "are direct descendants of the Khazars" (Mukhamadiev, 2011, pp. 3, 83-84, 139).

A direct reference is as follows: Plano Carpini mentions certain Brutakhs among the peoples that became part of the Mongol Empire and adds an interesting detail - "who are Jews" (Plano Carpini, 1957, p.57). Commentators cautiously say that brutakhs are burtas [ibid., p. 215 (note by N. P. Shastina)]. But it is not yet possible to explain this point - it is known that the Burtases already converted to Islam in the pre-Mongol period, and as part of the Golden Horde, their position as Muslims only strengthened, which is clearly seen in the ulus capital - the city of Mokhshi with its mosques and mausoleums. Perhaps we are talking about one of the tribal divisions of the Burtases, which adopted Judaism due to close contacts with the Khazars after the collapse of the khaganate. However, later it probably converted to Islam or Christianity, thereby joining the ranks of the ancestors of the Tatars or Russians, respectively.

Anthropologists confirm that there were close ties between the population of Khazaria and the ancestors of the Mishars. "The mesocephalic dark Europoid (Pontic) type that prevails among the Tatars, and especially among the Mishar Tatars, may be related to the long-headed Europoid type that was characteristic of the population of the Khazar Khaganate... With the decline of the Khazar Khaganate, a part of this settled Turkic-speaking population, mainly of Alano-Sarmatian origin, moved to the Middle Volga..." [Tatary, 2001, p.37].

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The role of the Khazar Khaganate with its significant Muslim community in relation to the Nizhny Novgorod region can only be discussed hypothetically, based, for example, on the assumptions of L. N. Gumilev: on his maps of Khazaria in the tenth century, the northern border of this state runs along the Volga River up to the mouth of the Oka River (Gumilev, 1966). This approach takes into account both the geographical distribution of the Khazar-dominated peoples and the Khazar control of the Volga trade route up to the lands controlled by the Rus. Thus, the entire southern part of the modern Nizhny Novgorod region, starting from the Volga and Oka, is included in Khazaria. Obviously, this hypothesis of L. N. Gumilyov is not rejected by the compilers of the new large-format atlas "Tartarica", in which on the map of the Khazar Khaganate of the IX century. the border of the maximum political influence of the Khazars includes the entire southern (south of the Volga and Oka) and even partially northern parts of the present Nizhny Novgorod region [Tartarica. Atlas..., 2005, pp. 188-189].

Even more real is the possibility of the Kipchak political entity Desht-i-Kipchak, or Kumania, which spread over a vast territory of southern Russia and Kazakhstan, influencing the territory of Nizhny Novgorod region in the pre-Horde period. Some scientists even believe that "the Mishars are basically a "fragment" of the ancient Kipchak tribes that fell into the basin of the Tsna and Moksha Rivers no later than the XI century " [Makhmutova, 1978, p. 202].

Desht-i-Kipchak, unlike Volga Bulgaria, had less consolidation and more amorphous borders. Without archaeological excavations, the northern boundary of the Kipchak influence cannot be precisely established. But it is known that from the end of the XI century, the Polovtsians, who dominated the steppes of Eurasia, moved west to the Danube and came into contact with Russia and Volga Bulgaria. Since the beginning of the XII century. Russian chronicles record numerous cases of political interaction between Russian princes and Bulgars with the Polovtsians. Weakened by long wars, Volga Bulgaria, Rus, and Desht-i-Kipchak were conquered by the Mongols in the first half of the 13th century. However, in general, it can be stated that they played an important role in the international relations of the pre-Mongolian period.

The topic of the Kipchaks is studied rather poorly in our historiography, mainly through the prism of their opposition to the Russian principalities. Although mostly Kipchaks lived to the south of the region of interest, their summer nomads could reach the Proni River in the north, the right bank of which opposite the city of Pronsk (now the western part of the Ryazan region) was called Polovtsian Field in the XIII century. Presumably, the Kipchaks are associated with the emergence of such unexplored and disappeared local groups of service Tatars as the Pronsk, Mikhailovsky, Tsnensky (the descendants of the latter are the Shatsk Tatars living in the village of Bostanovo and a number of neighboring villages of the Ryazan region). [Islam in the Central European..., 2009, pp. 239-340].

In the pre-Mongol period, close ethnic interaction of the Kipchaks with the Bulgars and Burtases began, especially noticeable in place names mainly on the right bank of the Volga in Tatarstan. For the ancestors of the Mishars, this interaction should have been key. Turkologist E. R. Tenishev, Doctor of Philology, proved in his works that the Mishar dialect had an ancient Kipchak basis and was incomparably closer to the Polovtsian language than other closely related languages (Tenishev, 1987).

But despite the significant kinship between the Tatar-Mishar dialect and the Kipchak language, it would be premature to put an equal sign between Mishars and Kipchaks. With a careful approach to the problem, this version reveals many "pitfalls", the most obvious of which lie in the field of linguistics. Mahmud Kashgari (mid-XI century) noted such a feature of the Kipchak language as "je kanye": "Kipchaks, as well as Oguz, replace ya at the beginning of the word with alif and jim in na-

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the basis of names and verbs" [Tatary, 2001, p. 62]. However, the Mishar dialect of the Tatar language, in contrast to this, is characterized by y-okanye [ibid., p. 30]. Another example, again from the work of M. Kashgari: "... each mime at the beginning of the word oguz, kipchaks, suvars is turned into ba... The Turks say: "man bardum", i.e. "I went", and the Suwars, Kipchaks and Oguz say "ban bardum "" [ibid., p. 62]. All that remains to be done is to re-establish that this transformation of the initial sound "m" into "b" has nothing to do with mishars.

Another version connects the ancestors of the Mishars with the Burtas, one of the peoples of the early Middle Ages, whose true ethnicity is questionable. S. F. Faizov believes that the Ugric Magyars played a dominant role in tribal unions with the participation of the Burtas and passed on their ethnonym to them [Faizov, 1999, p. 8]. The first mention of this people dates back to the turn of the VIII-IX centuries. Abu Ali ibn Ruste wrote about the Burtas at the beginning of the tenth century:

"The country of Burtas between the Khazars and Bulgaria. Between [the country of Burtas] and the Khazars - a distance of 15 days [of travel]. [The Burtas] are in subjection to the king of the Khazars, and they put out ten thousand horsemen... They own extensive land in a wooded area... They are hardy and brave. Their religion is similar to that of the Guzs... The distance between the Burtas and the Bulgars is three days. They [the Bulgars] make [Burtas] raids and invasions, they are captured " [History of the Tatars..., 2006, p. 702].

The Burtas were engaged in cattle breeding and agriculture, raising cattle, camels and horses. Their main wealth was considered to be furs and honey. In summer they lived in tents, and in winter in wooden houses. They dressed in dressing gowns and fur coats, wore a headdress with a turban. Weapons include daggers, javelins, axes, and bows and arrows. Their girls chose their own suitors. In the IX-X centuries, the Burtas constantly fought with the Bulgars and Pechenegs. There is evidence that the Burtas consisted of at least two tribes: one of the Burtas burned the dead, the other buried. This is due to the presence of their religious beliefs, which, according to my version, were closely related to the ancient Iranian cults. However, starting from the tenth century, the Burtases entered into close ethnic and cultural communication with the Volga Bulgars, under whose influence they later converted to Islam. Mutual hostility was replaced by common cultural and political interests, especially in the case of a war with a single enemy, as happened in 913. Then, according to al-Masudi, the Burtases and Bulgars - each in their own lands-destroyed the remnants of the Rus-Varangians when they returned from their victorious campaign to the Caspian Sea (Karaulov, 1908, p. 34).

The Burtases founded more than 30 localities known today in what is now the Penza Region and Mordovia. A significant part of them, built earlier than others, was located along the important trade route from Bulgar to Kiev in the early Middle Ages. The first report about it refers to the X century.

Anthropologically, the Burtas belonged to the Pontic type of the Mediterranean race. "Among them, pre-Islamic (perhaps Zoroastrian?)is recorded. a secondary burial rite that brings the Burtases closer to the early medieval population of the Aral Sea region " [Belorybkin, 2009, p. 55]. Discussions about the Burtas ' ethnicity have been going on for more than two centuries. Thus, E. P. Kazakov believes that the Burtases are descendants of the late Sarmatians (archaeologically-carriers of the Turbasli-Imenkov culture), who underwent Turkization in the pre-Mongol period [Kazakov, 2007, p. 78].

Analysis of the only known Burtas word khelenj ("birch") may indicate an Iranian (Khorezmian? Sarmatian?) the origin of the Burtases [Khayretdinov, 2009, p. 305]. Khelenj ( halanj, halang) is a Burtas word known from Arabic sources; one of the only relics of the extinct Burtas language. It meant the type of local trees: "The land is inhabited by them, flat, and of the trees most often found in it helenge", - reported in the work of Ibn Ruste. According to G. E. Afanasyev, " some researchers translate it as "birch", others-as " co-

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sleep" " [Afanasyev, 1984, p. 45]. Depending on the translation, the Burtas ethnic territory is placed either to the north (if Khelenge means birch) or to the south (if Khelenge means pine). Probably, only the lack of attention of scientists to the Iranian version of the origin of burtases can explain the fact that this word has not yet been identified. Meanwhile, its translation is not a problem: halang, or halanj, in Persian means "two-colored", "white with black" [Persian-Russian Dictionary, 1376, p. 565]. Thus, the Burtas khelenge is unambiguously translated as "birch".

If we assume the Iranian genesis of the Burtases, then many plots in the development and features of the Tatars in general and the Mishars in particular are clarified. Let us turn to the anthropology of Tatars, among whom the Pontic (dark Caucasian) anthropological type generally prevails (33.5%) [Tatars, 2001, p. 36], while the Mishars of Narovchatsky (Penza region) and Chistopolsky (Tatarstan) districts have this indicator exceeding 60% [Khalikov, 1989, p.35]. On the contrary, the Uralic or Volga-Kama racial type, which is most characteristic of the Finno-Ugric peoples of the Volga-Kama region, is represented least among the Mishars - 8-10% against 24.5% for the Tatars as a whole. In this regard, arguments about the Finnish - speaking nature of the alleged ancestors of the Mishars - the Meshchera people, who left this ethnonym to the Mishars-raise big questions. At the same time, the Iranian version of the origin of the Mishar - Burtas ancestors, on the contrary, gets an advantage.

Iranian toponymy in the Volga-Oka interfluve is a topic that has not yet been comprehensively studied by specialists. N. D. Rusinov believes that some of the hydronyms in the south and south-east of Nizhny Novgorod region may be of Iranian origin. The rivers Aksha, Anda, Astra, Vadok, Vatras, Pyana, Sergas (hence the toponym Sergach), Seryozha, Sura, Urga, Uronga and others have analogies in Avestan, ancient Iranian, Tajik languages, Sanskrit, although the scientist does not exclude the Baltic roots for these hydronyms. But, according to the philologist, they were left behind by very ancient tribes that were already assimilated to the East European Plain by the Ugro-Finns in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC or moved south from here [Rusinov, 1994, pp. 79-83, 85-86, 92-93].

Regarding the Iranian origin of the toponyms of this region, one can only refer to the opinion of I. G. Dobrodomov, who considers the Burtas language to be related to the Alan language and ranks it among the toponyms left by the Iranian-speaking Burtas, a Kad in the north-east of the Ryazan region (Dobrodomov, 2003). This city is considered by many historians and ethnographers as the place of "exodus" of the first Arzamas and Alatyr military Tatars. G. N. Belorybkin, a leading expert on Burtas archeology, suggests that the origin of Kadom is associated with the Burtas ' movement to the northwest from their original settlement (Belorybkin, 2003, p.27).

No later than the 11th century, the Islamization of the Burtases took place, which is also confirmed by the evidence of osteology: "...there are almost no pig bones on the monuments of the Upper Posurye and Primokshan of the 11th-14th centuries. This distinguishes the local cattle breeding tradition from the Mordovian one, which is characterized by a developed pig breeding " [Ikonnikov, 2009, p. 14].

Following the establishment of Islam as a supranational, supra-tribal ideology, there was a consolidation of society and an even greater rapprochement between the Burtases and their neighbors, the Bulgars. Statehood emerged in the Burtas environment. Thus, if Ibn Ruste says that the Burtas have no supreme ruler and each village has one or two elders, then Hudud al-alam (982) already reports that they have two kings who do not communicate with each other [Hudud al-alem..., 1930, p. 30-32]. However, for a number of objective reasons, the state-

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the Burtas population turned out to be weaker (less favorable geographical location compared to the Volga Bulgars or Khazars, who occupied a central position in the Volga-Kama and Lower Volga regions, respectively; a smaller number of Burtases compared to the above-mentioned ones and the entry of Burtases as a subordinate people into the more developed Khazaria and Volga Bulgaria), and therefore it was in a much higher It is less marked by contemporaries and, accordingly, less studied by historians than the statehood of the Volga Bulgars.

In the middle of the XII century. The city of Burtas (presumably the Yul settlement in the Penza Region) is first mentioned in the sources. In the notes of the Hungarian monk Julian, the name of another Burtas settlement (one of the largest in the Upper Posurye) and the entire principality of Burtas appears, which G. N. Belorybkin connects with the archaeological site Zolotarevskoye gorodishche. Just two years before the destruction of the settlement, Julian and his comrades visited these lands: "Having passed through the desert without any road or path, on the 37th day they came to the country of the Saracens [Muslims], which is called Vela( Vela, Veda), to the city of Bundam (Bundaz)" [Anninsky, 1940, p. 80]. Perhaps the first name hides the concept of "wilayat" (Arabic: wilayat). "province, specific principality"); the second strongly resembles the Turkic "here","in this place".

There is no more detailed information about the statehood of this people. However, there are still confused reports of Ibn Said al-Maghribi (XIII century), from which it can be concluded that the Burtas had a single ruler-Malik (Arab. "king, tsar, prince"), who fought with the Oghuz people (Barthold, 1973, p. 110). According to the reconstruction of A. H. Khalikov, after the collapse of Khazaria, the Burtas Principality existed as part of Volga Bulgaria [Istoriya Tatar..., 2006, p. 189].E. P. Kazakov suggests "a kind of Sur principality with its capital in the Yul settlement" [Kazakov, 2007, p. 83]. These hypotheses are also supported by the fragmentary information about the presence of their own princes (tsars). among these people: Narchatka and Azarap.

Narchatka is a legendary Burtas princess or tsarina who built a palace on the bank of the Moksha River and, according to legend, died in a battle with the Mongol-Tatars. In 1862, the local historian V. A. Aunovsky wrote that in Mordovian women's headdresses there are coins with the image of Narchatka. Legends about it were recorded by I. F. Sadin, a member of the Saratov Scientific Archival Commission, in the early 20th century, local historians M. E. Afinogenova and V. P. Rossiya in the 1930s, and the writer A. P. Anisimova in the post - war years [Islam in Central European..., 2009: 216-217]. Various versions of the legend speak of Narchatka's husband (King Azarap), her maidservant (Khazya), and the number of her army (20 thousand), with which she defeated the Tatars led by "Khan" Tagai. These Burtas names mentioned in the legends are obviously of Iranian origin. Narchatka-two-root name: nar (abbreviated as nar). from anar) - "pomegranate, pomegranate flower"; chat -compare with the Persian shad, shat - " joyful, cheerful "(compare the Iranian names with these roots Gulnar, Gulshat, Nargiz, etc.). Azarap-name from the Iranian root azar - "fire"; the name of one of the months in the Iranian calendar (among Iranians, such names as Azar, Azarakhsh, Azarin, etc. are still popular.) hadi'a ("submissive, obedient"); "maidservant") in the Iranian pronunciation, the emphatic" d "is pronounced as" z", '" ain " is omitted; presumably this indicates the penetration of Arabic terms to the Burtas and their Muslim religion. The analysis of the Burtas anthroponyms can also serve in favor of the version about the Iranian (Khorezm) origin of this people.

From the XI and especially from the XII centuries, the influence of Volga Bulgaria on the lands of the Burtases sharply increased with the displacement of the Mordvins from here and the creation of new fortified settlements of the Bulgarian type. The territory of distribution of the new Bulgar-Burtas culture has also sharply increased, including at the expense of lands far to the north from Verkhny Novgorod.

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Posurya. "Among them, the Sarov settlement stands out for its size and proximity to Volga Bulgaria" [Istoriya Tatar..., 2006, p.431], where circular dishes of the Bulgar type are found, characteristic of the Upper Posur region - the core of the Burtas lands. Probably, in the same period, the final Turkization of the Burtases takes place.

Since the 13th century, the Burtas and Bulgar settlements were intensively introduced to the lands of present-day Mordovia and the south of Nizhny Novgorod region. At the same time, streams of Russian colonists rushed from the west to the lands of Mordovia and Burtas. As a result, part of the Burtases, together with their Oka and Volga neighbors, at that time became dependent on the Russian principalities: "...burtasi, cheremisi, Vyada and Mordva bortnichakha on Prince Great Volodimer..." [Word of Destruction..., 1957, p.253].

A clearer picture of the Burtas statehood of that time can be tried to recreate if we accept the following version.

According to a number of scholars-R. G. Mukhamedova [Mukhamedova, 2008, p. 29-30], G. N. Belorybkin [Belorybkin, 2009, p. 56], V. P. Makarikhin [Makarikhin, 2009, p. 17] and others, the Burtas ruler was Prince Purgas, or Purgaz, mentioned in Russian chronicles as an ally of the Volga Region Bulgaria in the war against the Vladimir-Suzdal Grand Duke Yuri in 1229 [PSRL, vol. I, 1846, pp. 191-192]. The state entity headed by him - Purgasova volost-was located just on the territory of modern Mordovia, the south of Nizhny Novgorod region and the east of Ryazan region. And it was these lands that later formed the basis of the Mokhshi ulus-Burtassko-Mordovian province as part of the Golden Horde. It is no coincidence that Purgasovo parish is called the "forerunner of the Meshchersky Principality" (Bayazitov and Makarikhin, 2009, p. 67), i.e. the Meshchersky yurt of the Golden Horde era. The origins of the Purgas parish, apparently, lay in the Sur (Burtas) principality of an earlier period [Kazakov, 2007, p. 83].

G. N. Belorybkin devoted several pages in his monograph to the problem of the Purgas volost and the ethnic identity of Prince Purgas, refuting ancient myths: "Among the old, long-established ideas, one can name the opinion that the Mordovians have two princes Purgas and Puresh. But is this really the case?" [Belorybkin, 2003, p. 97]. A careful analysis of the texts of chronicle reports about Purgas and archaeological material between the Oka and Volga rivers led the scientist to an unambiguous conclusion: Purgas was a Burtas prince, to whom the lands of Mordovia were also subordinate, while he himself was subordinate to Volga Bulgaria "and had full support from the Bulgar-Burtas administration located in Upper Primokshan" [tam same, p. 99].

By the way, the name of this prince shows the Iranian root base pur - "son"; the second part of the word can be derived from the Arabic Ghazi - "warrior". In addition, this anthroponym is associated with the ethnonym "burtas" (as G. N. Belorybkin writes, "it is obvious that the name of the prince is most consonant with the name of the Burtas people"). In all similar names - furdas, burdas, birtas, baradas-we are dealing with an exoethnonym, the external name of this people. The Burtases themselves called themselves something else. The lack of a self - name was also a characteristic feature of their descendants-Mishars: for several centuries they preferred to call themselves "Moselman" (Muslims), while their neighbors called them "Tatars". Unlike the Kazan Tatars, the Mishars never used the endoethnonym "Bulgar". In modern times, only those who lived on the territory of the Penza province called themselves mishars, which is reflected in the All-Union Census of 1926.

According to the assumption of the archaeologist N. N. Gribov, the capital of Purgasova parish was the Sarov settlement, excavated by scientists in the mid-1990s. I will give here some of his conclusions.

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"In a number of ways, the Sarov settlement resembles the pre-Mongol settlements of Volga Bulgaria. Ancient settlements of such an area are interpreted by researchers of Bulgarian antiquities as feudal castles or cities." Here "circular brown-red ceramics of the Bulgarian type were found, characteristic of the Penza group of monuments of the pre-Mongol period", i.e. Burtasia, which many archaeologists do not want to recognize as an independent polity. "So, the cup-shaped vessel is known from the excavations of the Zolotarevskoye settlement" - one of the largest Burtas settlements. However, the share of these ceramics in Sarov is only 7%. "The discovery of Bulgarian-type ceramics and Old Russian handicrafts reflects the trade and economic ties of local inhabitants with Russia and Volga Bulgaria, and possibly even the multi-ethnic composition of the settlement's population." The sudden death of the settlement as a result of an enemy attack, " the presence of a complex system of fortifications, the boundaries of dating of cultural strata to a certain extent bring the Sarov settlement closer to the monuments of the Bulgarian type of the Penza group. However, the obvious predominance of Bulgarian pottery over Mordovian stucco pottery limits this proximity within the limits of geography and chronology" (Gribov, 1997: 35, 45-47).

N. N. Gribov considers Sarov settlement to be the largest known Mordovian settlement of the pre-Mongol period, although the conclusion about its belonging is not indisputable. N. N. Gribov himself and his fellow archaeologists admitted at one of the conferences that the Mordovian ancient settlements are unknown to science, since the medieval Mordovians founded only small settlements-firmaments, and away from large rivers (from which enemy forces came to them in the face of Khazars, Slavic princely armies, etc.). E. P. Kazakov, " the lack of centralization, metropolitan centers did not allow the enemies, having seized them [the Mordvins] at once, to establish control over the entire territory. And small groups, hiding women and children in small settlements - "strongholds" - lost in impassable ravine-wooded spaces, could wage an endless partisan war" [Kazakov, 2007, p. 79].

From the oral report of archaeologists, the author knows that within the framework of the program "Material Culture of the peoples of the Volga-Oka region in the Middle Ages: formation and development", scientists intend to raise the topic of Sarov again and adapt the conclusions of N. N. Gribov to the data that they obtained during the excavations of Kurmysh, Murzitsy and other settlements in the Volga-Oka region. borders of Nizhny Novgorod region. The fact is that the initial data announced at one of the scientific conferences under the auspices of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Nizhny Novgorod region in November 2007 stated: the Golden Horde ceramics found during excavations near Kurmysh accounted for only 7% of the finds (we can compare these indicators with the Sarov settlement). Subsequently, scientists finally attributed Kurmysh to the Golden Horde settlement - also the largest in the borders of Nizhny Novgorod region.

Paraphrasing the well-known publicist and popularizer of archeology E. V. Arsyukhin, we can conclude that the Sarov settlement was built by Bulgarian and Burtas engineers, was managed by Bulgarian governors, and the contingent included Burtas soldiers, although the local, taxable population was mainly Mordvins (Arsyukhin, 2005, pp. 209-210). The Burtas influence here is not surprising, given what has been said above about the beginning of the cultural expansion of the Burtases and Bulgars in this region in the XII-XIII centuries. This thesis is supported by such finds of the pre-Horde era as hollow beads made of low-grade silver of the Zolotarev type found in Mordovian burial grounds on the Tesh River, red-brown ceramics in Sarov, etc.

However, in 1237, the Burtases were defeated by Batu's army, after which a significant part of them moved to the north and, probably, north-west of the Upper Posurye. The strength of the resistance of the population of the Upper Posur region to the Mongol-Tatars is evidenced by the mention of the Persian historian Rashid ad-Din:

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"He [Mengu-kaan] spent that summer there, and after that, in... 634 AH [4.09.1236-23.08.1237], the sons of Jochi-Batu, Orda and Berke, the son of Ogedei-kaan-Kadan, the grandson of Chagatai-Buri and the son of Genghis Khan-Kulkan engaged in war with moksha, burtas and the arjans [erzya] and in a short time took possession of them. In the autumn of that year, all the princes who were there organized a kurultai together and, by common agreement, went to war against the Russians" [Zolotaya Horda..., 2003, p. 407].

Such a large number of Mongol princes in this area led to the fact that almost all Burtas settlements in the Posur region were destroyed, only a few of them were revived, and only in the north-west of the area from their original settlement [Belorybkin, 2009, p. 56]. The Burtases, like their neighbors, became part of the Mongol Empire. At the end of the 13th century, when the formation of the Jochid state was completed,a new type of statehood began to take shape on the lands of the Burtases and their neighbors, where the social leaders were represented by the Horde. Thus, Prince Bakhmet Useinov, son of Shirinsky, a native of the Golden Horde, founded an independent estate in northern Meshchera. The name of this prince was associated with the appearance of the city of Saraklych here.

In the light of the known archaeological data, we can assume the following picture of the early ethnogenesis of the Mishars. In the eighth century, burtas appeared in the Middle Volga region - according to A. Kh. Khalikov and G. N. Belorybkin, from the Aral Sea region. Khalikov's version does not speak about the Iranian roots of this people; on the contrary, since this author adheres to the Turkic-Bulgarian concept of the origin of the Tatars, he considers the Burtases to be related to the Oghuz-speaking Turks (Khalikov, 1989, p.85). However, he was the first archaeologist to raise the topic of the Aral Sea region as a possible place of exodus of the Burtas ' ancestors. The analysis of the only extant Burtas word Khelenge, as well as the names of the legendary rulers of this people (Narchatka, Azarap), speaks rather in favor of their Iranian origin. However, their Turkization began rather early, as Turkic nomadic tribes had been living in the region since the seventh century. The Burtases became part of the Khazar Khaganate, and later experienced a strong influence from Volga Bulgaria. We should also keep in mind the Magyar (Ugric) component-presumably, these are the Mazhars mentioned in the sources (Majars, Mozhars) who came into close contact with the Burtases and, as is believed, passed on their ethnonym to them.

Thus, the data of archeology, ethnography, linguistics, and toponymy allow scientists to assert that in the first strata that formed the basis of the future Tatar mishars, there were Burtas, Bulgar, Kipchak, Khazar, and partially Ugric (Mochar, Mazhar) ethnosubstrates. At the same time, the Burtases are no less important for understanding the ethnogenesis of the modern Tatar nation than the Bulgars, and for understanding the origin of the Mishar Tatars-to a much greater extent. If the origin of the Kazan Tatars is quite clearly linked with the Bulgars, then the Burtases played a significant or even decisive role in the ethnogenesis of the Mishars.

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