Реферат по английскому языку на тему: "MATERIAL CULTURE OF THE BASHKORT PEOPLE"

MATERIAL    CULTURE

OF   THE   BASHKORT   PEOPLE

The Bashkorts are indigenous population of Bashkortostan, extending on both parts of the Urals, where Europe meets Asia.

In the past this half-nomadic people occupied the territory from the Volga in the west up to the Siberian river Tobol in east, from the rivers Ilek and Yayik (Ural) in the south up to the rivers Kama and Sylva in the north. As a result of violent deprivation of the Bashkort lands during the tsarism, numerous changes of conventional borders of residing for the benefit of neighbouring territories with non-Bashkort population, the country of  the Bashkorts decreased, and nowadays its total area makes 143,600 sq. km.

   In 1989 the total Bashkort population was equal to 1,5 mln people, including 1,3 mln living in Russia, 863,800 of them-in an ethnic native land-Bashkortostan.

   Today the Bashkorts live also in the Silabe, Yrymbur, Perm, Sverdlovsk  (Ekaterinburg), Toman, Kurgan, Hamar regions, Tatarstan, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, etc.

         According to anthropological attributes, the Bashkorts take an intermediate position between European and Mongolian races.

     The language of the Bashkorts enters the Turkic group of the Altaian languages/ The significant part of the Bashkorts speaks the Tatar and Russian languages.

    The Bashkort believers ptactice Islam.

     The ancient roots of the Bashkorts come from Central and Southern Siberia. Before coming to the Urals the Bashkorts nomadized in West-Siberian,Kazakh, Aral and Syr Darya steppes, interacting with the Pecheneg and Urgyth, Kimak and Kypsak peoples. In Ural they interrelated with local Finno-Ugric and Sarmato-Alanian population, the significant part of which was dissolved in the Bashkort environment, mixed with  Bulgars of the Kama and Volga region, settled tribes of the Ural and Volga region and Western Siberia.

   In the time of the Golden Horde the influence of the Kypsaks increased, however they could not essentially change the ethnic and cultural originality of the Bashkorts. With decay of the Golden Horde they appeared to be broken up between the Nogai Horde, the Kazan and Siberian Khanates.

    In 1553-1557 when Ivan the Terrible defeated the Kazan Khanate, the Bashkort people joined the Russian State. The Russian State recognized a patrimonial right of the Bashkorts to their lands, promised not to infringe on their belief, not to convert them to Christianity. The Bashkort people, in their turn, undertook to guard eastern borders of the Russian State, and to pay yasak(land-taxes). Changes in the Russian government authority in the XVII-XVIII centuries caused popular uprisings. So, joining to the Russian State influenced the mode of life, culture and economics of the Bashkorts.

     The Bashkorts were engaged in seminomadic cattle breeding, apiculture, fishing and hunting, it being known thet cattle breeding took a leading place. Horses prevailed in Bashkort  herds. The horse gave high-quality meat, which was known as a dietary product and as  an effective cure for a number of  diseases. It surpasses in caloricity and chemical structure the bird’s meat, pork and mutton.

    The Bashkort kymythe is famous far outside Southern Ural, it is a  high-calorific and medical drink produced from mare’s milk. Both common people and outstanding khans used it as a cure for different diseases. And not only the Bashkorts. “This drink,-wrote the great Russian poet and writer Alexander Pushkin,-is widely used by all mountain and nomadic tribes of Asia. It has a pleasant taste and is considered to be rather healthy”.

     From olden times the Bashkorts were engaged in agriculture. As many other semi-nomadic peoples, they were engaged in it as an addition to cattle breeding, being a main kind of  traditional househould, determined their homecraft. Currying was widely spread among the Bashkorts, they made fur coats, water-skins, footwear, belts, pendants, sheaths, bow’s covers, etc.

     With the approach of spring the Bashkorts left their constant winter settlements-awyls, and went to steppes, forest glades, mountain valleys, river-banks and lakesides, and arranged temporary settlements consisting of portable dwellings there: tirmahs of felt, and huts of branches. It was the first seasonal spring settlement.

    They remained in their spring stopping places till the pastures were able to give sufficient forage for huge Bashkort herds-horses, sheep and cows. After some weeks a nomadic settlement moved to another pastures, rich of forage, which were situated in several versts from their vernal pasturelands. There was built another temporary settlements, a summer one. The Bashkorts stayed longer in summer pastures, than in vernal. The main part of their economic activities was to be done in summer, that were storing food supplies (meat, butter, korot), haymaking, manufacturing felt for tirmah, as well as canvas and cloth, processing leather and skins. In summer nomadic settlements they milked mares and prepared the famous Bashkort kymyth, which was used in quantity by all: by men and women, the sick and healthy, young and old, in weekdays and holidays.

   From summer pastures the Bashkorts moved to autumn pastures. And again the settlemet, made of the same portable tirmahs,  appeared in few hours; here the population remained till autumn colds. Autumn was a time of harvesting.

     With field activities completed the Bashkort returned to their winter settlements-awyls, where they lived till spring.