Historically, the Bashkir people consisted of more than 40 territorial-clan subdivisions (clan volosts), the members of each of which went back to a single ancestor. Russian lexicographer Vladimir Dahl wrote: «The Bashkurt people were divided from time immemorial into tribes, or, as they are called here, into volosts; each volost has its own uranium, response, hand-sign, its own tree and bird, handed down, as people believe, by Genghis Khan himself». One of such clans was Kypchak, which gave its name to the Kypchak volost of Nogai and Kazan roads of Bashkiria.
The villages of the Kipchak Bashkirs are located on the territory of the present-day Abzelilovsky, Alsheyevsky, Baymaksky, Beloretsky, Burzyansky, Ilishevsky, Ishimbaysky, Zianchurinsky, Zilairsky, Kugarchinsky, Kuyurgazinsky, Meleuzovsky, Khaibullinsky, Sharansky districts of the Republic of Bashkortostan, as well as Asekeevsky, Kuvandyksky, Novosergievsky, Oktyabrsky, Perevolotsky, Saraktashsky, Tyulgansky districts of the Orenburg region. Besides, Bashkirs of the Kypchak family live in Bolsheglushitsky, Bolshechernigovsky and Pokhvistnevsky districts of Samara region.
Sires and sulphurs
There is too much connected with the name of Kypchaks in the history of Turkic peoples, so it is not surprising that mountains of literature have been written about their history. Thanks to the researches of S.G. Klyashtorny, in modern historiography the point of view has been established that the ancestor of the Kypchaks was an ancient ethnos, named in the Orkhon monuments of the Turkic (runic) writing under the ethnonym Sir, and the union of the Turks (Turkyuts) and Sirs was called «Turkic-Syr people» (türk sir budun).
Before the formation of the Turkic Kaganate in the middle of the VI century, the Syrs were part of the largest tribal grouping, known in Chinese sources as Tele (from the Turkic-Mongolian tegreg «cart»).
It dominated the Eurasian steppes from the Caspian Sea to the Gobi Desert in the IV-VI centuries. The Sires themselves were called Seyanto by the Chinese. The origin of this tribe is reported in the official chronicle «Tang shu», dedicated to the Tang dynasty (618-907): «The Seyanto generation was made up of two clans, the Xie and the Yanto, which were inseparably nomadic, and later the Xie clan conquered the Yanto […] Between the body generations it was the strongest. The customs are mostly similar to the Tukyuesk ones» (i.e. Turkic). Under the composite term seyanto the names of the tribes Sir (se) and Yamtar (yanto) were hidden».
However, by establishing the fact of identity of the Sirs and Seyanto, the probability of penetration into even greater depths of their past is not exhausted. Thus, the Kazakhstani Turkologist Y.A. Zuev put an equal sign between the Syrs and the ancient Seres, known from ancient sources. On the maps of astronomer, mathematician and geographer Claudius Ptolemy (II century) the country Sina, i.e. China, is placed in the Far East, to the north-west of which the country Serica is shown. As reported by Ptolemy’s predecessor, the Roman writer Pliny the Elder (I century), during the reign of Emperor Claudius (41-54), ambassadors from the country of Taprobana (Ceylon) came to Rome and reported that beyond the mountains of Hemodos, i.e. beyond the Himalayas, lived Seras — tall, red-haired and blue-eyed people who spoke in a harsh tone, but did not use this language in communication with travellers.
This report was discarded as implausible, since most explorers associated the Seras with the Chinese who produced sericum (sericum) silk. However, as J. O. Thomson observes, «Ptolemy […] does not consider the Sinai to be the same people as the Sulphurs…. The name ‘Sulphurs’ seems to have been applied, at least at first, to the suppliers of silk in the Tarim Basin rather than to the Chinese themselves.» To all appearances, here we have the very case when cause and effect are confused. As it may be supposed, it was the name of the Serians (Greek Σῆρες, Latin Sērēs ), through whose territory the section of the Great Silk Road between the Qin Empire (hence the name of China — Sin, China) and the Parthian Kingdom (250 BC — 227) passed, that caused silk, a commodity hitherto unknown in Rome, to be called sericum. This word was then transformed into various forms in European languages: English silk, Swedish silke (silk)».
The fact that the name seres is in no way connected with the name of China or the Chinese name of silk (sy-chou), as some researchers believe, is proved not only by the information of the above mentioned Pliny the Elder, but also by other ancient authors who mentioned seres as a separate people. For example, historian and geographer Strabo (63 BC — 24 AD) reports that the Greco-Bactrian kingdom during the reign of Eutidemus I (235-200 BC) extended its borders to the limits of «Seres and Phryni».
Thus, it turns out that the people of Sulphur existed already in the III century BC to the east of Bactria (Northern Afghanistan), i.e. on the territory of modern East Turkestan (Xinjiang). The Anguian researcher J. O. Thomson wrote: «It now appears that the Tarim Basin was once inhabited by a people…. But now they speak Turkic, but Caucasoid types are still found among the local population».
Anthropological features of Seres/Sirs were preserved among their descendants — Kipchaks. The chronicle «Tong Jiang Gan Mu», telling about the conquest of Eastern Europe by Genghisids (XIII century), informs about the possession of Kincha, i.e. Kypchak: «Kincha is 30 000 li away from the Middle State. In summer the nights are extremely short. The sun hardly sets and immediately rises. This country produces horses and the rich breed them in great numbers. The inhabitants usually recline on metal and leather. They are courageous and brave, firm and ardent. Their eyes are blue (blue) and their hair is reddish….».
Syrian Khaganate
In the middle of VI century on the expanses of Central Asia the Turkic Kaganate has arisen, the main internal political problem of which was a bellicose and numerous grouping of Tele (Oguzes). But among them, as the official chronicle «Tan Shu» reports, the tribe Seyanto, i.e. Sira, «was the strongest». In 628, having united with Uigurs, they inflicted a serious defeat on the Turkic Il-Kagan. The latter fled south, leaving the Khangai Mountains to the rebels. In 630 Il-Kagan, forced to roam close to the borders of the Tang Empire, was captured, after which the First East Turkic Kaganate ceased to exist.
In 629 the Sires and Uighurs, who were rivals of each other in Khangai, sent separate embassies to Emperor Taizong (627-649), a representative of the Tang dynasty (618-907). The Sires received the support of the Tang court, and their head Inanchy-irkin proclaimed himself Yenchu Bilge-kagan (Pearl Wise Kagan). So in Central Asia in place of the empire of the eastern Turks there arose the Syrian Kaganate, headed by the aristocratic Syrian family Ilter, and the Uigurs and other Oguzes took a subordinate position. S.G. Klyashtorny noted: «A new tribal union was formed in the Otyuken nigra — an association of Sires and Turks, headed by the Syrian dynasty».
The new power covered a vast territory from Priamurye to Altai. In the Minusinsk Basin the Syrs conquered the Yenisei Kyrgyz, putting their protégé in the rank of elteber at their head. Eltebers were also appointed at the head of the related Toguzoguz (Uyghurs). Yenchu Bilge-Kagan «had 200,000 troops, the management of which he entrusted to his two sons: Dadu She (Tardush-shad) and Tulishi (Tolis-shad), under the name of aimaks of the south and north».
The Chinese were afraid of strengthening of «northern barbarians», so they did everything possible to strengthen centrifugal tendencies in the Syrian Kaganate. In «Tang shu» it is said: «The emperor, fearing that Inan did not strengthen too much, made both his sons small khans by decree». This was done, most likely, in order to increase the rivalry between the brothers. Then the Tang government at the head of the Eastern Turks who settled in Karakum (the steppe north of Ordos), the former southern headquarters of the Eastern Turkic khagans, put a relative of Il-khagan, Prince Ilbi Nezuk Irbis, who died in foreign lands, and proclaimed him khagan, creating a buffer puppet «khaganate».
Concerned by the appearance of a new rival in the south and fearing for the fate of the alliance with the Khangai Turks, Yenchu Bilge-Kagan resorted to preventive measures. In 641 an army of Sires and Toguzoguz led by Tardush-shad crossed the Gobi and invaded the pretender’s possessions, but he fled behind the Chinese wall. When the Sires set off on their return journey, they were overtaken by a combined Turkic-Chinese army. Seeing that a clash could not be avoided, Tardush-Shad ordered the troops to dismount and line up in five lines, where every «fifth man held four horses, and the four in front fought». It appears that the Syrians «won victories with infantry» when they fought the Turks. This important detail characterises their military tactics. At the beginning of the battle, the Syrian infantry strongly squeezed the Turk cavalry, and «the Seyantos pursued them», upsetting their ranks.
And at this point the Chinese infantry, lined up in columns, came into action. It began to wedge into the formed gaps of the army of the Sires, and at this time the Turkic cavalry came in the rear of the enemy and hit the horse-drivers. As a result, the Syrians lost most of their cavalry, and with it their mobility and the possibility of a quick retreat. The Syrian army was defeated. Several thousand men died on the spot, and the rest fled into the desert. However, here an even more terrible enemy awaited them: «At that time there was a great snowfall. Eight men out of ten died from frost cracks on their bodies.»
After this catastrophe Yenchu Bilge-Kagan sent 3000 horses as a gift to the emperor and started negotiations on «peace and kinship». Tolis-shad was invited to the court, whom the Sires prognosticated as his father’s successor, although he was considered his collateral son. Nevertheless, the Tang emperor gave him the Princess Sin-hin. However, after the death of the old Hagan, a struggle broke out between the heirs. Tardush-shad, whose name was Bars-chur (Bojo), killed his elder brother and proclaimed himself ruler. However, the new kagan «executed many nobles who served under his father, and entrusted their posts to his favourites».
The tribes of the Tele (Oghuz) confederation — Khoikhe (Uigurs), Bayegu (Bayyrku), Tunlo (Tongra), Pugu (Bugu), Dolange (Telengit), Sytsze (Syokir), Adye (Ediz) — that had submitted to the Syrs, hun (kun), as well as kidan (katai), hi (kai) and others — complained to the Tang emperor Taizong that Bars-chur was «cruel and lawless, and therefore incapable of being our lord». Deprived of the support of the kindred Toguzoguz (Uyghurs and other tribes of the Tele), the Syrian Kagan was left alone with hostile China.
In 646, most likely at the instigation of the Tang government, the Uighurs, Bugu and Tongra inflicted a cruel defeat on him and then killed him together with his entire family. The defeat of the Sira troops was completed by the Chinese expeditionary corps, acting in conjunction with the 20,000-strong Uighur cavalry. Many Sirovs were killed or taken to China. 50-60,000 people fled to the Western Region, but some remained in Khangai. The Sire Khaganate (629-646) ceased to exist.