Bashkir Onomastic Heritage in the Materials of Linguistic Expeditions in the 1920s–1930s

Abstract

The article aims to identify and interpret the onomastic material collected in the course of linguistic and general field research in the Tamyan-Katai and Argayash cantons of Bashkiria, carried out by the Academic Center of the People’s Commissariat of Education of the BASSR together with the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1920s–1930s. The source materials were the documents, reports, and texts collected from the population during the expeditions of 1928–1929, now stored in the Scientific Archives of the Ural Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. These sources were found to include much data on the onomastics of the Bashkir language: personal names and surnames, collective and individual nicknames, geographical names, ethnic names of clans and tribes, tribal divisions and ethnic groups living on the territory of the republic. This also includes the names of mythical characters, placenames, and cosmic objects registered both is documents (reports, route sheets, lists of informants, indexes of tribal names and attributes of Bashkir clans, etc.) and first-person records from informants (regarding the history of the clan, village, family, customs, beliefs, fairy tales, legends, etc.) These documents are of great value, since they contain archaic material relating not only to onomastics, but also to the views and beliefs of the Bashkirs. A good example would be the mention of names and nicknames of the Bashkir healer-spirits (baksy), which evidences that the forest Bashkirs still retained relics of shamanism at the beginning of the 20th century.