On the Legend of Eshil-Dzhami Mosque in Bakhchisarai

Abstract

First time in scholarship, this paper has analysed the legend developing around the mosque called Eshil-Dzhami in Bakhchisarai, which is documented by the late eighteenth and nineteenth century travelogues. According to the legend, soon after the unification of the Crimea with Russia soldiers or Cossacks killed mullah of this mosque, thus making it desecrated, and the shrine was desolated. Since no testimony for the authenticity of this story survived, it probably expressed Crimean Tatars’ collective trauma because of the liquidation of the Crimean khanate rather than some historical episode. The story under analysis is an example of urban legends which appeared in Bakhchisarai in the Russian period. Folk tales developed around the monument, which history had been forgotten, and the travellers amended and popularised them. Later on, the legend of Eshil-Dzhami was used by anti-Russian propaganda in the periods of aggravation of relations between Russia and the West.