Crimean Tatars in Bulgaria - Ethnonym

Ethnonym

In the last census (December 1992), 4,515 people (2,045 urban arid 2,470 rural residents (4)) identified as Tatars. The ethnonym plays a main role in Tatar self-identification

We are called Tatar, but we don’t know when we came (5).

The Crimean Tatars (Qirim Tatarlari, Tatarlar), against the background of the impressive popularity of the term as an ethnicon in Eurasia, were the first to adopt it as an ethnonym after Genghis Khan wiped out the original Tatars.

Due to the specificity of the Crimean Tatar ethnic genesis, other ethnonyms arc also in use; they have now lost their concrete ethnic content and are, rather, a memory, perception, pejorative name, a supplementary term and, very rarely, a group indicator: Nogay, Tat, Kazan, Kipchak, Laz, Kazakh. They are used as a modifier of the general ethnonym, for instance, Nogay Tarari. Informants have the most clear perception of the Nogay as a separate group of a distinct type of people (prominent cheekbones and inure Mongolian), dialect ("truer Tatar"), livelihood (horse-breeding), and even character. In fact, the most differentiated group are the Tats, the informants know who they are and they themselves identify as such. Their distinction is based on their dialect. Informants claim that there are Kazan Tatars in Bulgaria, they are "fatter". They have only heard about Kipchaks. Laz Tatars reportedly speak a language similar to Turkish. The Kazakhs are perceived as a "tribe" related to the "Don Kazakhs" (Cossacks), which, however. is Muslim. The more prosaic version is that "Kazakh" is a "nickname": "We call a "Kazakh" someone who is headstrong, stubborn".

Apart from the ethnic terms, Tatars are also divided into subgroups distinguished by territorial origin: Kerisler (from Kerch), Shongarlar (from Chongar),

Orlular (from Or; Russian Perekop) There is also a subdivision of Tatars identified by a personal name - "Sora Tatari", from the name of the tribal chief and Tatar epic hero Chora Batyr (Tasheva. 1975. pp. 2–73).

The pejorative term Tatar Sengenesi ("Tatar Gypsy") refers to a particular group of Tatars in Bulgaria (for example, a family from the village of Golyamo Vranovo, Rousse district), which probably came from Karachai.

As regards the ethnonym as a marker of ethnicity, there are traces of internal ethnic differentiation among the Tatars as part of - and, at the same time, in opposition to their collective identity.

The Turks and the Bulgarians have come to use the popular term "Tatar" as a stereotype (6) rather than an ethnonym. The influence of folklore and, later, of historical texts, is indicative in this respect. In Bulgarian folklore, "the Tatars" are a symbol of the strange and the unknown, and have pejorative connotations (Antonov.1995). Unlike those who do not know any Tatars in real life, those who do have a positive attitude to them. The negative attitude is associated with the ethnonym of the Tatars, and not with the other markers of their group identity.