Bashkirs paid yasak (tribute) and carried out military service for the benefit of those states which they were a part of in the 12th – 1st half of the 16th centuries (Volga Bulgaria, the Golden Horde, the Kazan and Siberian Khanates, the Nogai Horde). Instead, Bashkir biys (leaders of clans-tribes) received labels for land ownership from the khans. In this way, they maintained autonomy in the ancestral lands of the Southern Urals.
After the capture of Kazan by the Muscovites in 1552, the Bashkirs began negotiations with Tsar Ivan IV. By 1557, the majority of Bashkir clans received royal charters that guaranteed self-government, the right to practice Islam, and the patrimonial right to own lands. Such conditions were unprecedented for Muscovy, but not all Bashkirs believed in royal generosity. Some families were forced to agree to the proposed conditions, and some waged an armed struggle with the Muscovites until the beginning of the 17th century.
Despite the non-simultaneous acceptance of Muscovite citizenship, the Bashkir shezhere (genealogical chronicles) repeatedly emphasized the peaceful nature of the Bashkir accession, the contractual relations with the tsarist authorities, the specific conditions of inclusion in Muscovy and the impossibility of changing these conditions unilaterally.
It is not difficult to guess that soon after signing the agreements, Moscow began to violate them. In particular, it seized patrimonial lands, increased taxes, destroyed self-government, carried out forced Christianization, etc.
Uprising as a response to Moscow’s mischief
During the 17th-19th centuries, there were eight national liberation uprisings of the Bashkir people. Apparently, in terms of the number and mass of protests against Moscow, the Bashkirs are second only to the Ukrainians. Here is a brief description of each of them:
1662–1664 – the uprising began due to the violation of patrimonial rights to land and the arbitrariness of tax collectors. The protest was led by large landowners, some of whom renounced Moscow citizenship and wanted the revival of the independent Siberian Khanate. The tsarist government, having failed to defeat the rebels, had to satisfy their basic demands for land and taxation.
1681-1684 – the Bashkirs revolted due to rumours of the forcible Christianization of Muslims. A “holy war” was declared against Moscow, which was supported by the Kalmyk Khanate, a Kalmyk state that was also under Moscow’s protectorate. Because of this, the tsarist government was forced to abandon the policy of Christianizing Muslims, officially condemned the seizure of the Bashkir patrimony, and satisfied the demands of the Bashkirs regarding compliance with the terms of Bashkortostan’s accession to Moscow.
1704-1711 – the uprising was provoked by a Muscovite attempt to introduce 72 new taxes, in particular, on mosques, mullahs and everyone who comes to pray. In the tsar’s decree, it was also ordered to build mosques only according to the model of Christian churches, to arrange cemeteries next to mosques, to record marriages and deaths of parishioners by mullahs only in the presence of an Orthodox priest. In addition, the Bashkirs were required to provide 20,000 horses and 4,000 soldiers for the war against the Swedes. At the height of the uprising, the Bashkir elite renounced Moscow citizenship and in 1707 the creation of the Bashkir Khanate was proclaimed, connected by vassal dependence with the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire. Khazi Akkuskarov, one of the rebel leaders, was proclaimed Bashkir Khan at the council of elders. Muscovites were forced to agree to all the demands of the Bashkirs, to stop the spread of the rebellion to other territories. According to some sources, the Bashkirs swore anew to the Russian emperor as early as 1725.
1735–1740 — the uprising was a response to the organization of the Orenburg military-political expedition by the tsarist authorities, which aimed to establish colonial order in Bashkortostan. the Moscow authorities ordered General Rumyantsev to suppress the uprising “with fire and sword”. The punitive expedition killed, executed or sent to hard labour 40 to 60 thousand Bashkirs, more than 250 settlements and the main mosque were completely burned. Bashkortostan lost almost all rights and freedoms, but the rebels continued their armed struggle in the Ural Mountains.
In 1747, another anti-Moscow uprising took place, caused by an increase in taxes. The speech was quickly suppressed. The leaders of the rebellion were flogged and sent to eternal hard labour in the fortress of Rogervik. Others were arrested or exiled beyond the borders of the country, or cut with a whip and given to the elders as bail.
1755–1756 — the national liberation uprising of the Bashkir people, was caused by the seizure of Bashkir patrimonial lands, rising taxes, attempts to Christianize Muslims, and the arbitrariness of the administration of the Orenburg province. Mullah Abdullah Aliyev, surnamed Batyrsha, called the Bashkirs, Tatars, Kazakhs and Uzbeks to a “holy war”, but only the Bashkirs came out en masse. The main forces of the rebels retreated to Kazakhstan under the onslaught of Russian troops, but the Moscow authorities bribed the Kazakhs, and they betrayed the Bashkirs. No more than 12,000 to 15,000 of the rebels hiding with the Kazakhs (50,000 soldiers and their family members) returned home.
1773–1775 — the most massive insurgent movement, known as the uprising led by Omelyan Pugach. It was started by the local Cossacks of Yai, among whom there were many Ukrainians. Soon the Cossacks were joined by Bashkirs, Tatars, Kalmyks, Kazakhs, Chuvash, Ural factory peasants and others. The uprising covered a huge territory, many towns, fortresses and factories were captured. Bashkiram Omelyan Pugach, who proclaimed himself Emperor Peter III, promised independence, so two-thirds of the clans switched to his side. The leader of the rebel Bashkirs, Salavat Yulaev, is still a national hero of Bashkortostan, his symbolic image is on the coat of arms of the Republic of Bashkortostan.
1834–1835 was the last major uprising of the Bashkirs, caused by another attempt by the Russian authorities to limit their legal and economic rights. As a result of the uprising, the Bashkirs managed to preserve their personal freedom. 
What about today?
The Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Republic was the only one that became part of the Russian Federation on the basis of a treaty. In the mid-1930s, the leadership of the autonomy even appealed to Stalin with a request to transform Barser into a federal republic, but received an official refusal. On October 11, 1990, a declaration about the state sovereignty of Bashkortostan was adopted, and in 1994, based on the agreement of the separation of powers between authorities, the republic was fully integrated into the Russian Federation and eventually lost its autonomous rights.
In 2014, the organization “Bashkort” was created, which held mass public actions to protect the sovereignty of Bashkortostan, the Bashkir language and culture, promoted a sober lifestyle and opposed the repression of the Bashkir national movement activists, which have been ongoing since Putin’s election as president. In 2017–2020, members of “Bashcourt” took an active part in the protection of natural monuments from industrial developments, which acquired a nationwide character. In May 2020, the organization was banned, some activists were imprisoned, and some were forced to emigrate.
The modern leaders of the Bashkortostan national liberation movement emphasize that the Bashkirs signed one or other agreements with the Moscow state three times. The first time — with Ivan IV (Grozny), the second time the leader of the Bashkir national liberation movement Zaki Validi signed an agreement with Lenin in 1919, and the third time in 1994 the president of Bashkortostan, Murtaza Rakhimov — with Yeltsin. All three times these treaties were violated unilaterally by Moscow.
Therefore, on November 12, the Bashkir National Movement appealed to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi to recognize the Republic of Bashkortostan as an occupied territory.
Eugene Bouquet, ArmyInform correspondent
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