In the 1380s or earlier at least part of them settled in Temnikov Principality.[2] The Tatar-speaking Burtashi ethnic group is sometimes mentioned in forums.[3]
Ethnic Identity
The ethnic identity of the Burtas is disputed, with several different theories ranging from them being a Uralic tribal confederacy (probably later assimilated to Turkic language), and therefore perhaps the ancestors of the modern Moksha people.[4][5]
Some scholars maintain that the Burtas are supposed to be Turkic-speaking and ethnically related to the Volga Bulgars.[6]
Recently some scholars have suggested that the Burtas were Alans or another Iranian ethnolinguistic group. An Alanic (Sarmatian) origin would also explain their name as furt/fort ('big river' in Middle Iranian language or 'beehive' in Turkic language)[7] and the Alanic endonym as.[8][4]
Some Soviet and modern Russian historians such as A.E Alikhova and A.N.Gren connected the Burtas to the Chechens and noted that their neighbour Avars call them "Burti".[9]
Nikolai Ashmarin believed that the word Mordas - i.e. Mordvins - comes from the ethnonym Burtas since they divide themselves into Erzya and Moksha. The transition took place through a linguistic transition typical for Bulgars (Ogurs) and Oguzes, where the typically Kypchak "M" turns into "B" and "P": the word "I am" (oguzes and ogurs) even in ancient times, they pronounced Bӓ(n), and kipchaks – Mӓn. Tat. men, chuv. pin, turk. bin - "thousand"; tat. milәsh, chuv. pilesh - "mountain ash"; tat. mәçә, chuv. pĕşi, pĕşuk - "cat"; tat. mich., chuv. pichev - "harness, harness", etc. In Tatar, even in Russian borrowings, instead of the initial sound "p" is "m": oven - pech > mich, barrel - bochka > michke. The Volga Bulgarian word "Burtas" passed through the Tatars to Mordas, then to Mordva, where the word bort < mord, as in the word Udmort (Udmurt) means a person, sanskrit: त्रिमूर्ति (tri mūrti) and as - a tribe. In the European part of Russia there are quite a lot of surnames "Mordasov" and "Burtasov", as well as the names of the settlements of Burtasy and Mordasy, Mordasovo.[10]
^Акчурин, М. М. (2012). "Буртасы в документах XVII века" [The Burtas in Documents of the 17th Century]. Этнологические исследования в Татарстане [Ethnological research in Tatarstan] (in Russian) (VI): 43–48.
^Халиков, А. Х. (1985). "К вопросу об этнической территории буртасов во второй половине VIII — начале Х вв" [On the Question of the Ethnic Territory of the Burtas in the Second Half of the 8th to the Beginning of the 10th Century]. Советская этнография [Ethnographic Review] (in Russian) (5): 161–164.
^Афанасьев, Г. Е. (1985). "Буртасы и лесостепной вариант салтово-маяцкой культуры" [Burtases and the Forest-Steppe Variant of the Saltov–Mayak Culture]. Советская этнография [Ethnographic Review] (in Russian) (5).
^Галкина, Е. С. (2012). Русский каганат. Без хазар и норманнов [Russian Khaganate. Without Khazars and Normans] (in Russian). Moscow, Russia: Алгоритм. ISBN978-5-4438-0164-3.
^Тесаев, Амин (17 January 2020). "Chechen–Bulgar Contacts". Чеченское национальное право [Chechen national law] (in Russian). Retrieved 2022-10-05.
^Ashmarin, Nikolai (1928–1950). Thesaurus linguae tschuvaschorum (in Russian). Kazan: Народный комиссариат по просвещению Чувашской Автономной Советской Социалистической Республики.
