BASHKIR TRIBAL ORGANIZATION

BASHKIR TRIBAL ORGANIZATION, traditional structure of the Bashkir society, based on genealogical kinship. It was formed in the conditions of the prevailing seminomadic, cattle‑breeding economy and culture and was determined by customs, historical and cultural traditions. Historical documents, including shezhere, describe different types of B.t.o. The number of links in the structure and the boundaries between them constantly changed, new ones appeared from time to time or one of them was transformed into another. There were also unions of several tribes that constituted tribal associations.

The following 3 links were the most important in the whole structure: tribe, clan, family. After accession of Bashkortostan to Russia, the preservation of their importance was mostly due to land property and land use system organization. Land property of the Bashkirs belonged to a tribe or a clan; by the end of the 18th century, tribal ancestral lands became clans property (ref. Aul). In the 18th—19th centuries, due to Russia’s administrative, social and land policy, some links of the structure of B.t.o. gradually lost their importance in the public life of the Bashkirs and continued to exist only because of tradition.