Tartary
Encyclopedia
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
: Tataria or Tataria Magna) was a name used by Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
ans from the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
until the twentieth century to designate the Great Steppe, that is the great tract of northern and central Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
stretching from the Caspian Sea
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...
and the Ural Mountains
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Ural River and northwestern Kazakhstan. Their eastern side is usually considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia...
to the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
inhabited mostly by Turkic
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
, Mongol
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
peoples and also by some Cossacks of Russian origin, citizens of the Mongol Empire
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire , initially named as Greater Mongol State was a great empire during the 13th and 14th centuries...
who were generically referred to as "Tartars", i.e. Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...
. It incorporated the current areas of Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, Turkestan
Turkestan
Turkestan, spelled also as Turkistan, literally means "Land of the Turks".The term Turkestan is of Persian origin and has never been in use to denote a single nation. It was first used by Persian geographers to describe the place of Turkish peoples...
, Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
, and Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
.
Geography and history
Tartary was often divided into sections with prefixes denoting the name of the ruling power or the geographical location. Thus, western Siberia was Muscovite or RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n Tartary, Xinjiang
Xinjiang
Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
and Mongolia were Chinese or Cathay
Cathay
Cathay is the Anglicized version of "Catai" and an alternative name for China in English. It originates from the word Khitan, the name of a nomadic people who founded the Liao Dynasty which ruled much of Northern China from 907 to 1125, and who had a state of their own centered around today's...
Tartary, western Turkestan (later Russian Turkestan
Russian Turkestan
Russian Turkestan was the western part of Turkestan within the Russian Empire , comprising the oasis region to the south of the Kazakh steppes, but not the protectorates of the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva.-History:-Establishment:Although Russia had been pushing south into the...
) was known as Independent Tartary, and Manchuria was East Tartary.
As the Russian Empire expanded eastward and more of Tartary became known to Europeans, the term fell into disuse.
European areas north of the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
inhabited by Turkic peoples were known as Little Tartary
Little Tartary
Little Tartary is a historical designation for areas north of the Black Sea under the suzerainty of the Crimean Khanate and inhabited by nomadic Tatars of the Lesser Nogai Horde from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Little Tartary was designated such vis-à-vis Tartary, areas of central and...
.
The "Komul Desert
Hami Desert
The Desert of Hami is a section of the Gobi Desert that occupies the space between the Tian Shan system on the north and the Nan-shan Mountains on the south, and is connected on the west with the Desert of Lop.-Przhevalsky, 1879:...
of the Tartary" was mentioned by Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
in his "Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime
Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime
Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime is a 1764 book by Immanuel Kant.The first complete translation into English was published in 1799...
", as a "great far-reaching solitude".
East Tartary
East Tartary and Maritime Tartary are old names for the ManchuManchu
The Manchu people or Man are an ethnic minority of China who originated in Manchuria . During their rise in the 17th century, with the help of the Ming dynasty rebels , they came to power in China and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which...
-inhabited territory extending from the confluence
Confluence (geography)
In geography, a confluence is the meeting of two or more bodies of water. It usually refers to the point where two streams flow together, merging into a single stream...
of the River Amur with the River Ussuri to Sakhalin Island. This area is now the Primorsky Krai
Primorsky Krai
Primorsky Krai , informally known as Primorye , is a federal subject of Russia . Primorsky means "maritime" in Russian, hence the region is sometimes referred to as Maritime Province or Maritime Territory. Its administrative center is in the city of Vladivostok...
with Vladivostok
Vladivostok
The city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...
as regional administrative center.
These lands were once occupied by the Mohe tribes and Jurchen nation; and also by various old kingdoms including Gojoseon
Gojoseon
Gojoseon was an ancient Korean kingdom. Go , meaning "ancient," distinguishes it from the later Joseon Dynasty; Joseon, as it is called in contemporaneous writings, is also romanized as Chosŏn....
, Balhae
Balhae
Balhae was a Manchurian kingdom established after the fall of Goguryeo. After Goguryeo's capital and southern territories fell to Unified Silla, Dae Jo-yeong, a Mohe general, whose father was Dae Jung-sang, established Jin , later called Balhae.Balhae occupied southern parts of Manchuria and...
, Liao
Liao Dynasty
The Liao Dynasty , also known as the Khitan Empire was an empire in East Asia that ruled over the regions of Manchuria, Mongolia, and parts of northern China proper between 9071125...
and the (Khitan
Khitan people
thumb|250px|Khitans [[Eagle hunting|using eagles to hunt]], painted during the Chinese [[Song Dynasty]].The Khitan people , or Khitai, Kitan, or Kidan, were a nomadic Mongolic people, originally located at Mongolia and Manchuria from the 4th century...
) kingdoms.
According to Sheng-Wu-Chi's Ming dynasty
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
chronicle ("Our dynasty is informed by military realizations"), in this land the Tungus Weji, Warka and Kurka tribes were established. Later these were unified in Manchu Qing Empire with Nurhaci
Nurhaci
Nurhaci was an important Jurchen chieftain who rose to prominence in the late sixteenth century in what is today Northeastern China...
as their leader and founder. These lands were lost to Russia under the Treaty of Peking.
Nearest this land lies the Ku-Ye-Dao or Fu-Sang (Hangul
Hangul
Hangul,Pronounced or ; Korean: 한글 Hangeul/Han'gŭl or 조선글 Chosŏn'gŭl/Joseongeul the Korean alphabet, is the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is a separate script from Hanja, the logographic Chinese characters which are also sometimes used to write Korean...
: 후상) island, better known as Karafuto or Sakhalin
Sakhalin
Sakhalin or Saghalien, is a large island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N.It is part of Russia, and is Russia's largest island, and is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast...
; in recent times Russian archaeologists have found here remains of ancient cities with walls and castles. These may correspond with the ancient Manchu nation, or possibly during Mongol or Tungus times, or the Balhae kingdom.
These lands were visited by Japanese explorers, Mamiya Rinzo
Mamiya Rinzō
was a Japanese explorer of the late Edo period.Mamiya was born in 1775 in Tsukuba District, Hitachi Province, in what is now Tsukubamirai, Ibaraki Prefecture. Later in his life he would become an undercover agent for the Tokugawa shogunate...
and others, who reported on the various important cities and ports, such as Haishenwei (present day Vladivostok). From these lands and nearby Hulun
Hulun
Hūlun was a powerful alliance of Jurchen tribes in the late 16th century, based primarily in what is today Jilin province of China.The Hūlun alliance was formed by Wan Hūlun was a powerful alliance of Jurchen tribes in the late 16th century, based primarily in what is today Jilin province of...
(Amur area), the Japanese have claimed North Asian ancestors, who settled North Japan.
Other ancient cities in the region are: Tetyukhe (now Dalnegorsk
Dalnegorsk
Dalnegorsk is a town in Primorsky Krai, Russia. Population: It was formerly known from its founding in 1899 as Tetyukhe , until it was renamed in 1972 as part of a campaign to change any Chinese-derived placenames in the Primorsky Krai.-History:...
) and probably Deleng, an important commercial imperial post according to some records.
Tartary in fiction
In the novel AdaAda or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov published in 1969.Ada began to materialize in 1959, when Nabokov was flirting with two projects: "The Texture of Time" and "Letters from Terra." In 1965, he began to see a link between the two ideas, finally composing a unified novel...
by Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
, Tartary is the name of a large country on the fictional planet of Antiterra. Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
is Tartary's approximate geographic counterpart on Terra, Antiterra's twin world apparently identical to "our" Earth, but doubly fictional in the context of the novel.
In Puccini's last opera, Turandot
Turandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
, Calaf's father Timur is the deposed King of the Tartars.
In Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials
His Dark Materials
His Dark Materials is a trilogy of fantasy novels by Philip Pullman comprising Northern Lights , The Subtle Knife , and The Amber Spyglass...
novels, the European main characters often express fear of tartars, a term apparently referring to many Asian races, as the story takes place far from Mongolia.
In Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
, by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, the witches include Tartars' lips in their potion
Potion
A potion is a consumable medicine or poison.In mythology and literature, a potion is usually made by a magician, sorcerer, dragon, fairy or witch and has magical properties. It might be used to heal, bewitch or poison people...
.
In Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
's Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein pursues the monster "amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia, although he still evaded me, I have ever followed in his track."
In Great Expectations
Great Expectations
Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens. It was first published in serial form in the publication All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. It has been adapted for stage and screen over 250 times....
, by Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, Herbert Pocket describes Estella Havisham
Estella Havisham
Estella Havisham is a significant character in the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations....
as a Tartar because she was "hard and haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the male sex."
In The Pied Piper of Hamelin
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
The Pied Piper of Hamelin is the subject of a legend concerning the departure or death of a great many children from the town of Hamelin , Lower Saxony, Germany, in the Middle Ages. The earliest references describe a piper, dressed in pied clothing, leading the children away from the town never...
by Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...
, the Pied Piper mentions Tartary as one of his credentials in pest removal to the Mayor of Hamelin. "In Tartary I freed the Cham, last June, from his huge swarms of gnats;"
In his short work with E. Hoffmann Price, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key," H. P. Lovecraft briefly mentions Tartary: "Upon their cloaked heads there now seemed to rest tall, uncertainly coloured mitres, strangely suggestive of those on certain nameless figures chiselled by a forgotten sculptor along the living cliffs of a high, forbidden mountain in Tartary..."
The Squire's Tale from Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
's Canterbury Tales is set in the royal court of Tartary.
In Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
's Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver's Travels
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels , is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of...
, the eponymic hero refers to his travels in Tartary on two occasions, and suggests that the then modern geographers of Europe were "in a great error, by supposing nothing but sea between Japan and California; for it was ever my opinion, that there must be a balance of earth to counterpoise the great continent of Tartary..."
Citations
Peter Fleming: One's Company (1936) and News From Tartary (1936) later published together as Travels in Tartary.External links
- 1704 map of Tartary
- 1736 map of Tartary showing Muscovite, Independent, and Chinese Tartary
- [NATIONALITY OR RELIGION? Views of Central Asian Islam http://vlib.iue.it/carrie/texts/carrie_books/paksoy-6/cae02.html]