[Philip]

Gentlemen:
Unfortunately Elgood's glossary doesn't illustrate an example of this "chirkas", but do you have in mind the sabers without any type of guard, with a knife-like handle with no pommel cap which has become associated with the emirate of Bukhara? Note the 2 examples in T. Flindt's "Some Nineteenth Century Arms from Bukhara" in Elgood (ed), ISLAMIC ARMS AND ARMOUR, Scolar Press 1979.

I have made note of the design of these two, plus the several in the Moser collection catalogued by E. Rohrer in "Die Waffen aus Turkestan" in JAHRBUCH DES BERNISCHEN HISTORISCHEN MUSEUMS IN BERN, xxvii. Jahrgang (Bern: K. J. Wyss, 1946), two or three in the Museum of Oriental Cultures in Moscow, plus several which I have owned and others in private collections, and can come to this conclusion:

This Central Asian saber is not likely to be derived from or related to the Caucasus shashka. I enumerate the following points:

1. The "szabla bukharska" generally has a blade whose width expands just before it meets the handle. (sometimes the effect is subtle because of repeated sharpening, but even in such cases the change in width is apparent when you compare the edge and spine contours) Occasionally, the edge widens out to a short blunted area or "ricasso", a feature seen on many Indian talwars and Afghan puluoar blades. The shashka's curve or contour at the edge tends to maintain a more constant relationship to that of the spine, and a prominent ricasso is generally absent.

2. Bukharska tips are generally more acute than the more deeply radiused edge at the average shashka's point.

3. The hilt of a shaskha is invariably "cleft" with a deep V notch between two "ears" at the pommel. Bukharska hilts are solid and don't expand into these big ears.

4. The mouth of the bukharska scabbard never swallows the hilt of the sword like the majority of shashka scabbards do. The slightly wedge-shaped "nose" of the blade bolster nests in a shallow V shaped cutout in the mouth of the scabbard.

If you look at the closest weapon that incorporates all 4 of the above features which are characteristic of these Turkestan sabers, you come up with ..... the Persian pesh kabz. Imagine that you can inject a curved bladed pesh kabz with steroids, and massage it just a little bit, and you can see how these sabers could come about.

5. Another thing comes to mind: Shashkas for the most part seem to be universally long, the blades generally over 31 inches (unless damaged and re tipped). I have noted a large proportion of bukharskas that tend to be on the short side, well under 30 inches. The shashka is of course a horseman's weapon, so length is important. The peoples of Turkestan had cavalry forces too, but in states such as Bukhara, Samarqand, and Khiva, the rulers fielded infantry forces as well. Admittedly, we do not have complete information yet about the use of these sabers; Herr Rohrer states that the exact manner of attaching the scabbard to the wearer's body was not known. So, further research is needed.

Anyway, this is my two cents' worth of theory, based on empirical observations of weapons design and construction, not on etymology or history. Someone else can surely use data from the other two fields, as has been done in previous posts, to argue something else. That's the fun of this business, isn't it?