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Originally Posted by ariel
Well, it depends how you look at it.
Since Bukharan saber developed independently of the Caucasian shashka and adopted none of its features it cannot be viewed as " bogus, sham, phony, artificial, mock, ersatz, quasi-, fake, false, spurious, deceptive, misleading, assumed, contrived, etc"
It is a genuinely independent object, resembling a parallel development. It is not a "pseudo" anything:-)
The Afghani one , on the other hand, derived from an old prototype, but adopted many features imitating the real shashka. Thus, IMHO, it is a "pseudo" one.
At the end of the day, it is a matter of semantics, isn't it?
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I'm inclined to agree here Ariel. It seems that the use of the term 'psuedo' toward the classification of a weapon as we know was with Lebedynsky back in the 90s with it used for the Afghan 'shashka'.
As far as I have known he abandoned the term afterwards, and cannot recall if he ever used it again when we discussed these weapons otherwise.
The use of the term 'psuedo' again, as far as I know, has not occurred in any other reference in classifying any weapon which is a variation or development from another form.
Personally I think the Afghan example of these sabres is most likely to have evolved from exposure to the Russian forces in these regions through the 19th century and I believe earlier (need to consult Hopkirk, "The Great Game" to be sure how early).
Russian forces clearly comprised Caucasian elements and officers often kept their heirloom forms as well as personal weapons in service. These thus were probably known to armourers in these regions.
It would seem that these locally produced shaska -style sabres would emulate the Caucasian forms.
The conundrum of the 'Uzbek' form seems to be rather so entwined with the Afghan of these shaska like sabres that even Flindt and Lebedynsky noted that typically it would be difficult to distinguish them from each other aside from instances where other qualifying features might enable that.
I cannot recall from Mollo, but it seems like the Russian 'shashka' which developed into a regulation form for Cossack units was around 1850s. These were quite different from Caucasian forms with the absence of guard being key visually. The use of the term shashka for other stirrup hilted swords in Mollo ("Russian Military Swords",) led (me at least) to presume the word was of Russian origin. It is not as has been revealed in discussion here.
The Bukharen sabre as noted, seems a localized development which seems to have evolved independently aside from the Russian influences which may have affected the Afghan versions of sabre.
It seems that many years back as I was looking into these, I had an article which dealt with some of the Steppes tribes in European areas back into the 6th century and these early periods. In an illustration it seemed that an Avar tribesman held a guardless sabre which almost had the kind of hilt shape of the Bukharen. In an admittedly tenuous and circumstantial suggestion, I wonder if these type sabres lingered as a loosely established form in these regions over that long a period.
Getting back to terminology and of course semantics, both the Bukharen and Afghan are effectively guardless sabres, however the Afghan may be considered shaska like, recalling the extant forms from the Caucusus.