Crimean Tatars knives in the 18th century

[ariel]

At the recent conference in Kremlin, there was a talk about Crimean weapons.
The presenter cited documents of that era ( early years of occupation of Crimea by the Russians) with orders of mass confiscation of indigenous weapons. What looked rich and gorgeous, went to private hands of Russian bonzas and to museums, the rest were likely destroyed or allowed to disintegrate. Not a miracle, that virtually all Crimean weapons preserved till now were made in Poland: the smartest Crimean Tatars saw the writing on the wall and emigrated to Poland and Lithuania, where they continued to make ( or order from local masters) their sabers.
One can wonder why in Poland these sabers were called " ordynkas" ( "of the Horde origin")
As to Crimean knives, they were exported to Russia, Circassia, Valakhia, Turkey proper, Balkans. From Turkey, they went all over the Empire. Only Circassia imported 5000-6000 knives per year. In Circassia, even later on, they were called " Bakhchisarai P'chak"
Here are several pics of Crimean Tatars with their knives, various forms. All were posted on a Russian Forum guns.ru with which Mahratt is unquestionably familiar.
Especially interesting, IMXO, are two: the sheepherder and the pic of 2 local knives bought personally by the Tsar in Bakhchisarai in 1837. Uncanny resemblance to Karakulaks. One wonders whether Bulgarian herders acquired the pattern from Crimea? A colleague of mine, Sergei Samgin and myself published a paper on the potential Crimean origin of earlier Ottoman yataghans: seems that even in the middle of 19 century Crimean Tatars were preserving their tradition.
Also there is a pic of Crimean Tatar forge in Bakhchisarai: one can hardly call it " production center":-) Not much different from Indonesian or Philippine " hole in the wall" establishment. Should we put in question the origin and the magnitude of production of Javanese Krises and Philippine Barongs?

[ariel]

Here is another, this time alleged, Crimean knife. The cap on top of the hilt is a frequent Crimean feature : see Tatar sabers.
Pay attention to the down-turned handle. Similar examples are seen on 2 pics from the previous post.

[Kubur]

Originally Posted by ariel

Here is another, this time alleged, Crimean knife. The cap on top of the hilt is a frequent Crimean feature : see Tatar sabers.
Pay attention to the down-turned handle. Similar examples are seen on 2 pics from the previous post.

What an amazing knife Ariel!
So Persian
What about the blade is it a katar??
Do you know other examples like this or it is an anomaly?

[ariel]

I know nothing about this dagger. But the only thing resembling Persia is downturned quillons. However, same was seen on Mamluke and Ottoman examples, and Crimea was an “Ottoman- related” area.
It is not a Katar, that’s for sure.
As I said, for me the only Crimea-resembling detail is the cap.
One of those mysterious objects....
The owner said that the seller told him it was Crimean. That’s why I used “ alleged”.

[mahratt]

Ariel is not entirely accurate in presenting the facts. I do not know why...
It was impossible not to notice that I, too, was a participant in a conference in the Kremlin. So I heard a report on the "Crimean weapons." Unfortunately, this was a very low-level report. Forum participants who know the Russian language can easily be convinced of this by watching the presentation and the questions that after presentation followed at this link:

https://www.kreml.ru/research/confer...raniyakh-2019/

The very first report.
But the questions asked to the speaker are much more interesting. The speaker could not answer these questions, since he does not understand arms and armor at all.

The author of the report, unfortunately, does not understand weapons at all. This person is a specialist in archival documents. But he has very big ambitions. As a result, the report was full of mistakes ... And the facts that the author cited in the report were distorted, since 1) the author did not use the original sources, but used translations into Russian, in which the translator made mistakes, 2) the author deliberately distorted certain facts...

If so many knives were made in the Crimean Khanate, as authors who visited Crimea in the 18th century write, there were so many that it was impossible to destroy or to seize all knives.
I am very familiar with the images that you posted, since many years ago they were discussed on the Russian forum. All these images are quite late and cannot be used when discussing Crimean knives of the 18th century.
Since you recalled the article that you wrote with Sergey Samgin, it should be noted that when Sergey Samgin made a report on this article at an international scientific conference at the Museum of Arms in Tula, the article raised a lot of questions. And not one question your colleague could not answer ...
It is at least strange to compare the forge of 1914, when in the Crimea they could no longer make good knives and forges of the mid-18th century, where the knives were produced in very large quantities. In addition, in 1914, Bakhchisaray was no longer a big city with 1,000 shops, but a big village.

[mahratt]

Originally Posted by Kubur

What an amazing knife Ariel!
So Persian
What about the blade is it a katar??
Do you know other examples like this or it is an anomaly?

The most amazing thing is that several years ago (to be precise in 2010) this knife was actively discussed at the Russian forum (the very one where Ariel took the illustrations from), because this knife was bought by a friend of mine from Russia. And there Ariel claimed that this knife had nothing to do with Crimea ... Ariel wrote that it was an Afghan or Indian knife, and he was mistakenly called the "Crimean" ...

[ariel]

Please pay attention: I called this knife “ allegedly Crimean” and noted the only feature that hinted at that attribution. I also faithfully cited the owner’s reason why he suspected its Crimean origin. Accusing me of “ not being entirely accurate in presenting the facts” is incorrect and amounts to slander. And I do not like it.
Re. My early thoughts of attributing this knife to Afghanistan, I might have gotten smarter and learned new things since 2010:-)
Hope you did too.

As to the presentation about Crimean weapons, in my opinion it was first rate. It was a presentation by a professional historian, not a weapon specialist. He analyzed relevant documents pertaining to local weapon industry before and after Russian occupation. I distinctly heard citations of Potemkin’s orders to confiscate Crimean weapons. It was not translated from some other language; it was in Russian. What I heard from this presentation was informative, novel and useful, at least to me. The presenter answered questions very well, to the point, with citing relevant sources. He did not lose his cool even when some rude jerk started openly accusing him of repeating his previous talk and mis-interpretation of inscriptions. I do not know who that person was, but he obviously wanted to demonstrate his vast erudition, resorting even to crude language. This told the participants more about his own narcissistic personality rather than about clarification of factual points and the academic level of the presenter.

As to Dr. Samgin’s presentation, I do not know what questions were asked and whether they were answerable at all. Perhaps, the same rude jerk asked the questions. However, a Yataghan- like dagger bought by Nickolas I in Bakhchisarai in 1837 does give us some ideas about Crimean weapons in 1783, when the Russians occupied Crimea for the first time.

Maligning people behind their backs is not a good habit. You may think about it.

[TVV]

I am still not sure exactly how Crimean knives looked like, assuming they had distinct characteristics. However, I am very familiar with Bulgarian shepherd's knives and can guarantee that the example at the bottom of post 17 (larger and smaller knife in the same wooden scabbard) is very much a late 19th century Bulgarian shepherd's knife.

[ariel]

Only those two were bought by the Tsar himself from a Bakhchisarai knifemaker in 1837:-)

[mahratt]

Originally Posted by ariel

Please pay attention: I called this knife “ allegedly Crimean” and noted the only feature that hinted at that attribution. I also faithfully cited the owner’s reason why he suspected its Crimean origin. Accusing me of “ not being entirely accurate in presenting the facts” is incorrect and amounts to slander. And I do not like it.
Re. My early thoughts of attributing this knife to Afghanistan, I might have gotten smarter and learned new things since 2010:-)
Hope you did too.

As to the presentation about Crimean weapons, in my opinion it was first rate. It was a presentation by a professional historian, not a weapon specialist. He analyzed relevant documents pertaining to local weapon industry before and after Russian occupation. I distinctly heard citations of Potemkin’s orders to confiscate Crimean weapons. It was not translated from some other language; it was in Russian. What I heard from this presentation was informative, novel and useful, at least to me. The presenter answered questions very well, to the point, with citing relevant sources. He did not lose his cool even when some rude jerk started openly accusing him of repeating his previous talk and mis-interpretation of inscriptions. I do not know who that person was, but he obviously wanted to demonstrate his vast erudition, resorting even to crude language. This told the participants more about his own narcissistic personality rather than about clarification of factual points and the academic level of the presenter.

As to Dr. Samgin’s presentation, I do not know what questions were asked and whether they were answerable at all. Perhaps, the same rude jerk asked the questions. However, a Yataghan- like dagger bought by Nickolas I in Bakhchisarai in 1837 does give us some ideas about Crimean weapons in 1783, when the Russians occupied Crimea for the first time.

Maligning people behind their backs is not a good habit. You may think about it.

I am so sorry. I was inattentive. Yes, you said "allegedly" I apologize again. My mistake is related to the fact that 9 years ago you claimed that this knife has nothing to do with Crimea .... By the way, I don’t understand your phrase “I might have gotten smarter” if you use the term "allegedly" when talk about this knife. Does the term “allegedly” not mean that you doubt the Crimean origin of this knife? .... Or are these some nuances of the English language that I simply don’t understand, since I don’t speak English as fluently as you? Once again, I apologize for my mistake.

At the expense of the presentation - she was very pretentious. The author used some documents, but "forgot" about the existence of other documents that were not very convenient for him. In addition, although the author of the report is a historian, unfortunately, he did not analyze various documents... And this is at least strange for the historian.
I am sincerely glad that you heard something new for yourself that you have not heard before. But unfortunately during the answers to the questions, the author of the report did not refer to the original sources, but to poor translations and as a result made unforgivable mistakes.
Speaker, answering the questions that Russian arms and armor experts asked him, tried not to be nervous, but made gross mistakes that were unforgivable for the historian.
To my great regret, indeed, the speaker really practically word for word repeated his report, which the week before he had told at a conference in Tula. I don’t know if this is allowed in the USA, but in Russia it’s considered bad form (bad manners) to give the same report at different conferences ... One of the forum participants from Russia, the Mercenary, was present at this presentation and I think that he will confirm my words. As will confirm that the speaker “ran away” from the conference, without waiting for the end of the conference, when Russian arms and armor experts wanted to discuss his report in more detail ...

Questions to your colleague Samgin were asked by various experts on the history of weapons from Russia (for example, from the Kremlin Armory). All questions were exclusively on the report (more precisely, on its weak argumentation). Unfortunately, your colleague could not answer not one of these questions.

I don’t like your hints that I “Maligning people behind their backs”, because you know very well that I told your colleague Sergey Samgin everything that I wrote here in person and spoke this more than once.

P.S. You can show the pictures here this "a Yataghan- like dagger bought by Nickolas I in Bakhchisarai in 1837" ? I think everyone will be interested.

[Ren Ren]

Originally Posted by ariel

As to the presentation about Crimean weapons, in my opinion it was first rate. It was a presentation by a professional historian, not a weapon specialist. He analyzed relevant documents pertaining to local weapon industry before and after Russian occupation. I distinctly heard citations of Potemkin’s orders to confiscate Crimean weapons. It was not translated from some other language; it was in Russian. What I heard from this presentation was informative, novel and useful, at least to me. The presenter answered questions very well, to the point, with citing relevant sources. He did not lose his cool even when some rude jerk started openly accusing him of repeating his previous talk and mis-interpretation of inscriptions. I do not know who that person was, but he obviously wanted to demonstrate his vast erudition, resorting even to crude language. This told the participants more about his own narcissistic personality rather than about clarification of factual points and the academic level of the presenter.

I spent 45 minutes to listen to the report and the questions that followed. And now I feel the obligation to state my point of view.
Firstly, this report is only a way to draw attention to the author’s ambitious project - an exhibition of Crimean arms and armour is planned at he State Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow in late 2020 and early 2021. The author made an attempt to single out those objects from the collection of Russian museums that he would like to see at this exhibition. The methodology for the selection of objects was based on the presence of inscriptions testifying to the Crimean origin of the owners of arms and armour. This method received sharp criticism of the specialists present at the conference.
Secondly, with all my desire, I could not hear where the documents cited by the author of the report talk about the operation carried out by the military and police forces of the Russian Empire on gratuitous and irretrievable confiscation of weapons from the Crimean Tatars. It says about taking weapons for safekeeping by local Tatar administrations during the war with the Ottoman Empire and a possible landing of Turkish troops in Crimea. I do not exclude that subsequently these weapons were not returned to their owners and even destroyed, but there is not a single word about the documents cited by the author of the report.

[ariel]

The presenter specifically stressed that the choice of objects was based on their presence and usage by the military of the Crimean Khanate, NOT on the purported place of their manufacture, Crimea or otherwise.

This was a time-limited oral presentation, not a full manuscript.
It set a well-defined scope of presentation and covered it very well.

When his m/s is submitted for publication, the reviewers will be within their rights and obligations to ask for clarifying points.Provided, of course that they do not resort to ad hominem attacks and crudities expressed by one commentator