The Golden Horde Traditions in the Kazan Tatars’ Jewelry Art: On the Example of Almond-shaped Filigree Earrings

• Main Author: Donina L.N., Suslova S.V.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: State Institution «Sh.Marjani Institute of History of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences» 2019-09-01
• Series: Zolotoordynskoe Obozrenie
• Online Access: http://goldhorde.ru/en/stati2019-3-3/

Research objectives: Identification of the Jochid jewelry traditions in Kazan-Tatar filigree art based on the example of the ethnospecific element of the traditional Tatar culture – almond-shaped filigree earrings. Research materials: The main sources are museum and field ethnographic and archaeological materials collected by the authors as part of largescale academic projects. These are the “Historical and Ethnographic Atlas of the Tatar People” (1971–1990) and “Jewelry of the Turkic Peoples of Eurasia: General and Specific” (Russian Foundation for Basic Research №13-06-97056, 2013–2014 yy.). Results and novelty of the research: For the first time, this article carried out a retrospective historical-ethnological and technological analysis of almond-shaped filigree earrings, which are a characteristic marker of Tatar national culture. This made it possible to attribute the origins of some early medieval archaeological and ethnographic artifacts. The origins of the formation of earrings are largely associated with the Golden Horde period of the ethnocultural history of the region’s people, especially the Kazan Tatars. The technological and ornamental traditions of the Golden Horde filigree are preserved at all stages of their formation. The earliest examples of Jochid filigree are found in the fourteenth-century almond-shaped earrings from the burial ground in the vicinity of Bulghar. Modern macro-photography allowed us to determine the manufacturing technology of medieval archaeological artifacts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries – the close analogues of Kazan-Tatar earrings. This was the filigree tracery (gimp) without base. It reflects the process of integrating the Golden Horde elements (curl in one turn) and technological methods (openwork filigree without base) into the jewelry art of the Kazan Tatars through the traditions of Volga Bulgarian filigree. The Golden Horde filigree traditions also prevail in the massive almond-shaped head ornaments from the 16th–18th centuries. Such large forms of jewelry correspond to the monumental forms of the urban costume of the medieval nobility rather than to nomadic traditions. The technological traditions of the Jochid spiral filigree in the Tatar almond-shaped earrings, as is the case with Kazan-Tatar filigree art in general, continued until the beginning of the twentieth century.