Ethno-mentality of the Bashkirs (E. V. Nikitina)
The article presents a literature review of historical, ethnographic, ethno-psychological, cultural and philosophical character relating to the Bashkir ethnic mentality.
The Bashkirs are a native Turkic-speaking people of the Southern Ural and the Ural regions, who live in Russia on the territory of the Republic of Bashkortostan and its neighbouring areas. Multilingual tribes — Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Mongolian, and Iranian — participated in Bashkir ethnogenesis. The author emphasizes that the ancient Turkic nomads played the decisive role in the formation of the Bashkirs and they determined many aspects of the Bashkir mentality.
The specificity of mental structures and ethics of the Bashkir ethnic group is due to the natural environment (steppe zone) and the originality of thinking (philosophical, poetic thinking). It is indicated that the Bashkirs are a freedom-loving and very warlike people due to their military equestrian way of life in the past. Pre-Islamic religious beliefs and Islam influenced the development of some specific features of the Bashkir ethnic mentality.
The Bashkir ethno mental attitudes are based on such values as supremacy of freedom; primacy of the sensual principle over the rational one; pursuit of justice; humanism. The essential characteristics of the Bashkir mentality are courage, hospitality, serenity, modesty, tolerance, pride, intense sense of competition and equality.
Keywords: ethnic mentality, the people of the Volga and Ural regions, the Bashkirs, Bashkir ethnic mentality, Sunni Muslims.