Sun-Eater, Moon-Swallower
An Encyclopedia of Volga Turkic Mythical Beings with an Anthology
In the Volga region, Russian Orthodoxy and Islam have coexisted for centuries, along with their respective folk religions and mythologies, as well as a number of unique “pagan” concepts with a long history, which can partly be related to Finno-Ugric and partly to Turkic-language peoples.
This book introduces the mythical beings of three Turkic-language peoples, who are slightly isolated from the larger blocs of other Turkic peoples and live in a different religious and cultural environment: the Chuvash, the Kazan Tatars and the Bashkirs. Although in the Volga region, Turkic-language peoples had created states as early as in the 9-10th centuries (Volga Bulgaria, Kazan-Tatar Khanate), what is typical of the development of most other Turkic peoples is also true here: the evolution of the peoples known to us today can only be dated to after the Mongol conquest.
The languages of the Kazan Tatars and the Bashkirs are closely related to each other; both belong to the Kipchak language branch, but the Chuvash language differs significantly from them, as it represents a separate branch within the Turkic languages. The two groups also differ in their religions: the Tatars and Bashkirs have been Muslims for centuries, and it is also worth mentioning that Islam has been present in the region since the 10th century. The Chuvash have officially been Orthodox Christians since the 16th century; but in reality, the multi-wave missions were rather unsuccessful among most of them until the 20th century. Thus, they had many beliefs even in the early 20th century that could be called pagan for want of a better term. It is also worth adding that some of the names of Chuvash mythical beings are of Arabic and Persian origin and can be linked to Islam, which can be partly explained by Tatar influence; yet it may have deeper roots, as Volga Bulgaria made Islam the state religion in the early 10th century.
The picture outlined in the present volume, of course, characterises a certain period: basically the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. This is a period from which a larger number of sources are available to us, but at the same time myths, folk beliefs and folk religion are still alive in the majority of the society as a coherent system passed down from previous generations. Nevertheless, there are smaller differences in the cases of individual peoples – numerous records had already been taken among the Chuvash in earlier periods, whereas it was the opposite in the case of the Bashkirs: sources were scarce even in this period.