Crimean Tatars knives in the 18th century
 

Guys, I’m reading the 18th century book in French with great difficulty and I have one question about weapons for forum participants who know French.
Can the word “Boutiques” in this particular text be translated like a workshop in which knives were made? Or it’s just “shops” (shops).

Claude Charles de Peysonnel. Traité sur le commerce de la mer Noire… : T. 1

Text:

La renommee des couteaux tartares est repandue dans tout l univers; ils font effectivement d une fort bonne trempe. d une
Batcheserai est la ville de Crimée d ou il en fort le plus : il y a dans cette Capitale cent boutiques de Couteliers : on en trouve aussi quelques-unes dans les autres villes de la...

Toutes ces boutiques fourniffent, annee commune environ quarte cents mille....

Hello Dmitry,

Looks like "boutiques fournissent" to me - IMHO dealers. I hope any native speaker of French will come in to confirm!

Regards,
Kai

Hello,
yes ''f'' or ''ff'' in old french was a ''s'' ''ss''
''fournissent'' is ok !!

Not the perfect answer sorry but just some clues:
Not easy:

Couteliers is the name of the knife maker but too of just a knife dealer...

Idem, boutique is more the name of a shop but it's too a little artisan-craftman shop were we make and sell products...

Note: If they provide four hundred thousand knives per years,
I guess/think the made them and don't just sold them.
( the Amazon of the 18th century ;) )

Confusingly it was the same in England at that time, The double 's' was expressed as, 'ff'.
The word 'furnisher' could be used here in those times to describe a person who assembled swords or knives.

I saw this book many years ago for a short time. Can’t remember any pictures of those knives.

Guys, thank you very much for your answers!
I am especially grateful to a colleague from France who answered me in the PM, confirming that the term "boutique" in the 18th century can be considered as a "workshop for production".
Frankly, I somewhat doubt the number of knives allegedly produced per year, which are produced in the Crimea. 400,000 knives is a lot. I think the author could not personally recount this amount, but was guided by information obtained from local oral sources. Also, reading the book Luigi Ferdinando Marsili "L'état militaire de l'Empire Ottoman ses progrès et sa décadence" 1732 and the book Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan "Description d'Ukranie, qui sont plusieurs provinces du Royaume de Pologuis les Depenne les Conten. confins de la Moscovie, insques aux limites de la Transilvanie. Ensemble leurs moeurs, façons de viures, et de faire la Guerre "1660 I could not find references to the fact that the Crimean Tatars are good masters ... Both authors who mention in in their books about the Crimean Tatars they write only that the Crimean Tatars are good soldiers and about cruel and wild manners Crimean Tatars.

Boutique = specialty shop
Coutelier = cutler; knife/sword maker or seller
Fournissent, from fournir = to furnish, provide, supply, deliver, dispense, etc.

So, les boutiques fournissent would be shops serving as suppliers, but not necessarily manufacturers, of these arms.

if IT HELPS MUCH OF THIS AUTHORS WORK IS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. PLEASE SEE
https://www.translatetheweb.com/?fro..._de_Peyssonnel

Thank you very much. I have this book in Russian. But unfortunately, such books need to be read in the original. In the language in which they were written. Unfortunately, quite often the translator wants the text to be "beautiful" in the language into which he translates the original text... Errors can occur because of this...

By the way, if this is interesting to someone. I think that Peyssonnel wrote from other people's words about 100 workshops (shops) in Bakhchisarai and 400,000 knives that they allegedly make in a year in the Crimean Khanate ... I found a work by Simon Pallas, , who himself traveled through the Crimean Khanate and writes that In 1793 in Bakhchisarai there were only 23 workshops (or shops) with knives.

Well, there is a problem with historiography...

And here is free hint:

Peysonnel was in Crimea in 1753. Many things might have happened in 40 years. Such as, for example, a minor adjustment in the scenery: annexation of Crimea by the Russian Empire in 1783. The usual practice of any occupant is to cut down on the manufacture of weapons by the locals.

Crimean Khanate in 1793 was no more, and still is no more.

Thank you very much for your information. You are not quite right on several issues ... 1) Peyssonnel was in the Crimea from 1753 to 1757. 2) The Russian Empire did not annex the territory of Crimea. Crimea was joining as a result of the war. And the war, in turn, was provoked by regular raids of the Crimean Tatars into the territory of the Russian Empire. Since the 15th century, 3 million captives passed through the slave markets in Crimea (Alan Fisher “Muscovy and the Black Sea Slave Trade”, Canadian American Slavic Studies, 1972, Vol. 6, pp. 575-594.). I think you should read Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan. He writes in detail about what the Crimean Tatars did with the Russians and Ukrainians. The easiest thing was capturing people and selling Russians and Ukrainians into slavery ...
https://archive.org/details/descript...00beau/page/46

Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan. Description d'Ukranie, qui sont plusieurs provinces du Royaume de Pologne.
"Dans ce iour qui est d'vne semaine ils font assembler tout leur butin, qui consiste en esclaues, & en bestcaux & partagent le tout entr'eux; c'est vne chose qui toucheroit le cœur des plus inhumains, de voir lors là separation d'vn mary d'auec sa femme, d'vne mere d'auec sa fille, sans esperance de se pouuoir iamais reuoir, entrans dans l'esclauage deplorable de Payens Mahumetans, qui leur font milles indiguitez. Leur brutalité leur faisant cómettre vne infinité de saletez, comme de violer les filles, forcer les femmes presence des peres & de leurs maris: mesme circoncir leurs enfans deuant eux pour estrepresentez à Mahomet. En fin le cœur des plus infensibles fremiroit d'entendre les cris & les chants, parmy les pleurs & gemissemens de ces malheureux Rus. Car cette nation chante & hurle en pleurant, ces miserables sont donc separez par cy par là, les vns pour Constantinople, les autres pour le Crime, & d'autre pour la Natolie, & c. voila en peu de mots, comme les Tartares sont des leuées & des rafles de peuples au nombre de plus de 50. mil ames, en moins de deux femaines, & comme ils traictent leurs esclaues, apres auoir fait leurs partages, puis les vendent selon que bon leur semble lors qu'ils sont retournez en leurs pays".

When Russia officially notified the European powers of the joining of Crimea, only France protested. In response to the French protests, the President of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, I. A. Osterman, reminded the French envoy that Catherine II had at one time “impartially and indifferently gazed” at the “possession of Corsica”, and therefore expects a “equally impartial and indifferent” attitude of the French king to the joining of Crimea to Russia, “seeking only to calm the borders” of the Russian Empire
3) At the time of Simon Pallas's journey, Crimea was joining to Russia for only 10 years. You are absolutely right when you say that the winners in the conquered territories are trying to reduce the production of weapons. But ... The same Pallas writes that five gunsmith workshops work in Bakhchisarai. It would be logical to ban their work, and not the work of stores that sell knives and various tools made of iron ...

I hope I managed to write quite understandably. I apologize in advance for my bad English.

I am not talking about military history . Wars are cruel in general, and this is true for both sides, especially long ago. Slavery was the usual way of life in Russia and Crimean Khanate. Russia occupied Crimea not because it wanted to end slavery: it was a land grab to gain better access to the Black Sea. Read about Potemkin. Do not forget that having occupied Ukraine, Russians in the same 1783 extended slavery from their territory to millions of formerly free Ukrainian peasants. This was well more than 3 mln Ukrainians and Caucasians sold by the Crimean Tatars over centuries.
This Forum is not for political discussions. We are just talking about the veracity of numbers, no more. Who is right and who is wrong is not a topic of my attempt to help you to think clearly and use historiography instead of wishful thinking.


Be it as it may, Crimean Khanate was forcibly absorbed into Russian Empire in 1783 and Beauplan visited it 10 years later. More than enough time for the Russian occupiers to close the number of weapon-producing workshops.
It is possible that Peysonnel erred in his report of 400,000 knives per year or was hoodwinkled by the locals, or misunderstood, or... anything else. But one has to take into account the inevitable possibility that the production of edged weapons was dramatically cut down
No different from the British restrictions in India, Spanish in the Philippines, Americans in the post WW2 Japan etc.

Not taking it into account invites wrong conclusions.

If this forum is not for political discussions, I don’t understand why you start talking about the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 1783. If you write about Potemkin, then you should know that this was not the first war with the Crimean Khanate. And that the initial reasons were precisely because every year the Crimean Tatars took into slavery 20,000 Russians and Ukrainians. By the way, you probably forgot that Ukraine at that time (from the middle of the 17th century) was part of the Russian Empire. Speaking about slavery in Russia, you probably mean serfdom? It was a shameful phenomenon ... About the same as slavery in the USA, which was abolished in 1865. Slavery in the Crimea was different. Crimean Tatars specifically attacked neighboring states in order to capture slaves. I hope you understand the difference.

However, really enough about politics.

If we are talking about historiography, you are not very attentive ... Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan was in the Crimea in the 17th century (the years of his life 1595-1673). Simon Pallas was in Crimea 10 years after Crimea joining Russia in 1793. But as I wrote above, Pallas writes that 5 weapons workshops and 23 shops (or workshops) selling knives and various iron tools worked in Bakhchisarai. Probably the Russians, for some reason, have not seen 5 weapons workshops in Bakhchisarai for 10 years ;)
Because, according to your logic, they should have closed exactly these 5 weapons workshops. By the way, we have actual data on a reduction in the production of weapons in India, but there is no data on a reduction in the production of weapons in Crimea. I suspect you'll talk about logic. But I would prefer the facts.

Now about the figure of 400,000 knives, allegedly produced in the Crimean Khanate in one year. In the mid-18th century, the entire population of Crimea totaled less than 400,000 people (this includes women and children). These are just figures for thought;) If at that time 400,000 knives were produced in the Crimean Khanate a year, then even over 5 years 2 million knives were produced. The question is, where are all these knives now? Given that Peyssonnel writes about “luxurious knives” that even got to Paris, these “Crimean” knives should have been preserved to this day in a significant amount ...

Perhaps you have some kind of information about weapons workshops in the cities of the Crimean Khanate (for example, in Bakhchisarai) in the mid-18th century. Then this information can be compared with the data provided by Simon Pallas at the end of the 18th century. This would be really valuable and interesting information.

what a difference one letter can make
 

Hello, Mel
You're spot on about those double S's , or 'ff' as the case may be.

It seems that "furnisher" is a term more aptly applied to someone who supplies, purveys, or provides goods. In other words, a merchant.

A "furbisher" (note the "b") is someone who finishes or polishes a product. A craftsman or artisan. Thus, to "refurbish" means to renovate or restore something that's gotten a bit worn or tatty.

Based on what I've encountered in French books on arms and their manufacture, the distinction exists in very similar fashion in that lingo as well: fournisseur versus fourbisseur.

You are correct here: I typed the wrong name. My fault.
The rest stands.

The rest is more than debatable ...

Do you have any information about weapons workshops in the cities of the Crimean Khanate (for example, in Bakhchisarai) in the mid-18th century?
This would be much more interesting than your erroneous reasoning on history :) And even more so it will be more on the topic of the forum ;)

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?

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?

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”.

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.

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" ...

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 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.

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

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.

Ohhhh! Perfectly. Do you have any confirmation from the Kremlin’s Armory that these are exactly these knives? When I was in the vaults of the Armory and the curator of the collection showed me oriental sabers and daggers, for some reason he didn’t show these two knives ... But I can call him today, take an interest in these knives by sending him a photo using WhatsApp . Are you sure that the photo shows the knives from the Armory? Or are there still knives in the photo, presumably such as those in the Kremlin Armory? ;)

I read the description, but the picture is of a so-called double knife consisting of the two most popular types of shepherd's knives in Bulgaria in the 19th century - the smaller is a so-called Buynovo knife, after the village of Buynovo where the typical hilt form with a pommel cap originated, while the larger one is known as a "yalamiya" or "karakulak". There are thousands of these in Bulgaria and I have seen hundreds of them, to the point where I have absolutely no doubt as to what they are. I am not sure of how the Bakhchisarai attribution happened, but it is just plain wrong.

I think you are absolutely right. But let's wait for Ariel's answer. Perhaps he contacted with Armory Kremlin on this issue.

In principle, since I am well acquainted with the curator of edged weapons of the Armory Kremlin, I can ask him about these knives.

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.