Remnants of a Clan

It is difficult (often it is impossible) to reconstruct the kinship lines connecting members of the Crimean Tatar elite one to another. For one thing, only the members of the most powerful clans used clan names (as surnames) with any regularity. For another, Russian documents vary wildly in terms of the data points - if we can bring ourselves to call them that - they recorded. In one document a man might be identified with a clan name; in another the same man might be identified as the son of so-and-so or a resident of such-and-such a town. The saving grace of Russian imperial documents is that they invariably record the rank of everyone they mention. It is this shred of consistency that allows one to navigate, differentiate, and associate individual historical actors. 

Take the case of Temir Bey Biiarslanov. Sure, we have his clan name, unlike Osman Chelebi, but otherwise his is one of the scantiest entries in the Tavrida noble register. With no information about his family, background, service record, or status as a landowner, it would be easy to dismiss him as a figure of little consequence - or one who simply cannot be located - in the landscape of provincial nobility.

The register identifies him as a second lieutenant, however. And a member of clan Biiarslan. Equipped with this information we can begin assembling a picture of the individual and his social world. This is the Temir Aga elected by his peers to serve as a deputy on the lower land court of Simferopol uezd throughout the 1790s and again in 1814. He was the second Tatar to have his name inscribed in the noble register (Murtaza Chelebi Emirov accomplished this feat in 1804), and was still on the list as late as 1831.

It hardly matters that the imperial government ultimately declined to recognize Temir Bey as a nobleman. It is a shame that we can glean only scraps about who he was, what he possessed, and how he defined himself, but through him we know this: clan Biiarslan was opportunistic, capable, geographically scattered, and less-than-passionate about acquiring Russian noble status.

We know this because the State Archive of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea holds hundreds of petitions submitted by members of the Crimean Tatar elite to local authorities in an attempt to gain noble status. Among these petitions is one submitted by Maksiut Bey Biiarslanov, Temir's clansman (fond 49, opis' 1, delo 5522). It is a ponderous file running to 335 listy (pages) of documents produced between 1817 and 1894, and from it we learn that Maksiut was born in 1783 and joined the Perekop regiment formed in 1807 to fight against the armies of Napoleon. He inherited land in Perekop uezd that had been owned by his family prior to 1783. He was elected Perekop land captain (1822-1826) but by 1835 lived in St. Petersburg, where he commanded the Crimean Guard Squadron while holding the rank of colonel. Oh, and did I mention he spoke and read Russian in addition to Tatar? 

In short, Maksiut Bey outperformed everyone else in his family by any measure. [...]