«According to the Circassian custom, I was fostered out...»: the institute offosterage (atalychestvo) in the works of Sultan Khan-Giray

Abstract

Sultan Khan-Giray is the author of a number of scientific works and literary texts, which reflect almost all facets of the Adyghe culture of the first half of the 19th century. One of the cultural phenomena of historical Circassia, to which Khan-Giray pays special attention, is the institute of fosterage (atalychestvo), mentioned by him in a number of works. It is noteworthy that despite the existence of a complete edition of Khan-Giray's works, no special works have appeared so far (neither in the field of history of Pedagogy, nor in the field of Adyghe Ethnography or source studies) in which fosterage (atalychestvo) would be considered as one of the most important areas of the research and literary activity of this outstanding scientist and writer. The main purpose of the research is to identify all the fragments of Khan-Giray's texts (in which he mentioned fosterage (atalychestvo) as a social institution or as a form of intergenerational transmission in an aristocratic environment), as well as systematization of the main issues actualized by Khan-Giray in the course of his coverage of the essence and functions of the Adyghe fosterage (atalychestvo). The research methods used are source studies, historical-typological, and comparative methods. In the course of the research, the authors identified and characterized all the episodes of Khan-Giray's appeal to the problem of fosterage (atalychestvo) in his scientific works, literary works and political texts. It has been noted that Khan-Giray looks at fosterage (atalychestvo) through the prism of a scientific approach, while subjecting it to reflection, as a representative of the Circassian aristocracy, who went through the school of elitist education from the foster father (atalyk) in his childhood.