GONE TO ISLAM: ETHNIC HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN GROUP OF NAGAYBAKS
During the years 1842-1843 Nagaybak Cossacks with their families had been resettled in three districts of the Orenburg province and formed three different groups, each of which were expected by their own fate. The group of Southern Nagaibaks settled in the villages Nezhinka, Giryal, Alabaytal of Orenburg County, villages Podgorny and Elias of Orsk County; their resettlement was related with the military-border strategy in the space between Orenburg and Orsk. Nagaybaks of Southern group were influenced by the Orthodox and Muslim missionaries. In rhetoric of the Orthodox clergy discoursed about the spalling of Nagaibaks from Christianity. However it’s know, that part of Nagaibaks confessed the Muslim faith before their baptism, therefore conversion to Islam was a return to a former religion for them. Orthodox missionaries did not manage to "save" the Southern Nagaibaks of Mohammedan influence - all settlements of the Southern group converted to Islam. With the change of religious affiliation, ethnicity of Nagaibaks had changed - today their descendents call themselves Tatars and denied their connection with Nagaibaks; many believe that the news of the relocation of Nagaibaks in that land in the 1840s is only a myth.