Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Shashlik" in English language version.
The Russian term, shashlik, has an interesting etymology: it would seem natural for the word to be borrowed from one of the Caucasian languages. But no, the Georgian for it is mtsvadi, the Azerbaijani, kebab, and the Armenian, horovts. Shashlik is a Zaporozhye Cossack coinage from the Crimean Tatar sheesh (spit), brought to Russia in the 18th century, after Field-Marshal Mienich's Crimean campaign. Prior to the 18th century, the dish was called verchenoye, from the Russian vertel, spit.
An ancient dish, well known to herders and nomads across a wide swath of the Caucasus and Central Asia, shashlyk became popular in Russia in the mid-19th century after Georgia, Azerbaijan, and part of Armenia were absorbed into the Russian Empire. In those regions, shashlyk originally referred to cubes of grilled lamb cooked on skewers, whereas basturma was the grilled beef version of this dish. But Russians have broadened the term shashlyk to mean any kind of meat–pork, beef, lamb, venison–cut into cubes, marinated for several hours, threaded onto skewers, and cooked over hot coals.
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