History Of The Angora Cat Breed

2023 Author: Molly Page | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-07-31 03:34

The Turkish Angora is one of two Turkish cat breeds. The name comes from the name of the capital of Turkey - the city of Ankara. As historical evidence shows, Angora, or Ankara, cats are the oldest breed of semi-long-haired cats, which arose naturally and has long been known to our ancestors. In their homeland, these cats are called "ankara kedisi".

This cat has been known in the East for over 2000 years. The Turkish Angora was described by the first Roman emperor Octavian Augustus (01.16.27 BC - 08.19.14 AD) as "a white cat with golden eyes, gentle and refined, noble and independent in spirit."

There are three versions of the origin of the breed. The first assumes that he ancestors of the Angora was a manul (wild cat) from China, from where cats came to Turkey, but there is no scientific evidence for this. The second (the most common) one believes that the first long-haired domestic cats appeared in the Caucasus. Then these cats "came" to Persia, India and Turkey in the IX-XI centuries. along with caravans of merchants. Back in the X century. the Vikings brought some of these cats with them to the Nordic countries, making the Turkish Angora one of the most distant ancestors of the Norwegian Forest Cat. According to the third version, the Angora arrived from the cold mountains of Persia (present-day Iran) thanks to the Islamic invasions of the 15th century.

Muslims worship cats. There is an ancient legend that tells about the following. Once on the field of the robe of the great prophet Mohammed his beloved Angora cat was lying. The prophet needed to get up, it was time to pray, but in order not to disturb the sleeping cat, Mohammed ordered the half of the robe to be cut off.

The first Angora cats were brought to Europe in the 16th century. These cats were the favorite animals of the famous Cardinal de Richelieu, they were kept in the royal palaces of France, England and other Western European countries. Angora was a companion to Louis XV and Marie Antoinette. One story says that Marie Antoinette loved her Angoras so much that she sent them to safety from the French Revolution on a ship to America - on the very ship that was intended for her own escape …, having arrived in America, became the ancestors of Maine Coons.

After the emergence of Chinese and Tibetan cats, which, in addition to a wide rounded head, also had very lush long hair with a large amount of undercoat, in the second half of the 19th century, amateurs in the second half of the 19th century had a desire to make the coat of these cats longer and more silky, so they began to cross these cats with Angora … As a result, the Persian cat breed appeared, so popular all over the world.

Angora cats were imported to Russia, as well as to other European countries, from Turkey as gifts. After the Russian-Turkish wars, quite a lot of them got into Russia in the form of trophies. At first, these cats lived in the houses of the nobility, and later - in other classes. Wonderful mouse-catchers, truly domestic cats, who did not strive for a free life on the streets, always having an excellent silky coat and a well-groomed appearance with almost no effort on the part of the owners, they came to the heart of the Russian people with their temperament, grace, and devotion.

Carried away by the breeding of the Persians, the Europeans lost the "purity" of the Angora cats, and when they realized it in the middle of the 20th century, the breed was almost completely lost. However, back in the first half of the 20th century, a program for the conservation and breeding of Angora cats was adopted at the National Zoo of Istanbul (Turkey), since for Turkey this breed is an object of national pride, and the breeding animals were under special state control. One of the reasons why the Turkish people consider this cat to be their national treasure is the story that Kemal Ataturk (the founder of modern Turkey) predicted that the odd-eyed angora would bite the ankle of his successor. Another version of this story says that Ataturk, after death, will be reborn into a white, odd-eyed Turkish Angora.

The revival of the Angora cat began almost simultaneously in America and Europe. In the 1960s, the Americans removed some animals from Turkey. Since the type of wool of the Angora cat is close to the eastern one, for the revival of this breed in the United States they used the blood of oriental long-haired cats. In 1973 and 1978. The CFA has registered the Angora as a breed in both white and color varieties. Today CFA accepts for registration only those Angora cats, in the pedigree of which there are ancestors from the Istanbul Zoo. Around the same time, standards for Angora cats appeared in other American associations.

The American type of angora cat is distinguished by long lines, large ears, although it is practically devoid of such decorations as collars and pants (a direct consequence of crosses with oriental cats). The most noticeable differences between the Angora and Oriental Longhairs are the erect ears, the profile with a slight transition from nose to forehead, and the larger almond-shaped eyes.

In Europe, the British were the first to register the breed standard. This happened in the 1970s, but the English Angora cats were very different from the native Turkish cats, since the first animals, later transformed into angora, appeared in the litters of the so-called forinvites (or oriental white cats with blue eyes). Until now, the English Angora cat actually remains synonymous with the Oriental Longhair, and not the Turkish Angora itself.

White color is considered traditional for Angora cats. The eyes can be yellow, blue, or different (yellow and blue). In Turkey, the only animals that are allowed to freely enter the mosque are white cats, especially with different eyes (according to legend, the prophet Muhammad was also different-eyed). Muslims of other colors are considered "unclean", hence the tradition of breeding white Angora cats. Naturally, only white angoras were always exported from Turkey.

In WCF, the breed was registered in 1986 in a white variant, and in 1987 - in a fairly large range of color colors. The most conservative turned out to be FIFe - there the standard for the Angora cat was adopted in 1988, and the color colors were recognized only in 1994, and then in a very limited number.