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{{Ethnic group||group=Tatars
(Tatarlar / Татарлар)|image=|poptime= about 10 million|popplace=
Russia,
Ukraine,
Turkey, Lithuania,
Finland, Estonia, Poland, Belarus,
Germany,
Bulgaria,
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Romania,
Canada,
United States,
Brazil,
Moldavia,
Japan and
China, [Russian language,
Turkish language and others among the diaspora|rels=Sunni Islam, Atheism, Eastern Orthodox Church|related=other
Turkic peoples, East Iranian languages, Finno-Ugric peoples
-->
Tatars (
Tatar language: Tatarlar/Татарлар), sometimes spelled
Tartar (
#Name), is a name for a
Turkic people ethnic group of
Eastern Europe, as well as a collective name for other various peoples in
Asia.
Most current day Tatars live in the central and southern parts of Russia (the majority in
Tatarstan), Ukraine,
Poland,
Moldova, Lithuania,
Belarus and in
Bulgaria, China, Kazakhstan, Romania, Turkey, and
Uzbekistan. They collectively numbered more than 10 million in the late
20th century.
The majority - in European
Russia - are descendants of Eastern European Volga Bulgars who were conquered by the
Mongol invasion of Volga Bulgaria of the
13th century and kept the name of their conquerors. Tatars of Siberia are survivors of the numerous
Turkic peoples population of the Ural (region)-
Altay Mountains region, mixed to some extent with the speakers of
Uralic languages, as well as with Mongols.
The original Ta-ta Mongols inhabited the north-eastern
Gobi in the 5th century and, after subjugation in the 9th century by the
Liao dynasty, migrated southward, there founding the Mongol empire under
Genghis Khan. Under the leadership of his grandson
Batu Khan they moved westwards, driving with them many stems of the Turkic peoples Ural-Altaicans towards the plains of Russia.
On the Volga they mingled with remnants of the old Bulgarian empire (
Volga Bulgaria), and elsewhere with
Finno-Ugric languages speaking peoples, as well as with remnants of the ancient
Greek colonies in the Crimea and Caucasians in the Caucasus.
The name of Tatars, given to the invaders, was afterwards extended so as to include different stems of the same Turkic-Mongol branch in Russia, and even the bulk of the inhabitants of the high plateau of Asia and its northwestern slopes, described under the general name of
Tartary. This name has almost disappeared from geographical literature, but the name Tatars, in the above limited sense, remains in full use.
The present Tatar inhabitants of Eurasia form three large groups:
Due to the vast movements and intermingling of peoples along with the very loose utilization of the name Tatar, current day Tatars comprise a spectrum of physical appearance. As to the original Tatars from Mongolia, they most likely shared characteristics with the Turkic invaders from Central Asia.
Name
The name "Tatar" initially appeared amongst the nomadic
Turkic peoples of northeastern
Mongolia in the region around
Lake Baikal in the beginning of the 5th century.
Tatar. (2006). In
Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved
October 28,
2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9071375 These people may have been related to the Cumans or the
Kipchaks. The Chinese term is Dada and is a comparatively specific term for nomads to the north, emerging in the late Tang. Other names include Dadan and Tatan.
As various of these nomadic groups became part of Genghis Khan's army in the early
13th century, a fusion of Mongol and Turkic elements took place, and the invaders of Rus and Hungary became known to Europeans as Tatars (or Tartars). After the break up of the
Mongol Empire, the Tatars became especially identified with the western part of the empire, which included most of European Russia and was known as the Golden Horde.
Formerly, it was believed that the name Tatar derived from the name
Tartarus,
Mongolia. (2006). In
Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved October 28, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-27420 the Greek name for the underworld; this belief led to the frequent spelling and pronunciation of the name with an extra "r", to conform with the classical Greek word. However, this provenance is unlikely since the Tatars use this name for themselves. The name may be related to the old Chinese word "ta-tan" or "da-dan",
China Knowledge Web Encyclopedia: Tatars and more specifically to the Ta-Ta Mongols.
The majority of Turco-speaking "Tatar" ethnic groups call themself Tatarlar - Татарлар.
In Russia, where most Tatars live (
Tatarstan), they are called Татары
Tatary in the
Russian language. In China, where they form an Ethnic groups in China they are called
Tataerzu (
Simplified Chinese: 塔塔尔族, pinyin:
Tǎtǎěrzú).
Historical meaning of
Tatars
- Ta-ta Mongols
- multi-ethnical population of Mongol Empire
- tatars of Golden Horde of late Golden Horde (for neighboring peoples, for example, Russians)
- Turkic Muslim population (Volga Tatars, Azeris) and some pagan Turkic and Mongolian peoples (such as Khakass) in Russian Empire
- Russian term for some peoples, incorporated to Muslim nation of Russia in late 19th century (for example, Volga Tatars, Nogais, Azeri)
- Some ethnic groups in Soviet Union after the policy of korenizatsia, such as Volga Tatars (or simply Tatars), Crimean Tatars, Chulym Tatars, some groups such as Lipka Tatars, whereas other "Tatar" named peoples switched their Russian names to their self-determination
European Tatars
The discrimination of the separate stems included under the name is still far from complete. The following subdivisions, however, may be regarded as established:
Tatars -
Tatarlar or
Татарлар. In modern English only
Tatar is used to refer to Eurasian Tatars;
Tartar has offensive connotations as a confusion with the
Tartarus of Greek mythology, due in part to the popular association of the supposed bloodthirsty ferocity of the Mongol tribes with the Greek sub-underworld. In Europe the term
Tartar is generally only used in the historical context for
Mongolian people who appeared in the 13th century (the
Mongol invasion) and assimilated into the local population later.
Volga Tatars
Volga Tatars live in the central and Eastern European parts of Russia. In today's Russia the term
Tatars refers to describe
Volga Tatars only. During the census of 2002, Tatars, or Volga Tatars were officially divided into common Tatars, Astrakhan Tatars, Keräşen Tatars. Siberian Tatars were incorporated into the census as Tatars. Other ethnic groups, such as Crimean Tatars and
Chulyms, were not officially recognized as a part of Tatars and were counted separately.
====Kazan (Qazan) Tatars====The majority of Volga Tatars are Kazan (Qazan) Tatars. They are the main and indigenous population of
Tatarstan, one of the constituent republics of Russia.
During the 11-16th centuries, most Turkic peoples tribes lived in what is now Russia and Kazakhstan. The present territory of Tatarstan was inhabited by the
Volga Bulgaria (considered by most to have been Turkic), who settled on the Volga in the 8th century and converted to Islam in 922 during the missionary work of Ahmad ibn Fadlan. On the Volga, the Bulgars mingled with Scythian and Finno-Ugric speaking peoples. After the
Mongol invasion, Bulgaria was defeated, ruined and incorporated in the
Golden Horde. Much of the population survived, and there was a certain degree of mixing between it and the
Kipchak Tatars of the Horde during the ensuing period. The group as a whole accepted the ethnonym "Tatars" (although the name
Bulgars persisted in some places) and the language of the Kipchaks; on the other hand, the invaders eventually converted to Islam. As the Horde disintegrated in the 15the century, the area became the territory of the
Kazan khanate, which was ultimately conquered by Russia in the 16th century.
There is some debate among scholars about the extent of that mixing and the "share" of each group as progenitors of the modern Kazan Tatars. It is relatively accepted that demographically, most of the population was directly descended from the Bulgars. Nevertheless, some emphasize the contribution of the Kipchaks on the basis of the ethnonym and the language, and consider that the modern Tatar ethnogenesis was only completed upon their arrival. Others prefer to stress the Bulgar heritage, sometimes to degree of equating modern Kazan Tatars with Bulgars. They argue that although the Volga Bulgars had not kept their language and their name, their old culture and religion - Islam - have been preserved. According to scholars who espouse this view, there was very little mixing with Mongol and Turkic aliens after the conquest of Volga Bulgaria, especially in the northern regions that ultimately became Tatarstan. Some voices even advocate the change of the ethnonym from "Tatars" to "Bulgars" - a movement known as
Bulgarism. Rorlich, A. The origins of the Volga Tatars. (Stanford University, 1986) Great Soviet Encyclopedia, article on
Tatarstan.
In the
1910s they numbered about half a million in the Kazan Governorate (
Tatarstan, the Kazan Tatars' historical motherland), about 400,000 in each of the governments of
Ufa, 100,000 in
Samara, Russia and
Simbirsk, and about 30,000 in
Vyatka,
Saratov,
Tambov,
Penza,
Nizhny Novgorod, Perm and
Orenburg. Some 15,000 belonging to the same stem had migrated to Ryazan, or had been settled as prisoners in the 16th and 17th centuries in
Lithuania (
Vilnius, Hrodna and
Podolia). Some 2000 resided in St. Petersburg, Russia, where they were mostly employed as coachmen and waiters in restaurants. In Poland they constituted 1% of the population of the district of Plock.
The Kazan Tatars speak a Turkic languages dialect (with a big complement of Russian and Arabic words; see
Tatar language). They have been described as generally middle-sized, broad-shouldered, and the majority have brown and green eyes, a straight nose and salient cheek bones. Because their ancestors number not only Turkic peoples, but East Iranian languages and
Finno-Ugric as well, many Kazan Tatars tend to have European faces. The population isn't homogeneous, around 33.5% belong to
Southern European subtype, 27.5% to
North European , 24.5% to Finno-Ugric and 14.5% to
Southern Siberian . Most Kazan Tatars practice Sunni Islam.
Before 1917 in Russia, polygamy was practised only by the wealthier classes and was a waning institution. The Bashkirs who live between the Kama River, Ural River and
Volga speak the Bashkir language, which is similar to Tatar, and have converted to Sunni Islam.
Because it is understandable to all groups of Russian Tatars, as well as to the Chuvash and
Bashkirs, the language of the Kazan Tatars became a literary one in the 15th century (Old Tatar language). (However, iske imla, it was spelled variously in the different regions). The old literary language included a lot of Arabic and Persian words. Nowadays the literary language includes European and Russian words instead of Arabic.
Kazan Tatars number nearly 7 millions, mostly in Russia and the republics of the former Soviet Union. While the bulk of the population is to be found in
Tatarstan (nearly 2 million) and neighbouring regions, significant numbers of Kazan Tatars live in Central Asia, Siberia and the Caucasus. Outside of Tatarstan, urban Tatars usually speak
Russian language as their first language (in cities such as
Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod,
Tashkent,
Almaty, and cities of the Ural (region) and western Siberia).
A significant number of Tatars emigrated during the Russian Civil War, mostly to Turkey and Harbin, China, but resettled to European countries later. Some of them speak Turkish at home. According to the Chinese government, there are still 51,000 Tatars living in Xinjiang province.
See also: Tatar language
Noqrat Tatars
Kazan Tatars live in Russia's Kirov Oblast.
Perm Tatars
Kazan Tatars live in Russia's Perm Krai. Some of them also have an admixture of Komi peoples blood.
=====Keräşen Tatars=====Some Kazan Tatars were forcibly Christianized by Ivan IV of Russia during the 16th century and later in the 18th century.
Some scientists suppose that Suars were ancestors of the Keräşen Tatars, and they had been converted to Christianity by Armenians in the
6th century, while they lived in the Caucasus. Suars, like other tribes (which later converted to Islam) became
Volga Bulgars and later the modern
Chuvash (mostly Christians) and Kazan Tatars (mostly Muslims).
Keräşen Tatars live all over
Tatarstan. Now they tend to be assimilated among Russians,
Chuvash and Tatars with
Sunni Muslim self-identification. Eighty years of
atheistic Soviet rule made Tatars of both confessions not as religious as they were. As such, differences between Tatars and Keräşen Tatars now is only that Keräşens have Russian names.
Some Turkic (Kuman) tribes in
Golden Horde were converted to Christianity in the 13th and 14th centuries (
Catholicism and
Nestorianism). Some prayers, written in that time in the
Codex Cumanicus, sound like modern Keräşen prayers, but there is no information about the connection between Christian Kumans and modern Keräşens.
Nağaybäks
Tatars who became
Cossacks (border keepers) and converted to Russian Orthodoxy. They live in the
Urals, the Russian border with
Kazakhstan during the 17th-18th century.
The biggest Nağaybäk village is
Parizh, Russia, named after
France capital
Paris, due Nağaybäk's participation in
Napoleonic wars.
Tiptär Tatars
Like Noğaybaqs, although they are Sunni Muslims. Some Tiptär Tatars speak Russian or Bashkir language. According to some scientists, Tiptärs are part of the Mişärs.
Kazan Tatar language dialects
There are 3 dialects: Eastern, Central, Western.
The Western dialect (Misher) is spoken mostly by Mishärs, the Middle dialect is spoken by Tatarstan and Astrakhan Tatars ("
Volga Bulgarians"), and the Eastern (Siberian) dialect is spoken by some groups of Tatars in
Russia's Tyumen Oblast. This latter, which was isolated from other dialects, is related to
Chulym language, and some scientists believe that the Eastern dialect is an independent language. The
Bashkir language, for example, is better understood by Kazan Tatars than is the Eastern dialect of the Siberian Tatars.
Middle Tatar is the base of literary Kazan Tatar Language. The Middle dialect also has subdivisions.
Mişär Tatars
Mişär Tatars (or Mishers) are a group of Tatars speaking a dialect of the
Kazan Tatar language. They are descendants of Kipchaks in the Middle Oka River area and Meschiora where they mixed with the local
Finno-Ugric tribes. Nowadays they live in
Tambov Oblast, Penza Oblast,
Ryazan Oblast oblasts of Russia and in
Mordovia. They lived near and along the Volga River, in Tatarstan.
Qasím Tatars
The Western Tatars have their capital in the town of Qasím (
Kasimov in Russian transcription) in Ryazan Oblast, with a Tatar population of 500. See "
Qasim Khanate" for their history.
Astrakhan Tatars
The Astrakhan Tatars (nearly 70,000) are a group of Tatars, descendants of the Astrakhan Khanate's agricultural population, who live mostly in
Astrakhan Oblast. For the 2000 Russian census 2000, most Astrakhan Tatars declared themselves simply as Tatars and few declared themselves as Astrakhan Tatars. A large number of common Volga Tatars (Kazan Tatars) live in Astrakhan Oblast and differences between them have been disappearing.
Text from Britannica 1911:
The Astrakhan Tatars number about 10,000 and are, with the Mongol
Kalmyks, all that now remains of the once so powerful Astrakhan empire. They also are agriculturists and gardeners; while some 12,000 Kundrovsk Tatars still continue the nomadic life of their ancestors.
While Astrakhan (Ästerxan) Tatar is a mixed dialect, around 43,000 have assimilated to the Middle (i.e., Kazan) dialect. Their ancestors are
Khazars,
Kipchaks and some Volga Bulgars. (Volga Bulgars had trade colonies in modern
Astrakhan Oblast and
Volgograd Oblast oblasts of Russia.)
Chinese Tatars
The Tatars (塔塔尔族
Tǎtǎěrzú) form one of the List of Chinese ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. Their ancestors are Volga Tatar tradesmen who settled mostly in Xinjiang.
According Сюэ Цзунчжэн «Синьцзян: этнографический очерк», межконтинетальное издательство Китая 2001 год, ISBN 7-80113-859-7/D*104 (it's a russian edition of this book which written by chinese, and the russian name of that edition means "Xinjiang: the enographic review") in China live two kinds of Tatars, for both used
different ierogliphs that have the same pronicaition. One name is used for Tatars arrived from Russia and settled in Xinjiang, and another name is used for native chinese tatars. Tatars from Central Asia are called by the same name as native Tatars of China. Probablity the reason of different naming of native chinese tatars and russian chineses tatars is that tatars from Russia are white, howerver tatars who live in China from ancient time are not white (they are asians).
Volga Tatars in the world
Places where Volga Tatars live include:
- Ural (region) and Upper Kama (since 15th century) 15th century - colonization, 16th - 17th century - re-settled by Russians, 17th - 19th century - exploring of Ural, working in the plants
- West Siberia (since 16th century): 16th - from Russian repressions after conquering of Khanate of Kazan by Russians, 17th - 19th century - exploring of West Siberia, end of 19th - first half of 20th - industrialization, railways constructing, 1930s - Stalin's repressions, 1970s - 1990s oil workers
- Moscow (since 17th century): Tatar feudals in the service of Russia, tradesmen, since 18th - Saint-Petersburg
- Kazakhstan (since 18th century): 18th – 19th centuries - Russian army officers and soldiers, 1930s – industrialization, since 1950s - settlers on virgin lands - re-emigration in 1990s
- Finland (since 1804): (mostly Mişärs) - 19th - from a group of some 20 villages in the Sergatch region on the Volga River. See Finnish Tatars.
- Central Asia (since 19th century) (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Xinjiang ) - 19th Russian officers and soldiers, tradesmen, religious emigrants, 1920-1930s - industrialization, Soviet education program for Central Asia peoples, 1948, 1960 - help for Ashgabat and Tashkent ruined by earthquakes - re-emigration in 1980s
- Caucasus, especially Azerbaijan (since 19th century) - oil workers (1890s), bread tradesmen
- Northern China (since 1910s) - railway builders (1910s) - re-emigrated in 1950s
- East Siberia (since 19th century) - resettled farmers (19th), railroad builders (1910s, 1980s), exiled by the Soviet government in 1930s
- Germany and Austria - 1914, 1941 - prisoners of war, 1990s - emigration
- Turkey, Japan, Iran, China, Egypt (since 1918) - emigration
- UK, USA, Australia, Canada, Argentina, Mexico - (1920s) re-emigration from Germany, Turkey, Japan, China and others. 1950s - prisoners of war from Germany, which did not go back to the USSR, 1990s - emigration after the break up of USSR
- Sakhalin, Kaliningrad, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Karelia - after 1944-45 builders, Soviet military personnel
- Murmansk Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai, Northern Poland and Northern Germany (1945 - 1990) - Soviet military personnel
- Israel - wives or husbands of Jews (1990s)
Tatars of Crimea, Ukraine and Poland
Crimean Tatars
The Crimean Tatars constituted the
Crimean Khanate which was annexed by Russia in 1783. The war of
1853 and the laws of 1860-1863 and 1874 caused an exodus of the
Crimean Tatars.
Those of the south coast, mixed with Scyth, Greeks and Italians, were well known for their skill in gardening, their honesty, and their work habits, as well as for their fine features, presenting the Tatar type at its best. The mountain Tatars closely resemble those of Caucasus, while those of the steppes - the Nogais - are decidedly of a mixed origin with Turks and Mongols.
During
World War II, the entire Tatar population in Crimea fell victims to
Stalin's oppressive policies. In 1944 they were accused of being Nazi collaborators and deported en masse to Central Asia and other lands of the Soviet Union. Many died of disease and malnutrition. Since the 1980s late, about 250,000 Crimean Tatars have returned to their homeland in the Crimea .
Lithuanian Tatars
(right). This was a common occurrence until the 18th century.
After
Tokhtamysh was defeated by
Tamerlane, some of his clan sought refuge in
Grand Duchy of Lithuania. They were given land and nobility in return for military service and were known as
Lipka Tatars. They are known to have taken part in the
Battle of Grunwald.
Official site
Another group appeared in
Jagoldai Duchy (Lithuania's vassal) near modern
Kursk in 1437 and disappeared later.
Belarusian Tatars
Islam spread in Belarus from the 14th to the 16th century. The process was encouraged by the Lithuanian princes, who invited
Tatar Muslims from the
Crimea and the
Golden Horde as guards of state borders. Already in the 14th century the Tatars had been offered a settled way of life, state posts and service positions. By the end of the 16th century over 100,000 Tatars settled in Belarus and
Lithuania, including those hired to government service, those who moved there voluntarily, prisoners of war, etc.
Tatars in Belarus generally follow Sunni
Hanafi Islam. Some groups have accepted
Christianity and been assimilated, but most adhere to Muslim religious traditions, which ensures their definite endogamy and preservation of ethnic features. Interethnic marriages with representatives of Belarusian, Polish, Lithuanian, Russian nationalities are not rare, but do not result in total assimilation.
Originating from different ethnic associations, Belarusian (and also Polish and Lithuanian) Tatars back in ancient days lost their native language and adopted Belarusian, Polish and Russian. However, the liturgy is conducted in the
Arabic language, which is known by the clergymen. There are an estimated 20,000 Tatars in Belarus.
Polish Tatars
Main articles: Lipka Tatars and Islam in Poland
mosque in the village of Bohoniki, Poland From the 13th to 17th centuries various groups of Tatars settled and/or found refuge within the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth.This was promoted especially by the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, because of their deserved reputation as skilled warriors. The Tatar settlers were all granted with
szlachta (~ nobility) status, a tradition that was preserved until the end of the Commonwealth in the 18th century. They included the
Lipka Tatars (13-14 centuries) as well as Crimean and
Nogai people Tatars (15th-16th centuries), all of which were noticeable in Polish military history, as well as
Tatars#Kazan (Qazan) Tatars (16th-17th centuries). They all mostly settled in the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania, lands that are now in Lithuania and
Belarus.
Various estimates of the number of Tatars in the Commonwealth in the 17th century range from 15,000 persons to 60 villages with mosques. Numerous royal privileges, as well as internal autonomy granted by the monarchs allowed the Tatars to preserve their religion, traditions and culture over the centuries. The Tatars were allowed to intermarry with Christians, a thing uncommon in Europe at the time. The
May Constitution of 1791 gave the Tatars representation in the Polish Sejm.
Although by the 18th century the Tatars adopted the local language, the Islamic religion and many Tatar traditions (e.g. the sacrifice of bulls in their mosques during the main religious festivals) were preserved. This led to formation of a distinctive Muslim culture, in which the elements of Muslim orthodoxy mixed with religious tolerance and a relatively liberal society. For instance, the women in Lipka Tatar society traditionally had the same rights and status as men, and could attend non-segregated schools.
About 5,500 Tatars lived within the inter-war boundaries of Poland (1920-1939), and a Tatar cavalry unit had fought for the country's independence. The Tatars had preserved their cultural identity and sustained a number of Tatar organisations, including a Tatar archives, and a museum in Wilno (
Vilnius).
The Tatars suffered serious losses during World War II and furthermore, after the border change in 1945 a large part of them found themselves in the Soviet Union. It is estimated that about 3000 Tatars live in present-day Poland, of which about 500 declared Tatar (rather than Polish) nationality in the 2002 census. There are two Tatar villages (
Bohoniki and Kruszyniany) in the north-east of present-day Poland, as well as urban Tatar communities in Warsaw, Gdańsk,
Białystok, and
Gorzow Wielkopolski. Tatars in Poland sometimes have a Muslim surname with a Polish ending:
Ryzwanowicz, Jakubowicz.
The Tatars were relatively very noticeable in the Commonwealth military as well as in Polish and Lithuanian political and intellectual life for such a small community. In modern-day Poland, their presence is also widely known, due in part to their noticeable role in the historical novels of Henryk Sienkiewicz, which are universally recognized in Poland. A number of Polish intellectual figures have also been Tatars, e.g. the prominent historian Jerzy Łojek.
A small community of Polish speaking Tartars settled in
Brooklyn, New York City in the early 1900s. They established a mosque that is still in use today.
Caucasian Tatars
These are Tatars who inhabit the upper
Kuban River, the
steppes of the lower
Kuma (Russia) and the Kura, and the Araks. In the 19th century they numbered about 1,350,000. This number includes a number of Kazan Tatar oil workers who came to the Caucasus from the Middle Volga in the end of the 19th century.
Now this term is used to describe Volga Tatars, settled in Caucasus. Other explanations, like followers, can be found only in historical context.
Nogais on the Kuma
The Nogai people on the Kuma River (Russia) show traces of a mixture with
Kalmyks. They are nomads, supporting themselves by cattle-breeding and fishing; a few are agriculturists.
Today Nogais is an independent ethnos, living in the North of
Dagestan, where they lived after Nogai Horde's defeating in was against Russia and settling Kalmyks in their lands in 17th century. Nogais was replaced to
Black Lands in the North of
Daghestan. Another part merged with Kazakhs.
In 16th century Nogais supported
Crimean Khanate and
Ottoman Empire, but sometimes robbed
Crimean,
Kazan Tatar and
Bashkir lands, although their rulers supported them. In 16th-17th century some defensive walls was constructed in modern
Tatarstan and Samara Oblast.
One of the Kazan Tatars national heroes, Söyembikä, was ethnically Nogai.
Today
Nogais are not included to
Tatars term,
Nogais are independent ethnos.
Qundra Tatars
Some groups of Nogais emigrated to Middle Volga, where were (are) assimilated by Volga Tatars (in terms of language).
Karachays
The Karachays who number 18,500 in the upper valleys about Elburz live by agriculture.
Today Karachays are the independent ethnos, one of the main nation in Karachay-Cherkessia.
Siberian Tatars
The
Siberian Tatars were estimated (
1895) at 80,000 of Turkic stock, and about 40,000 had Uralic or Ugric ancestry. They occupy three distinct regions—a strip running west to east from Tobolsk to
Tomsk—the Altay Mountains and its spurs—and South Yeniseisk. They originated in the agglomerations of Turkic stems that, in the region north of the Altay, reached some degree of culture between the 4th and the 5th centuries, but were subdued and enslaved by the Mongols. They are difficult to classify for they are the result of somewhat recent minglings of races and customs, and they are all, more or less, in process of being assimilated by the Russians, but the following subdivisions may be accepted provisionally.
Baraba Tatars
Sometimes Siberian Tatars refers only to Baraba Tatar, as a part of Tatar nation, a Muslim people that speak dialects of
Tatar language, but not another.
The Baraba Tatars take their name from one of their stems (Barama) and number about 50,000 in the government of Tobolsk and about 5000 in
Tomsk. After a strenuous resistance to Russian conquest, and much suffering at a later period from
Kyrgyz and Kalmyk raids, they now live by agriculture—either in separate villages or along with Russians.
After colonisation of Siberia by Russian and Kazan Tatars, Baraba Tatars used to call themselves
people of Tomsk, later
Moslems, and came to call themselves
Tatars only in 20th century.
Chulym Tatars
The Chulym, or Cholym Tatars live on the
Chulym River, and both of the rivers Yus river. They speak a Turkic language with many Mongol and Yakut words and are more like Mongols than Turkic peoples. In the 19th century they paid a tribute for 2550 arbaletes, but they now are rapidly becoming fused with Russians.
See:
Chulym language
Abakan Tatars
The
Abakan Tatars occupied the steppes on the
Abakan River and
Yus river in the 17th century, after the withdrawal of the Kyrgyz, and represent a mixture with Kaibals (whom Matthias Castrén considers as partly of
Ostiak and partly Samoyedic origin) and
Beltirs—also of
Finnic peoples origin. Their language is also mixed. They are known under the name of
Sagais, who numbered 11,720 in 1864, and are the purer Turkic stem of the
Minusinsk Tatars,
Kaibals, and Kizil Tatars. Formerly shamanists, they now are, nominally at least, adherents of the Greek Orthodox Church and support themselves mostly by cattle-breeding. Agriculture is spreading, but slowly, among them. They still prefer to plunder the stores of bulbs of
Lilium martagon, Paeonia, and
Erythronium dens-canis laid up by the steppe mouse (
Mus socialis). The
Soyotes, of the Sayan mountains (estimated at 8000), who are Finnic peoples mixed with
Turkic peoples; the Uryankhes of north-west
Mongolia, who are of Turkic origin but follow Buddhism; and the
Karagasses, also of Turkic origin and much like the Kyrgyz, but reduced now to a few hundreds, are akin to the above.
Today
Abakan Tatars of
Kirghiz terms are extinct, used own names only.
See more: Khakass, Tuvans, Altay people
Northern Altay Tatars
The Tatars of the northern slopes of the
Altay Mountains (nearly 20,000 in number) are of Finnish origin. They comprise some hundreds of Kumandintses, the Lebed Tatars, the Chernevyie or Black-Forest Tatars and the
Shors (11,000), descendants of the Kuznetsk or Iron-Smith Tatars. They are chiefly hunters, passionately loving their
taiga, or wild forests, and have maintained their shaman religion and tribal organization into suoks. They also live partly on
pine nuts and
honey collected in the forests. Their traditional dress is that of their former rulers, the Kalmucks, and their language contains many Mongol words.
Altayans
The Altay Tatars, or
Altayans, comprise
- the Mountain Kalmyks (12,000), to whom this name has been given by mistake, and who have nothing in common with the Kalmyks except their dress and mode of life. They speak a Turkic dialect.
- the Teleutes, or Telenghites (5800), a remainder of a formerly numerous and warlike nation, who have migrated from the mountains to the lowlands where they now live along with Russian peasants.
Term
Tatars is also extinct for this peoples.
Although
Turkestan and Central Asia were formerly known as Independent Tartary, it is not now usual to call the Sarts, Kyrgyz and other inhabitants of those countries Tatars, nor is the name usually given to the
Yakuts of Eastern Siberia.
Generic meaning
The name Tatars was originally applied to both the Turkic and Mongol tribes which invaded Europe six centuries ago, and gradually extended to the Turkic tribes mixed with Mongolian or Uralic-speaking peoples in
Siberia. It is used at present in two senses:
- Quite loosely, to designate any of the Muslim tribes whose ancestors may have spoken Uralic or Altaic languages. Thus some writers talk of the Manchu Tatars.
- In a more restricted sense, to designate Muslim Turkic-speaking tribes, especially in Russia, who never formed part of the Seljuk or Ottoman Empire, but made independent settlements and remained more or less cut off from the politics and civilization of the rest of the Islamic world.
- Linguistically, Kazan (Volga) Tatars are closely related to the Bashkirs and other Turkic peoples. Tatars are the direct descendants of the Volga Bulgars. Volga Bulgars were a mixed people, whose ancestors may have included speakers of Scythian, Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages. (In Turkic bolğar means mixed). After coming to the Middle Volga, Bulgars mixed with Finno-Ugric speaking tribes.
- Bashkirs speak a language very similar to the Kazan Tatar language. Bashkirs (just like the Chuvash and Maris) lived in a state where Tatar was the official language (Khanate of Kazan). Nowadays, Bashkortostan's officials pursue a policy of forced "Bashkirization" of Tatars. However, the number of Tatars in Bashkortostan is almost as high as the number of Bashkirs in their own republic. (the 2002 Russian Federation census lists 990,000+ people as self identifying as Tatars in Bashkortostan compared to 1,221,302 self identifying Bashkir. http://www.perepis2002.ru/ct/doc/English/4-2.xls)
Authorities
Bibliographical indexes may be found in the Geographical Dictionary of P. Semenov, appended to the articles devoted respectively to the names given above, as also in the yearly Indexes by M. Mezhov and the Oriental Bibliography of Lucian Scherman. Besides the well-known works of Castren, which are a very rich source of information on the subject, Schiefner (
St Petersburg Academy of Sciences), Donner, Ahlqvist and other explorers of the Uralic and Altaic languages and peoples, as also those of the Russian historians Sergey Solovyov,
Nikolay Kostomarov, Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Schapov, and Dmitry Ilovaisky, the following containing valuable information may be mentioned:
- the publications of the Russian Geographical Society and its branches;
- the Russian Etnographicheskiy Sbornik;
- the Izvestia of the Moscow society of the amateurs of natural science;
- the works of the Russian ethnographical congresses;
- Kostrov's researches on the Siberian Tatars in the memoirs of the Siberian branch of the geographical society; Vasily Radlov's Reise durch den Altay, Aus Sibirien', "Picturesque Russia" (Zhivopisnaya Rossiya);
- Semenov's and Potanin's " Supplements " to Ritter's Asien; Harkavi's report to the congress at Kazan;
- Hartakhai's "Hist, of Crimean Tatars," in Vyestnik Evropy, 1866 and 1867;
- "Katchinsk Tatars," in Izvestia Russ. Geogr. Soc., xx., 1884.
Various scattered articles on Tatars will be found in the Revue orientale pour les Etudes Oural-Altaïques, and in the publications of the Kazan State University. See also E. H. Parker, A Thousand Years of the Tartars, 1895 (chiefly a summary of Chinese accounts of the early Turkic and Tatar tribes), and Skrine and Ross, Heart of Asia (1899). (P. A. K.; C. EL.)
See also
References & Notes
External links
- Tatar Horsebow and Thumbring Discussion Forum
- Qirim Tatar Community of Canada
- Tatars in Congress Library (1989)
- The Origins of the Volga Tatars
- Crimean Tatars. By H. B. Paksoy
- Tatar.Net
- Polish Tatars
- Polish Tatars web portal
- Tatar world-wide server
- Anthropology of Tatars. By R.K. Urazmanova and S.V. Cheshko
{{Ethnic group||group=Tatars
(Tatarlar / Татарлар)|image=|poptime= about 10 million|popplace=
Russia, Ukraine, Turkey,
Lithuania, Finland,
Estonia, Poland,
Belarus, Germany, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan,
Romania,
Canada, United States, Brazil, Moldavia,
Japan and
China, [Russian language,
Turkish language and others among the diaspora|rels=Sunni Islam,
Atheism, Eastern Orthodox Church|related=other Turkic peoples,
East Iranian languages,
Finno-Ugric peoples-->
Tatars (Tatar language: Tatarlar/Татарлар), sometimes spelled
Tartar (
#Name), is a name for a
Turkic people ethnic group of
Eastern Europe, as well as a collective name for other various peoples in
Asia.
Most current day Tatars live in the central and southern parts of Russia (the majority in Tatarstan),
Ukraine,
Poland,
Moldova,
Lithuania, Belarus and in Bulgaria, China,
Kazakhstan, Romania,
Turkey, and
Uzbekistan. They collectively numbered more than 10 million in the late 20th century.
The majority - in European Russia - are descendants of Eastern European
Volga Bulgars who were conquered by the Mongol invasion of Volga Bulgaria of the 13th century and kept the name of their conquerors. Tatars of Siberia are survivors of the numerous
Turkic peoples population of the Ural (region)-Altay Mountains region, mixed to some extent with the speakers of
Uralic languages, as well as with Mongols.
The original Ta-ta Mongols inhabited the north-eastern
Gobi in the
5th century and, after subjugation in the
9th century by the Liao dynasty, migrated southward, there founding the Mongol empire under
Genghis Khan. Under the leadership of his grandson Batu Khan they moved westwards, driving with them many stems of the Turkic peoples Ural-Altaicans towards the plains of
Russia.
On the Volga they mingled with remnants of the old Bulgarian empire (Volga Bulgaria), and elsewhere with
Finno-Ugric languages speaking peoples, as well as with remnants of the ancient
Greek colonies in the Crimea and Caucasians in the
Caucasus.
The name of Tatars, given to the invaders, was afterwards extended so as to include different stems of the same Turkic-Mongol branch in Russia, and even the bulk of the inhabitants of the high plateau of Asia and its northwestern slopes, described under the general name of
Tartary. This name has almost disappeared from geographical literature, but the name Tatars, in the above limited sense, remains in full use.
The present Tatar inhabitants of Eurasia form three large groups:
- those of Crimea, Bulgaria, European Russia and Western Siberia, Lithuania, Moldova, Belarus, Poland, Romania and Turkey.
- those of the Caucasus (in historical context),
- and those of Eastern Siberia (in historical context).
Due to the vast movements and intermingling of peoples along with the very loose utilization of the name Tatar, current day Tatars comprise a spectrum of physical appearance. As to the original Tatars from Mongolia, they most likely shared characteristics with the Turkic invaders from Central Asia.
Name
The name "Tatar" initially appeared amongst the nomadic Turkic peoples of northeastern
Mongolia in the region around Lake Baikal in the beginning of the 5th century.
Tatar. (2006). In
Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved
October 28,
2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9071375 These people may have been related to the
Cumans or the Kipchaks. The Chinese term is Dada and is a comparatively specific term for nomads to the north, emerging in the late Tang. Other names include Dadan and Tatan.
As various of these nomadic groups became part of Genghis Khan's army in the early
13th century, a fusion of Mongol and Turkic elements took place, and the invaders of
Rus and
Hungary became known to Europeans as Tatars (or Tartars). After the break up of the Mongol Empire, the Tatars became especially identified with the western part of the empire, which included most of European Russia and was known as the Golden Horde.
Formerly, it was believed that the name Tatar derived from the name Tartarus,
Mongolia. (2006). In
Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved October 28, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-27420 the Greek name for the underworld; this belief led to the frequent spelling and pronunciation of the name with an extra "r", to conform with the classical Greek word. However, this provenance is unlikely since the Tatars use this name for themselves. The name may be related to the old Chinese word "ta-tan" or "da-dan",
China Knowledge Web Encyclopedia: Tatars and more specifically to the Ta-Ta Mongols.
The majority of Turco-speaking "Tatar" ethnic groups call themself Tatarlar - Татарлар.
In Russia, where most Tatars live (
Tatarstan), they are called Татары
Tatary in the Russian language. In China, where they form an
Ethnic groups in China they are called
Tataerzu (Simplified Chinese: 塔塔尔族, pinyin:
Tǎtǎěrzú).
Historical meaning of
Tatars
- Ta-ta Mongols
- multi-ethnical population of Mongol Empire
- tatars of Golden Horde of late Golden Horde (for neighboring peoples, for example, Russians)
- Turkic Muslim population (Volga Tatars, Azeris) and some pagan Turkic and Mongolian peoples (such as Khakass) in Russian Empire
- Russian term for some peoples, incorporated to Muslim nation of Russia in late 19th century (for example, Volga Tatars, Nogais, Azeri)
- Some ethnic groups in Soviet Union after the policy of korenizatsia, such as Volga Tatars (or simply Tatars), Crimean Tatars, Chulym Tatars, some groups such as Lipka Tatars, whereas other "Tatar" named peoples switched their Russian names to their self-determination
European Tatars
The discrimination of the separate stems included under the name is still far from complete. The following subdivisions, however, may be regarded as established:
Tatars -
Tatarlar or
Татарлар. In modern English only
Tatar is used to refer to Eurasian Tatars;
Tartar has offensive connotations as a confusion with the
Tartarus of Greek mythology, due in part to the popular association of the supposed bloodthirsty ferocity of the Mongol tribes with the Greek sub-underworld. In Europe the term
Tartar is generally only used in the historical context for
Mongolian people who appeared in the 13th century (the Mongol invasion) and assimilated into the local population later.
Volga Tatars
Volga Tatars live in the central and Eastern European parts of Russia. In today's Russia the term
Tatars refers to describe
Volga Tatars only. During the census of 2002, Tatars, or Volga Tatars were officially divided into common Tatars, Astrakhan Tatars, Keräşen Tatars. Siberian Tatars were incorporated into the census as Tatars. Other ethnic groups, such as Crimean Tatars and Chulyms, were not officially recognized as a part of Tatars and were counted separately.
====Kazan (Qazan) Tatars====The majority of Volga Tatars are Kazan (Qazan) Tatars. They are the main and indigenous population of
Tatarstan, one of the constituent
republics of Russia.
During the 11-16th centuries, most Turkic peoples tribes lived in what is now Russia and Kazakhstan. The present territory of Tatarstan was inhabited by the
Volga Bulgaria (considered by most to have been Turkic), who settled on the Volga in the
8th century and converted to Islam in 922 during the missionary work of Ahmad ibn Fadlan. On the Volga, the Bulgars mingled with Scythian and Finno-Ugric speaking peoples. After the Mongol invasion, Bulgaria was defeated, ruined and incorporated in the Golden Horde. Much of the population survived, and there was a certain degree of mixing between it and the
Kipchak Tatars of the Horde during the ensuing period. The group as a whole accepted the ethnonym "Tatars" (although the name
Bulgars persisted in some places) and the language of the Kipchaks; on the other hand, the invaders eventually converted to Islam. As the Horde disintegrated in the 15the century, the area became the territory of the Kazan khanate, which was ultimately conquered by Russia in the 16th century.
There is some debate among scholars about the extent of that mixing and the "share" of each group as progenitors of the modern Kazan Tatars. It is relatively accepted that demographically, most of the population was directly descended from the Bulgars. Nevertheless, some emphasize the contribution of the Kipchaks on the basis of the ethnonym and the language, and consider that the modern Tatar ethnogenesis was only completed upon their arrival. Others prefer to stress the Bulgar heritage, sometimes to degree of equating modern Kazan Tatars with Bulgars. They argue that although the Volga Bulgars had not kept their language and their name, their old culture and religion -
Islam - have been preserved. According to scholars who espouse this view, there was very little mixing with Mongol and Turkic aliens after the conquest of Volga Bulgaria, especially in the northern regions that ultimately became
Tatarstan. Some voices even advocate the change of the ethnonym from "Tatars" to "Bulgars" - a movement known as
Bulgarism. Rorlich, A. The origins of the Volga Tatars. (Stanford University, 1986) Great Soviet Encyclopedia, article on
Tatarstan.
In the
1910s they numbered about half a million in the
Kazan Governorate (Tatarstan, the Kazan Tatars' historical motherland), about 400,000 in each of the governments of Ufa, 100,000 in Samara, Russia and Simbirsk, and about 30,000 in Vyatka, Saratov,
Tambov,
Penza, Nizhny Novgorod, Perm and Orenburg. Some 15,000 belonging to the same stem had migrated to
Ryazan, or had been settled as prisoners in the 16th and 17th centuries in
Lithuania (Vilnius, Hrodna and
Podolia). Some 2000 resided in
St. Petersburg, Russia, where they were mostly employed as coachmen and waiters in restaurants. In Poland they constituted 1% of the population of the district of
Plock.
The Kazan Tatars speak a
Turkic languages dialect (with a big complement of Russian and Arabic words; see Tatar language). They have been described as generally middle-sized, broad-shouldered, and the majority have brown and green eyes, a straight nose and salient cheek bones. Because their ancestors number not only Turkic peoples, but East Iranian languages and Finno-Ugric as well, many Kazan Tatars tend to have European faces. The population isn't homogeneous, around 33.5% belong to Southern European subtype, 27.5% to
North European , 24.5% to
Finno-Ugric and 14.5% to
Southern Siberian . Most Kazan Tatars practice Sunni Islam.
Before 1917 in Russia, polygamy was practised only by the wealthier classes and was a waning institution. The Bashkirs who live between the
Kama River,
Ural River and Volga speak the Bashkir language, which is similar to Tatar, and have converted to Sunni Islam.
Because it is understandable to all groups of Russian Tatars, as well as to the Chuvash and
Bashkirs, the language of the Kazan Tatars became a literary one in the 15th century (Old Tatar language). (However, iske imla, it was spelled variously in the different regions). The old literary language included a lot of Arabic and Persian words. Nowadays the literary language includes European and Russian words instead of Arabic.
Kazan Tatars number nearly 7 millions, mostly in Russia and the republics of the former
Soviet Union. While the bulk of the population is to be found in
Tatarstan (nearly 2 million) and neighbouring regions, significant numbers of Kazan Tatars live in Central Asia, Siberia and the Caucasus. Outside of Tatarstan, urban Tatars usually speak Russian language as their first language (in cities such as
Moscow,
Saint-Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod,
Tashkent, Almaty, and cities of the
Ural (region) and western Siberia).
A significant number of Tatars emigrated during the
Russian Civil War, mostly to Turkey and
Harbin, China, but resettled to European countries later. Some of them speak Turkish at home. According to the Chinese government, there are still 51,000 Tatars living in Xinjiang province.
See also:
Tatar language
Noqrat Tatars
Kazan Tatars live in Russia's Kirov Oblast.
Perm Tatars
Kazan Tatars live in Russia's
Perm Krai. Some of them also have an admixture of
Komi peoples blood.
=====Keräşen Tatars=====Some Kazan Tatars were forcibly Christianized by Ivan IV of Russia during the 16th century and later in the 18th century.
Some scientists suppose that
Suars were ancestors of the Keräşen Tatars, and they had been converted to Christianity by
Armenians in the
6th century, while they lived in the Caucasus. Suars, like other tribes (which later converted to Islam) became
Volga Bulgars and later the modern
Chuvash (mostly Christians) and Kazan Tatars (mostly Muslims).
Keräşen Tatars live all over
Tatarstan. Now they tend to be assimilated among Russians, Chuvash and Tatars with
Sunni Muslim self-identification. Eighty years of
atheistic Soviet rule made Tatars of both confessions not as religious as they were. As such, differences between Tatars and Keräşen Tatars now is only that Keräşens have Russian names.
Some Turkic (
Kuman) tribes in Golden Horde were converted to Christianity in the 13th and 14th centuries (Catholicism and Nestorianism). Some prayers, written in that time in the
Codex Cumanicus, sound like modern Keräşen prayers, but there is no information about the connection between Christian Kumans and modern Keräşens.
Nağaybäks
Tatars who became
Cossacks (border keepers) and converted to Russian Orthodoxy. They live in the
Urals, the Russian border with
Kazakhstan during the 17th-18th century.
The biggest Nağaybäk village is
Parizh, Russia, named after
France capital
Paris, due Nağaybäk's participation in
Napoleonic wars.
Tiptär Tatars
Like Noğaybaqs, although they are Sunni Muslims. Some Tiptär Tatars speak Russian or
Bashkir language. According to some scientists, Tiptärs are part of the Mişärs.
Kazan Tatar language dialects
There are 3 dialects: Eastern, Central, Western.
The Western dialect (Misher) is spoken mostly by Mishärs, the Middle dialect is spoken by Tatarstan and Astrakhan Tatars ("
Volga Bulgarians"), and the Eastern (Siberian) dialect is spoken by some groups of Tatars in Russia's
Tyumen Oblast. This latter, which was isolated from other dialects, is related to Chulym language, and some scientists believe that the Eastern dialect is an independent language. The Bashkir language, for example, is better understood by Kazan Tatars than is the Eastern dialect of the Siberian Tatars.
Middle Tatar is the base of literary Kazan Tatar Language. The Middle dialect also has subdivisions.
Mişär Tatars
Mişär Tatars (or Mishers) are a group of Tatars speaking a dialect of the Kazan Tatar language. They are descendants of
Kipchaks in the Middle
Oka River area and Meschiora where they mixed with the local Finno-Ugric tribes. Nowadays they live in
Tambov Oblast, Penza Oblast, Ryazan Oblast oblasts of Russia and in Mordovia. They lived near and along the Volga River, in Tatarstan.
Qasím Tatars
The Western Tatars have their capital in the town of Qasím (
Kasimov in Russian transcription) in
Ryazan Oblast, with a Tatar population of 500. See "Qasim Khanate" for their history.
Astrakhan Tatars
The Astrakhan Tatars (nearly 70,000) are a group of Tatars, descendants of the
Astrakhan Khanate's agricultural population, who live mostly in Astrakhan Oblast. For the 2000 Russian census 2000, most Astrakhan Tatars declared themselves simply as Tatars and few declared themselves as Astrakhan Tatars. A large number of common Volga Tatars (Kazan Tatars) live in Astrakhan Oblast and differences between them have been disappearing.
Text from Britannica 1911:
The
Astrakhan Tatars number about 10,000 and are, with the Mongol
Kalmyks, all that now remains of the once so powerful Astrakhan empire. They also are agriculturists and gardeners; while some 12,000 Kundrovsk Tatars still continue the nomadic life of their ancestors.
While Astrakhan (Ästerxan) Tatar is a mixed dialect, around 43,000 have assimilated to the Middle (i.e., Kazan) dialect. Their ancestors are
Khazars,
Kipchaks and some
Volga Bulgars. (Volga Bulgars had trade colonies in modern
Astrakhan Oblast and Volgograd Oblast oblasts of Russia.)
Chinese Tatars
The Tatars (塔塔尔族
Tǎtǎěrzú) form one of the List of Chinese ethnic groups officially recognized by the
People's Republic of China. Their ancestors are Volga Tatar tradesmen who settled mostly in Xinjiang.
According Сюэ Цзунчжэн «Синьцзян: этнографический очерк», межконтинетальное издательство Китая 2001 год, ISBN 7-80113-859-7/D*104 (it's a russian edition of this book which written by chinese, and the russian name of that edition means "Xinjiang: the enographic review") in China live two kinds of Tatars, for both used
different ierogliphs that have the same pronicaition. One name is used for Tatars arrived from Russia and settled in Xinjiang, and another name is used for native chinese tatars. Tatars from Central Asia are called by the same name as native Tatars of China. Probablity the reason of different naming of native chinese tatars and russian chineses tatars is that tatars from Russia are white, howerver tatars who live in China from ancient time are not white (they are asians).
Volga Tatars in the world
Places where Volga Tatars live include:
- Ural (region) and Upper Kama (since 15th century) 15th century - colonization, 16th - 17th century - re-settled by Russians, 17th - 19th century - exploring of Ural, working in the plants
- West Siberia (since 16th century): 16th - from Russian repressions after conquering of Khanate of Kazan by Russians, 17th - 19th century - exploring of West Siberia, end of 19th - first half of 20th - industrialization, railways constructing, 1930s - Stalin's repressions, 1970s - 1990s oil workers
- Moscow (since 17th century): Tatar feudals in the service of Russia, tradesmen, since 18th - Saint-Petersburg
- Kazakhstan (since 18th century): 18th – 19th centuries - Russian army officers and soldiers, 1930s – industrialization, since 1950s - settlers on virgin lands - re-emigration in 1990s
- Finland (since 1804): (mostly Mişärs) - 19th - from a group of some 20 villages in the Sergatch region on the Volga River. See Finnish Tatars.
- Central Asia (since 19th century) (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Xinjiang ) - 19th Russian officers and soldiers, tradesmen, religious emigrants, 1920-1930s - industrialization, Soviet education program for Central Asia peoples, 1948, 1960 - help for Ashgabat and Tashkent ruined by earthquakes - re-emigration in 1980s
- Caucasus, especially Azerbaijan (since 19th century) - oil workers (1890s), bread tradesmen
- Northern China (since 1910s) - railway builders (1910s) - re-emigrated in 1950s
- East Siberia (since 19th century) - resettled farmers (19th), railroad builders (1910s, 1980s), exiled by the Soviet government in 1930s
- Germany and Austria - 1914, 1941 - prisoners of war, 1990s - emigration
- Turkey, Japan, Iran, China, Egypt (since 1918) - emigration
- UK, USA, Australia, Canada, Argentina, Mexico - (1920s) re-emigration from Germany, Turkey, Japan, China and others. 1950s - prisoners of war from Germany, which did not go back to the USSR, 1990s - emigration after the break up of USSR
- Sakhalin, Kaliningrad, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Karelia - after 1944-45 builders, Soviet military personnel
- Murmansk Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai, Northern Poland and Northern Germany (1945 - 1990) - Soviet military personnel
- Israel - wives or husbands of Jews (1990s)
Tatars of Crimea, Ukraine and Poland
Crimean Tatars
The Crimean Tatars constituted the Crimean Khanate which was annexed by Russia in
1783. The war of 1853 and the laws of
1860-
1863 and
1874 caused an exodus of the
Crimean Tatars.
Those of the south coast, mixed with Scyth, Greeks and Italians, were well known for their skill in gardening, their honesty, and their work habits, as well as for their fine features, presenting the Tatar type at its best. The mountain Tatars closely resemble those of Caucasus, while those of the steppes - the Nogais - are decidedly of a mixed origin with Turks and Mongols.
During World War II, the entire Tatar population in Crimea fell victims to
Stalin's oppressive policies. In
1944 they were accused of being Nazi collaborators and deported en masse to
Central Asia and other lands of the Soviet Union. Many died of disease and malnutrition. Since the 1980s late, about 250,000 Crimean Tatars have returned to their homeland in the Crimea .
Lithuanian Tatars
(right). This was a common occurrence until the 18th century.
After
Tokhtamysh was defeated by
Tamerlane, some of his clan sought refuge in Grand Duchy of Lithuania. They were given land and nobility in return for military service and were known as Lipka Tatars. They are known to have taken part in the
Battle of Grunwald.
Official site
Another group appeared in
Jagoldai Duchy (Lithuania's vassal) near modern
Kursk in 1437 and disappeared later.
Belarusian Tatars
Islam spread in Belarus from the 14th to the 16th century. The process was encouraged by the Lithuanian princes, who invited
Tatar Muslims from the
Crimea and the Golden Horde as guards of state borders. Already in the 14th century the Tatars had been offered a settled way of life, state posts and service positions. By the end of the 16th century over 100,000 Tatars settled in Belarus and
Lithuania, including those hired to government service, those who moved there voluntarily, prisoners of war, etc.
Tatars in Belarus generally follow Sunni
Hanafi Islam. Some groups have accepted Christianity and been assimilated, but most adhere to Muslim religious traditions, which ensures their definite endogamy and preservation of ethnic features. Interethnic marriages with representatives of Belarusian, Polish, Lithuanian, Russian nationalities are not rare, but do not result in total assimilation.
Originating from different ethnic associations, Belarusian (and also Polish and Lithuanian) Tatars back in ancient days lost their native language and adopted Belarusian, Polish and Russian. However, the liturgy is conducted in the
Arabic language, which is known by the clergymen. There are an estimated 20,000 Tatars in Belarus.
Polish Tatars
Main articles: Lipka Tatars and Islam in Poland
mosque in the village of Bohoniki, Poland From the 13th to 17th centuries various groups of Tatars settled and/or found refuge within the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth.This was promoted especially by the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, because of their deserved reputation as skilled warriors. The Tatar settlers were all granted with szlachta (~ nobility) status, a tradition that was preserved until the end of the Commonwealth in the 18th century. They included the
Lipka Tatars (13-14 centuries) as well as Crimean and
Nogai people Tatars (15th-16th centuries), all of which were noticeable in Polish military history, as well as Tatars#Kazan (Qazan) Tatars (16th-17th centuries). They all mostly settled in the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania, lands that are now in
Lithuania and Belarus.
Various estimates of the number of Tatars in the Commonwealth in the 17th century range from 15,000 persons to 60 villages with mosques. Numerous royal privileges, as well as internal autonomy granted by the monarchs allowed the Tatars to preserve their religion, traditions and culture over the centuries. The Tatars were allowed to intermarry with Christians, a thing uncommon in Europe at the time. The
May Constitution of 1791 gave the Tatars representation in the Polish
Sejm.
Although by the 18th century the Tatars adopted the local language, the Islamic religion and many Tatar traditions (e.g. the sacrifice of bulls in their mosques during the main religious festivals) were preserved. This led to formation of a distinctive Muslim culture, in which the elements of Muslim orthodoxy mixed with religious tolerance and a relatively liberal society. For instance, the women in Lipka Tatar society traditionally had the same rights and status as men, and could attend non-segregated schools.
About 5,500 Tatars lived within the inter-war boundaries of Poland (1920-1939), and a Tatar cavalry unit had fought for the country's independence. The Tatars had preserved their cultural identity and sustained a number of Tatar organisations, including a Tatar archives, and a museum in Wilno (
Vilnius).
The Tatars suffered serious losses during
World War II and furthermore, after the border change in 1945 a large part of them found themselves in the
Soviet Union. It is estimated that about 3000 Tatars live in present-day Poland, of which about 500 declared Tatar (rather than Polish) nationality in the 2002 census. There are two Tatar villages (Bohoniki and Kruszyniany) in the north-east of present-day Poland, as well as urban Tatar communities in Warsaw,
Gdańsk,
Białystok, and
Gorzow Wielkopolski. Tatars in Poland sometimes have a Muslim surname with a Polish ending:
Ryzwanowicz, Jakubowicz.
The Tatars were relatively very noticeable in the Commonwealth military as well as in Polish and Lithuanian political and intellectual life for such a small community. In modern-day Poland, their presence is also widely known, due in part to their noticeable role in the historical novels of Henryk Sienkiewicz, which are universally recognized in Poland. A number of Polish intellectual figures have also been Tatars, e.g. the prominent historian Jerzy Łojek.
A small community of Polish speaking Tartars settled in
Brooklyn,
New York City in the early 1900s. They established a mosque that is still in use today.
Caucasian Tatars
These are Tatars who inhabit the upper
Kuban River, the steppes of the lower
Kuma (Russia) and the Kura, and the
Araks. In the
19th century they numbered about 1,350,000. This number includes a number of Kazan Tatar oil workers who came to the Caucasus from the Middle Volga in the end of the 19th century.
Now this term is used to describe Volga Tatars, settled in Caucasus. Other explanations, like followers, can be found only in historical context.
Nogais on the Kuma
The Nogai people on the
Kuma River (Russia) show traces of a mixture with
Kalmyks. They are nomads, supporting themselves by cattle-breeding and fishing; a few are agriculturists.
Today Nogais is an independent ethnos, living in the North of
Dagestan, where they lived after Nogai Horde's defeating in was against Russia and settling
Kalmyks in their lands in 17th century. Nogais was replaced to
Black Lands in the North of Daghestan. Another part merged with Kazakhs.
In 16th century Nogais supported Crimean Khanate and
Ottoman Empire, but sometimes robbed Crimean,
Kazan Tatar and
Bashkir lands, although their rulers supported them. In 16th-17th century some defensive walls was constructed in modern Tatarstan and
Samara Oblast.
One of the Kazan Tatars national heroes, Söyembikä, was ethnically Nogai.
Today
Nogais are not included to
Tatars term,
Nogais are independent ethnos.
Qundra Tatars
Some groups of Nogais emigrated to Middle Volga, where were (are) assimilated by Volga Tatars (in terms of language).
Karachays
The Karachays who number 18,500 in the upper valleys about
Elburz live by agriculture.
Today Karachays are the independent ethnos, one of the main nation in Karachay-Cherkessia.
Siberian Tatars
The
Siberian Tatars were estimated (
1895) at 80,000 of Turkic stock, and about 40,000 had Uralic or Ugric ancestry. They occupy three distinct regions—a strip running west to east from Tobolsk to Tomsk—the
Altay Mountains and its spurs—and South Yeniseisk. They originated in the agglomerations of Turkic stems that, in the region north of the Altay, reached some degree of culture between the 4th and the 5th centuries, but were subdued and enslaved by the Mongols. They are difficult to classify for they are the result of somewhat recent minglings of races and customs, and they are all, more or less, in process of being assimilated by the Russians, but the following subdivisions may be accepted provisionally.
Baraba Tatars
Sometimes Siberian Tatars refers only to Baraba Tatar, as a part of Tatar nation, a Muslim people that speak dialects of Tatar language, but not another.
The Baraba Tatars take their name from one of their stems (Barama) and number about 50,000 in the government of
Tobolsk and about 5000 in Tomsk. After a strenuous resistance to Russian conquest, and much suffering at a later period from
Kyrgyz and Kalmyk raids, they now live by agriculture—either in separate villages or along with Russians.
After colonisation of Siberia by Russian and Kazan Tatars, Baraba Tatars used to call themselves
people of Tomsk, later
Moslems, and came to call themselves
Tatars only in 20th century.
Chulym Tatars
The Chulym, or Cholym Tatars live on the
Chulym River, and both of the rivers
Yus river. They speak a Turkic language with many Mongol and Yakut words and are more like Mongols than
Turkic peoples. In the 19th century they paid a tribute for 2550 arbaletes, but they now are rapidly becoming fused with Russians.
See:
Chulym language
Abakan Tatars
The
Abakan Tatars occupied the steppes on the
Abakan River and Yus river in the 17th century, after the withdrawal of the Kyrgyz, and represent a mixture with
Kaibals (whom Matthias Castrén considers as partly of
Ostiak and partly
Samoyedic origin) and
Beltirs—also of
Finnic peoples origin. Their language is also mixed. They are known under the name of
Sagais, who numbered 11,720 in 1864, and are the purer Turkic stem of the
Minusinsk Tatars, Kaibals, and Kizil Tatars. Formerly shamanists, they now are, nominally at least, adherents of the Greek Orthodox Church and support themselves mostly by cattle-breeding. Agriculture is spreading, but slowly, among them. They still prefer to plunder the stores of bulbs of
Lilium martagon, Paeonia, and
Erythronium dens-canis laid up by the steppe mouse (
Mus socialis). The Soyotes, of the
Sayan mountains (estimated at 8000), who are Finnic peoples mixed with
Turkic peoples; the
Uryankhes of north-west
Mongolia, who are of Turkic origin but follow Buddhism; and the Karagasses, also of Turkic origin and much like the Kyrgyz, but reduced now to a few hundreds, are akin to the above.
Today
Abakan Tatars of
Kirghiz terms are extinct, used own names only.
See more: Khakass, Tuvans,
Altay people
Northern Altay Tatars
The Tatars of the northern slopes of the Altay Mountains (nearly 20,000 in number) are of Finnish origin. They comprise some hundreds of Kumandintses, the Lebed Tatars, the Chernevyie or Black-Forest Tatars and the Shors (11,000), descendants of the Kuznetsk or Iron-Smith Tatars. They are chiefly hunters, passionately loving their
taiga, or wild forests, and have maintained their shaman religion and tribal organization into suoks. They also live partly on
pine nuts and
honey collected in the forests. Their traditional dress is that of their former rulers, the Kalmucks, and their language contains many Mongol words.
Altayans
The Altay Tatars, or
Altayans, comprise
- the Mountain Kalmyks (12,000), to whom this name has been given by mistake, and who have nothing in common with the Kalmyks except their dress and mode of life. They speak a Turkic dialect.
- the Teleutes, or Telenghites (5800), a remainder of a formerly numerous and warlike nation, who have migrated from the mountains to the lowlands where they now live along with Russian peasants.
Term
Tatars is also extinct for this peoples.
Although Turkestan and Central Asia were formerly known as Independent Tartary, it is not now usual to call the Sarts, Kyrgyz and other inhabitants of those countries Tatars, nor is the name usually given to the Yakuts of Eastern Siberia.
Generic meaning
The name Tatars was originally applied to both the Turkic and Mongol tribes which invaded Europe six centuries ago, and gradually extended to the Turkic tribes mixed with Mongolian or Uralic-speaking peoples in
Siberia. It is used at present in two senses:
- Quite loosely, to designate any of the Muslim tribes whose ancestors may have spoken Uralic or Altaic languages. Thus some writers talk of the Manchu Tatars.
- In a more restricted sense, to designate Muslim Turkic-speaking tribes, especially in Russia, who never formed part of the Seljuk or Ottoman Empire, but made independent settlements and remained more or less cut off from the politics and civilization of the rest of the Islamic world.
- Linguistically, Kazan (Volga) Tatars are closely related to the Bashkirs and other Turkic peoples. Tatars are the direct descendants of the Volga Bulgars. Volga Bulgars were a mixed people, whose ancestors may have included speakers of Scythian, Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages. (In Turkic bolğar means mixed). After coming to the Middle Volga, Bulgars mixed with Finno-Ugric speaking tribes.
- Bashkirs speak a language very similar to the Kazan Tatar language. Bashkirs (just like the Chuvash and Maris) lived in a state where Tatar was the official language (Khanate of Kazan). Nowadays, Bashkortostan's officials pursue a policy of forced "Bashkirization" of Tatars. However, the number of Tatars in Bashkortostan is almost as high as the number of Bashkirs in their own republic. (the 2002 Russian Federation census lists 990,000+ people as self identifying as Tatars in Bashkortostan compared to 1,221,302 self identifying Bashkir. http://www.perepis2002.ru/ct/doc/English/4-2.xls)
Authorities
Bibliographical indexes may be found in the Geographical Dictionary of P. Semenov, appended to the articles devoted respectively to the names given above, as also in the yearly Indexes by M. Mezhov and the Oriental Bibliography of Lucian Scherman. Besides the well-known works of Castren, which are a very rich source of information on the subject, Schiefner (
St Petersburg Academy of Sciences), Donner, Ahlqvist and other explorers of the Uralic and Altaic languages and peoples, as also those of the Russian historians Sergey Solovyov, Nikolay Kostomarov, Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Schapov, and Dmitry Ilovaisky, the following containing valuable information may be mentioned:
- the publications of the Russian Geographical Society and its branches;
- the Russian Etnographicheskiy Sbornik;
- the Izvestia of the Moscow society of the amateurs of natural science;
- the works of the Russian ethnographical congresses;
- Kostrov's researches on the Siberian Tatars in the memoirs of the Siberian branch of the geographical society; Vasily Radlov's Reise durch den Altay, Aus Sibirien', "Picturesque Russia" (Zhivopisnaya Rossiya);
- Semenov's and Potanin's " Supplements " to Ritter's Asien; Harkavi's report to the congress at Kazan;
- Hartakhai's "Hist, of Crimean Tatars," in Vyestnik Evropy, 1866 and 1867;
- "Katchinsk Tatars," in Izvestia Russ. Geogr. Soc., xx., 1884.
Various scattered articles on Tatars will be found in the Revue orientale pour les Etudes Oural-Altaïques, and in the publications of the Kazan State University. See also E. H. Parker, A Thousand Years of the Tartars, 1895 (chiefly a summary of Chinese accounts of the early Turkic and Tatar tribes), and Skrine and Ross, Heart of Asia (1899). (P. A. K.; C. EL.)
See also
References & Notes
External links
- Tatar Horsebow and Thumbring Discussion Forum
- Qirim Tatar Community of Canada
- Tatars in Congress Library (1989)
- The Origins of the Volga Tatars
- Crimean Tatars. By H. B. Paksoy
- Tatar.Net
- Polish Tatars
- Polish Tatars web portal
- Tatar world-wide server
- Anthropology of Tatars. By R.K. Urazmanova and S.V. Cheshko
Tatars - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tatars (Tatar: Tatarlar/Татарлар), sometimes spelled Tartar (more about the name), are a Turkic ethnic group or a couple of ethnic groups.
Lipka Tatars - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Lipka Tatars (also known as Lithuanian Tatars, Belarusian Tatars, Lipkowie or Muślimi) are a group of Tatars living on the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania since ...
Tatars definition of Tatars in the Free Online Encyclopedia.
Tatars (tä`tərz) or Tartars (tär`tərz), Turkic-speaking peoples living primarily in Russia. They number about 5.5 million and are largely Sunni Muslims.
The Lithuanian Tatars
Lithuanian Tatars The ethnic group is simply called Tatars and the neighbouring people also refer to them as such. In literature they are more often referred to as the Lithuanian ...
Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars The original home of the Crimean Tatars was the Crimean Peninsula. They were deported from the region by the Soviet central authorities in 1944.
Category:Tatars - Wikimedia Commons
Media in category "Tatars" The following 14 files are in this category, out of 14 total.
BBC NEWS | Europe | Crimean Tatars recall mass exile
Crimean Tatars mark the 60th anniversary of their mass deportation by Stalin during World War II.
BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Crimean Tatars recall mass exile
Crimean Tatars mark the 60th anniversary of their mass deportation by Stalin during World War II.
Tatars - Hutchinson encyclopedia article about Tatars
Tatar. Member of a Turkic people, the descendants of the mixed Mongol and Turkic followers of Genghis Khan. The Tatars now live mainly in the Russian autonomous republic of ...
Tatars - definition of Tatars by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus ...
1. also Tar·tar (tär t r) A member of a group of Turkic peoples primarily inhabiting Tatarstan in west-central Russia and parts of Siberia and Central Asia.