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Tatars [tah-ter]

Tatars

[tah-ter]

Tatars or Tartars, Turkic-speaking peoples living primarily in Russia. They number about 5.5 million and are largely Sunni Muslims. The name is derived from Tata or Dada, a Mongolian tribe that inhabited present NE Mongolia in the 5th cent. First used to describe the peoples that overran parts of Asia and Europe under Mongol leadership in the 13th cent., it was later extended to include almost any Asian nomadic invader. Before the 1920s Russians used the name Tatar to designate the Azerbaijani Turks and several tribes of the Caucasus.

The Tatar Empire

The original Tatars probably came from E central Asia or central Siberia; unlike the Mongols, they spoke a Turkic language and were possibly akin to the Cumans or Kipchaks and the Pechenegs. They were nomads, moving across the vast Asian and Russian steppes with their families and their herds of cattle and sheep. After the conquests of the Mongol Jenghiz Khan, the Mongol and Turkic elements merged, and the invaders became known in Europe as Tatars. The Mongol invasion led by Batu Khan into Hungary and Germany in 1241 is also known as the Tatar invasion.

After the wave of invasion receded eastward, the Tatars continued to dominate nearly all of Russia, the Ukraine, and Siberia. Because of the gorgeous tents of Batu Khan, his followers were known as the Golden Horde. The empire of the Golden Horde—also known as the Kipchak khanate—controlled most of Russia either directly or through exacting tribute from the Russian princes. The Golden Horde adopted Islam as its religion in the 14th cent.

Disintegration of the Empire

Internal divisions, the expansion of Moscow, the invasion by Timur, and the appearance of the Ottoman Turks contributed to the disintegration of the Tatar empire in the late 15th cent. The independent khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, Sibir, and Crimea emerged. In the 16th cent. Russia conquered the khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and Sibir (Siberia); the khans of Crimea became (1478) vassals of the Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless Siberia long continued to be known as Tartary and the Crimean domains as Little Tartary. The Crimean Tatars continued to harass the Ukraine and Poland and to exact tribute from the czars of Russia; they raided Moscow in 1572.

The majority of the Tatars in Russia had by that time reached a relatively high degree of civilization. They were generally settled, were skillful in agriculture and crafts, and had great centers of Muslim learning. Only minorities, such as the Nogais, who were subject to the Crimean khans, remained nomadic. Tatar political leaders, administrators, and traders had a great influence on Russian history. Many Russian noble families were of partly Tatar origin. The social and military organization of the Muscovite state was influenced by the institutions of the Tatars, and many Russian customs are traceable to them.

Recent History

In 1783 the last Tatar state, Crimea, was annexed to Russia. The Nogais were gradually pushed eastward into the Caucasus by the Russian settlers. The Crimean Tatars themselves—except for the large numbers that emigrated to Turkey at the time of the Russian conquest of Crimea and after the Crimean War—remained in the Crimea until World War II and formed the basis of the Crimean Autonomous SSR, founded in 1921. It was dissolved in 1945, and all Crimean Tatars (about 200,000 in 1939) were exiled to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan for alleged collaboration with the Germans. In 1956 they regained civil rights and since the late 1980s many have returned to Crimea; their numbers there now exceed prewar levels. Following the disintegration of the USSR, leaders of Tatarstan began to press the Russian government for increased powers. In a 1992 referendum, over 61% of the voters supported a "sovereign" Tatarstan.

Bibliography

See B. S. Izhbolden, Essays on Tatar History (1963).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

Tatars

Tatars (Tatar: Tatarlar/Татарлар), sometimes spelled Tartars, are a Turkic-speaking ethnic group or multiple ethnic groups. For more about the etymology and usage of the name, see below.

Most current day Tatars live all over Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, Lithuania, Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Kazakhstan, Romania, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. They collectively numbered more than 10 million in the late 20th century.

The original Ta-ta inhabited the north-eastern Gobi in the 5th century and, after subjugation in the 9th century by the Khitans, migrated southward. In the 12th century, they were subjugated by 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 Ural-Altayans towards the plains of Russia.

In Europe, they were assimilated by the local Turkic populations or their name spread to the conquered peoples: Kipchaks, Volga Bulgars, Alans, Kimaks and others; and elsewhere with Finno-Ugric speaking peoples, as well as with remnants of the ancient Greek colonies in the Crimea and Caucasians in the Caucasus.

Tatars of Siberia are survivors of the Turkic population of the Ural-Altaic region, mixed to some extent with the speakers of Uralic languages, as well as with Mongols. Later, each group adopted Turkic languages and many adopted Islam. At the beginning of 20th century, most of those groups, except the Volga Tatars and Crimean Tatars adopted their own ethnic names and now are not referred to as Tatars, being Tatars or Tartars only in historical context. Now the name Tatars is generally applied to two ethnic groups: Volga Tatars (or simply Tatars) and Crimean Tatars. However, some indigenous peoples of Siberia are also traditionally named Tatars, such as Chulym Tatars.

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. 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.

The form Tartar has its origins in either Latin or French, coming to Western European languages from the Turkish and Persian Tātār. From the beginning the extra r was present in the Western forms, and according to the Oxford English Dictionary this was most likely due to an association with Tartarus (Hell in Greek mythology), though some claimed that the name Tartar was in fact used amongst the Tatars themselves. Nowadays Tatar is usually used to refer to the people, but Tartar is still almost always used for derived terms such as tartar sauce or steak tartare.

Historically, the term Tatar or Tartar has been ambiguously used by Europeans to refer to many different peoples of Inner Asia and Northern Asia. For example, the Russians referred to various peoples they came into contact with on the Eurasian steppes as Tatars yet the British and Americans generally referred to the Manchu and related peoples as Tatars when they first arrived in China. The old English language designation is now regarded as archaic, although the meaning is preserved in the name of the Strait of Tartary that separates the island of Sakhalin from mainland Asia. Today, the word is generally confined to meaning one of the following:

Historical meaning of Tatars

Ta-ta Mongols
multi-ethnical population of Mongol Empire
multi-ethnical Muslim population 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 the Russian Empire
Russian term for some peoples, incorporated into the Muslim nation of Russia in the late 19th century (for example, Volga Tatars, Nogais, Azeri)
Some ethnic groups in the Soviet Union after the policy of Furkinland, such as the Volga Tatars (or simply Tatars), Crimean Tatars, Chulym Tatars, and groups such as the Lipka Tatars (other peoples also switched their Russian names to "Tatar" to promote their desire for self-determination).

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 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 invasions) and assimilated into the local population later.

Volga Tatars

Volga Tatars live in the central and eastern parts of European Russia and in western Siberia. In today's Russia the term Tatars is used to describe Volga Tatars only. During the census of 2002, Tatars, or Volga Tatars, were officially divided into common Tatars, Astrakhan Tatars, Keräşen Tatars, and Siberian Tatars. Other ethnic groups, such as Crimean Tatars and Chulyms, were not officially recognized as a part of the multi-ethnic Tatar group and were counted separately.Anthropologically 38,2% of Volga Tatars belongs to Southern Caucasoid, 22,9% to Lapponoid, 19,5% to Mongoloid and 19,4% to Northern Caucasoid.

Kazan (Qazan) Tatars

During the 11-16th centuries, most Turkic tribes lived in what is now Russia and Kazakhstan. The present territory of Tatarstan was inhabited by the Volga Bulgars 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" (finally in the end of 19th century; although the name Bulgars persisted in some places; the majority identified themselves simply as the Muslims) and the language of the Kipchaks; on the other hand, the invaders eventually converted to Islam. As the Horde disintegrated in the 15th 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.

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 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, Grodno and Podolia). Some 2000 resided in St. Petersburg, where they were mostly employed as coachmen and waiters in restaurants. In Poland they constituted 1% of the population of the district of Płock. Later they wer never counted as separate group of the Tatars.

The Kazan Tatars speak a Turkic language (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 Finno-Ugric and Eastern Iranian peoples as well, many Kazan Tatars tend to have Caucasoid faces. Around 33.5% belong to Southern Caucasoid, 27.5% to Northern Caucasoid, 24.5% to Lapponoid and 14.5% to Mongoloid 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 and Ural 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 Volga Tatars became a literary one in the 15th century (İske Tatar tele). (However, being written in Arabic alphabet, 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.

Volga Tatars number nearly 8 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 as their first language (in cities such as Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, Tashkent, Almaty, and cities of the Ural and western Siberia) and other languages in a worldwide diaspora.

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 Chinese Tatars).

Noqrat Tatars

Tatars live in Russia's Kirov Oblast and Tatarstan.

Perm Tatars

Tatars live in Russia's Perm Krai. Some of them also have an admixture of Komi blood.

Keräşen Tatars

Some Tatars were forcibly Christianized by Ivan the Terrible 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 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 French 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. According to some scientists, Tiptärs are part of the Mişärs.

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 Kazan and Astrakhan Tatars, and the Eastern (Siberian) dialect is spoken by some groups of Tatars in western Siberia.

Middle Tatar is the base of literary Tatar Language. The Middle dialect also has subdivisions.

Mişär Tatars

Mişär Tatars (or Mishers) are a group of Tatars speaking a dialect of the Tatar language. They are descendants of Kipchaks in the Middle Oka River area and Meschiora where they mixed with the local Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes. Nowadays they live in Tambov, Penza, Ryazan, Nizhegorodskaya oblasts of Russia and in Bashkortostan and 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 1100. See "Qasim Khanate" for their history.

Astrakhan Tatars

The Astrakhan Tatars (around 80,000) 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 Volga Tatars live in Astrakhan Oblast and differences between them have been disappearing.

The Astrakhan Tatars are further divided into the Kundrov Tatars and the Karagash Tatars. The latter are also at times called the Karashi Tatars.

Text from Britannica 1911:

The Astrakhan Tatars number about 10,000 and are, with the 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 and Volgograd oblasts of Russia.)

The Astrakhan Tatars also assimilated the Agrzhan.

Volga Tatars in the world

Places where Volga Tatars live include:

Ural 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 Sergach 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 East Europe

Crimean Tatars

The Crimean Tatars constituted the Crimean Khanate which was annexed by Russia in 1783. The war of 1853 and the laws of 1860-63 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. 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

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.

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

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 Nogay Tatars (15th-16th centuries), all of which were noticeable in Polish military history, as well as Volga 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 Gorzów 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 Tatars settled in Brooklyn, New York City in the early 1900s. They established a mosque that is still in use today.

Dobruja Tatars

In Dobruja, Romania, there is today a community of about 25,000 Crimean Tatars, which were colonized there by the Ottoman Empire beginning with the 17'th Century

Caucasian Tatars

These are Tatars who inhabit the upper Kuban, the steppes of the lower Kuma and the Kura, and the Araks. In the 19th century they numbered about 1,350,000. This number includes a number of 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 Tatars, settled in Caucasus. Other explanations, like followers, can be found only in historical context.

Nogais on the Kuma

The Nogais on the Kuma River 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, 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 Tatar national heroes, Söyembikä, was Nogai.

Qundra Tatars

Some groups of Nogais emigrated to Middle Volga, where were (are) assimilated by Volga Tatars (in terms of language).

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 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.

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). 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 Volga Tatars, Baraba Tatars used to call themselves people of Tomsk, later Moslems, and came to call themselves Tatars only in 20th century.

They numbered at least 150,000 in 1990.

Chulym Tatars

The Chulym, or Cholym Tatars live on the Chulym, and both of the rivers Yus. They speak a Turkic language with many Mongol and Yakut words and are more like Mongols than Turks. 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 (or Minusinsk) Tatars occupied the steppes on the Abakan and Yus in the 17th century, after the withdrawal of the Kyrgyz, and represent a mixture with Kaibals (whom Castrén considers as partly of Ostiak and partly Samoyedic origin) and Beltirs—also of Finnic 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 (or Red) Tatars. Formerly shamanists, they now are, nominally at least, adherents of the Russian 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 (or Soyons), of the Sayan mountains (estimated at 8000), who are Finns mixed with Turks; 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, Altays

Northern Altay Tatars

The Tatars of the northern slopes of the Altay (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 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 Northeastern Siberia.

Generic meaning

The name Tatars was originally applied to both the Turkic and Mongolic 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.

Tatars are partly descendants of the Volga Bulgars. Volga Bulgars were a mixed people, whose ancestors may have included speakers of Scythian, Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages. After coming to the Middle Volga, Bulgars mixed with Finno-Ugric speaking tribes.
Bashkirs speak a language very similar to Tatar language. 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 Soloviev, Kostomarov, Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Schapov, and Ilovaiskiy, 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; 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 university of Kazan. 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.)