Learn more about Tatars
(Tatarlar / Татарлар)
|Total population||about 10 - 20 million |
|Regions with significant populations||Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Finland, Estonia, Poland, Belarus, Germany, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Romania, Canada, USA, Japan and China|
|Language||Tatar, Russian, Lithuanian|
|Religion|| Sunni Muslim <tr>
<th style="background-color:#fee8ab;">Related ethnic groups</th> <td style="background-color:#fff6d9;">other Altaic-Turkic peoples; various peoples of Eastern Europe</td>
Most current day Tatars live in the central and southern parts of Russia (the majority in Tatarstan), Ukraine, Poland and in Bulgaria, China, Kazakhstan, Romania, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. They collectively numbered more than 10 million in the late 20th century. Most Tatars are Sunni Muslims.
The majority - in European Russia - are descendants of Eastern European Volga Bulgars who were conquered by the Mongol invasion of the 13th century and kept the name of their conquerors. Tatars of Siberia are survivors of the once numerous Turkic-Mongolian population of the Ural-Altaic 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 Khitans, 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 Ural-Altayans towards the plains of Russia.
On the Volga they mingled with remnants of the old Bulgarian empire (Volga Bulgaria), 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.
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, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Turkey.
- those of the Caucasus,
- and those of Siberia.
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 ethnic groups that looks Mongoloid at one end and Caucasoid at the other. As to the original Tatars from Mongolia, they most likely shared characteristics with the Mongol invaders from Central Asia.
 Tatar Origins
The Tatars are descended from a variety of people and cultures ranging from the Huns, the Bulgars and the Mongols including Turkic peoples such as the Kypchaks. The Bulgars however, are the direct ancestors of the Tatars and the founders of both the Bulgar states Great Bulgaria and Volga-Bulgaria, but also the now-Slavic state of Bulgaria which carries their name. This is due to the fact that some Bulgars continued westward past Volga crossing the Danube river. These Bulgars soon lost their Turkic characteristics and almost everything about the origins, except their name, while the "Tatars" who settled at the middle Volga river retained almost everything about their heritage, except their name.
When the Mongol Horde began its conquest westwards, the Bulgars were subjugated and mixed with the people of the Horde and truly cemented their ethnonym Tatars. In this time, the Tatars also influenced and was influenced by the surrounding Slavs, both genetically and culturally.
The name "Tatar" initially appeared amongst the nomadic Turkic-speaking peoples of northeastern Mongolia in the region around Lake Baikal in the beginning of the 5th century.<ref name="BritannicaTatar">Tatar. (2006). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved October 28, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9071375</ref> These people may have been related to the Cumans or the Kipchaks.<ref name="BritannicaTatar" />
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 Russia and Hungary became known to Europeans as Tatars (or Tartars).<ref name="BritannicaTatar" /> 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.<ref name="BritannicaTatar" />
Formerly, it was believed that the name Tatar derived from the name Tartarus,<ref name="BritannicaMongolia">Mongolia. (2006). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved October 28, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-27420</ref> the Greek god of 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",<ref>China Knowledge Web Encyclopedia: Tatars</ref> 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 officially recognized ethnic minority they are called 塔塔尔族 Tǎtǎěrzú in the Chinese language.
 Historical meaning of Tatars
- Ta-ta Mongols
- multiethnical population of Mongol Empire
- multiethnical Muslim population of late Golden Horde (for neighboring peoples, for example, Russians)
- Turkic Muslim population (Volga Tatars, Azeris) and some pagan Turkic nad 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 indigenious population of Tatarstan.
During the 11-16th centuries, most Turkic tribes lived in what is now Russia and Kazakhstan. The Kazan (Qazan) Tatars are descendants of the Volga Bulgars, who settled on the Volga in the 8th century. There they mingled with Scythian and Finno-Ugric speaking peoples and partly with descendants of the Kipchaks, who settled on the Volga in the 13th century. After the Mongol invasion Bulgaria was defeated and ruined. Note that the most of the population of Volga Bulgaria survived: while they had not kept their language, their old culture and religion - Islam - remained intact. (The Bulgars had converted to Islam in 922 during the missionary work of Ahmad ibn Fadlan). There was very little mixing Mongol and Turkic aliens after the conquest of Volga Bulgaria, especially in the northern regions (nowadays Tatarstan).
Kazan Tatars form the ethnic majority in Tatarstan (nearly 2 million), one of the constituent republics of Russia.
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 Plock.
The Kazan Tatars speak a Turkic 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 Slavs 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 Northern European , 24.5% to Finno-Ugric and 14.5% to Southern Siberian one (mixed Mongoloid/Caucasoid type). 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, Ural 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 (İske Tatar tele). (However, being written in Arabic alphabet, it was spelled variosly 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 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).
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
 Keräşen Tatars
Some Kazan 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 Kazan Tatars (mostly Muslims).
Keräşen Tatars live all over Tatarstan. Now they tend to be assimilated anong 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.
 Tiptär Tatars
Like Noğaybaqs, although they are Sunni Muslims. Some Tiptär Tatars speak Russian or Bashkir. According 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, 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 and Meschiora where they mixed with the local Finno-Ugric tribes and Russians. Nowadays they live in Tambov, Penza, Ryazan oblasts of Russia and in Mordovia. They lived near and along the Volga River, in Tatarstan.
 Qasím Tatars
 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 and Volgograd oblasts of Russia.)
 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 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
- England, 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
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
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.
 Belarusian Tatars
- Further information: Islam in Belarus
The Islam in Belarus spread in the 14th -16th centuries. The process was encouraged by great Lithuanian princes, who invited the Tatar Muslim from the Crimea and Golden Horde as guards of state borders. Already in the 14th century the Tatars were proposed the settled way of life, state posts and service positions. By the end of the 16th century over 100 thousand persons of Tatar population settled in Belarus and Lithuania, including those hired to the service, voluntarily moved, prisoners of war, etc.
The Tatars follow to the Sunni Hanafi Islam. Some groups of Tatar in Belarus have accepted Christianity and got assimilated, but mostly they adhere to Muslim religious traditions what 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 switched mainly into Belarusian, Polish and Russian. However, liturgy is conducted in the Arabic, which is known by the clergymen. There are estimated 20,000 Tatars in Belarus.
 Polish Tatars
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 Kazan 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.
 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 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
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).
Today Karachays are the independent ethnos, one of the main nation in Karachay-Cherkessia.
 Mountain Tatars
They are certainly of a mixed origin, and present a variety of ethnological types, all the more so as all who are neither Armenians nor Russians, nor belong to any distinct Caucasian tribe, are often called Tatars (for example, in the 19th century Chechens were often called Tatars by Russians). Some of these people are not even Turkic, mountain Tatars thus being more of an umbrella term. As a rule, they are well built and little behind (?) their Caucasian brethren. They are celebrated for their excellence as gardeners, agriculturists, cattle-tenders and artisans. Although most fervent Shi'ites, they are on very good terms both with their Sunnite and Russian Orthodox neighbours.
Today the term Mountain Tatars is obsolete, and all the peoples have their own names.
 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. 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 Kirghiz and Kalmuck 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, 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 Kirghizes, 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 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 (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 Kirghizes, but reduced now to a few hundreds, are akin to the above.
Today Abakan Tatars of Kirghiz terms are extinct, used own names only.
 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.
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, Kirghiz and other inhabitants of those countries Tatars. Nor is the name usually given to the Yakuts of Eastern Siberia.
 Generic meaning
It is evident from the above that the name Tatars was originally applied to both the Turkic and Mongol stems which invaded Europe six centuries ago, and gradually extended to the Turkic stems 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.
- Kazan (Tatastan) Tatars have more common with the Chuvash, Maris and Russians than with Bashkirs and other Turkic peoples. They are, also like the Chuvash remnants of Volga Bulgars. Volga Bulgars were a mixed people, whose ancestors included people who spoke Scythian, Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages. (In Turkic bolğar means mixed). After coming to Middle Volga, Bulgars mixed with Finno-Ugric speaking tribes. In the Golden Horde period Bulgars were mixed with Slavs, Greeks, Mongols. So there are no another 'Tatars' like Kazan Tatars which have so many ancestors.
- Bashkirs speak a language very similar to the Kazan Tatar language. But this is Tatarification of Ugric and Turkic speaking tribes living in Ural. Bashkirs (also like the Chuvash and Maris) lived in a state where Tatar was the official language (Khanate of Kazan). Nowadays Bashkortostan official policy is to consider Tatar a dialect of Bashkir and all Bashkortostanian Tatars Bashkirs. Number of Tatars in Bashkortostan is close to 1,100,000 and the number of Bashkirs is nearly 1,200,000.
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.)
 Chinese Tatars
 See also
- Tatar language
- Tatar alphabet
- Volga Bulgaria
- Finnish Tatars
- Lipka Tatars
- Islam in Poland
- List of Tatars
 References & Notes
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
 External links
- Tatars in Congress Library (1989)
- Chinese History - Non-Chinese peoples and neighboring states: Tartars (Tatars, Dada 韃靼)
- The Origins of the Volga Tatars
- Crimean Tatars. By H. B. Paksoy
- Polish Tatars
- (Russian) Tatar world-wide server
- (Russian) Anthropology of Tatars. By R.K. Urazmanova and S.V. Cheshkocs:Tataři
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