Tatars

Tatars or Tartars, collective name applied to the Turkic-speaking people of Europe and Asia. Most Tatars live in the central and southern parts of Russia and in Bulgaria, China, Kazakhstan, Romania, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. They collectively numbered more than 8 million in the late 20th century. Most of the Tatars are Muslims (followers of Islam).

The majority—in European Russia—are remnants of the Volga Bulgars which was conquered by Mongol invasion of the 13th century and kept the name of their conquerers. Tatars of Siberia are survivals of the once much more numerous Turkic population of the Ural-Altaic region, mixed to some extent with Finnish and Nenets (Samoyed) stems, as also with Mongols.

The name is derived from that of the Ta-ta Mongols, who in the 5th century inhabited the north-eastern Gobi, 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-Altaians towards the plains of Russia.

The ethnographical features of the present Tatar inhabitants of European Russia, as well as their language, show that they contain no admixture (or very little) of Mongolian blood, but belong to the Turkic branch of the Ural-Altaic stock, necessitating the conclusion that only Batu, his warriors, and a limited number of his followers were Mongols, while the great bulk of the 13th century invaders were Turks. On the Volga they mingled with remnants of the old Bulgarian empire, and elsewhere with Finnish stems, as well as with remnants of the ancient Italian and Greek colonies in Crimea and Caucasians in Caucasus.

The name of Tatars, or Tartars, given to the invaders, was afterwards extended so as to include different stems of the same Turkic branch in Siberia, 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 last name has almost disappeared from geographical literature, but the name Tatars, in the above limited sense, remains in full use.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

The present Tatar inhabitants of Eurasia form three large groups:

those of European Russia and Poland,
those of Caucasus,
and those of Siberia.

European Tatars

The discrimination of the separate stems included under the name is still far from completion. The following subdivisions, however, may be regarded as established:

Kazan (Qazan) Tatars

The Kazan (Qazan) Tatars are descendants of the Kipchaks settled on the Volga in the 13th century, where they mingled with survivors of the old Bulgarians and partly with Finnish stems. Note that the most of the population of Volga Bulgaria survived: they hadn't kept their language, but we can say that Kazan Tatars are Bulgars because they did keep their old culture and religion - Islam. (The Bulgars were converted to Islam in 922 by Ahmad ibn Fadlan).

They number about half a million in the government of Kazan (the capital of Tatarstan, Kazan Tatars' historical motherland), about 100,000 in each of the governments of Ufa, 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 have migrated to Ryazan, or have been settled as prisoners in the l6th and 17th centuries in Lithuania (Vilnius, Grodno and Podolia); and there are some 2000 in St. Petersburg, where they pursue the callings of coachmen and waiters in restaurants. In Poland they constitute 1% of the population of the district of Plock.

The Kazan Tatars speak a pure Turkic dialect (with a big complement of European and Arabic words); they are middle-sized, broad-shouldered and strong, and mostly have black eyes, a straight nose and salient cheek bones. Kazan Tatars mostly have got European faces (they have got not only Turkic and Finno-Ugric ancestors: their ancestors are Scythians and Slavics too). They practice Islam; polygamy was practised only by the wealthier classes and was a waning institution. Excellent agriculturists and gardeners, very laborious, and having a good reputation for honesty, they live on the best terms with their Russian peasant neighbours. The Bashkirs who live between the Kama, Ural and Volga are possibly of Finno-Ugric origin, but now speak a language same with Tatar and have converted to Islam.

Kazan Tatars converted to Islam the most of Turkic tribes lived in nowdays Russia and Kazakhstan in 11-16 centuries.

Kazan Tatars' language became literacy Tatar language since 15 century (iske tatar tele), becose it is understandeble by all groups of European Tatars also as by Chuvashs and Bashkirs. Old literasy language included a lot of Arabic and Persian words. Nowday literasy language includs European and Russian words instead of Arabic.

Nomber of Kazan Tatars is nearly 6 millions. Kazan Tatars live all over the world, like Russians.

Kazan Tatars live in Middle Asia, Sibiria and Caucas too, but they dont exist to nomber of local Tatar tribes. They often speak Russian or English if they live in none-Tatar cities (not in Tatarstan cities - such as Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, cities of Ural and West Sibiria)

Kräşens

Christianizated (16th century) part of Kazan Tatars. Some scintists appologise, that Kräşens were converted to Christ by Armenians in 6th cencury, when their ancestors, Suwars lived at Caucas. Suwars, also like other tribes (which became Muslim later) became Volga Bulgars, Balkars and nowdays Chuvashs (Christian people) and Kazan Tatars (mostly Muslims).

Kräşens lives all over the Tatarstan.

Noghaybaqs

Tatar people, which became Cossacs and Christians. They lives in Ural, at the place where were Russian border with Kazakhstan in 17th-18th cencury.

Kazan Tatar language dialects

All Kazan Tatars understand themself.

Mishärs

Mishärs are the group of Russian Tatars, which speak a dialect of Kazan Tatar language. They are descendants of Kipchaks to Middle Oka of Meschiora. They was mixed with Meschiora Finnish tribe and Russians. Nowdays they lives in Tambov, Penza oblast of Russia and Mordovia.

Astrakhan Tatars

The Astrakhan Tatars number about 10,000 and are, with the Mongol Kalmucks, 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.

Astrakhan (Ästerxan) Tatars speak Kazan Tatar language. Their ancestors are Khazars, Kipchaks and some Volga Bulgars. (Volga Bulgars had a trade colonies in the Astrakhan and Volgograd oblsts of Russia.)

Crimean Tatars

The Crimean Tatars occupied the Crimea in the 13th century, and they have preserved the name of their leader, Nogai. During the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries they constituted a rich empire, which prospered until it fell under Turkic rule, when it had to suffer much from the wars fought between Turkey and Russia for the possession of the peninsula. The war of 1853 and the laws of 1860-63 and 1874 caused an exodus of the Crimean Tatars; they abandoned their admirably irrigated fields and gardens and moved to Turkey.

Those of the south coast, mixed with Greeks and Italians, were well known for their skill in gardening, their honesty and their laborious 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 from Turks and Mongols.

During World War II, the entire Tatar population in Crimea fell victims to Stalin's oppressive policies. In 1944 they were unjustly 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. Although a 1967 Soviet decree removed the charges against Crimean Tatars, the Soviet government did nothing to facilitate their resettlement in Crimea and to make reparations for lost lives and confiscated property. Today more than 250,000 Crimean Tatars are back in their homeland, struggling to reestablish their lives and reclaim their national and cultural rights against many social and economic obstacles.

Tatars of Caucasia

These are Tatars who inhabit the upper Kuban, the steppes of the lower Kuma and the Kura, and the Araks, number about 1,350,000 (19th century).

This nomber incldes nomber of Kazan Tatar oilers, which came to Caucas from Middle Volga in the end of 19th century.

Nogais on the Kuma

The Nogais on the Kuma show traces of an intimate mixture with Kalmucks. They are nomads, supporting themselves by cattle-breeding and fishing; few are agriculturists.

Karachays

The Karachais who number 18,500 in the upper valleys about Elburz live by agriculture.

Mountain Tatars

The mountain Tatars number about 850,000, and they are divided into many tribes and of an origin still undetermined, are scattered throughout the provinces of Baky, Erivan, Tiflis, Kutaisi, Daghestan, and partly also of Datum.

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. 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 with their Russian neighbours.

Somtimes this peoples are not Turkic and their name is very big mistake of Russian scientists. For examle, in 19 century Chechens were called Tatars by Russians very often.

Siberian Tatars

The Siberian Tatars are estimated (1895) at 80,000 of Turkic stock and about 40,000 of mixed Finnic stock. They occupy three distinct regions-a strip running west to east from Tobolsk to Tomsk, the Altai and its spurs, and South Yeniseisk. They originated in the agglomerations of Turkic stems which in the region north of the Altai 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

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.

Cholym Tatars

The Cholym or Chulym Tatars on the Cholym and both the rivers Yus 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.

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 Castren considers as partly of Ostiak and partly Samoyedic origin) and Beltirs — also of Finnish 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.

Northern Altai Tatars

The Tatars of the northern slopes of the Altai (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 live partly also on pine nuts and honey collected in the forests. Their dress is that of their former rulers, the Kalmucks, and their language contains many Mongol words.

Altaians

The Altai Tatars, or Altaians, comprise

the Mountain Kalmucks (12,000), to whom this name has been given by mistake, and who have nothing in common with the Kalmucks except their dress and mode of life, while they speak a Turkic dialect, and
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.

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 Mongol or Finnish blood in Siberia. It is used at present in two senses:

Quite loosely to designate any of the Ural-Altaic tribes, except perhaps Osmanlis, Finns and Magyars, to whom it is not generally applied. 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 Chuvashs, Maris and Russians than with Bashkirs and other Turkic peoples. They are, also like Chuvashs remants of Volga Bulgars. Volga Bulgars was a mixed people, which included Turkic, Magyar and Scythian blood. (In Turkic bolğar means mixed). After caming to Midddle Volga Bulgars mixed with Finnish tribes. At the Golden Horde period it Bulgars was mixed with Slavics, Greeks, Mongols. So there are no another 'Tatars' like Kazan tatars which have got so many ancestors.

Authorities

The literature of the subject is very extensive, and 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 Ural-Altaians, 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 Altai, 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-Altaiques, 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

The Tatars form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China.