Volga Tatars
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Volga Tatars live in the central and Eastern European parts of Russia. In today's Russia, the term Tatars is used to describe Volga Tatars only. During the 2002 census, Tatars, or Volga Tatars were officially divided into common Tatars, Astrakhan Tatars, and 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.Through the 11th to 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 also 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 of Mongol and Turkic aliens after the conquest of Volga Bulgaria, particularly in the northern regions ( Tatarstan today).
In some places the Kazan Tatars called themselves Volga Bulgars. Even today, some Tatars (see Bulgarism) do not recognize the word Tatar as a name for their nation. Kazan Tatars form the ethnic majority of nearly 2 million in Tatarstan, one of the constituent republics of Russia.
In the 1910s they numbered about half a million in the government of Kazan (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 black eyes, a straight nose and salient cheek bones.[[Citing sources citation needed]] Because their ancestors number not only Turkic peoples, but Slavs as well, many Kazan Tatars tend to have Euroasian faces. Kazan Tatars practice Sunni Islam.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
Before 1917, 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 (iske tatar tele). 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, Ufa, 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 resetled to European countries later. Some of them speak Turkish at home.
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 blood.Keräşen Tatars
Some Kazan Tatars were forcibly Christianized by Ivan the Terrible during the 16th century, and later, in 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. So, 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–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). Russian Orthodox. 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 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
(or Mishers)Mişär Tatars 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
Western Tatars capital is the town of Qasím (Kasimov in Russian transcription) in Ryazan Oblast with Tatar population of 500. See "Qasim Khanate" for their history.Astrakhan Tatars
Astrakhan Tatars (nearly 70,000) is a group of Tatars, descanders of Astrakhan Khanate's agricultural population, living mostly in Astrakhan Oblast. During the cenus 2000 of Russia, most of Astrakhan Tatars determined themselves as common Tatars and few determined themselves as Astrakhan Tatars. A large number of common Volga Tatars (Kazan Tatars) are living in Astrakhan Oblast and differences between them tend to disappear.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.
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—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 – 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 – Russian military forces officers and soldiers.
- 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)
See also
References
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