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'Volga Tatars' are a Turkic people who live in the central and Eastern European parts of Russia. Today, the term Tatars is usually used to describe the Volga Tatars only. During the 2002 census, the Volga Tatars were officially divided into common Tatars, Astrakhan Tatars, and Keräşen Tatars. Other ethnic groups, such as Crimean Tatars and Chulyms, were not officially recognized as part of this group, and thus were counted separately.

Contents

Kazan (Qazan) Tatars

Noqrat Tatars

Perm Tatars

Keräşen Tatars

Nağaybäks

Tiptär Tatars

Kazan Tatar language dialects

Mişär Tatars

Qasím Tatars

Astrakhan Tatars

Volga Tatars in the world

See also

References

Kazan (Qazan) Tatars

The majority of Volga Tatars are Kazan (Qazan) Tatars. They are the main, indigenous population of Tatarstan, one of the constituent republics of Russia.
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 (considered by most to have been Turkic), who settled on the Volga in the 8th century and converted to Islam in 922 during the missionary work of Ahmad ibn Fadlan. On the Volga, the Bulgars mingled with Scythian and Finno-Ugric speaking peoples. After the Mongol invasion, Bulgaria was defeated, ruined and incorporated in the Golden Horde. Much of the population survived, and there was a certain degree of mixing between it and the Kipchak Tatars of the Horde during the ensuing period. The group as a whole accepted the ethnonym "Tatars" (although the name Bulgars persisted in some places) and the language of the Kipchaks; on the other hand, the invaders eventually converted to Islam. As the Horde desintegrated in the 15the century, the area became the territory of the Kazan khanate, which was ultimately conquered by Russia in the 16th century.
There is some debate among scholars about the extent of that mixing and the "share" of each group as progenitors of the modern Kazan Tatars. It is relatively accepted that demographically, most of the population was directly descended from the Bulgars. Nevertheless, some emphasize the contribution of the Kipchaks on the basis of the ethnonym and the language, and consider that the modern Tatar ethnogenesis was only completed upon their arrival. Others prefer to stress the Bulgar heritage, sometimes to degree of equating modern Kazan Tatars with Bulgars. They argue that although the Volga Bulgars had not kept their language and their name, their old culture and religion - Islam - have been preserved. According to scholars who espouse this view, there was very little mixing with Mongol and Turkic aliens after the conquest of Volga Bulgaria, especially in the northern regions that ultimately became Tatarstan. Some voices even advocate the change of the ethnonym from "Tatars" to "Bulgars" - a movement known as Bulgarism. ^{[1] [2]}
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 during 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 one percent of the population in the district of Płock.
The Kazan Tatars speak a Turkic dialect (with a sizable complement of Russian and Arabic words—see Tatar language). Their general physique has been described as middle-sized and broad-shouldered. The majority have brown and green eyes, a straight nose and salient cheek bones[1]. Because their ancestors include not only Turkic peoples, but Iranian peoples and Finno-Ugric as well, many Kazan Tatars tend to have European faces. The population is not homogeneous: around 33.5% belong to Southern European subtypes, 27.5% to Northern European , 24.5% to Finno-Ugric and 14.5% to Southern Siberian.[2]. Most Kazan Tatars practice Sunni Islam.
Before 1917, only the wealthier classes practiced polygamy and was a declining institution. The Bashkirs, who live between the Kama, Ural, and Volga, speak the Bashkir language, which is similar to Tatar, and are adherents of 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 language in the 15th century (iske tatar tele). The old literary language included many Arabic and Persian words. Nowadays, the literary language substitutes European and Russian words for Arabic ones.
Kazan Tatars number nearly 7 million, mostly in Russia and the republics of the former Soviet Union. While the bulk of the population is 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, 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 resettled to European countries later. Some 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 also comprise an admixture of Komi blood.

Keräşen Tatars

Many Kazan Tatars were forcibly Christianized by Ivan the Terrible during the 16th century, and later, during 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 (who are mostly Christian) and Kazan Tatars (mostly Muslims).
Keräşen Tatars live all over Tatarstan. Now they tend to be assimilated among Russians, Chuvash, and Tatars with Sunni Muslim self-identification. Eighty years of atheistic Soviet rule made Tatars of both faiths not as religious as they once were. Russian names are largely the only remaining difference between the Tatars and Keräşen Tatars.
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

Main articles: Nağaybäk

The Nağaybäks are Tatars who became Cossacks (border keepers), generally Russian Orthodox, they live in the Ural mountains; the Russian border with Kazakhstan during the 17th and 18th centuries.
The biggest Nağaybäk village is Parizh, Russia, named after French capital Paris; due to 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.

Kazan Tatar language dialects

There are 3 dialects: Eastern, Central, Western.
The Western dialect (Misher) is spoken mostly by the 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 believed to be 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 for the Kazan Tatar Language. The Middle dialect also has subdivisions.

Mişär Tatars

Mişär or Misha(e)r Tatars are a group of Volga Tatars who origniated brobaly from Burtas and another people, populated Mishar Yurt (Kipchaks in the Middle Oka River area and Meschiora, mixed with the local Finno-Ugric tribes. They speak a Western dialect of the Tatar language. Oruginally they lived in Tambov, Penza, Ryazan oblasts of Russia, and in Mordovia, some Western districts of Tatarstan, but later, after the fall of Kazan some of them resettled to the East, ot the Southern Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, where they are known as ''Meshcheryaks''.

Qasím Tatars

The Western Tatars' capital is the town of Qasím (Kasimov (in Russian transcription) in Ryazan Oblast with a Tatar population of approximately 500. (See Qasim Khanate)

Astrakhan Tatars

Astrakhan Tatars (nearly 70,000) are a group of Tatars descendant of Astrakhan Khanate's agricultural population, living mostly in Astrakhan Oblast. During the 2000 census of Russia, most of Astrakhan Tatars identified themselves as common Tatars and few determined themselves to be 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, whereas 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 (that is, 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—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

★ Tatar language

★ Tatar alphabet

★ Tatarstan

★ Volga Bulgaria

★ Finnish Tatars

★ Chinese Tatars

★ Bulgars

References

1. Rorlich, A. The origins of the Volga Tatars. (Stanford University, 1986)
2. Great Soviet Encyclopedia, article on ''Tatarstan''.


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