What comes to your mind when it comes to the Tatars? There emerges the image of the Kul Sharif Mosque, the smell of etschpotschmak and manti, the desire to walk around the Old Tatar Quarter and visit a real Tatar village. However, we can assure you that it is wrong to believe that the Republic of Tatarstan is the only place where the Tatars live.
History and destiny have scattered the Tatar people around the world making the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, and even China or Australia a homeland for the Turkic ethnos. Today we would like to tell you about the life of the Tatars in Poland.
At various times between 4000 and 5000 Tatars lived in Poland. Today there are 5 000 Polish-Lithuanian Tatars in Poland (another 4 000 in Lithuania and 10 000 in Belarus). The most massive place of residence for Polish Tatars is Bialystok, a city near the Belarusian border. There is a very active Tatar diaspora is in Gdansk, where the Tatar Union was established. The Tatars have also spread out in Warsaw. And it was the Tatars who brought Islam here.
How did the Tatars find themselves in Poland?
According to the legend, King Jan III Sobiesky was so delighted with a Tatar cavalry captain’s service that he gave him as much land as he could survey on horseback in one day. This is how the Tatars settled down in Poland, in its Eastern province of Podlasie. The so-called Tatar trail is a circle of cities and villages – Bialystok, Sokolka, Bohoniki, Krynki, Kruszyniany – with a total length of 150 km.
The first Tatars found themselves in the territory of Poland in the XIV century, when they joined the military forces first of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, later the Commonwealth of Poland. Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas offered the Tatar people some land and refuge in appreciation for their loyal and selfless service during the war against the Teutonic Knights. Among those who responded to Vytautas’s offer there were mostly political refugees from the Golden Horde and the Crimean Khanate. Their military skills were in demand in the Commonwealth of Poland during the difficult and turbulent XV century. The Tatar trail can be also easily found at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.
Several decades later, the Tatars received their nobility, coat of arms and land in reward for fighting alongside the Polish army. King Jan III Sobiesky gave the Podlasie lands to the Tatars. It allowed him to avoid deplorable consequences of the late XVII century, which broke out after the Polish gentry questioned the Tatars’ right to nobility and stopped paying emoluments to Tatar soldiers. As a result, the Tatars decided to settle down on the border with Belarus and established the Centre of Muslim Culture in 1925 - the Muslim Religious Union, which is still active today and is located in the city of Bialystok.
It is noteworthy that Polish Tatars had a number of privileges over the other population since their first resettlement. For instance, the principle of freedom of religion (Islam in this case) applied to them – they could build mosques and perform funeral rites in accordance with the Muslim canons at specially fenced Tatar cemeteries. This attitude was the result of the ruling royal dynasty’s gratitude for the loyal military service.
Until the 70-80s of the XX century, the Tatars were the only Muslim people living in Christian Poland. Some of them were soldiers, while the others were traders and farmers. Unfortunately, the language began to disappear, but nevertheless Islam remained the basis of Polish Tatars’ way of life, regardless of the country’s environment and political situation.
The proof of this is the two Tatar villages that have survived near the Belarusian border, where there are two oldest Tatar mosques in Poland. These are the village of Kruszyniany, founded in 1679, and the village of Bohoniki, founded in 1697. These very lands were given to the Tatar people by Jan III Sobiesky.
“Tatarhood” and “Polishness”
As far as the distinctive features of the Tatar-speaking population of Poland are concerned, researchers distinguish three features.
Firstly, the Tatars remained the only Muslim community in Poland for a long time, and it is mostly thanks to the religion that they managed to preserve their own culture and identity.
Secondly, there is the phenomenon of “tatarhood”. By this term, scientists mean that the Tatars practiced endogamy (marriages within the community) as an important tradition, had certain features of their appearance.
The third and final feature of the Lipka Tatar is their polishness. Due to the fact that the Tatar people have lived in Poland for 600 years, Polish has become their native language. They identify with Polish history and have created their own military mythology about the participation of Tatar soldiers in the most important events in Polish history. They call themselves Polish Tatars and even Poles of Tatar origin.
Nowadays, more than half of present-day Polish Tatars live in the area of Bialystok; the others are spread out in many directions, such as Tricity (Gdansk, Gdynia, Sopot), Mazury and even Western Poland (Gorzow Wielkopolski). The only places where one can see Tatar culture and small settlements of the Tatars are the two small villages practically on the border with Belarus – Bohoniki and Kruszyniany. And although their population is gradually decreasing, this is where the Tatars come together during the big Muslim holidays of Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr.
If we are talking about the Tatars, we should also mention mosques. Today, of a total of five mosques operating in Poland, two are in the Tatar enclave of Eastern Poland – in the village of Bohoniki and in the village of Kruszyniany. The oldest mosque is in Kruszyniany. There is no exact date of construction, but it is known that the first documents that registered its existence date back to the early XVIII century. The mosque has a rectangular shape (10x13m). There are two towers on its front and there is a small one on the roof. The wooden roof is of green color. There are two prayer rooms inside – one is for men, another one is for women. The mosque is open for visitors.
The mosque in Bohoniki is smaller, but it more resembles traditional mosques. Instead of two towers, it has a single tower with an onion-shaped dome, finished with an Islamic crescent. The local community built the mosque in 1873, but during the World War II, the mosque was devastated: German army turned it into a field hospital. After the war, the Tatar community managed to recreate the building in its original form.
There is also a Muslim Tatar cemetery in Poland. Each grave is composed of two stones – the bigger one is at head level, the smaller one is at feet. Both point to Mecca, so that souls of deceased know where to go after they free of their bodies.
Ilmira Gafiyatullina