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| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Russia: 5,500,000
| |
| Languages | |
| Tatar, Russian, many others in diaspora | |
| Religion | |
| Sunni Islam, Atheism, Orthodox Christianity |
Volga Tatars are a group of Turkic people,, most of whom occupy the central portion of the Ural Mountains.
Volga Tatar subgroups
Kazan (Qazan) Tatars
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The majority of Volga Tatars are Kazan (Qazan) Tatars. They are the majority of the population of Tatarstan, one of the constituent republics of Russia.
During the 11th-16th centuries, numerous Turkic tribes lived in what is now Russia and Kazakhstan. The present territory of Tatarstan was inhabited by the Volga Bulgars, a people with uncertain origins - it is disputed that the Volga Tatars are Turkic, since they are mostly descended from the Bulgars, whose origin is strongly disputed - there is strong evidence that the Bulgars were not Turkic, but were Iranic, meaning then that the Volga Tatars are not really Turkic (this combined with the fact that many scholars also think that the Volga Tatars are also descended from the Mari people, who were not Turkic). The Bulgars settled on the Volga River 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 of Europe from 1241, Volga Bulgaria was defeated, ruined, and incorporated into the Golden Horde.
Few of the population survived, nearly all of them moved to northern territories, but there was also some degree of mixing between it and the Kipchak Tatars of the Horde during the ensuing period. The group as a whole accepted the language of the Kipchaks and the ethnonym "Tatars" (although the name Bulgars persisted in some places), while the invaders eventually converted to Islam. Two centuries later, as the Horde disintegrated, the area became the territory of the Kazan khanate, which was ultimately conquered by Russia in 1552. There is some debate among scholars as to the extent of that mixing and the share of each group as progenitors of the modern Kazan Tatars. It is widely 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 did not keep their language and their name, their old culture and religion 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 people even advocate the change of the ethnonym from "Tatars" to "Bulgars" - a movement known as Bulgarism.
Noqrat Tatars
Tatars live in Russia's Kirov Oblast and Tatarstan. Their dialect have many Kozla Mari words and they have admixture of Finno Ugrian Maris. Their number in 2002 was around 5.000 people.
Perm (Ostyak) Tatars
Kazan Tatars live in Russia's Perm Krai. Some also comprise an admixture of Komi Permyaks. Some Tatar scholars (as Zakiev) name them Ostyak Tatars. Their number is (2002) c.200.000 people.
Keräşen Tatars
Main article: Keräşen TatarsMany 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 Chuvash and Tatars. 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 Tatars and Keräşen Tatars.
Some Turkic (Kuman) tribes in Golden Horde were converted to Christianity in the 13th and 14th centuries (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 article: NağaybäkThe Nağaybäks are Tatars who became Cossacks (border keepers) and are 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.
Population figures
In the 1910s, they numbered about half a million in the area of Kazan. Some 15,000 belonging to the same stem had either migrated to Ryazan in the center of Russia (what is now European Russia) or had been settled as prisoners during the 16th and 17th centuries in Lithuania (Vilnius, Grodno, and Podolia). Some 2,000 resided in St. Petersburg, where they were mostly employed as coachmen and waiters in restaurants.
Volga-Ural 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 number of Kazan Volga-Ural Tatars live in Siberia, Central Asia, 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).
See also: Tatar languageVolga Tatar diaspora
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 the Urals, 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, and others
- Central Asia (since 19th century) (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan; for Xinjiang see Chinese Tatars) – 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
- "National Composition of Population for Regions of the Russian Federation" (XLS). 2002 Russian All-Population Census. 2002. Retrieved 2010-08-15.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - Encyclopaedic ethnography of Middle-East and Central Asia: A-I, Vol.1, Ed. R. Khanam, (Global Vision Publishing House, 2005), 839; "The Volga Tatars are the westernmost of all Turkic ethnic groups...".
- Encyclopedia of European peoples, Vol.1, Ed. Carl Waldman, Catherine Mason, (Infobase Publishing, 2006), 795.
- http://sitemaker.umich.edu/mladjov/files/bulgarian_rulers.pdf
- "Ethnological traits of the ancient Iranian culture in modern-day Bulgarian culture". Samoistina.at.ua. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
- M3 Web - http://m3web.bg (2010-06-16). "Bulgarian Expedition Travels to Iran in Search of Roots: Bulgarian Expedition Travels to Iran in Search of Roots - Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency". Novinite.com. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
{{cite web}}: External link in|author= - "DNA Analysis Reveals Pamir Origin of Bulgarians". TheArchaeologicalBox.com. 2010-06-12. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
- "(published by Sofia News Agency, novinite.com)". Sofia Morning News. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
- "Old Bulgar words - A-V". Groznijat.tripod.com. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
- "Bulgaria". State.gov. 2010-09-20. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
- Brockhaus Conversations-Lexikon Bd. 7. Amsterdam 1809, S. 161-162
- Pierer's Universal-Lexikon, Band 2. Altenburg 1857, S. 230
- Dobrev, Petar. Unknown Ancient Bulgaria. Sofia: Ivan Vazov Publishers, 2001. 158 pp. (in Bulgarian) ISBN 9546041211
- Rorlich, A. The origins of the Volga Tatars. (Stanford University, 1986)
- Great Soviet Encyclopedia, article on Tatarstan.
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)
