Tatars

Tatars (Tatar: Tatarlar/????????) is a collective name applied to the Turkic people of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The name is derived from Ta-ta or Dada, a Mongolian tribe that inhabited present Northeast Mongolia in the 5th cent A.D. First used to describe the peoples that overran parts of Asia and Europe under Mongol leadership in the 13th century A.D., it was later extended to include almost any Asian nomadic invader, whether from Mongolia or the fringes of Western Asia. Before the 1920s Russians used the name Tatar to designate a numerous peoples from the Azerbaijani Turks to tribes of the Siberia.

Related Topics:
Tatar - Turkic people - Eastern Europe - Central Asia - 1920s - Azerbaijani Turks - Siberia

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Most current day Tatars live in the central and southern parts of Russia, Ukraine, Poland and in Bulgaria, China, Kazakhstan, Romania, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. They collectively numbered more than 8 million in the late 20th century. Most Tatars are Sunni Muslims.

Related Topics:
Russia - Ukraine - Poland - Bulgaria - China - Kazakhstan - Romania - Turkey - Uzbekistan - 20th century - Sunni - Muslim

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The majority—in European Russia—are descendants of the Volga Bulgars who were conquered by the Mongol invasion of the 13th century and kept the name of their conquerors. Tatars of Siberia are survivors of the once much more numerous Turkic-Mongoloid population of the Ural-Altaic region, mixed to some extent with Finnish and Nenets (Samoyed) stems, as well as with Mongols.

Related Topics:
Russia - Volga Bulgars - Mongol invasion - 13th century - Siberia - Ural - Altai - Finn - Nenets

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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.

Related Topics:
Mongols - 5th century - Gobi - 9th century - Khitans - Genghis Khan - Batu Khan - Russia

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On the Volga they mingled with remnants of the old Bulgarian empire (Volga Bulgaria), and elsewhere with Finnish stems, as well as with remnants of the ancient Italian and Greek colonies in the Crimea and Caucasians in the Caucasus.

Related Topics:
Volga - Volga Bulgaria - Greek colonies - Crimea - Caucasus

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The name of Tatars, or Tartars, given to the invaders, was afterwards extended so as to include different stems of the same Turkic-Mongoloid 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.

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The present Tatar inhabitants of Eurasia form three large groups:

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• those of Crimea, Bulgaria, European Russia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Turkey.
• those of the Caucasus,
• and those of Siberia.

Due to the vast movements and intermingling of peoples along with the very loose utilization of the name Tatar, current day Tatars include ethnic groups that look Mongoloid at one end and Caucasoid at the other. As to the original Tatars from Mongolia, they most likely shared characteristics with the Mongol invaders from Central Asia.

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Tatars: Russian Tatars ►