Chinese Tatars People

Tatars , sometimes spelled Tartar, are a -speaking ethnic group or multiple ethnic groups. For more about the etymology and usage of the name, see .

Most current day Tatars live all over Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, Lithuania, Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Kazakhstan, Romania, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. They collectively numbered more than 10 million in the late 20th century.

The original Ta-ta inhabited the north-eastern Gobi in the 5th century and, after subjugation in the 9th century by the , migrated southward. In the 12th century, they were subjugated by the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan. Under the leadership of his grandson Batu Khan, they moved westwards, driving with them many stems of the ans towards the plains of Russia.

In Europe, they were assimilated by the local Turkic populations or their name spread to the conquered peoples: Kipchaks, Volga Bulgars, Alans, Kimaks and others; and elsewhere with speaking peoples, as well as with remnants of the ancient Greek colonies in the Crimea and Caucasians in the Caucasus.

Tatars of Siberia are survivors of the population of the - region, mixed to some extent with the speakers of Uralic languages, as well as with Mongols. Later, each group adopted Turkic languages and many adopted Islam. At the beginning of 20th century, most of those groups, except the Volga Tatars and Crimean Tatars adopted their own ethnic names and now are not referred to as Tatars, being ''Tatars'' or ''Tartars'' only in historical context. Now the name ''Tatars'' is generally applied to two ethnic groups: Volga Tatars and Crimean Tatars. However, some indigenous peoples of Siberia are also traditionally named ''Tatars'', such as Chulym Tatars.

The present Tatar inhabitants of Eurasia form three large groups:
* those of Crimea, Bulgaria, European Russia and Western Siberia, Lithuania, Moldova, Belarus, Poland, Romania and Turkey.
* those of the Caucasus ,
* and those of Eastern Siberia .

Due to the vast movements and intermingling of peoples along with the very loose utilization of the name Tatar, current day Tatars comprise a spectrum of physical appearance. As to the original Tatars from Mongolia, they most likely shared characteristics with the Turkic invaders from Central Asia.

Name

The name "Tatar" initially appeared amongst the nomadic Turkic peoples of northeastern Mongolia in the region around Lake Baikal in the beginning of the 5th century. the Greek name for the underworld; this belief led to the frequent spelling and pronunciation of the name with an extra "r", to conform with the classical Greek word. However, this provenance is unlikely since the Tatars use this name for themselves, spelling it without ''r'' .

Historically, the term Tatar has been ambiguously used by Europeans to refer to many different peoples of and . For example, the Russians referred to various peoples they came into contact with on the Eurasian steppes as Tatars yet the and generally referred to the Manchu and related peoples as Tatars when they first arrived in China. The old language designation is now regarded as , although the meaning is preserved in the name of the Strait of Tartary that separates the island of Sakhalin from mainland Asia. Today, the word is generally confined to meaning one of the following:

Historical meaning of ''Tatars''

* Ta-ta Mongols
* multi-ethnical population of Mongol Empire
* of late Golden Horde
* Turkic Muslim population and some pagan Turkic and Mongolian peoples in the Russian Empire
* Russian term for some peoples, incorporated into the Muslim nation of Russia in the late 19th century
* Some ethnic groups in the Soviet Union after the policy of Furkinland, such as the Volga Tatars , Crimean Tatars, Chulym Tatars, and groups such as the Lipka Tatars .

Tatars

The discrimination of the separate stems included under the name is still far from complete. The following subdivisions, however, may be regarded as established:

Tatars - ''Tatarlar'' or ''Татарлар''. In modern English only ''Tatar'' is used to refer to Eurasian Tatars; ''Tartar'' has offensive connotations as a confusion with the Tartarus of Greek mythology, due in part to the popular association of the ferocity of the Mongol tribes with the Greek sub-underworld. In Europe the term ''Tartar'' is generally only used in the historical context for ''Mongolian'' people who appeared in the 13th century and assimilated into the local population later.

Volga Tatars

Volga Tatars live in the central and eastern parts of european Russia and in western Siberia. In today's Russia the term Tatars is used to describe Volga Tatars only. During the census of 2002, Tatars, or Volga Tatars, were officially divided into common Tatars, Astrakhan Tatars, Keräşen Tatars, and Siberian Tatars. Other ethnic groups, such as Crimean Tatars and Chulyms, were not officially recognized as a part of the multi-ethnic Tatar group and were counted separately.Anthropologically 38,2% of Volga Tatars belongs to Southern Caucasoid, 22,9% to Lapponoid, 19,5% to Mongoloid and 19,4% to Northern Caucasoid.

Kazan Tatars

During the 11-16th centuries, most tribes lived in what is now Russia and Kazakhstan. The present territory of Tatarstan was inhabited by the 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 , 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" and the language of the Kipchaks; on the other hand, the invaders eventually converted to Islam. As the Horde disintegrated in the 15th century, the area became the territory of the Kazan khanate, which was 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.

In the 1910s they numbered about half a million in the Kazan Governorate , about 400,000 in each of the governments of Ufa, 100,000 in 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 . Some 2000 resided in , where they were mostly employed as coachmen and waiters in restaurants. In Poland they constituted 1% of the population of the district of P&. Later they wer never counted as separate group of the Tatars.

The Kazan Tatars speak a language . They have been described as generally middle-sized, broad-shouldered, and the majority have brown and green eyes, a straight nose and salient cheek bones. Because their ancestors number not only Turkic peoples, but Finno-Ugric and as well, many Kazan Tatars tend to have Caucasoid faces. Around 33.5% belong to Southern Caucasoid, 27.5% to Northern Caucasoid, 24.5% to Lapponoid and 14.5% to Mongoloid . Most Kazan Tatars practice Sunni Islam.

Before 1917 in Russia, polygamy was practised only by the wealthier classes and was a waning institution. The Bashkirs who live between the and 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 Volga Tatars became a literary one in the 15th century . . The old literary language included a lot of Arabic and Persian words. Nowadays the literary language includes European and Russian words instead of Arabic.

Volga Tatars number nearly 8 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 as their first language and other languages in a worldwide diaspora.

A significant number of Tatars emigrated during the Russian Civil War, mostly to Turkey and Harbin, China, but resettled to European countries later. Some of them speak Turkish at home. , there are still 51,000 Tatars living in Xinjiang province .

See also: Tatar language

Noqrat Tatars

Tatars live in Russia's Kirov Oblast.

Perm Tatars

Tatars live in Russia's Perm Krai. Some of them also have an admixture of blood.

Keräşen Tatars

Some Tatars were forcibly Christianized by during the 16th century and later in 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 became Volga Bulgars and later the modern Chuvash and Tatars .

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 ic Soviet rule made Tatars of both confessions not as religious as they were. As such, differences between Tatars and Keräşen Tatars now is only that Keräşens have Russian names.

Some Turkic tribes in Golden Horde were converted to Christianity in the 13th and 14th centuries . 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 and converted to Russian Orthodoxy. 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 . According to some scientists, Tiptärs are part of the Mişärs.

Tatar language dialects

There are 3 dialects: Eastern, Central, Western.

The Western dialect is spoken mostly by Mishärs, the Middle dialect is spoken by Kazan and Astrakhan Tatars, and the Eastern dialect is spoken by some groups of Tatars in western Siberia.

Middle Tatar is the base of literary Tatar Language. The Middle dialect also has subdivisions.

Mişär Tatars

Mişär Tatars are a group of Tatars speaking a dialect of the Tatar language. They are descendants of Kipchaks in the Middle Oka River area and Meschiora where they mixed with the local Finno-Ugric tribes. Nowadays they live in , , , Nizhegorodskaya oblasts of Russia and in Bashkortostan and Mordovia. They lived near and along the Volga River, in Tatarstan.

Qasím Tatars

The Western Tatars have their capital in the town of Qasím in Ryazan Oblast, with a Tatar population of 500. See "Qasim Khanate" for their history.

Astrakhan Tatars

The Astrakhan Tatars are a group of Tatars, descendants of the Astrakhan Khanate's agricultural population, who live mostly in Astrakhan Oblast. For the 2000 Russian census 2000, most Astrakhan Tatars declared themselves simply as Tatars and few declared themselves as Astrakhan Tatars. A large number of Volga Tatars live in Astrakhan Oblast and differences between them have been disappearing.

The Astrakhan Tatars are further divided into the Kundrov Tatars and the Karagash Tatars. The latter are also at times called the Karashi Tatars.

Text from Britannica 1911:
:The Astrakhan Tatars number about 10,000 and are, with the 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.

While Astrakhan Tatar is a mixed dialect, around 43,000 have assimilated to the Middle dialect. Their ancestors are Khazars, Kipchaks and some Volga Bulgars.

The Astrakhan Tatars also assimilated the Agrzhan.

Volga Tatars in the world

Places where Volga Tatars live include:
* and Upper Kama 15th century - colonization, 16th - 17th century - re-settled by Russians, 17th - 19th century - exploring of Ural, working in the plants
* West Siberia : 16th - from Russian repressions after conquering of Khanate of Kazan by Russians, 17th - 19th century - exploring of West Siberia, end of 19th - first half of 20th - industrialization, railways constructing, 1930s - Stalin's repressions, 1970s - 1990s oil workers
* Moscow : Tatar feudals in the service of Russia, tradesmen, since 18th - Saint-Petersburg
* Kazakhstan : 18th – 19th centuries - Russian army officers and soldiers, 1930s – industrialization, since 1950s - settlers on virgin lands - re-emigration in 1990s
* Finland : - 19th - from a group of some 20 villages in the Sergach region on the Volga River. See Finnish Tatars.
* Central Asia - 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 - oil workers , bread tradesmen
* Northern China - railway builders - re-emigrated in 1950s
* East Siberia - resettled farmers , railroad builders , exiled by the Soviet government in 1930s
* Germany and Austria - 1914, 1941 - prisoners of war, 1990s - emigration
* Turkey, Japan, Iran, China, Egypt - emigration
* UK, USA, Australia, Canada, Argentina, Mexico - 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 - Soviet military personnel
* Israel - wives or husbands of Jews

Tatars of East Europe

Crimean Tatars

The Crimean Tatars constituted the Crimean Khanate which was annexed by Russia in 1783. The war of 1853 and the laws of 1860-63 and 1874 caused an exodus of the Crimean Tatars.

Those of the south coast, mixed with Scyth, Greeks and Italians, were well known for their skill in gardening, their honesty, and their work habits, as well as for their fine features. The mountain Tatars closely resemble those of Caucasus, while those of the steppes - the Nogais - are decidedly of a mixed origin with Turks and Mongols.

During World War II, the entire Tatar population in Crimea fell victims to Stalin's oppressive policies. In 1944 they were accused of being Nazi collaborators and deported en masse to Central Asia and other lands of the Soviet Union. Many died of disease and malnutrition. Since the 1980s late, about 250,000 Crimean Tatars have returned to their homeland in the Crimea .

Lithuanian Tatars

After Tokhtamysh was defeated by Tamerlane, some of his clan sought refuge in Grand Duchy of Lithuania. They were given land and nobility in return for military service and were known as Lipka Tatars. They are known to have taken part in the Battle of Grunwald.

Another group appeared in Jagoldai Duchy near modern Kursk in 1437 and disappeared later.

Belarusian Tatars

Islam spread in Belarus from the 14th to the 16th century. The process was encouraged by the Lithuanian princes, who invited Tatar Muslims from the Crimea and the Golden Horde as guards of state borders. Already in the 14th century the Tatars had been offered a settled way of life, state posts and service positions. By the end of the 16th century over 100,000 Tatars settled in Belarus and Lithuania, including those hired to government service, those who moved there voluntarily, prisoners of war, etc.

Tatars in Belarus generally follow Sunni Hanafi Islam. Some groups have accepted Christianity and been assimilated, but most adhere to Muslim religious traditions, which ensures their definite endogamy and preservation of ethnic features. Interethnic marriages with representatives of Belarusian, Polish, Lithuanian, Russian nationalities are not rare, but do not result in total assimilation.

Originating from different ethnic associations, Belarusian Tatars back in ancient days lost their native language and adopted Belarusian, Polish and Russian. However, the liturgy is conducted in the Arabic language, which is known by the clergymen. There are an estimated 20,000 Tatars in Belarus.

Polish Tatars

:''Main articles: Lipka Tatars and Islam in Poland''

From the 13th to 17th centuries various groups of Tatars settled and/or found refuge within the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth.
This was promoted especially by the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, because of their deserved reputation as skilled warriors. The Tatar settlers were all granted with szlachta status, a tradition that was preserved until the end of the Commonwealth in the 18th century. They included the Lipka Tatars as well as Crimean and Tatars , all of which were noticeable in Polish military history, as well as Volga Tatars . They all mostly settled in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, lands that are now in Lithuania and Belarus.

Various estimates of the number of Tatars in the Commonwealth in the 17th century range from 15,000 persons to 60 villages with mosques. Numerous royal privileges, as well as internal autonomy granted by the monarchs allowed the Tatars to preserve their religion, traditions and culture over the centuries. The Tatars were allowed to intermarry with Christians, a thing uncommon in Europe at the time. The May Constitution of 1791 gave the Tatars representation in the Polish Sejm.

Although by the 18th century the Tatars adopted the local language, the Islamic religion and many Tatar traditions were preserved. This led to formation of a distinctive Muslim culture, in which the elements of Muslim orthodoxy mixed with religious tolerance and a relatively liberal society. For instance, the women in Lipka Tatar society traditionally had the same rights and status as men, and could attend non-segregated schools.

About 5,500 Tatars lived within the inter-war boundaries of Poland , and a Tatar cavalry unit had fought for the country's independence. The Tatars had preserved their cultural identity and sustained a number of Tatar organisations, including a Tatar archives, and a museum in Wilno .

The Tatars suffered serious losses during World War II and furthermore, after the border change in 1945 a large part of them found themselves in the Soviet Union. It is estimated that about 3000 Tatars live in present-day Poland, of which about 500 declared Tatar nationality in the 2002 census. There are two Tatar villages in the north-east of present-day Poland, as well as urban Tatar communities in Warsaw, Gdańsk, Bia&, and Gorzów Wielkopolski. Tatars in Poland sometimes have a Muslim surname with a Polish ending: ''Ryzwanowicz, Jakubowicz''.

The Tatars were relatively very noticeable in the Commonwealth military as well as in Polish and Lithuanian political and intellectual life for such a small community. In modern-day Poland, their presence is also widely known, due in part to their noticeable role in the historical novels of Henryk Sienkiewicz, which are universally recognized in Poland. A number of Polish intellectual figures have also been Tatars, e.g. the prominent historian Jerzy Łojek.

A small community of Polish speaking Tatars settled in Brooklyn, New York City in the early 1900s. They established a mosque that is still in use today.

Dobruja Tatars

In Dobruja, Romania, there is today a community of about 25,000 Crimean Tatars, which were colonized there by the Ottoman Empire beginning with the 17'th Century

Caucasian Tatars

These are Tatars who inhabit the upper , the steppes of the lower and the Kura, and the Araks. In the 19th century they numbered about 1,350,000. This number includes a number of Tatar oil workers who came to the Caucasus from the Middle Volga in the end of the 19th century.

Now this term is used to describe Tatars, settled in Caucasus. Other explanations, like followers, can be found only in historical context.

Nogais on the Kuma

The on the show traces of a mixture with Kalmyks. They are nomads, supporting themselves by cattle-breeding and fishing; a few are agriculturists.

Today Nogais is an independent ethnos, living in the North of Dagestan, where they lived after Nogai Horde's defeating in was against Russia and settling Kalmyks in their lands in 17th century. Nogais was replaced to ''Black Lands'' in the North of Daghestan. Another part merged with Kazakhs.

In 16th century Nogais supported Crimean Khanate and Ottoman Empire, but sometimes robbed Crimean, Tatar and Bashkir lands, although their rulers supported them. In 16th-17th century some defensive walls was constructed in modern Tatarstan and Samara Oblast.

One of the Tatar national heroes, S&, was Nogai.

Qundra Tatars

Some groups of Nogais emigrated to Middle Volga, where were assimilated by Volga Tatars .

Karachays

The Karachays who number 18,500 in the upper valleys about Elburz live by agriculture.

Today Karachays are the independent ethnos, one of the main nation in Karachay-Cherkessia.

Siberian Tatars

The Siberian Tatars were estimated at 80,000 of Turkic stock, and about 40,000 had Uralic or Ugric ancestry. They occupy three distinct regions—a strip running west to east from Tobolsk to Tomsk—the and its spurs—and South Yeniseisk. They originated in the agglomerations of Turkic stems that, in the region north of the Altay, reached some degree of culture between the 4th and the 5th centuries, but were subdued and enslaved by the Mongols.

Baraba Tatars

Sometimes Siberian Tatars refers only to Baraba Tatar, as a part of Tatar nation, a Muslim people that speak dialects of Tatar language, but not another.

The Baraba Tatars take their name from one of their stems and number about 50,000 in the government of Tobolsk and about 5000 in Tomsk. After a strenuous resistance to Russian conquest, and much suffering at a later period from Kyrgyz and Kalmyk raids, they now live by agriculture—either in separate villages or along with Russians.

After colonisation of Siberia by Russian and Volga Tatars, Baraba Tatars used to call themselves ''people of Tomsk'', later ''Moslems'', and came to call themselves ''Tatars'' only in 20th century.

Chulym Tatars

The Chulym, or Cholym Tatars live on the , and both of the rivers . They speak a Turkic language with many Mongol and Yakut words and are more like Mongols than . In the 19th century they paid a tribute for 2550 arbaletes, but they now are rapidly becoming fused with Russians.

See: Chulym language

Abakan Tatars

The occupied the steppes on the and in the 17th century, after the withdrawal of the Kyrgyz, and represent a mixture with Kaibals and Beltirs—also of origin. Their language is also mixed. They are known under the name of Sagais, who numbered 11,720 in 1864, and are the purer Turkic stem of the Minusinsk Tatars, Kaibals, and . Formerly shamanists, they now are, nominally at least, adherents of the Russian Orthodox Church and support themselves mostly by cattle-breeding. Agriculture is spreading, but slowly, among them. They still prefer to plunder the stores of bulbs of ''Lilium martagon, Paeonia'', and ''Erythronium dens-canis'' laid up by the steppe mouse . The , of the Sayan mountains , who are mixed with ; the Uryankhes of north-west Mongolia, who are of Turkic origin but follow Buddhism; and the Karagasses, also of Turkic origin and much like the Kyrgyz, but reduced now to a few hundreds, are akin to the above.

Today ''Abakan Tatars'' of ''Kirghiz'' terms are extinct, used own names only.

See more: Khakass, Tuvans,

Northern Altay Tatars

The Tatars of the northern slopes of the are of Finnish origin. They comprise some hundreds of Kumandintses, the Lebed Tatars, the Chernevyie or Black-Forest Tatars and the Shors , descendants of the Kuznetsk or Iron-Smith Tatars. They are chiefly hunters, passionately loving their taiga, or wild forests, and have maintained their shaman religion and tribal organization into suoks. They also live partly on pine nuts and honey collected in the forests. Their traditional dress is that of their former rulers, the Kalmucks, and their language contains many Mongol words.

Altayans

The Altay Tatars, or ''Altayans'', comprise
* the ''Mountain Kalmyks'' , to whom this name has been given by mistake, and who have nothing in common with the Kalmyks except their dress and mode of life. They speak a Turkic dialect.
* the ''Teleutes'', or ''Telenghites'' , a remainder of a formerly numerous and warlike nation, who have migrated from the mountains to the lowlands where they now live along with Russian peasants.

Term ''Tatars'' is extinct for this peoples.

Although Turkestan and Central Asia were formerly known as Independent Tartary, it is not now usual to call the Sarts, Kyrgyz and other inhabitants of those countries Tatars, nor is the name usually given to the Yakuts of Eastern Siberia.

Generic meaning

The name Tatars was originally applied to both the Turkic and Mongol tribes which invaded Europe six centuries ago, and gradually extended to the Turkic tribes mixed with Mongolian or Uralic-speaking peoples in Siberia. It is used at present in two senses:
* Quite loosely, to designate any of the Muslim tribes whose ancestors may have spoken Uralic or Altaic languages. Thus some writers talk of the Manchu Tatars.
* In a more restricted sense, to designate Muslim Turkic-speaking tribes, especially in Russia, who never formed part of the Seljuk or Ottoman Empire, but made independent settlements and remained more or less cut off from the politics and civilization of the rest of the Islamic world.

* Linguistically, Tatars are closely related to the Bashkirs and other Turkic peoples. Tatars are the direct descendants of the Volga Bulgars. Volga Bulgars were a mixed people, whose ancestors may have included speakers of Scythian, Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages. . After coming to the Middle Volga, Bulgars mixed with Finno-Ugric speaking tribes.
* Bashkirs speak a language very similar to Tatar language. Nowadays, Bashkortostan's officials pursue a policy of forced "Bashkirization" of Tatars. However, the number of Tatars in Bashkortostan is almost as high as the number of Bashkirs in their own republic.

Authorities

Bibliographical indexes may be found in the Geographical Dictionary of P. Semenov, appended to the articles devoted respectively to the names given above, as also in the yearly Indexes by M. Mezhov and the Oriental Bibliography of Lucian Scherman. Besides the well-known works of Castren, which are a very rich source of information on the subject, Schiefner , Donner, Ahlqvist and other explorers of the Uralic and Altaic languages and peoples, as also those of the Russian historians , , Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Schapov, and , the following containing valuable information may be mentioned:
* the publications of the Russian Geographical Society and its branches;
* the Russian Etnographicheskiy Sbornik;
* the Izvestia of the Moscow society of the amateurs of natural science;
* the works of the Russian ethnographical congresses;
* Kostrov's researches on the Siberian Tatars in the memoirs of the Siberian branch of the geographical society; 's Reise durch den Altay, Aus Sibirien', "Picturesque Russia" ;
* Semenov's and Potanin's " Supplements " to Ritter's Asien; Harkavi's report to the congress at Kazan;
* Hartakhai's "Hist, of Crimean Tatars", in Vyestnik Evropy, 1866 and 1867;
* "Katchinsk Tatars", in Izvestia Russ. Geogr. Soc., xx., 1884.

Various scattered articles on Tatars will be found in the Revue orientale pour les Etudes Oural-Altaïques, and in the publications of the . See also E. H. Parker, A Thousand Years of the Tartars, 1895 , and Skrine and Ross, Heart of Asia .

See also

*Tatar language
*Tatar alphabet
*Tatarstan
*Volga Bulgaria
*Tartary
*Crimea
*Finnish Tatars
*Lipka Tatars
*Islam in Poland
*List of Tatars
*Steak tartare

References and notes

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