Lithuania

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Islamas Lietuvoje; Musulmonai Lietuvoje; Lietuvos totoriai; Islam in Lithuania; Muslims in Lithuania; Lithuanian Tatars; Muftiate.

ENIn the fourteenth century, a diaspora of Tatars began to take shape on the territory of what was then the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It consisted of Turkicspeaking Kipchak immigrants from the Golden Horde (later the Great Horde and the khanates of Kazan and Crimea). They were driven to the grand duchy by political upheavals that had engulfed the former Mongol empire founded by Chingiz Khan, intense fighting for power and the search for allies. The formation of the diaspora and its development, especially the beginning of this process, are shrouded in legend, although more in-depth research allows us to discern periods of Tatar immigration and settlement in the Grand Duchy. Tatars did not leave any visible traces even when they took part in the military expedition of Gediminas (1275-1341), the Grand Duke of Lithuania, against the crusaders. It is believed that Tatars were attracted to the grand duchy first of all through the Eastern politics of Grand Duke Vytautas (1350-1430); military support was given by him to Togtamysh Khan (died 1405) of the White Horde and his progeny, who were attempting to regain the lost throne. According to an account written by the chronicler Janusz Długosz 80 years after the purported events, Vytautas should have brought back with him Tatars and another ethno-confessional group, Karaims, during his military expeditions to the Don Steppes and Crimea in 1397 or 1398. In any case, the arrival of Tatars in the grand duchy and the formation of their settlements, first of all next to the main centres in the state, namely, Vilnius, Grodno, Krėva, Lida, Novgorodek and Trakai, is associated with the name of Vytautas. Such arrangement of settlements allowed the Lithuanian ruler to have Tatars at hand wherever he was at the moment.It was these colonies that made up the core of the Tatar settlements in Lithuania. With time, their net would grow or shrink, depending upon economical, political and social factors. Toponyms with Kipchak elements still remind us where the first Tatar settlements were located. Research conducted by the Polish Orientalist scholar Hemyk Jankowski shows that of the 26 places with names with Turkic roots found by him, 18 are around Vilnius and Trakai, and that is indeed there where the early Tatar settlements are mentioned in historical sources. In the sixteenth century, the net of settlements expanded to the territory of contemporary Belarus. Immigrants from the Great Horde and the khanates of Kazan and Crimea would settle next in Ashmiany, Lida, Minsk and Slonim. It must have been then that Tatar prisoners of war, taken captive during military encounters with armies of khans, settled there. Such prisoners would often be bought out of captivity by their relatives already residing in Lithuania, although the social status of former prisoners of war is not known.Some Tatar settlements were established on the private lands of the Lithuanian nobility, for instance, in the duchies of Kletsk, Nesvizh and Biržai, all of which belonged to the noble Radvilos family. By the seventeenth century, Tatar immigration died out, and due to wars with the Duchy of Moscow and the Kingdom of Sweden, the net of their settlements thinned. At the end of that century, the geography of Tatar settements changed. King John 11 Casimir Vasa allocated several villages for Tatars in Alytus District, and King Jan Sobieski allowed Tatars to settle in the royal districts of Brasta, Grodno and Kobrin. Over time, some of the Tatars moved to towns where as a rule they formed separate colonies or lived on certain streets called “Tatar ends” Such colonies or streets were present in Vilnius (in the suburb of Lukiškės), Kaunas, Novgorodek, Slonim and elsewhere. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with more and more Tatars moving to towns, smaller Tatar settlements disappeared. In the territory of contemporary Lithuania, there are several remaining Tatar settlements believed to have been formed over a long period of time between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Those are the villages of Keturiasdešimt totorių and Nemėžis in the vicinity of Vilnius and the village of Raižiai in Alytus District. [Extract, p. 21-22]

• Politikos mokslai / Political sciences
• Istorija / History