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Post by Jaga on Oct 31, 2008 18:59:22 GMT -7
There is a history of Muslim settlements in Poland but there are also new muslims in Warsaw. It is a tiny community, so it does not endanger Christianity  here is more: Outside Warsaw, Poland boasts two historic mosques from the 17th and 18th century built in the villages of Bohoniki and Kruszyniany, which were settlements of Poland's first Muslims in the 14th century. The Tartars made their home in the Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth and practiced Islam freely in exchange for military service. Their communities once numbered some 17,000 people however, as a result of many Tatar descendants having moved to cities for work, today only a dozen families remain. Some 2,000 Muslim Tatars live in Poland, said Bronislaw Talkowski, who heads a Muslim community organization in Kruszyniany. Although the village is largely Catholic and conservative, Talkowski says there is more tolerance there than in many cosmopolitan cities. "Tatars settled in Kruszyniany at the end of the 17th century -- locals know the Tatars from that time," Talkowski said. "And there's no animosity between Catholics and Muslims like you read about in certain places. That doesn't happen here." But Muslims remain a tiny minority in a country that is 96 percent Catholic and who have rarely lived alongside immigrants. europenews.dk/en/node/15612 |
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Post by pieter on Nov 1, 2008 14:45:58 GMT -7
Polish Tatars
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 (13-14 centuries) as well as Crimean and Nogay Tatars (15th-16th centuries), all of which were noticeable in Polish military history, as well as Volga Tatars (16th-17th centuries). 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 (e.g. the sacrifice of bulls in their mosques during the main religious festivals) 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 (1920-1939), 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 (Vilnius).
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 (rather than Polish) nationality in the 2002 census. There are two Tatar villages (Bohoniki and Kruszyniany) in the north-east of present-day Poland, as well as urban Tatar communities in Warsaw, Gdańsk, Białystok, 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.
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Post by pieter on Nov 1, 2008 14:53:24 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Nov 1, 2008 14:59:21 GMT -7
Lipka Tatars
The Lipka Tatars (also known as Lithuanian Tatars, Belarusian Tatars, Lipkowie or Muślimi) are a group of Tatars living on the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania since the 14th century. They followed Sunni branch of Islam and their origins can be traced back to the descendant states of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan - the White Horde, the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate and Kazan Khanate. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth they initially served as a noble military caste but later they became urban-dwellers known for their crafts, horses and gardening skills. Throughout centuries they resisted assimilation and kept their traditional lifestyle. There are still small groups of Lipka Tatars living in today's Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine and Poland.
Towards the end of the 14th century, these Tatars were granted asylum and given noble status and land in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by Vytautas the Great and settled in the lands of present-day Belarus and Lithuania. From the very beginning of their settlement in Lithuania they were known as the Lipkas. While maintaining their Islamic religion they united their fate with that of the mainly Christian Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. From the Battle of Grunwald onwards the Lipka Tatar light cavalry regiments participated in every significant military campaign.
Origin of the term 'Lipka'
The name Lipka is derived from the old Crimean Tatar name of Lithuania. The record of the name Lipka in Oriental sources permits us to infer an original Libķa/Lipķa, from which the Polish Lipka was formed, with possible contamination with the Polish lipka "small lime-tree"; this etymology was suggested by the Tatar author S. Tuhan-Baranowski. A less frequent Polish form, Łubka, is corroborated in Łubka/Łupka, the Crimean Tatar name of the Lipkas up to the end of the 19th century. The Crimean Tatar term Lipka Tatarłar meaning Lithuanian Tatars, later started to be used by the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars to describe themselves.
In religion and culture the Lipka Tatars differed from most other Islamic communities in respect of the treatment of their women, who always enjoyed a large degree of freedom, even during the years when the Lipkas were in the service of the Ottoman Empire. Co-education of male and female children was the norm, and Lipka women did not wear the veil - except at the marriage ceremony. While nominally Islamic, the customs and religious practices of the Lipka Tatars also accommodated many Christian elements adopted during their 600 years residence in Belarus, Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania while still maintaining the traditions and superstitions from their nomadic Mongol past, such as the sacrifice of bulls in their mosques during the main religious festivals.
The lower and middle Lipka Tatar nobles adopted the Ruthenian language and later the Belarusian language as their mother tongue. However, they used the Arabic alphabet to write in Belarusian until the 1930s. The upper nobility of Lipka Tatars spoke Polish.
Diplomatic correspondence between the Crimean Khanate and Poland from the early 16th century refers to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as the "land of the Poles and the Lipkas". By the 17th century the term Lipka Tatar began to appear in the official documents of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Lipkas in the past
According to some estimates, by 1591 there were about 200,000 Lipka Tatars living in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and about 400 mosques serving them. According to the Risāle-yi Tatar-i Leh (an account of the Lipka Tatars written for Süleyman the Magnificent by an anonymous Polish Muslim during a stay in Istanbul in 1557-8 on his way to Mecca) there were 100 Lipka Tatar settlements with mosques in Poland. The largest communities existed in the cities of Lida, Navahradak and Iwye. There has been a Lipka Tatar settlement in Minsk, today's capital of Belarus, known as Tatarskaya Slabada. Perhaps a more realistic account of the number of Lipka Tatars is given by Ibrahim Pecevi, who cites a statement made by a messenger from the Lipkas to the mufti at Aķkerman, that mentions sixty villages with mosques.
In the year 1672, the Tatar subjects rose up in open rebellion against the Commonwealth. This was the widely remembered Lipka Rebellion. Thanks to the efforts of King Jan III Sobieski, who was held in great esteem by the Tatar soldiers, many of the Lipkas seeking asylum and service in the Turkish army returned to his command and participated in the struggles with the Ottoman Empire up to the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, including the Battle of Vienna (1683) that was to turn the tide of Islamic expansion into Europe and mark the beginning of the end for the Ottoman Empire.
Lipkas today
Today there are about 10,000-15,000 Lipka Tatars in the former areas of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The majority of descendants of Tatar families in Poland can trace their descent from the nobles of the early Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Lipka Tatars had settlements in north-east Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, south-east Latvia and Ukraine. Today most reside in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. Most of the Lipka Tatars (80%) assimilated into the ranks of the nobility in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth while some lower noble Tatars assimilated to the Belarusian, Polish, Ukrainian and Lithuanian townsfolk and peasant populations.
Charles Bronson was a descendant of the Lipka Tatars of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which caused many people to think that he looked like a Chicano or Mexican-American who was a Mestizo (mixture of Spanish and Indian ancestry). Thus, due to his looks Bronson sometimes played characters who were Mexican or who were part-Indian.
A small but active community of Lipka Tatars exists in New York City. "The Islamic Center of Polish Tatars" in New York City until recently had its own mosque in Brooklyn (106 Powers Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211 USA).
After the annexation of eastern Poland into the Soviet Union following World War II, Poland was left with only 2 Tatar villages, Bohoniki and Kruszyniany. A significant number of the Tartars in the territories annexed to the USSR repatriated to Poland and clustered in cities such as Gdańsk, Białystok, Warsaw and Gorzów Wielkopolski totaling some 3,000 people. One of the neighborhoods of Gorzów Wielkopolski where relocated Tatar families resettled has come to be referred to as "the Tatar Hills", or in Polish "Górki Tatarskie".
In 1925 the Muslim Religion Association - Muzułmański Związek Religijny was formed in Poland in Białystok. 1n 1992, another organization, Związek Tatarów Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, with autonomous branches in Białystok and Gdańsk began operating.
In Poland, the Tatar population reached approximately 100,000 in 1630 but the 2002 census showed only 447 people declaring this nationality
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Post by pieter on Nov 1, 2008 15:10:18 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Nov 1, 2008 18:35:25 GMT -7
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Post by Jaga on Nov 1, 2008 19:40:39 GMT -7
Pieter,
thank you for updating us about Muslims in Poland and Lithuania. We used to have a member of this forum who was a Tartar from Lithuania. For some time he was visiting his daughter in Portland and then he was a frequent visitor in the forum. Then he went back to Lithuania and we did not hear from him that often (his nick was King Batory)
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Post by pieter on Jul 7, 2013 16:17:42 GMT -7
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Post by Jaga on Jul 7, 2013 23:20:46 GMT -7
Pieter, very interesting. This Muslim scholar looks very Poish, although he claims that his family is all Tartar.
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hilal
Freshman Pole
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Post by hilal on Nov 10, 2013 14:21:20 GMT -7
Hello, I'd wish to find family traditions of Polish Tatars, especially on name giving. For example how they choose the names to give their children? Do they always choose a Muslim or Polish name? Do they perform Muslim name giving rituals? Which Tatar names are the most popular among them. I'm posting my questions here, because I don't know where to begin. thanks in advance  |
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Post by Eric on Nov 10, 2013 21:26:20 GMT -7
There is a history of Muslim settlements in Poland but there are also new muslims in Warsaw. It is a tiny community, so it does not endanger Christianity And what if the Muslim population in Warsaw became larger than the Catholic population? What then? |
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Post by Jaga on Nov 11, 2013 0:14:21 GMT -7
Eric,
+++Muslim population in Warsaw became larger than the Catholic population?++++
this is a completely unrealistic idea... unless the sun becomes green, or the world becomes extinct.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Dec 22, 2016 5:21:03 GMT -7
Eric, +++Muslim population in Warsaw became larger than the Catholic population?++++ this is a completely unrealistic idea... unless the sun becomes green, or the world becomes extinct.  |
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