Tatar

Tatar
Tatarian /tah tair"ee euhn/, Tataric /tah tar"ik/, adj.
/tah"teuhr/, n.
1. a member of a modern Turkic people living in the Tatar Autonomous Republic and adjacent regions of eastern European Russia and in widely scattered communities in western Siberia and central Asia.
2. the language of this people, including the literary language of the Tatar Autonomous Republic, the dialects of the Tatar Autonomous Republic and adjacent regions of the Volga basin (Volga Tatar), and numerous other dialects, some transitional to other Turkic languages.
4. Tartar (defs. 1, 2, 4-6).
adj.
5. of or pertaining to the Tatars or their language.
6. Tartar (def. 7).
Also, Tartar (for defs. 1-3, 5).
[1805-15; see TARTAR]

* * *

I

Any member of the Turkic-speaking peoples who today live mainly in west-central Russia east to the Ural Mountains, in Kazakhstan, and in western Siberia.

They first appeared as nomadic tribes in northeastern Mongolia in the 5th century. Some joined the armies of Genghis Khan. Especially identified with the Golden Horde, they were converted to Islam in the 14th century. The Golden Horde soon became independent Tatar khanates (see khan). Their economy was based on mixed farming and herding, which remain central to their economy. They developed craftsmanship in wood, ceramics, leather, cloth, and metal and have been well known as traders. Today there are about six million Tatars in all regions; they constitute about half the population of the Russian republic of Tatarstan. See also Tatar language.
II
(as used in expressions)
Volga Tatar language

* * *

people
also spelled  Tartar,  

      any member of several Turkic-speaking peoples that collectively numbered more than 5 million in the late 20th century and lived mainly in west-central Russia along the central course of the Volga River and its tributary, the Kama, and thence east to the Ural Mountains. The Tatars are also settled in Kazakhstan and, to a lesser extent, in western Siberia.

      The name Tatar first appeared among nomadic tribes living in northeastern Mongolia and the area around Lake Baikal from the 5th century AD. Unlike the Mongols, these peoples spoke a Turkic language, and they may have been related to the Cuman or Kipchak peoples. After various groups of these Turkic nomads became part of the armies of the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan in the early 13th century, a fusion of Mongol and Turkic elements took place, and the Mongol invaders of Russia and Hungary became known to Europeans as Tatars (or Tartars).

      After Genghis Khan's empire broke up, the Tatars became especially identified with the western part of the Mongol domain, which included most of European Russia and was called the Golden Horde. These Tatars were converted to Sunnite Islām in the 14th century. Owing to internal divisions and various foreign pressures, the Golden Horde disintegrated late in the 14th century into the independent Tatar khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan on the Volga River, Sibir in western Siberia, and the Crimea. Russia conquered the first three of these khanates in the 16th century, but the Crimean khanate became a vassal state of the Ottoman Turks until it was annexed to Russia by Catherine the Great in 1783.

      In their khanates the Tatars developed a complex social organization, and their nobility preserved its civil and military leadership into Russian times; distinct classes of commoners were merchants and tillers of the soil. At the head of government stood the khan of the foremost Tatar state (the Kazan khanate), part of whose family joined the Russian nobility by direct agreement in the 16th century. This stratification within Tatar society continued until the Russian Revolution of 1917.

      During the 9th to 15th centuries, the Tatar economy became based on mixed farming and herding, which still continues. The Tatars also developed a tradition of craftsmanship in wood, ceramics, leather, cloth, and metal and have long been well known as traders. During the 18th and 19th centuries, they earned a favoured position within the expanding Russian Empire as commercial and political agents, teachers, and administrators of newly won Central Asian territories.

      More than 1.5 million Kazan Tatars still live in the Volga and Urals regions, and they constitute about half the population within the republic of Tatarstan. They are now known as Volga Tatars and are the wealthiest and most industrially advanced of the Tatar groups. Almost a million more Tatars live in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, while the Siberian Tatars, numbering only about 100,000, live scattered over western Siberia.

      The Crimean Tatars had their own history in the modern period. They formed the basis of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which was set up by the Soviet government in 1921. This republic was dissolved in 1945, however, when the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin accused the approximately 200,000 Crimean Tatars of having collaborated with the Germans during World War II. As a result, the Crimean Tatars were deported en masse to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, where their use of the Tatar language was forbidden. They regained their civil rights in 1956 under the de-Stalinization program of Nikita Khrushchev, but they were not allowed to return to the Crimea, which had been incorporated into the Ukrainian S.S.R. in 1954. It was not until the early 1990s that many Crimean Tatars, taking advantage of the breakup of the Soviet central government's authority, began returning to settle in the Crimea after nearly five decades of internal exile. They now number about 270,000.

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • tatar — tatar …   Dictionnaire des rimes

  • TATAR — Au nombre de 6 600 000 sur l’ensemble du territoire soviétique lors du recensement de 1989, les Tatar constituent 3,8 p. 100 de la population russe dans les années 1990. Outre ceux qui habitent sur le cours moyen de la Volga et dans l’Oural les… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • tătar — TĂTÁR, Ă, tătari, e s.m. şi f., adj. 1. s.m. şi f. Persoană care face parte din populaţia de bază a Republicii Tătare sau din grupurile etnice (înrudite ca limbă cu această populaţie) stabilite în cursul istoriei în diferite regiuni din Asia şi… …   Dicționar Român

  • tatar — tatar̃ inerj. tarškėjimui, barškėjimui nusakyti (ppr. kartojant): Tatar̃ dantys sutarškėjo Šts. Ans kokius abrinaičius ten prisirišęs ant nugaros tatar̃ tatar̃ Žeml …   Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language

  • Tatar — [tät′ər] n. [Pers] 1. a member of any of the Mongolian and Turkic peoples that took part in the invasion of central and W Asia and E Europe in the Middle Ages 2. a member of a Turkic people living in a region of EC European Russia, the Crimea,… …   English World dictionary

  • Tatar — Tatar, s.u. Crambe …   Pierer's Universal-Lexikon

  • tatar — tatar, are (ta tar, ta r ) s. m. et f. Voy. tartare 2 …   Dictionnaire de la Langue Française d'Émile Littré

  • ţâţar — ţâţár s.m., n. 1. (s.m.) varietate de struguri. 2. (s.n.) biberon, susetă. Trimis de blaurb, 21.03.2007. Sursa: DAR …   Dicționar Român

  • Tatar — see TARTAR (Cf. Tartar) …   Etymology dictionary

  • tatar — {{/stl 13}}{{stl 8}}rz. mż a. mnż I, D. a, Mc. tatararze, pot. {{/stl 8}}{{stl 7}} befsztyk z mielonego surowego mięsa wołowego lub końskiego z przyprawami; befsztyk tatarski : {{/stl 7}}{{stl 10}}Zjeść, przyrządzić tatara. {{/stl 10}} …   Langenscheidt Polski wyjaśnień

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”