Islam in Ukraine - the history of Islam in Ukraine

“A lot of tombs and mosques were located there…”

Islam in Ukraine — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 16:06:06 +0000

In 1789, Russian troops and Cossacks from the Black Sea army under the general command of General Derybas O. captured the Ottoman fortress Khadjibey. From that moment, the life of the ancient city, connected with Islamic world history and culture, severely changed. Muslim Khadzhibey was established in the middle of the XIV century, when the emir Khadjibey ruled the ulus, which was situated between the Dniester and Dnipro rivers. He was among the highest-ranked confidants of several Golden Horde khans. Khadjibey is known for his participation in the Battle of Blue Waters in 1362. That year, the Golden Horde, torn by internal conflicts, was not able to field a large army that allowed the Grand Duke of Lithuania Olgerd to win easily. The Polish chronicler Maciej Stryjkovsky, while describing the battle, noted an important detail: “Three of their princelings were killed in the battle: Kutlubakh, Kachibey (Salt lake Kachibeyske was named after him, which is situated in Dyki Polya on the way to Ochakiv) and Sultan Dimeiter.” Kachibey is Emir Khadjibey, whose name was given to the estuary in the Black Sea steppes, and to the predecessor of Odesa - the city of Khadjibey. It is also worth mentioning that, in fact, Khadjibey and other Tatar commanders did not die in the Battle of Blue Waters. The evidence of that was the label of Khan Tokhtamysh, issued to Emir Khadjibey in 1382. At the end of the XIV century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania captured Khadjibey settlement, along with the Dniester-Dnipro interfluve area. Prince Vitovt built a stone castle and a port on the sea coast, which further became a centre of grain trade. However, already at the end of the 15th century, the territory between the Dniester and the Southern Bug came into the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate – as a result, the port no longer fulfilled its role, and the fortress, built by the Lithuanians, fell into decay as well. Khadjibey did not have a permanent population for a long time, and even a military post was not permanently located in the castle. The city revival began only in the middle of the 18th century, when the authorities of the Ottoman Empire, amid the aggravation of tension between them and Russia, decided to build a new fortress that would have a garrison located on a regular basis. In 1766, a Russian spy Ivan Isleniev came to Khadjibey undercovered as a merchant.

Having great experience in drawing maps and plans, he studied all the strengths and weaknesses of the Turkish fortress, got information about the garrison numbering, and based on that information, made a detailed map. Islenev’s plan included Ottoman pasha’s house, and a significant caravanserai. A mosque is also indicated there. However, there are almost no Khadjibey residential buildings on the Russian spy’s map, except the Janissaries barracks. In addition, he points out that the Vlachs Christians (Moldavians) were settled in the countryside, that is, in the city outskirts. We know, in addition to Turks and Vlachs, in Khadjibey lived Jews, Armenians, and Greeks. Many Tatars lived in Khadjibey as well. Such a large settlement could not exist so long time without all features attributed to the city - a market and a cemetery. In Khadjibey, the market was located on the site of the current Greek Square. There was a Muslim cemetery next to this square. Perhaps, it is established in the time of the Golden Horde. A number of sources indirectly implied this theory. Particularly, in 1542, Sultan Suleiman I Kanuni wrote in a letter addressed to the Polish king Sigismund the following: A lot of Muslim graves and mosques are situated there... The signs have not disappeared yet A little later, at the beginning of the 17th century, the Ottoman writer and traveler Ibrahim Pechevi reports: “Even now, there are several cemeteries on the Ochakov plains. Quranic verses and confession words are written on some graveyard stones. ” The fact that an old Muslim cemetery was located between Greek Square, Katerynynska Street and the City Garden is also reported by the historian Smolyaninov K. in his work “History of Odesa. The Historical essay”, published in 1853.

After Russian troops had captured Khadjibey, the city was intensively being developed. The Muslim cemetery had existed until the beginning of the 19th century. One of the first buildings constructed in the territory of the cemetery was retired lieutenant Prokopeus’ house that has remained until today. It is also interesting that immigrants from the Crimea, the Karaite Egiz family, settled not far from Prokopeus’ house, outside the Muslim cemetery. They built one of the most picturesque houses of old Odesa. It is a traditional Crimean-inspired house with wonderful balconies reminding Bakhchisarai. During the first decades after Odesa had been established, the Muslim population was small. However, it had been developing by the middle of the XIX century. In this regard, the Muslim community appealed to the city authorities with a request to open a mosque and allocate a land plot for the cemetery.

The mosque issue remained being unsolved for several decades, but the issue concerning the cemetery was resolved quickly enough. Near the old city cemetery, behind the fence, the city authority allocated plots for the tombs of Karaites, Jews and a separate plot for Muslims . Later, in 1870, a mosque was built on this site according to the project of the Azerbaijani architect Karbala Sefihan Karabagi. It became the only house of Muslims’ worship in Odesa for many years. Before the revolution of 1917, Sabirzyan Safarov was a mullah in the Odesa mosque, and Hassan Abdul Khairov Yanbuhtin was a muezzin. There were several mektebs in the city, including a female one. Copies of the Quran, which Odesa Muslims were reading, were printed in the Crimean printing house owned by Ismail Gasprinsky.

In the mid 30-ies of the XX century, the city authorities decided to remove the Muslim cemetery as well as Christian and Jewish ones. They built a park at the site of the destroyed tombs, and part of the territory was built up with administrative buildings. The disappearance of the cemetery and mosque dealt a serious blow to the Muslim community of Odesa. Only in the early 90s, after the declaration of independence of Ukraine, the religious life of Muslims began to gradually revive.

The first Islamic community was officially registered in 1992. The construction of the Arab Cultural Centre and mosque began on Rishelievska Street in 1998, and finished in 2000. In 2018, next to the entrance to the old Muslim cemetery, a Moorish-inspired arch appeared as reminder that the Muslims were buried there.

Oleksandr Stepanchenko

02/09/2019

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About Muslims from Naddnipryanshchyna region

Islam in Ukraine — Mon, 12 Aug 2019 07:22:32 +0000

On the territory of modern Ukraine the interaction between Christian and Muslim civilizations has more than a thousand years of history. It is generally believed that on these lands Khazars were the first Muslims. Islam began to spread in the Khazar Kaganate after the Arab-Khazar wars in the first half of the VIII century. Islam spreading among the Khazars reached its top in the 9th – 10th centuries, as described in the historical chronicles of Arab travelers and explorers (Ibn Hawqal 977–978, Al-Masoudi approx. 896–956, Ibn Fadlan 877–960) [1]. Geographically, the Khazar Khaganate was situated on the lands of the modern North Caucasus, the Lower and Middle Volga regions, north-western Kazakhstan, the Azov Sea and the River Dnipro regions, as well as in the eastern part of the Crimean peninsula [2].

The fall of the Khazar Kaganate in the X century, and the further integration of the Khazar ethnic component into the Tatar ethnic group had an important impact on the Islam spreading in the Golden Horde. A letter from a Dutch writer Albert Pighius to Pope Clement VII describes Batu Khan as the first Ulus Jochi ruler who converted to Islam. The next Muslim khan was Berke [3]. However, Islam became the state religion half a century later - in 1320 (1321) after Uzbek Khan. It marked the new era of the Tatar-Islamic geopolitical and cultural space formation on the lands that were part of the Golden Horde, particulary, in the territory of south-eastern Ukraine [4].

As a result of bloody wars and conflicts, since the twenties of the 15th century, the Golden Horde disintegrated, with the establishing of independent khanates. In 1441, with the election of Haji Giray I khan, the Crimean Khanate gained independence from the disintegrated Golden Horde; in the 1440s, the Nogai Horde finally withdraw from the Holden Horde. Further, these post-Golden Horde state formations had a significant influence on the Dnipro regions and on the Cossack hetmanats created here. [5].

The first information about Zaporizhzhya Sich dated back to the end of the 15th - first half of the 16th centuries [6]. During those years, the Crimean Khanate was a consolidated state, occupying the territory of modern Crimea and southern regions of continental Ukraine. The borders of the Nogai Horde stretched from the Donetsk region to the Transcaucasus - right up to the shores of the Caspian Sea [7; 8].

In the 2nd half of the XVI - early XVII centuries Crimean Tatars and Nogais laid the main trading sakma to the Moscovia. It was called Muravsky Trail. The Zaporizhian Cossacks started regular contacts with the Tatar-Nogai hordes. These contacts consisted of both military confrontations and the military alliances as well. The first documented military alliance between the Cossacks and Tatars was an agreement concluded by Astafii Dashkovych, the Cherkasy starosta, and Mehmed Giray, the Crimean Khan, in 1521 - on a joint campaign against the Astrakhan and Kazan Khanates in order to win them back from the Moscow princes. Such campaigns were repeated in 1531 and 1535, but, in spite of individual tactical victories, did not bring strategic success. From historical sources we know about the trade relations between Zaporizhian Cossacks and Crimean Tatars. In the 1540s, a special representative of the Cossacks worked in Bakhchisarai. He monitored trade between Crimean Khanate and Sich [9]. The regular military and trade interaction between the Crimean Khanate and the Zaporizhian Sich significantly affected the Zaporizhian Cossacks’ culture, which was reflected in language borrowings, smoking tobacco with a pipe-‘burulka’ (more correctly, “burunka”, from the Tat. Burun - nose, lüle - smoking pipe. - Auth.), clothing, and other aspects of life. A bright example of the long term neighborhood of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks with the Ottoman State and the Crimean Khanate is depicting by the symbol of Islam - the crescent on the Zaporizhzhya Sich’s gonfanons along with other religious signs.

Since the second half of the XVIII century, as a result of the military-imperialist policy of the Russian government, the relations of the Crimean Khanate and the Sich had been ceasing. In 1775, Empress Catherine II signed the manifesto “On the Extermination of Zaporizhya Sich [10]. In 1783 the final annexation of the Crimea to the Russian Empire took place, after a long military campaign of the Russian troops [11].

During the Russian Empire’s period, the first mention of the Muslim population in the southern and eastern parts of the current territory of Ukraine during the Russian Empire belongs to the end of XVIII century. 75 Turks, 43 Tatars and 6 Arabs (124 Muslims in total) were living in the Azov province, created by the tsarist government after the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-1774, 75 [12, pp. 145-180]. In 1783 the Azov province became the part of the Katerynoslav governorate. And in 1803 the Katerynoslav province was formed with its center in Katerynoslav (modern Dnipro. - Ed.) [13]. Very little information is known about the first Muslims of the new-established principal town of the province. It is believed that these were Turkish and Crimean Tatar merchants, but the documentary evidence of them was not preserved.

An important phase in the spread of Islam on the territory of the former ‘Dyke Pole’ region (Wild Field – transl.) is large-scale industrialization in the 2nd half of the XIX century After the discovery of iron ore deposits, coal deposits, mines and factories building, the lack of labor was compensated by Tatar immigrants from the Middle and Lower Volga regions [14]. Therefore, the Volga Tatars formed the basis of the "Mohammedan mahalla" in the Katerynoslav governorate.

The first shreds of evidence about Muslims in Katerynoslav dated back to 1865: They were 15, that is 0.066% of the city inhabitants. According to the first All-Russian census survey of 1897, 17,253 Tatars (0.8% of the governorate’s population) and 5555 Turks (0.26% of the governorate’s population) lived in Katerynoslav governorate. At the time of the census, there were: 726 Tatars (0.64% of the city inhabitants) and 159 Turks (0.14% of the city inhabitants) in Katerynoslav [15]. In 1910, the Muslim community of Katerynoslav numbered 596 people [16, pp. 51–56].

The data shows over the last third of the XIX century the Muslim community of Katerynoslav had significantly increased and, as a result, needed a preaching house - a mosque. The information about the first Mohammedans’ prayer house is attributed to the beginning of the XX century. In 1904, it was located in the Petrovs' house in Voskresenska Street, and in 1910 - in Klubna Street. It is known the Muslim community of Katerynoslav had significant capital and influence, so they were able to build a mosque. The “Society for the Muslim Mosque Construction" was established in 1909-1910; the site was chosen within the Old Kut sloboda - at the crossroads of Khersonska and Velyka Bazarna streets. A small Tatar settlement is believed to live there [17]. There are indications that Muslims settled close together in the town, but this fact had not been conclusively confirmed. In 1911, the mosque construction works were finished, as evidenced by the record in the reference book ‘Ves Ekaterinoslav’ (“ All over Katerynoslav”) published in 1912. In this book the mosque construction dated 1911. It is indicated that it was built on the private land of the religious community [18]. In February 1912, the Muslim community asked the city authorities for an additional plot - 30 sazhen’ (approx. 132 m2. - Auth.), required to install the stairs [19]. The “Society for the Muslim Mosque Construction” was also operating the next year that was mentioned in the ‘Dniprovi Khvyli’ magazine - No. 8 dated 1913, which means that the construction works had been completed only by 1913–1914 [20].

The new mosque stood out against other buildings: it was the only building in the town, built in the Moorish style. It had oriental decorations: windows of irregular forms, carved stone imitations, black and white lining - a “neo-Moorish” style, popular at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Katerynoslav Muslim community also had a private place in the New City Cemetery (in the southern part of the current Pisarzhevsky park - Author). It has not been preserved, though.

The activities held by Muslim community were periodically reflected in the local press, as evidenced by the publication in the annual book "Ves Ekaterinoslav" of the Mohammedan calendar with the main Muslim holidays [21 C. 261-265] and images of the mosque. There is an illustrative article in ‘Katerinoslavski gubernski vedomosti’ (Katerynoslav Province’s News) - No. 98 of 1916: “Peasant of the Penza Province of Kerensky district Gorenki village Gadіatulla Kharisov Bekіyashev, according to the election of his co-religionists, was approved as muadzin of the Cathedral Mosque in Katerynoslav. "

With the beginning of World War I, the "Turkish citizens" were forced to leave the city that became the first attack on the "mahalla". However, it is known that prayers were still offered afterwards.

The Muslim community faced the crucial moment in their history when Bolsheviks came to power. The decision of the executive committee of Dnipropetrovsk district dd. July 20, 1926, stated: “The Turkish mosque is not used by any religious community” [22, p. 69]. And in May 1927, on the basis of inspection act on the former Tatar mosque, the Executive Committee of Dnipropetrovsk resolved: “The house of the former Tatar mosque shall be given to the GPU (State Political Administration); Tatar families who live in the mosque shall be provided with dwellings” [23]. The same year, the Marten magazine posted a photo of the mosque entitled: “The mosque along in Kherson Street has been boarded up for a long time. In order to use the empty premises, the City Council decided to transfer the mosque to a club for police and GPU workers ”[24]. There is no evidence that the club was opened or the former mosque was being used in the 30s.

After World War II, the premises of the former mosque were used as the artel’s cardboard shop of the Regional cooperative polygraph and the kindergarten No. 15. They were situated on different floors. In December 1953, a sports school for children and youth moved there. The building was completely reconstructed and now it’s almost impossible to recognize the former “Mohammedan prayer house” [25].

Shamil (Semen) Rumygin, special for "Islam in Ukraine"

References:

1. Islam in Khazaria [Electronic resource] http://cyclowiki.org/wiki/Islam_in_Khazaria

2. Khazar Kaganate [Electronic resource] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_Kaganate

3. Batu [Electronic resource] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baty

4. Uzbek Khan [Electronic resource] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzbek Khan

5. The Great Troubles. The collapse of the Golden Horde [Electronic resource] https://www.e-reading.club/chapter.php/150357/72/Rahmanaliev_-_Imperiya_....

6. Zaporizhian Cossacks [Electronic resource] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporizhzhya_Kazaki

7. Crimean Khanate [Electronic resource] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krymskoe Khanate

8. Nogai Horde [Electronic resource] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nogai_Orda

9. Busting the myths: How did the Cossacks and Crimean Tatars conclude the alliances [Electronic resource] https://ru.krymr.com/a/28518992.html

10. Zaporizhzhya Sich [Electronic resource] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporizhzhya Sich

11. Присоединение Крыма к Российской империи [Electronic resource] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Присоединение_Крыма_к_Российской_империи

12. Пірко В.О. Заселення Донеччини у XVI-XVIII ст. (короткий історичний нарис і уривки з джерел) / Український культурологічний центр. — Донецьк: Східний видавничий дім, 2003. — С. 145-180.

13. Екатеринославская губерния [Electronic resource] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Екатеринославская_губерния#.D0.98.D1.81.D1.82.D0.BE.D1.80.D0.B8.D1.8F

14. Татары в Донбассе: поиски непьющих магометан, любовь к гетто и вечная привязанность к конской колбасе [Electronic resource] https://realnoevremya.ru/articles/51818

15. Катеринославська губернія. Перепис 1897 р. [Electronic resource] https://gorod.dp.ua/history/doc/katgub1897.pdf

16. Лазебник В. И. Население Екатеринославской губернии по материалам Первой всеобщей переписи населения в Российской Империи 1897 (Statistical survey) // Весник Днепропетровского университета — вып. 10 — История и археология, 2002. — С. 51-56.

17. Самодрыга В. В., Стародубов А. Ф., Іванов С. С. Память истории, (typescript). — Д. 1986. — С. 145

18. Екатеринослав на 1912 год. — Екатеринослав, 1911 — С. 35.

19. Южная заря — 1912. — 12 февраля.

20. Дніпрові хвилі — 1913. — №8 — С. 130.

21. Магометанский молитвенный дом (Мечеть). (Херсонская с. д.) / Весь Екатеринослав: Справочная книга. — Екатеринослав: Изд-во Л. И. Сатановского, 1913. С. 261-265.

22. Дніпропетровськ: минуле і сучасне. — Д., 2001. — С. 69.

23. ДАДО. — Ф.416. — Оп.1. — Спр.16. — Протокол 5 від 12. 05. 1927

24. Мартен — 1927. — №6(8) — fourth cover page

25. Дом мусульманской общины на Херсонской [Electronic resource] http://gorod.dp.ua/history/article_ru.php?article=245.

15/01/2018

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The Crimean Tatars and their place in the history of Ukraine

Islam in Ukraine — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 13:33:21 +0000

The Western Tatars are quite mysterious ethnic group. It is difficult to find information about them in school books. However, they were a part of the history of Ukraine and Eastern Europe as a whole. Oleksiy Savchenko, the senior museum researcher at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine, held a lecture on the Tatars from the Right Bank and Western Ukraine.

- The interrelations of ancestors and modern Ukrainians with the Steppe region, the East and, accordingly, the Turkic peoples are usually one of the central topics of our historical narrative. Although, the researchers often touch on this topic, they mainly stress out the military aspect implied by the neighborhood. Such situation had developed since the XIX century. As always, the history depended on politics. At that time, highlighting the relationship with the closest neighbors, as negative, was a beneficial strategy. The researchers tried to oppose the "advanced" agricultural civilization to "barbaric" nomadic one. This attitude was entrenched in the Soviet times as well.

The Western Tatars is an ethnic group, formed as a result of almost five hundred years of relations between the population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Kingdom of Poland and the Turkic population of Eastern Europe. Traditionally, scholars from Lithuania, Belarus and Poland paid more attention to Western Tatars history, than researchers from other countries. Nowadays, the small communities (25-30 thousand) of them have remained only in these countries, although, their population has been growing in the last decade. The Lithuanians call them the Lithuanian Tatars, the Belarusians - the Belarusian Tatars, the Poles the Polish Tatars. Tatars from Volyn, Galicia and Podil also exist. All these denominations concerns the same community that settled in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and later - in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Western Tatars were studied rather in the context of the neighboring countries history, then the history of Ukraine. They were not associated with Ukrainians, which was a mistake. The image that illustrates the lecture hold a special significance: the Polish media mark that there are Polish Tatars in it. The study confirmed that this image described Tatars from the territory of Ukraine, and it was taken from a postcard, signed as follows: “Ukraine. Tatars with horse-drawn carriages in national costumes. June 30, 1917. Lithuania".

Western Tatars’ communities were scattered on the territory of Ukraine, then destroyed by the Soviet government and the German occupation. Significantly, even researchers, who came from this ethnic group in Lithuania and Belarus, were repressed: some of them were arrested and executed by Soviet troops, some of them - by the Gestapo. Their fates illustrate the destiny of the Western Tatars, including those who lived in the Ukrainian lands.

A Rescue through assimilation

- They began forming as an ethnos in the XIV – XV centuries. During prince Vitovt reign, the Tatars soldiers passed the legal registration. They were awarded with the first privileges, which guaranteed them military status and imposed certain duties. The descendants of the Western Tatars appealed to these privileges even in the 19th century.

Tatars quickly mixed with the local population. It is telling that the Glinski clan comes from Mamaia, Tatar temnik. His son Mansur-Kiyak settled in the territory of modern Poltava region, where he built a number of settlements. His son’s name was Andrew and he was married to Ostroh knyaz’s daughter, and his grandchildren were Christians. Such examples were more than enough: losing power, the khans tried to sit out in Lithuania. Lithuanian princes and Polish kings were bragging about such a prestigious ally and honorary prisoner, who sat to the right of the Lithuanian prince, and participated in all red carpet events, as a symbol of the successful steppe policy.

By the end of the XIV century, the Tatars had already spoken the local Slavic languages and adopted the local lifestyle. Some of them joined the zemstvo service and tried to participate in the political life of societies. That required being Christians. Scholars wrote that at least one third of the szlachta nobility servicemen from the Kyiv and Bratslavshchyna regions were of Turkic origin - every third szlachta serviceman was from the Steppe.

From the end of the 15th to the beginning of the 16th century the Western Tatars faced some changes in their policy. The threat from the Teutonic campaigns had already disappeared by that time, as well as the interest in strengthening the western borders. Though, there was a need to strengthen the southern and south-eastern borders. The Tatar siege moved precisely to these boundaries, and, as a result, much more of Tatar population went to the military service on the territory of Ukraine. Some of the Tatars, who were in the service to knyazes and kings, can be compared to the registered Cossacks. They had nobility titles. They were freed from physical labor, but they had no political rights, and did not elect a king.

Imagine, in the 16th century you came to visit the Orthodox knyaz, Kostyantyn Ostrogski, the patron saint of religion, but first you had to pass by Tatar tower with a Tatar garrison. In order to reach this tower, one had to drive through Zarechye the Tatar arrows lived in and guarded the entrance to the city.

A lot of Ukrainian figures were of Turkic origin and the Kozakevych family was among them. Its descent, Mustafa Kozakevych, was the famous ethnographer, who explored Polissya region in Ukraine. Agatangel Krymsky is also directly related to the community of Western Tatars. Although, his ancestor was a mule in Bakhchisarai, he moved to Belarus later.

Where in Ukraine are traces of Western Tatars?

- The Tatars, who moved to the Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian lands, could practice their religion - Islam. They already spoke Slavic languages, wore local clothing, but still followed their certain customs. Tatars wrote prayer books, using Ukrainian or Polish words but by Arabic letters. They lived in national neighborhoods, often called Tatar. As a result, nowadays there are quite enough localities and streets that are called Tatar in the Right Bank and Western Ukraine.

In Starokostiantyniv’s countryside (Khmelnytskyi oblast’) Tatars lived in 24 houses (3-4 families in each). By 1636, this number had risen to 60 houses. For a long time there was a shop in the town, where people could buy halal food and drink Tatar koumiss. In the 19th century, a Russian colonel passed through this town one day. He recalled that the Tatars had not already a mosque, but when he entered the local synagogue, he saw an Arabic inscription on one of the stones. Local people explained him that that synagogue was rebuilt from a mosque, because building materials were quite expensive.

Lutsk also had a street, where a lot of Tatars lived. Lutsk Tatars even initiated a legal proceeding against the city Orthodox clergy concerning illegal construction. An Orthodox church was built on this street without Tatars’ permission. There was a Tatar settlement in Ternopil countryside, which became a part of the city and nowadays it is called Tatarska Street.

A vivid example of colonization is Kovalivka settlement (present-day in Vinnytsia Oblast’). There are evidences that in the second half of the 18th century, several Tatar families still lived there. They had a mosque, their own mule, serviced masses in Arabic, but they did not understand the meaning, just memorized the necessary prayers. There were interesting cases concerning this Mykhailo Yakubovych wrote about: Turkish Sultan, who reigned in the 18th century, was mentioned in Yuvkyvets Hamail in the 19th century.

There is Tatarska Street in modern Lviv, as well as Krakowska Street, which was also previously called Tatarska Street. Through the Tatar gates people could entered the city coming from the north, and the Tatars' families lived near those gates.

Actually not all modern names and locations directly relate to the Tatars. Some towers were called Tatars, because they faced the steppe. The Tatar fords got this name, because they were located on the Tatar road. There is a Tatariv village in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, but it has no relation to Tatars, and until 1930 it was called Tatariv.

Western Tatars took part in our ethnogenesis process and were a part of our history. Many words have Eastern etymology, and some even become sacred for us. For example, “Maidan” is also borrowed from the languages of the steppe nomads.

30/11/2018

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