Mishar Tatars

The Mishar Tatars (self definition: мишәрләр, мишәр татарлары; mişärlär, mişar tatarları) are a subgroup of the Volga Tatars of Tatars and the indigenous people of the Mordovia, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Chuvashia of Russian Federation, Penza, Ulyanovsk, Orenburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Volgograd, Saratov Oblasts of Russia and immigrant minority of Finland. Mishar Tatars are the majority of Finnish Tatars. The Mishar Tatar dialect is one of the two Volga Tatar dialects.

Further information: Tatars and Tartary
Mishar Tatars
мишәрләр, мишәр татарлары, татарлар
Regions with significant populations
 Russia: 160,000 (1897) ~ 242,600 (1926)[1]
Languages
Mishar dialect of Tatar, Russian
Religion
Sunni Islam[2][3]
Related ethnic groups
Kazan Tatars, Kryashens

History

The origin of the Mishar Tatars remains a point of controversy.[4] Some scientists of the 19th and 20th c., based on equivalency of the Turkic ethnonym Madjar (variants: Majgar, Mojar, Mishar, Mochar) with the Hungarian self-name Magyar, associated them with Hungarian speaking Magyars and came to a conclusion that Turkic-speaking Mishars were formed by a Turkization of those Hungarians who remained in the region after their main part left to the West in the 8th c.[5]

Some contemporary researchers assume that they are descendants of Cuman-Kipchak tribes who mixed with the Burtas in the Middle Oka River area and Meschiora. The origin of Mishar Tatars of Mishar Yurt are Meshchera (Meshcherian), a Mordvinic languages-speaking Moksha Mordvins of Mukhsha Ulus who came under Tatar influence and adopted the language and the Sunni Muslim religion.[6] According to Ercan Alkaya, the Mishars originated from the assimilation of the Burtas, Finno-Ugric, and Magyar tribes of Old Kipchak nation. He opposes to those scholars, who thought that the Mishars were Tatarized Mordva, or that they came from the Meshchyora nation of Finnish origin living on the bank of the river Uka (Oka) long ago.[7]

Culture

The Mishar Tatars conversion to Islam was a gradual process that began during the time of Volga Bulgaria and crystallized during the period of the Golden Horde.[8]

The Mishar Tatars were and are still somewhat today a rural people and tend to live in villages and settlements that are inhabited exclusively by other Mishar Tatars.[8]

References
  1. Р. Г. Мухамедова Татары-мишари. Историко-этнографическое исследование. — М.: «Наука», 1972. (in Russian)
  2. http://www.selcuk.edu.tr/turkiyat/tr
  3. Vovina, Olessia (September 2006). "Islam and the Creation of Sacred Space: The Mishar Tatars in Chuvashia" (PDF). Religion, State & Society. Routledge. 34 (3). doi:10.1080/09637490600819374. ISSN 1465-3974. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
  4. Salakhova, Elmira K. (2016). ПРОБЛЕМА ПРОИСХОЖДЕНИЯ ТАТАР-МИШАРЕЙ И ТЕПТЯРЕЙ В ТРУДАХ Г.Н. АХМАРОВА [The origin of Mishar Tatars and Teptyars in the work of G.N. Akhmarov] (PDF). Historical Ethnology (in Russian). Kazan: State-funded institution Shigabutdin Marjani Institute of History of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences. 1 (2): 349. ISSN 2619-1636. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
  5. Mirfatyh Zakiev. (1995) ETHNIC ROOTS of the TATAR PEOPLE. In: TATARS: PROBLEMS of the HISTORY and LANGUAGE. Kazan.
  6. M. Z. Zekiyev Mişerler, Başkurtlar ve dilleri / Mishers, Bashkirs and their languages Archived 2014-04-08 at the Wayback Machine. In Türkiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi 73-86 (in Turkish)
  7. YUSUPOV, Ferit (Summer 2015). "A REVIEW OF ERCAN ALKAYA'S MONOGRAPH THE MISHAR DIALECT OF THE TATAR LANGUAGE" (PDF). The Journal of Academic Social Science Studies. 35 (I): 482. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
  8. Bennigsen, Alexandre (1986). Muslims of the Soviet empire : a guide. Wimbush, S. Enders. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 233. ISBN 0-253-33958-8.
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