Volga Tatars

The Volga Tatars are a Turkic ethnic group, native to the Volga-Ural region, Russia. They are in turn subdivided into various subgroups. They compose 53% of the population of Tatarstan. Volga Tatars are Russia's second largest ethnicity.

Volga Tatar history

Tatars inhabiting the Republic of Tatarstan, a federal subject of Russia, constitute one third of all Tatars, while the other two thirds reside outside Tatarstan. The formation of some of the communities residing outside Tatarstan took place before the Russian Revolution of 1917 due to Tatars being specialized in trading.

The emergence of ethnonym "Tatar" is disputed, with two theses trying to explain its origins. Mongol thesis, according to which etymology can be traced back to the Chinese "Ta-Tan" or "Da-Dan", is more widely accepted than Turkic one. Ethnonym "Tatar" first emerged in the fifth century BC.

List of Tatars

Tatars are a Turkic ethnic group numbering 6.7 million in the late 20th century, including all subgroups of Tatars, such as Volga Tatars, Lipka Tatars and Crimean Tatars. Russia is home to the majority of ethnic Tatars, with a population of around 5,500,000. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan also each have populations greater than 30,000.

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Tatars

The Tatars are a Turkic people living in Asia and Europe who were one of the five major tribal confederations (khanlig) in the Mongolian plateau in the 12th century AD. The name "Tatar" first appears in written form on the Kul Tigin monument as . They speak the Kipchak-Cuman language families.

After the establishment of the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan in 1206, the Empire subjugated the Tatars. Under the leadership of Genghis Khan's grandson Batu Khan (c. 1207–1255), the Mongols moved westwards, driving with them many of the Turkic peoples toward the plains of Russia. The "Tatar" clan still exists among the Mongols and Hazaras.

Russians and Europeans used the name Tatar to denote Mongols as well as Turkic peoples under Mongol rule (especially in the Golden Horde). Later, it applied to any Turkic- or Mongolic-speaking people encountered by Russians. Eventually however, the name became associated with the Turkic Muslims of Ukraine and Russia, namely, the descendants of Muslim Volga Bulgars, Kipchaks, and Cumans, and Turkicized Mongols or Turko-Mongols (Nogais), as well as other Turkic-speaking peoples (Siberian Tatars, Qasim Tatars, Mishar Tatars) in the territory of the former Russian Empire (and as such generally includes all Northwestern Turkic-speaking peoples).