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The Lipka Tatars were a noble military caste of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth who followed the Sunni branch of the Islamic religion and whose origins can be traced back to the Mongol Empire of Ghengis Khan, through the Khanate of the White Horde of Siberia. 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. 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.
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 Poland 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.
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.
Once, it came about that the Tatar subjects rose up in open rebellion against the Commonwealth. This was the widely remembered Lipka Rebellion of the year 1672. 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 Peace of Karlowicki 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.
Today, the majority of descendants of Tatar families in Poland can trace their descent from the noble status of the early Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Timeline
- 1226: The Khanate of the White Horde of Siberia was established as one of the successor states to the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan . The first Khan, Orda was the second son of Jochi, the eldest son of Genghis Khan. The White Horde of Siberia occupied the southern Siberian steppe from the east of the Urals and the Caspian Sea to Mongolia.
- 1380: Khan Tokhtamysh, the hereditary ruler of the White Horde crossed west over the Urals and merged the White Horde with the Golden Horde whose first khan was Batu, the eldest son of Jochi. In 1382 the White and Golden Hordes sacked and burned Moscow. Tokhtamysh, allied with the great central Asian Tatar conqueror, Tamerlane reasserted Mongol power in Russia.
- 1397: After a series of disastrous military campaigns against his former protector, the great Tatar warlord Tamerlane, Tokhtamysh and the remnants of his clan were granted asylum and given estates and noble status in Grand Duchy of Lithuania by Vytautas the Great. The settlement of the Lipka Tatars in Lithuania in 1397 is recorded in the Chronicles of Jan Dlugosz.
- 1397: The Italian city state of Genoa funded a joint expedition by the forces of Khan Tokhtamysz and Grand Duke Witold against Tamerlane. This campaign was notable for the fact that the Lipka Tatars and Lithuanian armies were armed with handguns, but no major victories were achieved.
- July 15, 1410 The Battle of Grunwald took place on this day, between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania on one side (estimated 39,000 troops), and the Teutonic Knights on the other (about 27,000 troops). In the battle the Teutonic Order state was defeated and never recovered its former influence. After the battle, rumours were spread across the Europe (probably as an excuse) that Teutons were only defeated with the help of numerous Muslim Tatar hordes. In fact, it was estimated there were around 1.000 horseback Tatars at Grunwald, the core being the Lipka Tatars settled in Grand Duchy of Lithuania, under the leadership of Jalal ad-Din, the son of Khan Tokhtamysh.
- 15th century onwards: Companies of Lipka Tatar light cavalry for a long time constituted one of the foundations of the military power of the Commonwealth. The Lithuanian Tatars, from the very beginning of their residence in Lithuania were known as the Lipkas. They united their fate with that of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. From the Battle of Grunwald onwards they participated in every significant military campaign.
- 1528: The Polish-Lithuanian nobility's legal right to retribution on the grounds of the wounding or killing of a nobleman or a member of his family is extended to the Lipka Tatars.
- 1672: This was the year of the Lipka Rebellion. As a reaction to restrictions on their religious freedoms and the erosion of their ancient rights and priviliges, the Lipka Tatar regiments stationed in the Podolia region of south-east Poland abandoned the Commonwealth at the start of the Polish-Turkish wars that were to last to end of the 17th Century with the Peace of Karlowicki in 1699. The Lipka Rebellion forms the background to the novel Pan Wolodyjowski, the final volume of the Nobel Prize winning historical Trylogia of Henryk Sienkiewicz. The 1969 film of Pan Wolodyjowski, directed by Jerzy Hoffman and starring Daniel Olbrychski as Azja Tuhaj-bejowicz, still remains the biggest box-office success in the history of Polish cinema.
- 1674: After the famous Polish victory at Chocim, the Lipka Tatars who held the Podolia for Turkey from the stronghold of Bar were besieged by the armies of Jan Sobieski, and a deal was struck that the Lipkas would return to the Polish side subject to their ancient rights and priviliges being restored.
- 1676: The Treaty of Zurawno that brought a temporary end to the Polish-Turkish wars stipulated that the Lipka Tatars were to be given a free individual choice of whether they wanted to serve the Ottoman Empire or the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth.
- 1677: The Sejm in March 1677 confirmed all the ancient Tatar rights and privileges. The Lipka Tatars were permitted to rebuild all their old mosques, to settle Christian labour on their estates and to buy up noble estates that had not previously belonged to Tatars. The Lipka Tatars were also freed from all taxation.
- 1679: As a reward for their return to the Commonwealth the Lipka Tatars were settled by King Jan Sobieski on Crown Estates in the provinces of Brest, Kobryn and Hrodna. The Tatars received land that had been cleared of the previous occupants, from 50 to 750 hectares per head, according to rank and length of service.
- 1683: Many of the Lipka Tatar rebels who returned to the service of the Commonwealth in 1674 were later to take part in the Vienna Campaign of 1683. This included the 60 Polish Tatars in the light cavalry company of Samuel Mirza Krzeczowski, who was later to save the life of King Jan III Sobieski during the disastrous first day of the Battle of Parkany, a few weeks after the great victory of the Battle of Vienna that was to turn the tide of Islamic expansion into Europe and mark the beginning of the end for the Ottoman Empire. The Lipka Tatars who fought on the Polish side at the Battle of Vienna, on 12th September 1683, wore a sprig of straw in their helmets to distinguish themselves from the Tatars fighting under Kara Mustafa on the Turkish side. Lipkas visiting Vienna traditionally wear straw hats to commemorate their ancestorsÂ’ participation in the breaking of the Siege of Vienna.
- 1699: Some of the Kamieniec based Lipka Tatars who had remained loyal to the Turkish Sultan were settled in Bessarabia along the borderlands between the Ottoman Empire and the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth as well as in the environs of Chocim and Kamieniec Podolski and in the town known as Lipkany.
- 1775: The Sejm reaffirmed the noble status of the Polish Lithuanian Tatars.
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