Hey Polish fellows I wanted to ask you guys about lipka tatars:
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Is Lipka Tatar ancestry present like even moderately among Poles.
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Do poles and lipka tatars still have intermarriages like the old days.
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What are polish people’s thoughts on Lipka Tatars, do you guys views them as Soldiers, Nobles, or just as Poles.
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1si90tq
Posted by Urdustani
9 Comments
Yes the ancestry is present in terms of dna or surnames, culturally I believe it almost completely merged into polish identity.
They are effectively Poles with distinct surnames. They don’t have anything special about them, they are just us.
Your questions seem to be tainted with outdated ways of thinking, imho.
1. Probably. Who knows. It’s a homogeneous-ish place. These Tatars don’t seem to have any distinguishable features, so they are probably mixed in with the rest of the crowd.
2. Probably. This is a very odd question. Mixed marriages are a thing – this could be a race and/or religion mix etc. but I doubt it ever goes deeper than that. It’s all between the two people getting married. That’s all.
3. Lol. Such a weird thing to say. Nobody normal is looking at anyone through a social lens with filters from centuries ago – there are no nobles or other classes. There are just people. Rich and poor. Ugly and beautiful. Happy and sad.
There is quite much influence of Tatars in Poland. They have been nobilitated, it means they became nobles in exchange for their military service, they adopted surnames that made them sound more Polish, such as Kryczyński, Jabłonowski, and Sobolewski, as well as less similar ones like Aksak and Selimowicz. They are particularly visible in Podlasie, but for example I don’t live in Podlasie and have two friends from school of Tatar descent, from assimilated and Catholic families, not Muslim ones.
Some Tatars, especially those in Podlasie, remain Muslim, while others have been baptised but all of them were assimilated and Polonized. It is worth mentioning that a Polish writer and Nobel laureate was also of Tatar descent.
They are normal Poles right now, they do intermarriage as well. We don’t see them a „nobles” in Poland 10% of population were nobles quite much comparing to the west. Today Poland nobody care about being „noble” by some families 300 or 500 years ago except maybe this biggest families with huge wealth like Czartoryscy or Lubomirscy.
Contrary to popular belief, the Tatars were not always completely and unconditionally loyal to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. A case in point is the Lipka uprisings during the Commonwealth’s wars with the Ottoman Empire and their defection to the Turkish side. But the situation was not black and white, because it was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that failed to pay the Tatars their wages, and after initially supporting the Ottomans, the Tatars were even more disappointed by the conditions of service in Turkey and returned to the side of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
And to be fair, Poles and Lithuanians were equally capable of defecting to the enemy sometimes. The saddest examples here are the agreements at the Ujście, where part of the Polish nobility defected to the Swedish side, and the agreement at Kiejdany, where the Lithuanians did the same.
Of course, everything changed later because most of them also returned to the PLC.
My mother is a Tatar, but she is part of the majority of Tatars who assimilated into Polish society. Her family moved from the eastern regions down south and were converted catholics. So now the only way in which my mother is Tatar is her physical appearance, for which majority of society doesn’t give a damn.
As to the ones in Poland that kept their culture, Tatar surnames and even religion, they’re Polish, just of different ethnicity.
My great-great-grandmother was from a Lipka Tatar family. She married my great-great-grandfather in 1891. So, it least then there were intermarriages. And that fact that we have some Tatar ancestors was one of the family stories that surfaced from time to time in my grandma memories.
Now, I believe that the Lipka Tatars are more or less completely dissolved in the Polish society and no more visible or even remembered (maybe apart from historians, ethnologists etc).
The thoughts? My personal thoughts are that they were an interesting group. When I tried to uncover my family tree, I discovered that virtually all Lipkas from my great-great-grandma village (Tuczna, in Podlachia region) had the same surname (Lipka). It was a nightmare to unpack the contents of the church records because it was just Lipka everywhere. Somehow, they managed to keep trace of the lineages – I never found any situation of close relatives marrying.
Average Polish person never heard of them. Muslim Tatars from Kruszyniany are still visible and remembered. If you ask someone about Lipka Tatars, they will probably think you have the Muslims in mind.
in Denmark we have a certain dish called Tatar Mad. which directly transfers to Tatar Food.
it is Ryebread, butter, raw beef, like that in a burger, a raw egg on top and onions if i remember correctly ! :p
Lipka tatar ancestry is something that is not that uncommon, especially in areas where tatars historically lived/live to this day, especially eastern parts of Podlachia. Generally Tatars are respected and well liked as they are seen as loyal polish citizens who served the country in several wars. Of course there are instances of people who have unfavourable view of them, mostly due to islamophobia and a lack of historical knowledge, however these are very rare. As for mixed marriages I dont really know. A large part of historical tatar communities have disapeared due to being homogenised with the local Poles and Belarussians through mixed marriages, so modern surviving communities definately try to stay as “pure” as possible, so mixed marriages are definately frowned upon by many, however it does not mean they cant happen.
My friend claimed to have Tatar ancestry mixed in and he did have very distinct asiatic face features and very specific body build, like very dense and heavy with short legs and longer torso. He basically looked like I imagined a mongol rider. I am kinda sad that we lost contact he was a great guy. He probably still is but he was too.