Tatars in Lithuania

The Tatar population in Lithuania lives surrounded by other nations and religions, and lost their native language in the 16th century.

Lithuanian Tatar mosques operate in Nemėžis, the village of Keturiasdešimt Totorių, Raižiai and Kaunas.

It is believed that there were about 60 Lithuanian Tatar mosques or houses of worship at various times in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Vytautas the Great took the first Tatars to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania after the campaigns in 1397-1398 to the Dnieper and Don steppes together with Khan Tokhtamysh, who tried to regain his Khanate of the Golden Horde with the Lithuanian aid.

After the Battle of Kletsk in 1506, a number of Tatar captives settled in private estates, towns or villages of Lithuanian noble families, such as the Princes Ostrogski, the Radziwiłłs, and others.

The last Khan of the Great Horde (the lower Volga region) Shaykh Aḥmad was taken hostage and held for diplomatic purposes in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a considerable escort for 20 years.

Tatars were exempt from state taxes, because they performed military service in exchange for the lands they held.

In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the main activity of Tatars was serving in the military and diplomatic service.

Initially, Tatar flags were also military units that later formed the Front Guard Regiments of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

In the urban areas, not noble Tatars were involved in gardening, leather production, horse breeding, and transportation.

[4] Tatars retained their rights after the Third Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, when the lands of the GDL became part of the Russian Empire.

A number of Tatars participated in Napoleon's Russian campaign in 1812, the uprisings of 1831 and 1863, and supported Lithuania's National Liberation Movement.

A Division of the Cultural and Educational Union of Polish Tatars, which operated in Poland's occupied eastern Lithuania in 1925-1940, published scientific, religious literature and fiction, and the newspaper „Życie tatarskie“ was printed in Vilnius in 1934-1939.

A Muslim religious center – the Vilnius Muftiate (headed by the Mufti Jokūbas Šinkevičius) – was founded on 28 December 1925.

In 1930, on the occasion of the 520th anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald, a new brick mosque was opened in Kaunas, the temporary capital of Lithuania.

In 2009, the Vytautas the Great Monument Construction Foundation was established, which aims to perpetuate the historical memory and to preserve the cultural heritage.

There are also well-known Lithuanian Tatar dumplings with mutton and beef, pumpkin pie with meat (traditionally with geese), ceremonial round scones - jama - and sweet halwa.