Źycie religijne Tatarow na ziemiach Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego w XVI-XIX wieku

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Lietuvos totoriai; Religinis gyvenimas; Mečečių statyba; Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė; Vytautas Didysis; Rusijos imperija. Keywords: Lithuanian Tatars; Religious life; Mosque building; Grand Duchy of Lithuania; Vytautas the Great; Russian Empire.

ENThe first Tartar settlers came to Lithuania by the end of the fourteenth century. They received allotments in exchange for their military service. Their settlements centered around the main towns. Due to their religion, they were not given complete political rights. Their main settlements focused around the touns of Vilnus, Troki, Grodno, Minsk and Novogrod. Apart from serving in the army, the Tartars also dealt with gardening and cartering. Moreover, they soon became renowned leather makers. The Tartar communities usually occupied separate districts of the towns, known as “the Tartar backstreets”. The Tartar settlements were created in Lithuania mainly due to Vytautas the Great, the ruler of the Great Duchy of Lithuania. It was owing to his policy that the Tartar colonization became permanent in Lithuania. In fact, the tolerant attitude of the Lithuanian rulers had a signifi cant impact on the creation of the settlements. They allowed the settlers for example, to have their own religion. The Tartars who settled in the Great Duchy of Lithuania were predominantly the followers of the Sunni Islam. Their arrival marked the beginning of the Muslim communities in that area, which soon extended to the larger Tartar populations, forming communities and raising mosques. Until these days, there exists a conviction among the historiographers that in order to build a mosque, a royal permit had to be given and, together with a license issued by the catholic bishop of a particular district (usually, from the Vilnius district).In this paper, I will attempt to disprove this thesis. As a result of my thorough research, I believe that no such permit was required either from the king nor the bishop. This conviction was also signaled by Piotr Czyżewski in his pasquil. What is more, also the tradition of erecting the temples may serve as a proof. In my opinion, the presumption of the demands for the license originated from the proposal voiced by the author of the pasquil. Nonetheless, there are no archive sources that could prove that the proposal was legally binding. The Tartar temples were built of wood since it was the cheapest and most common material available. No detailed information about erecting the earliest temples prevailed until now. Nonetheless, the information at our disposal allows us to assume that the mosques were erected mainly at the expense of the whole community. We cannot also neglect the fact that the Tartars inhabited private properties as well. In such cases, the magnates offered help, by gratuitously granting the land, wood, or by endowing an imam, or a mosque with the land. The Tartars inhabiting Lithuania, being isolated from larger Muslim communities, were constantly subjected to the process of assimilation. As a result of breaking off the links with the Muslim communities, a separate section of Islam arose in Lithuania, which was directly adjusted to the Lithuanian conditions. It is impossible to ascertain to what extent the Tartars fulfi lled the fi ve pillars of Islam. We can only be sure that they cared for their religious and spiritual life.One of the examples of such attitude was the great concern for constructing new temples, or attention paid to the scriptures. The Tartars abandoned their language (as well as its numerous dialects) quite early. As a result of this there arose a problem in what way should the scriptures be read so that it would be clear and understood by all the followers. Therefore, the translations recorded in Polish and Belorussian with the use of the Arabic alphabet appeared. While compiling their scriptures, the Tartars made use of Christian writings, deleting those fragments that were superfl uous, or incompatible with Islam. As a result, a specifi c kind of religious manuscript writing was created. In this way, until the early twentieth century, the scriptures like Kitabs, Hemails and Dalawary (rolls of letters usually buried into tombs) came into existence. Furthermore, as early as in the 16th century, the Qur’an was translated into Polish and was included into the so called tafsirs. However in most of these texts, the authors remain anonymous. The Tartars were also renowned healers. They healed with the help of the magical formulas written in Arabic on the so called niuski (fragments of paper). Then, they were either burnt or dissolved in water and drunk in order to obtain the desired healing effect. [...]. [From the publication]

• Teologija / Theology
• Istorija / History