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 and settled in the lands ot present-day Belarus and Lithuania . 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.
The name Lipka is derived from the old Crimean Tatar name of Lithuania. The record of the name Lipka in Oriental sources permits us to infer an original Libķa/Lipķa, from which the Polish Lipka was formed, with possible contamination with the Polish ''lipka'' “small lime-tree”; this etymology was suggested by the Tatar author S. Tuhan-Baranowski. A less frequent Polish form, Łubka, is corroborated in Łubka/Łupka, the Crimean Tatar name of the Lipkas up to the end of the 19th century. The Crimean Tatar term ''Lipka Tatarłar'' meaning ''Lithuanian Tatars'', later started to be used by the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars to describe themselves.
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 Belarus, 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.
Lipka Tatars have adopted Ruthenian Language and later Belarusian Language as their mother tongue. However, they used Arabic Alphabet to write in Belarusian until the 1930s .
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 .
According to some estimates, by 1591 there were about 200,000 Lipka Tatars living in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and about 400 mosques serving them. According to the ''Risāle-yi Tatar-i Leh'' (an account of the Lipka Tatars written for Süleyman the Magnificent by an anonymous Polish Muslim during a stay in Istanbul in 1557-8 on his way to Mecca) there were 100 Lipka Tatar settlements with mosques in Poland. The largest communities existed in the cities of Lida and Novahradak . There has been a Lipka Tatar settlement in Minsk , today's capital of Belarus , known as Tatarskaya Slabada . Perhaps a more realistic account of the number of Lipka Tatars is given by Ibrihim Pecewi, who cites a statement made by a messenger from the Lipkas to the mufti at Aķkerman, that mentions sixty villages with mosques.
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.
- ''' was established as one of the Successor State s 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 occupied the southern Siberian steppe from the east of the Urals and the Caspian Sea to Mongolia .
- ''', 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.
- ''' 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- The rule of the fervent Catholic Sigismund III (1587-1632) and the Counter-Reformation movement brought a number of restrictions to the liberties granted to non-Catholics in Poland, the Lipkas amongst others. This led to a diplomatic intervention by Sultan Murad III with the Polish King in 1591 on the question of freedom of religious observance for the Lipkas. This was undertaken at the request of Polish Muslims who had accompanied the Polish King's envoy to Istanbul.
- ''' 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 historical '' Trylogia '' of Henryk Sienkiewicz , the Nobel Prize winning author (1905) who was himself descended from Christianised Lipka Tatars. 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.
- ''', 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.
- ''' or the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth.
- ''' 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.
- ''', Kobryn and Hrodna . The Tatars received land that had been cleared of the previous occupants, from 0.5 to 7.5 square kilometres per head, according to rank and length of service.
- ''' 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 ancestors’ participation in the breaking of the Siege Of Vienna .
- '''-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 . A futher large scale emigration of Lipkas to Ottoman controlled lands took place early in the 18th century, after the victory won by King Augustus II over the Polish-born King Stanislas Leszczyński, whom the Lipkas had supported in his war against the Saxon King.
- ''' reaffirmed the noble status of the Polish Lithuanian Tatars. After the Partitions of Poland the Lipkas played their part in the various national uprisings, and also served alongside the Poles in the Napoleonic army.
- [http://www.szlachta.org/2selim.htm Tartar Nobility in the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth] Selim Mirza-Juszenski Chazbijewicz - translated into English by Paul de Nowina-Konopka
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