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Terminology / ethnonyms

As many researchers emphasize, the term ‘Tatar’ alone is inaccurate (c.f. Łapicz 1986:17Łapicz 1986 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.
; Boeschoten 2006: 6Boeschoten 2006 / komentarz/comment/r /
Boeschoten, Hendrik 2006. "The Speakers of Turkic Languages", w: Lars Johnson & Éva Á. Csató (eds.) The Turkic Languages. London – New York: Routledge, s. 1-15.
), but also when it is particularized, it is not always certain to whom it refers. At the beginning of settlements on the Polish and Lithuanian lands, all peoples who came from the Golden Horde called themselves the Tatars (Łapicz 1986: 53Łapicz 1986 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.
). The name “Tatars’ refers, at present, to a few groups of  a Turkic descent. Initially, it probably meant a Mongolian tribe, but since the times of Genghis Khan, it has been associated with his descendants (Boeschoten 2006: 6). Tatars call themselves Татарлар in Tatar. There is also the name of Lipka Tatars, used to describe Muslims of Tatar origin from Bialystok.
To define the Tatars who historically lived on the Polish territory a name the Lithuanian Tatars or the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars started to be used. According to Łapicz (1986Łapicz 1986 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.
), all names apart from the Lithuanian Tatars, have only modern reference (Łapicz 1986: 21Łapicz 1986 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.
). Kamocki (1993Kamocki 1993 / komentarz/comment/r /
Kamocki, Janusz 1993. "Tatarzy polscy jako grupa etnograficzna", Rocznik Tatarów Polskich. Tom I. Gdańsk: Związek Tatarów Polskich, s. 43-47.
) emphasises that the ethnic identity has a dynamic character, what in case of the Tatars hinders a clear definition e.g. in terms of national belonging.
For the last hundred years the meaning of words Polish, Lithuanian etc. has changed significantly. When in the past, being a Lithuanian was related to the legal-state dimension, now national dimension is more important.
The Tatars who at present live in Lithuania can be named the Lithuanian Tatars. It has to be remembered, however, that this group feels strong connections to the Poles (Kamocki 1993: 43Kamocki 1993 / komentarz/comment/r /
Kamocki, Janusz 1993. "Tatarzy polscy jako grupa etnograficzna", Rocznik Tatarów Polskich. Tom I. Gdańsk: Związek Tatarów Polskich, s. 43-47.
).
In this study to refer to the settlers and descendants of the Tatar settlers on the land of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and then the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, we use the term the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars, whereas the terms: Belarusian Tatars, Lithuanian Tatars and Polish Tatars have modern references to the Tatars who currently live in Belarus, Lithuania and Poland.

Tatars now

According to the data from 2001, 3235 Tatars live in Lithuania (www.std.lt). The estimated data about the number of the Belarusian Tatars oscillate around 12 thousands (Jankowski 2010: 27Jankowski 2010 / komentarz/comment/r /
Jankowski, Henryk 2010. Język krymskotatarski. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Akademickie DIALOG.
). In Poland, there are no more than four thousands of people of Tatar descent. According to the census from 2002, 495 people in Poland declared the Tatar nationality, and 11 - the use of Tatar at home (Declared nationality and language used at home in census 2002,  http://www.stat.gov.pl/gus/8185_PLK_HTML.htm).
The Polish Tatars live predominantly in the area of two villages in Podlasie: Bohoniki and Kruszyniany, as well as Gdansk, Bialystok and Sokólka with areas nearby. The history of the Tatar in Bohoniki and Kruszyniany dates 300 years back, when the King John III Sobieski gave the land to the Tatars as the equivalent of the outstanding pay (Łapicz 1986: 31Łapicz 1986 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.
).
The Polish Tatars are associated in many organisations and associations. Among them we have to mention the Association of Polish Tatars (www.ztrp.org), which gathers the Tatars of Polish descent. Apart from that there are many websites ran by and for the Polish Tatars, and also dedicated to many aspects of the Tatar culture (e.g. www.tataria.eu, www.tatarzy.pl). The Tatar band Bunczuk was created in 2000 and it has in its repertoire e.g songs in Tatar and Polish. The Tatar community is a hard core of the Muslim Religious Association in the Republic of Poland (www.mzr.pl).