The Historical Meanings of the Term Tatar

This article is a critical and comprehensive examination of the historical mea­nings and uses of the term Tatar, drawing on a broad range of primary sources. It focuses on identifying to whom and by whom the term was applied across different historical periods. In the pre-Mongol period, Tatar denoted a nomadic people of eastern Mongolia, as recorded in Türk, Uyghur, and Qirghiz inscriptions, Chinese histories, and works like Maḥmūd al-Kāshgharī’s Dīwān Luġāt al-Turk. On the eve of the Mongol conquests, the Tatars were destroyed as a collective entity by Chinggis Khan, who viewed them as his ancestral enemies. However, during the Mongol period, Tatar became a widespread exonym for the Mongols, used by Chinese, Western European, Rus’, and Muslim writers. During the post-Mongol period, this external use continued. Writers in Ming China, the Islamic world, and Russia, among others, used Tatar to refer to both Mongols and their descendants. However, the heirs of the Mongol empire, namely, the Timurids, Moghuls, Uzbeks, and Kazakhs rejected it as a self-name. The notable exception were the Crimean Tatars of the western Jochid realm, who had adopted Tatar as a self-designation by the late 15th century or earlier. In the Russian empire, Tatar was more broadly used to denote not only the Mongols and their descendants, but also various Turkic-speaking subjects of the expanding empire. Similarly, Western European writers applied Tartar to Inner Asians, including the Manchus. Today, Tatar remains a self-name among the Crimean and Kazan Tatars

Linguistics · Physics · Tatar · Cultural, Linguistic, Economic Studies · History · Philosophy