Monday, August 15, 2022

Tatars

 The Tatars is an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups bearing the name "Tatar." Initially, the ethnonym Tatar possibly referred to the Tatar confederation. That confederation was eventually incorporated into the Mongol Empire when Genghis Khan unified the various steppe tribes. 

Historically, the term Tatars (or Tartars) was applied to anyone originating from the vast Northern and Central Asian landmass then known as Tartary. This term was also conflated with the Mongol Empire itself. More recently, however, the term has come to refer more narrowly to related ethnic groups who refer to themselves as Tatars or who speak languages that are commonly referred to as Tatar, namely Tatar by Volga Tatars (Tatars proper), Crimean Tatar by Crimean Tatars, and Siberian Tatar by Siberian Tatars.

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