Totoristika Lietuvos mokslų akademijos Vrublevskių bibliotekos fonduose
Authors:   The Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Paškevičiūtė-Kundrotienė Eglė 
Published: April 2023

Tatar documentary heritage collections held in various holdings of the Wroblewski Library shed light on the history of one of the oldest national minorities in Lithuania, the Tatars. This article aims to look at old documents and Tatar printed heritage held in the Wroblewski Library, and at modern Tatar studies. It is particularly important to find and study iconography and egodocuments, which can provide researchers with plenty of valuable information. The first knowledge about the Tatars can be found in old chronicles, as well as travel accounts, historical works, and extant manuscript documents such as privileges, legal or religious papers. The Tatars assimilated linguistically, but retained their religious individuality – they remained Muslims and used Arabic script. Their written culture is closely related to religion – khamails, dalawars, kitabs, and semikitabs were needed to perform religious rites. The Tatar manuscripts were written in Arabic characters in the local languages, the prayer books served as a testimony to a family’s history. The Wroblewski Library holds a number of unique religious documents, starting with the kitab of Ivan Lutskevich and a khamail (prayer book) from the mid-19th century, and ending with recently-acquired copies of Tatar manuscript documents from a private collection. In the 19th century, a scholarly interest in the Tatar community grew; the numbers of intellectuals in their midst increased, and the Tatar identity strengthened. The Tatar publishing in Lithuania, developing along with the ethnic revival of the Tatar community, flourished in the first half of the 20th century. Vilnius gradually became the center of Tatar intellectual activity: the acclaimed scholar Prof. Stefan Bazarewski taught at Vilnius University; here existed the Turkology study circle led by Prof. Seraya Shapshal; it is in Vilnius that Tatar societies were founded and a museum was opened in 1929, and it is here that a number of works in Tatar studies and periodicals were published. The Vilnius Muftiate also engaged in publishing pursuits. From this period, the Wroblewski Library has numerous photographs featuring religious objects (mosques, cemeteries) and group photographs showing Tatar community members. World War II interrupted Lithuanian Tatars’ cultural and educational activity, their intellectuals were scattered or killed. Much of their valuable religious and cultural heritage was lost. Because of the war, the smallish Tatar community was divided into several even smaller ones, and their living and working conditions in Lithuania, Belarus and Poland differed. A considerable number of Tatars reassimilated, this time due to the influence of the Russian language. In the late 20th – early 21st century, the state of the Tatar community improved again, as there appeared new opportunities for education, culture, and religion. The Wroblewski Library houses one of the largest collections of Tatar documentary heritage in Lithuania, which is divided between the Main Collection, Rare Books Department and the Manuscripts Department. It consists of early Tatar documents, examples of their written culture and religious literature, and iconographic materials. These items have been copiously used by scholars. The library has also amassed a large number of recent works in Tatar studies in Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian, and other languages, as well as research published across the world, whose variety of topic will hopefully attract the attention of the Tatar community, scholars, and all interested in Tatar studies. Keywords: Tatars; written culture; historical memory; Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences; manuscripts.