The Waning Crescent by Selim Korycki.
A photography project about the Polish Tatars, Poland’s oldest native Muslim population
The Podlasie region of North-Eastern Poland is home to the largest remaining population of Polish Tatars, also known as Lipka Tatars, a Sunni Muslim minority group that have resided in Eastern Europe for more than 600 years.
Their history in the region begins with Tokhtamysh, who was a prominent Khan of a subdivision of the Golden Horde, a Turkicized entity of the Mongol Empire. Tokhtamysh and his clan were granted asylum in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by Vytautas the Great. At the beginning of its history the Grand Duchy, a Pagan ruled-state, had come to occupy parts of Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine. Being that it was a multi-ethnic and multi-religious entity ruled by a pagan leader, it developed an early history of religious tolerance as its Pagan leaders were not fond of the idea proselytism, being targets of it themselves by Christian missionaries and conquerors. Eventually the Grand Duchy would combine itself with the Polish Kingdom to create the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
For most of its history the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth upheld and legislated the previous values of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Due to these circumstances the Islamic population of the Commonwealth were allowed to mobilize in society freely and practice their religion without fear of persecution, unlike most other parts of Christendom. This religious freedom also brought about more Islamic settlers in the form of Crimean and Nogay Tatars, who would soon be absorbed into the general Polish Tatar population. The Tatars were also granted nobility status and frequently intermarried with the Polish nobility, however when this occurred it was mostly between those Tatars who converted to Catholicism or Orthodoxy and Christian Polish or Ruthenian nobles. Tatars remained a free people unlike the majority of the non-nobility Christian population in Poland who lived their lives as serfs. They were also permitted to own Christian serfs, again something not seen in most other parts of Europe.The Lipka Tatars were heavily valued as cavalrymen due to their horse-riding skills, and fought against both the Teutonic Knights and later the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Vienna. despite the fact that this would ensure an Islamic expansion into the rest of Poland. Due to their intermingling with the Slavic and occasionally Baltic populations of the region they quickly lost their language, however other traits of their culture survived, particularly their adherence to Islam. Most Lipka Tatars adopted the Polish or Belarusian languages as their native tongue, but interestingly enough also used the Arabic script when writing those languages. Making them the only Slavic languages outside of Bosnian to have used that form of calligraphy. After the partition of Poland and eventually its independence, most Lipka Tatars ended up living between Poland and Belarus.
The Waning Crescent is a photography project created by Selim Korycki, who had this to say about it:
“Despite being brought up as an atheist, I was always very aware of my family history as well as the history of Lipka Tatars. Following many discussions about rising nationalism and Islamophobia, I realised just how very few people are aware of the Muslim community peacefully settled in the heart of Europe for over 600 years. Knowing that Podlasie region is the only place within today’s Polish borders where Tatars not only lived for generations, but are still present today I decided to execute the project there. This was my first visit to the region,”
Despite the Polish Tatars influence on Polish history and culture, there has been a lot of misunderstanding of the Tatars since the end of WWII when the country experienced great homogenization and radical assimilation, which increased under the Communist regime. When commenting on the views of many of his countrymen Selim said:
“There is a belief, for example, that Polish Tatars look like Mongolian nomads, that they speak ‘another’ language, and are generally un-Polish. In reality, after 600 years of assimilation, Poles of Tatar heritage are mostly [indistinguishable] from the rest of the population. Just as their parents, their grandparents and their great-grandparents they speak Polish, think Polish, feel Polish, have Polish surnames, eat Polish food.” At the same time Polish Tatars cultivate their culture by practicing Islam, preserving traditional Turkic names, and nurturing traditional Tatar cuisine (Central Asian dishes with Eastern European influence).
Today when less than 5% of the population of Poland consider themselves to be a member of an ethnic minority, and over 85% Poles declares themselves to be Roman Catholic; the Lipka Tatars are a striking reminder that Poland was once a hugely multicultural and multi-religious country”
