HERBARZ-L Archives

From: "David Zincavage" <>
Subject: Re: Tartars in Lithuanian Nobility
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 08:37:55 -0700
References: <2409A35B3E1C8D4D929583798DF5AA78D7D1B1@whmail01.walterhav.com>

"Concise" society? I presume you mean something like "distinct, separate."
But that is far from true. The largest part of the population of Tartar
descent in Lithuanian was of varying percentages of mixed ancestry, and
christianized centuries ago. Scattered petty noble Tartar villages were
located all over Lithuania, and just like the rest of the drobna szlachta,
their descendants scattered about the countryside, intermarried with all
classes of people, and became submerged in the general population over the
last three centuries. What you are talking about is an itsy bitsy teeny
weeny remnant discreet (nearly) full-blooded Islamic Tartar population,
which survived into the 20th century in, as far as I can recall, at least
three locations in Lithuania. There was one community near Trakai, one in
Kaunas, and another in the Suwalkija region.

>> In any event, the Lithuanian Tatar community,
>> including the Podlasian Tatars, to both of whom the border meant nothing
>> for at least 500 years, was a concise society (before Stalin) about whom
>> insider Dziadulewicz was able to glean a great deal of accurate ancient
>> genealogical information, which he published along with frank commentary
>> for all to inspect.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Leon Stevens" <>
To: "David Zincavage" <>; <>
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 7:48 AM
Subject: RE: Tartars in Lithuanian Nobility


> at Horodlo a treaty was signed <

Nobody denies that the adoptions at Horodlo took place, and no doubt
some were transacted earlier. The Polish-Lithuanian border hadn't been
any sort of "Iron Curtain" prior to the treaty. The entire existence of
the clan structure owes itself to usurpations and "adoptions" on a
massive scale. "Usurpations" because landowners almost anywhere in the
early proto-Commonwealth's territories showed their property signs to
clerics asking if they belonged to any of the Polish warrior-class
megafamilies. The priests flipped through Paprocki's tome (among
others) and responded for example, "You've got a semicircle with a
pointy thing on top of it just like the Ogonczyks, so you're apparently
one of their relatives." "Well I'll be darned! Imagine that!" exclaims
the inquirer. Decades later a Vistula barge hauler happens to mention
to an Ogonczyk knight in the Cracow District, that someone in the
Dobrzyn region calls himself "Ogonczyk" and uses a similar mark. The
knight rejoices, "And who'd ever have though we had kin way up there!
St. Mary be praised! When I take my wife to Torun to pick out that
promised Gdansk szafa, we'll have relatives with whom to spend the night
safely, and if I'm short, they may lend me something until the next
harvest." Was this usurpation or adoption? Who's to say? As I have
said before, nor do I believe that adoption (if we may truly call it
that) ceased when the toothless statue banning it was enacted. In the
20th and 21st centuries scholars such as Dziadulewicz, Semkowicz, Wolf
etc. no longer need fear the wrath of minor or major lords for exposing
ancestors' misrepresentations. If anything, contemporaries find them
amusing. (Last year I (of course discreetly and privately) cited a
misreprestation made by one of the Tatar ancestors of a member of this
list, but the member is still on cordial speaking terms with me.) Only
modern nobility clubs (with their very short membership rolls) find such
past genealogical short-cuts to nobility to be treacherous acts, turn a
blind eye to them, or in the interests of their paper-based memberships,
stand in bitter denial of them. In any event no serious scholar or
genealogist operates upon the premise that God gave nobility to known or
anonymous princes, who in turn mostly bestowed it upon brave warriors
along with villages of the cowards' descendants in accordance with God's
promise to Noah. In any event, the Lithuanian Tatar community,
including the Podlasian Tatars, to both of whom the border meant nothing
for at least 500 years, was a concise society (before Stalin) about whom
insider Dziadulewicz was able to glean a great deal of accurate ancient
genealogical information, which he published along with frank commentary
for all to inspect.

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