For more than 600 years, a Muslim community has maintained its presence in a region of Europe ruled for centuries by Catholic monarchs. A new study examines how the Lithuanian-Polish Tatars survived when other Muslim communities faced expulsion, forced conversion and persecution.
Published in the journal Nationalities Papers, the study examines the history of the Lithuanian-Polish Tatars, also known as the Lipka Tatars, whose ancestors settled in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania during the late fourteenth century. Their descendants continue to live in Lithuania, Poland and Belarus today.
Researchers Şener Aktürk of Koç University and Yury Katliarou of Istanbul Nişantaşı University investigate why this community survived under Catholic rule while medieval Muslim populations elsewhere in Europe, particularly in Spain, Portugal and Italy, were subjected to policies that ultimately eliminated their communities.
Their findings suggest that the answer lies not simply in religious tolerance or the Tatars’ military service, but in the political structure of Lithuania and the later Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Competing religious groups and powerful nobles prevented Catholic rulers from imposing the kind of religious uniformity seen elsewhere in Europe.
How Muslims Settled in Medieval Lithuania
Historic and modern gravestones at a Tatar Muslim cemetery near Hiryny, Belarus. Photos by Şener Aktürk and Yury Katliarou, CC BY 4.0.
The origins of the Lipka Tatars can be traced to the late fourteenth century, when Muslim Tatars from the lands of the Golden Horde began settling in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Although earlier Tatar groups had entered the region, the year 1397 is generally regarded as the beginning of the community’s permanent Muslim presence.
That year, Grand Duke Vytautas undertook a military expedition into the territories of the Golden Horde. Among those who subsequently settled in Lithuania were Tatar captives, political refugees and mercenaries who had joined his forces.
Vytautas granted land to Tatar settlers in exchange for military service. They were permitted to retain their Islamic faith, marry local women and establish communities near strategically important locations, including castles, river crossings and frontier territories. By the early fifteenth century, Tatar settlements had become established around Vilnius, Trakai and other towns across the Grand Duchy.
The Tatars soon played an important role in Lithuanian military affairs. At the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, Muslim Tatar soldiers fought alongside the combined Polish-Lithuanian army against the Teutonic Order. Their participation was particularly striking because the Teutonic Knights had long justified their campaigns in the Baltic region as part of the struggle against non-Christian peoples.
The Tatars continued to serve Lithuanian and Polish rulers in subsequent centuries, sometimes fighting against other Muslim powers, including the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire. Their relationship with the monarchy brought important privileges, but these did not amount to full political equality. Tatar nobles enjoyed certain legal protections, while the community remained excluded from important political institutions.
Why Did the Tatars Survive?
The historic wooden mosque in Bohoniki, Poland, is one of the surviving places of worship of the Lipka Tatars. Photo by Zala / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0.
The researchers examine several possible explanations for the Tatars’ exceptional survival, beginning with Lithuania’s relatively late conversion to Christianity.
Lithuania was the last major pagan state in medieval Europe. Its rulers adopted Catholic Christianity through the dynastic union with Poland in 1386, rather than through conquest by Christian armies. This allowed Lithuania to retain much of its existing political structure and its religiously diverse population.
The Grand Duchy already contained substantial Orthodox Christian communities, and its rulers had experience governing subjects who followed different religious traditions.
However, Aktürk and Katliarou argue that Lithuania’s late conversion cannot fully explain why its Muslim population survived. Other European kingdoms had also once contained substantial non-Christian populations, yet eventually imposed religious uniformity.
Nor was the Tatars’ military importance sufficient. Catholic rulers elsewhere in Europe employed Muslim soldiers and mercenaries without necessarily protecting their wider religious communities from persecution.
Instead, the researchers identify the distribution of political power as the decisive factor. In Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, monarchs could not exercise unlimited authority. They shared power with a politically influential nobility that included Catholics, Orthodox Christians and, eventually, Protestants.
Religious divisions overlapped with political rivalries, making it difficult for any single faction to gain sufficient control to impose its religious preferences on the entire population. As Aktürk and Katliarou explain, “We observe that the existence of non-Catholic parties with political and military power served as a brake against efforts to achieve religious homogeneity.”
This arrangement did not necessarily reflect a modern commitment to religious freedom. Rather, competing interests prevented those seeking religious uniformity from consistently enforcing their demands.
The study also highlights the importance of Lithuania’s relationship with the papacy. Because Lithuania had adopted Christianity on its own terms, and because its rulers governed a large and powerful state on the eastern edge of Catholic Europe, papal authorities exercised less influence over its religious policies than they did in many western European kingdoms.
Persecution, Rebellion and Religious Tolerance
Painting by Jan Chełmiński (1851–1925) depicting Lithuanian Tatar soldiers serving in Napoleon’s army in 1812.
The Tatars’ survival did not mean that they escaped religious persecution. During the seventeenth century, particularly under King Sigismund III Vasa, Catholic efforts to strengthen religious uniformity contributed to growing hostility towards non-Catholic communities. In 1609, a Catholic mob destroyed a Tatar mosque in Trakai. Eight years later, an anti-Tatar pamphlet circulated advocating the eradication of the Muslim community.
Restrictions also affected religious life. In 1668, legislation prohibited the construction of new mosques in places where none had previously existed. However, enforcement was inconsistent, and new mosques were established just over a decade later.
The Tatars also experienced tensions over their military obligations and political status. In 1672, some Tatar soldiers rebelled against the Polish Crown and joined the Ottoman side during a period of warfare between the Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire. Such actions could have provided a justification for collective punishment, as accusations of disloyalty had done elsewhere in Europe.
Yet the rebellion did not lead to the wholesale expulsion or forced conversion of the Tatar population.
The researchers argue that the Commonwealth’s divided political structure helped prevent such outcomes. Monarchs, nobles and competing religious factions frequently disagreed over the treatment of minorities, limiting the ability of any one group to implement systematic persecution.
The contrast with other parts of Catholic Europe is central to the study. In Spain, for example, the remaining Muslim population was compelled to convert to Christianity in the early sixteenth century, while the descendants of these converts, known as Moriscos, were expelled between 1609 and 1614.
In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, however, Muslim communities continued to practise their religion openly, maintain mosques and preserve their distinctive identity.
The Lipka Tatars Today
A kitab, containing Slavic-language texts written in Arabic script. Image credited to Istoricheskii fakultet BGPU (2020), reproduced in Aktürk and Katliarou (2026).
More than six centuries after their arrival, the descendants of these medieval settlers remain part of the religious and cultural landscape of eastern Europe. Approximately 16,000 Tatars live in the region, based on the most recent census figures available to the researchers. These include 2,142 in Lithuania, 8,445 in Belarus and 5,295 in Poland.
Over the centuries, the Tatars adopted the languages of their neighbours while retaining their Islamic faith. By the end of the seventeenth century, their original Turkic languages had largely disappeared from everyday use.
This linguistic transformation produced a distinctive manuscript tradition. Known as kitabs, these religious and literary works were written in local Slavic languages using Arabic script, preserving a combination of Islamic religious learning and eastern European linguistic traditions.
Historic mosques and Muslim cemeteries remain visible reminders of this heritage. In Poland, the wooden mosques at Kruszyniany and Bohoniki are particularly notable examples of the community’s religious architecture.
Today, Tatar religious institutions operate in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus, while cultural organisations continue to preserve the community’s history and traditions.
For Aktürk and Katliarou, the survival of the Lipka Tatars offers a broader lesson about religious coexistence in medieval and early modern Europe. Their research suggests that tolerance did not always emerge from enlightened rulers or shared religious ideals. Sometimes, it resulted from political divisions that made persecution difficult to enforce.
The continued existence of the Lipka Tatars demonstrates how those medieval political circumstances could shape the survival of a religious community for centuries.
The article, “The Puzzle of the Lithuanian-Polish Tatars: The Only Muslim Community That has Survived Under Catholic Rule in Europe since the Middle Ages,” by Şener Aktürk and Yury Katliarou, is published in Nationalities Papers. Click here to read it.
Top Image: Historical settlements, mosques and cemeteries of the Lithuanian-Polish Tatars. Map from Aktürk and Katliarou (2026), Nationalities Papers, CC BY 4.0.
For more than 600 years, a Muslim community has maintained its presence in a region of Europe ruled for centuries by Catholic monarchs. A new study examines how the Lithuanian-Polish Tatars survived when other Muslim communities faced expulsion, forced conversion and persecution.
Published in the journal Nationalities Papers, the study examines the history of the Lithuanian-Polish Tatars, also known as the Lipka Tatars, whose ancestors settled in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania during the late fourteenth century. Their descendants continue to live in Lithuania, Poland and Belarus today.
Researchers Şener Aktürk of Koç University and Yury Katliarou of Istanbul Nişantaşı University investigate why this community survived under Catholic rule while medieval Muslim populations elsewhere in Europe, particularly in Spain, Portugal and Italy, were subjected to policies that ultimately eliminated their communities.
Their findings suggest that the answer lies not simply in religious tolerance or the Tatars’ military service, but in the political structure of Lithuania and the later Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Competing religious groups and powerful nobles prevented Catholic rulers from imposing the kind of religious uniformity seen elsewhere in Europe.
How Muslims Settled in Medieval Lithuania
The origins of the Lipka Tatars can be traced to the late fourteenth century, when Muslim Tatars from the lands of the Golden Horde began settling in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Although earlier Tatar groups had entered the region, the year 1397 is generally regarded as the beginning of the community’s permanent Muslim presence.
That year, Grand Duke Vytautas undertook a military expedition into the territories of the Golden Horde. Among those who subsequently settled in Lithuania were Tatar captives, political refugees and mercenaries who had joined his forces.
Vytautas granted land to Tatar settlers in exchange for military service. They were permitted to retain their Islamic faith, marry local women and establish communities near strategically important locations, including castles, river crossings and frontier territories. By the early fifteenth century, Tatar settlements had become established around Vilnius, Trakai and other towns across the Grand Duchy.
The Tatars soon played an important role in Lithuanian military affairs. At the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, Muslim Tatar soldiers fought alongside the combined Polish-Lithuanian army against the Teutonic Order. Their participation was particularly striking because the Teutonic Knights had long justified their campaigns in the Baltic region as part of the struggle against non-Christian peoples.
The Tatars continued to serve Lithuanian and Polish rulers in subsequent centuries, sometimes fighting against other Muslim powers, including the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire. Their relationship with the monarchy brought important privileges, but these did not amount to full political equality. Tatar nobles enjoyed certain legal protections, while the community remained excluded from important political institutions.
Why Did the Tatars Survive?
The researchers examine several possible explanations for the Tatars’ exceptional survival, beginning with Lithuania’s relatively late conversion to Christianity.
Lithuania was the last major pagan state in medieval Europe. Its rulers adopted Catholic Christianity through the dynastic union with Poland in 1386, rather than through conquest by Christian armies. This allowed Lithuania to retain much of its existing political structure and its religiously diverse population.
The Grand Duchy already contained substantial Orthodox Christian communities, and its rulers had experience governing subjects who followed different religious traditions.
However, Aktürk and Katliarou argue that Lithuania’s late conversion cannot fully explain why its Muslim population survived. Other European kingdoms had also once contained substantial non-Christian populations, yet eventually imposed religious uniformity.
Nor was the Tatars’ military importance sufficient. Catholic rulers elsewhere in Europe employed Muslim soldiers and mercenaries without necessarily protecting their wider religious communities from persecution.
Instead, the researchers identify the distribution of political power as the decisive factor. In Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, monarchs could not exercise unlimited authority. They shared power with a politically influential nobility that included Catholics, Orthodox Christians and, eventually, Protestants.
Religious divisions overlapped with political rivalries, making it difficult for any single faction to gain sufficient control to impose its religious preferences on the entire population. As Aktürk and Katliarou explain, “We observe that the existence of non-Catholic parties with political and military power served as a brake against efforts to achieve religious homogeneity.”
This arrangement did not necessarily reflect a modern commitment to religious freedom. Rather, competing interests prevented those seeking religious uniformity from consistently enforcing their demands.
The study also highlights the importance of Lithuania’s relationship with the papacy. Because Lithuania had adopted Christianity on its own terms, and because its rulers governed a large and powerful state on the eastern edge of Catholic Europe, papal authorities exercised less influence over its religious policies than they did in many western European kingdoms.
Persecution, Rebellion and Religious Tolerance
The Tatars’ survival did not mean that they escaped religious persecution. During the seventeenth century, particularly under King Sigismund III Vasa, Catholic efforts to strengthen religious uniformity contributed to growing hostility towards non-Catholic communities. In 1609, a Catholic mob destroyed a Tatar mosque in Trakai. Eight years later, an anti-Tatar pamphlet circulated advocating the eradication of the Muslim community.
Restrictions also affected religious life. In 1668, legislation prohibited the construction of new mosques in places where none had previously existed. However, enforcement was inconsistent, and new mosques were established just over a decade later.
The Tatars also experienced tensions over their military obligations and political status. In 1672, some Tatar soldiers rebelled against the Polish Crown and joined the Ottoman side during a period of warfare between the Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire. Such actions could have provided a justification for collective punishment, as accusations of disloyalty had done elsewhere in Europe.
Yet the rebellion did not lead to the wholesale expulsion or forced conversion of the Tatar population.
The researchers argue that the Commonwealth’s divided political structure helped prevent such outcomes. Monarchs, nobles and competing religious factions frequently disagreed over the treatment of minorities, limiting the ability of any one group to implement systematic persecution.
The contrast with other parts of Catholic Europe is central to the study. In Spain, for example, the remaining Muslim population was compelled to convert to Christianity in the early sixteenth century, while the descendants of these converts, known as Moriscos, were expelled between 1609 and 1614.
In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, however, Muslim communities continued to practise their religion openly, maintain mosques and preserve their distinctive identity.
The Lipka Tatars Today
More than six centuries after their arrival, the descendants of these medieval settlers remain part of the religious and cultural landscape of eastern Europe. Approximately 16,000 Tatars live in the region, based on the most recent census figures available to the researchers. These include 2,142 in Lithuania, 8,445 in Belarus and 5,295 in Poland.
Over the centuries, the Tatars adopted the languages of their neighbours while retaining their Islamic faith. By the end of the seventeenth century, their original Turkic languages had largely disappeared from everyday use.
This linguistic transformation produced a distinctive manuscript tradition. Known as kitabs, these religious and literary works were written in local Slavic languages using Arabic script, preserving a combination of Islamic religious learning and eastern European linguistic traditions.
Historic mosques and Muslim cemeteries remain visible reminders of this heritage. In Poland, the wooden mosques at Kruszyniany and Bohoniki are particularly notable examples of the community’s religious architecture.
Today, Tatar religious institutions operate in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus, while cultural organisations continue to preserve the community’s history and traditions.
For Aktürk and Katliarou, the survival of the Lipka Tatars offers a broader lesson about religious coexistence in medieval and early modern Europe. Their research suggests that tolerance did not always emerge from enlightened rulers or shared religious ideals. Sometimes, it resulted from political divisions that made persecution difficult to enforce.
The continued existence of the Lipka Tatars demonstrates how those medieval political circumstances could shape the survival of a religious community for centuries.
The article, “The Puzzle of the Lithuanian-Polish Tatars: The Only Muslim Community That has Survived Under Catholic Rule in Europe since the Middle Ages,” by Şener Aktürk and Yury Katliarou, is published in Nationalities Papers. Click here to read it.
Top Image: Historical settlements, mosques and cemeteries of the Lithuanian-Polish Tatars. Map from Aktürk and Katliarou (2026), Nationalities Papers, CC BY 4.0.
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