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Hello there! My name is Adrian Bachmeier, I‘m a history student from Germania and this is my blog. I was always interested in strange events that happened during the history of the world, so I decided to share my findings with all of you! I hope you enjoy my blog! Criticism always welcome!



2004.5.14

While undoubtedly many of you who are well versed in history of Eastern Europe probably know of the unique relations between the revivalist regime of Lithuania and the Jewish inhabitants of the state, only a few, those who have undoubtedly researched the subject are avare of similarly strong ties between the revivalist movement and the Lipka Tatars also known as Lithuanian Tatars.

The connections between the Turkic Muslim inhabitants of Lithuania and the revivalist movement date back to it‘s very begging. Many Lipka Tatars were veterans of the Great European war and had served quite substantial casualties with some sources claiming that over a third of the male population had perished in the conflict. And on top of experiencing massive losses of life, they had to live with the fact that Lithuania lost and the old order, (to which the Lipka Tatars were extremely loyal as can be seen from the countless times they were used in breaking various rebellions, which earned them the nickname „Ciesorius‘ bloody hounds“) was no more.

Such conditions meant that many Lipkas were drawn by radical ideologies, especially revivalism. After all, many of them despised Eastern Slavs at this point, due to both discrimination faced by the members of the minority group in Russia and the „Stab in the back“ idea being massively popular between the Tatar veterans a.k.a most of the Lithuanian Turkic male population and their families. (This idea, proclaiming that the Lithuanian Empire would have won the war if it hadn't been betrayed and „stabbed in the back“ by Slavs and other minorities, was something which was used extensively by many to justify everything negative that had happened during and after the Great European war.) And with this idea being massively used by the Revivalists in gathering support it was no wonder that many of these ex-soldiers and ex-officers joined the extremist movement with the first opportunity they got.

All of this information might have raised some questions to most of the readers, probably relating to how such connections between the Lithuanian revivalists under Augustinas Stankevičius and Lipka Tatars might seem contradictory to the claims of Lithuanian superiority over other ethnicities living in the state. However, one must note that the Revivalist idea of the Sarmatian origin of the Lithuanians and other Eastern European ethnicities was based on belief that all of these nationalities originated from the same source and thus they must be reunited into a singular group through Lithuanian dominance. This meant that they could easily exclude both Jews and Tatars from both their rhetoric and other aspects of ideology as neither of these groups were originally from Europe. That‘s not even mentioning how both Litvaks and Lipkas, due to their loyalty to Lithuania during it‘s history, were usually regarded as allies of the Sarmatian race.

The positive opinion of the revanchist regime can be seen in both the speeches delivered by the Vadas, in many of which he referred to the Lipka Tatars as “The third pillar of Lithuania”(The other two being, of course, Lithuanians and Jews), and the massive amount of finances that were directed towards improving the situation of the Lipkas in Lithuania. Many mosques were restored and many more were built, Koranic schools were established and there was even a mass expansions and renovation of the "High School of Islamic Culture" not far from Vilnius. There was also an increase of funding towards schools located in places where there was a greater concentration of Tatars. With this funding the quality the quality of Tatar language and culture (Yes they had classes for their own culture. I know how weird it sounds.) classes were greatly improved.

And this is not even mentioning the funding that was directed towards the various forms of Turkic and Muslim art and culture. (This funding however was nothing compared to the massive sums that were given to similar programs for the Litvaks and of course Lithuanians) It was this funding, in fact, that had caused the mass resurgence of the at the time slowly disappearing due to assimilation Turkic language and culture. This was such a massive change in fact, that some Lithuanian and Lipka historians have claimed that without this so called “Lipka cultural rebirth” the Tatars would have completely assimilated into Lithuanians in a century.

Of course, while some of this funding was assigned simply as a sign of good will, and quite a substantial amount was diverted by both Muffi Jalal ad-Din and Alfrid Kasimov, (both of whom were representatives of the Lipka Tatars and their interests in the Revivalist government) there was also a political reason for it, as the revivalist regime hoped that their extremely positive policy towards the Turkic inhabitants of Lithuania would result in the support of the quite substantial and discriminated Tatar minorities within Russia and Krajina.

All of these policies and plans led to a quite interesting event which occurred on June 18th 1934. On this day, in an elaborate ceremony in which tens of thousands of people gathered, Jalad ad-Din gave Augustinas Stankevičius the symbol of Lipka Tatar loyalty – the so called “Sword of Islam” and proclaimed that the Vadas is “The defender and friend of all Muslims and Tatars of Eastern Europe”. The photographs of this sword were later used quite a substantial amount in Revivalist propaganda in occupied Krajinian and Russian territories, however the sword itself was rarely carried by Stankevičius due to its substantial size and weight and was usually kept within a glass box either within the quarters belonging to Stankevičius or various government buildings. (You can see the weapon today if you visit the “Museum of Lipka Tatar history and culture” in Vilnius)

This event and the previous policies proved themselves effective during the Revivalist invasions into Eastern Slavic territories, where many of the members belonging to the Lipka Tatar minority swiftly joined the Lithuanian army. However neither Crimean, neither Volga Tatars joined the Lithuanians in any greater capacity. While it is known that Volga Tatars didn’t help the Revivalists due to the fact that Turkics comprised a massive amount of the population of Volga Russia, not to mention that they weren’t actively discriminated, I haven’t found a solid reason for why the Crimeans, who were discriminated by the Krajinian government, didn’t join the Lithuanians though. It’s usually assumed that it was because the Crimean Khanate wasn’t, for some reason, participating in this war, and thus the Crimeans, a group whose representatives several times proclaimed their wish to be part of the Crimean Khanate, and thus didn’t want to be part of the Lithuanian state. (Of course there is probably another reasoning, but there are still a lot of unknown information about both the actions of both the Revivalists and Crimean government, so we don’t know it yet. Though hopefully with the liberalisation of the Crimean regime and all the secret documents that are being revealed every couple years we will probably know more in the future)

Anyway, that‘s almost everything about the relationship between the Lipka Tatars and the Revivalist government of Lithuania. As a few last things I would like to mention that Lipkas, just like the Jews remained loyal to the Vadas and his government up until it fell. There was also a substantial migration of Lipka Tatars from Russia and Krajina to Lithuania after the war, increasing the percentage of Turkics in Lithuania from 0,3% to 0,45%, later reaching the modern 0,5% due to the continuation of some Revivalist policies even in the Republic of Lithuania.

I hope this was an interesting read for you!

Edit: I would like to thank Albertas Jogaila for both giving a perspective of someone who lives in the Republic of Lithuania and recommending an amazing alternative history timeline. So firstly, some interesting facts on the modern Lipka Tatars. One of which surprised me the most out of them was the fact that a substantial number of Muslim Turkics of Lithuania are supporters of various neo-revivalist movements. There are also apparently a lot of ethnic tension between Lipka Tatars and Lithuanian Slavs, not even mentioning the less than stellar opinions that both Tatars and Russians have towards each other.

Now moving on to the timeline that Jan recommended. It‘s called „Europe of Silver and Iron“, and it‘s quite an interesting read. The point of divergence is that the Crimean Khanate and their ally Circassia don‘t remain neutral during the Revivalist wars with Krajina, Russia and Volga Russia, instead joining the Revivalists during the invasion of Krajina. It‘s quite a dark story, with the so called „Pact of Steel“ emerging victorious over the Eastern Slavs. Also Crimea and Circassia become extremist earlier on. I don‘t want to spoil anything else, so I‘ll just leave the link here for you to read it yourself: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/europe-of-silver-and-iron.