The puzzle of the Lithuanian-Polish Tatars: the only Muslim community that has survived under Catholic rule in Europe since the middle ages

Abstract

Social scientists have paid significant attention to the study of ethnic and religious minorities in Europe, and yet one group that evaded such scrutiny is the Tatars residing in modern-day Lithuania, Belarus, and Poland, who are unique in being Europe’s only Muslim community that survived under Catholic rule since the late medieval period. While Muslims in medieval and early modern France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain were eradicated through a mix of mass expulsions, forced conversions, and massacres, Lithuanian-Polish Tatars survived over six centuries. This article examines this unique case to understand the comparative political dynamics of persecution and toleration across medieval and early modern Europe. The article argues that the interstate and societal configuration of power explains the Tatars’ exceptional survival. The interstate and domestic dynamics are linked in that Lithuanian rulers successfully resisted forced conversion and eventually adopted Christianity on their own terms, which allowed for the preservation and perpetuation of religious sectarian diversity backed up by multiple political stakeholders. In the domestic struggle between monarchs, Papal allies, the Catholic nobility, and non-Catholics, none of the religious sectarian factions could achieve a hegemonic majority, let alone monopolistic control of political and military power, necessary for a coercive religious sectarian homogenization.