Tatars of Romania

Tatars of Romania (Tătarii din România), Dobrujan Tatars (Dobruca tatarları) or Nogay Tatars are a Turkic ethnic group that have been present in Romania since the 13th century. According to the 2011 census, 20,282 people declared themselves as Tatar, most of them being Crimean Tatars and living in Constanța County. But according to the Democratic Union of Tatar Turkic Muslims of Romania there are 50,000 Tatars in Romania. They are one of the main components of the Muslim community in Romania. The roots of the Crimean Tatar community in Romania began with the Cuman migration in the 10th century. Even before the Cumans arrived, other Turkic peoples like the Huns and the Bulgars settled in this region. The Tatars first reached the Danube Delta in the mid-13th century during the power peak of the Golden Horde. In 1241, under the leadership of Kadan, the Tatars crossed the Danube, conquering and devastating the region. The region was probably not under the direct rule of the Horde, but rather, a vassal of the Bakhchisaray Khan. It is known from Arab sources that at the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th century, descendants of the Nogai Horde settled in Isaccea. Another Arab scholar, Ibn Battuta, who passed through the region in 1330 and 1331, talks about Baba Saltuk (Babadag) as the southernmost town of the Tatars. The Golden Horde began to lose its influence after the wars of 1352–1359 and, at the time, a Tatar warlord Demetrius is noted defending the cities of the Danube Delta. In the 14th and 15th centuries the Ottoman Empire colonized Dobruja with Nogais from Bucak. Between 1593 and 1595 Tatars from Nogai and Bucak were also settled to Dobruja. (Frederick de Jong) Toward the end of the 16th century, about 30,000 Nogai Tatars from the Budjak were brought to Dobruja. After the Russian annexation of Crimea in 1783 Crimean Tatars began emigrating to the Ottoman coastal provinces of Dobruja (today divided between Romania and Bulgaria).