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Title: Performance of Identity of Polish Tatars

Performance of Identity of Polish Tatars

From Religious Holidays to Everyday Rituals

by Barbara Pawlic-Miskiewicz (Author)
©2018 Monographs 290 Pages
The Arts
Series: Interdisciplinary Studies in Performance, Volume 13

Summary

The book presents the Tatar community in a new perspective, with its rituals and strategies that allow it to maintain the identity and distinguish itself, using categories of performance and performativity which – despite problems with normative definitions – have permanently entered a dictionary of culture analysis. The author describes and analyses Tatar religion-based customs and traditions, key moments of human life, as well as selected aspects of everyday life, which may be considered within the category of performances of identity. Tatar performances are deeply rooted in religion: Islam is a fundamental part of their identity and element of distinction. Following and performing the religious rules is strictly connected with the notions of ethnic identity and self-identification. Religious performances also serve them to preserve the figure of a Muslim Tatar.
This book is a unique work documenting the life of the Tatar ethnic minority.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Dedication
  • Epigraph
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • Citability of the eBook
  • Acknowledgements
  • Contents
  • Introduction
  • 1 Performance studies
  • 1.1 Ritual and performance
  • 1.1.1 Ritual
  • 1.1.2 Performance
  • 1.2 Performances of identity
  • 2 The history of Tatars
  • 2.1 The origins of the group
  • 2.2 Islamisation
  • 2.3 Tatars on the territory of the Republic of Poland
  • 3 Islam
  • 3.1 Prophet Muhammad
  • 3.2 The Quran
  • 3.3 The rules and obligations of faith
  • 3.4 The religious writing of Tatars
  • 4 Religious holidays
  • 4.1 Ramadan Bayram
  • 4.2 Kurban Bayram
  • 4.3 Mawlid and Ashura Bayram
  • 5 The rites of passage – rites of life’s turning points
  • 5.1 Birth and adhan
  • 5.1.1 A pattern of a typical Tatar tradition presented by imam Stefan Mustafa Jasiński
  • 5.1.2 Pattern according to mufti Tomasz Miśkiewicz
  • 5.2 Lahi
  • 5.3 Marriage
  • 5.3.1 Pattern according to imam Stefan Mustafa Jasiński
  • 5.3.2 Pattern according to mufti Tomasz Miśkiewicz
  • 5.4 Funeral
  • 6 Rituals of everyday life
  • 6.1 Cuisine
  • 6.2 Healing and magic
  • Conclusion
  • Appendix 1: Biograms of persons
  • List of charts, pictures and illustrations
  • Bibliography
  • Index of names

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Pawlic-Miskiewicz, Barbara, author.

Title: Performance of identity of Polish Tatars : from religious
 holidays to everyday rituals / Barbara Pawlic-Miskiewicz.

Description: New York : Peter Lang, 2018. | Series: Interdisciplinary
 studies in performance: Historical narratives. Theater. Public life ;
 Vol. 13 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018030968 | ISBN 9783631672808

Subjects: LCSH: Tatars--Poland--Ethnic identity. | Tatars--Poland--Religion. |
 Tatars--Poland--Social life and customs. | Muslims--Poland--Social life and customs.

Classification: LCC DK4121.5.T3 P39 2018 | DDC 308.894/3870438--dc23
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018030968.

The Publication is funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland as a part of the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities in the years 2016-2018. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Ministry cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Translator: Justyna Rodzińska-Nair

Editor of translation (proof-reading): Monika Bogdanowicz

Cover Design: © Olaf Gloeckler, Atelier Platen, Friedberg

Cover Image: © Barbara Pawlic-Miśkiewicz

Printed by CPI books GmbH, Leck

ISSN 2364-3919

ISBN 978-3-631-67280-8 (Print)

E-ISBN 978-3-653-06889-4 (E-PDF)

E-ISBN 978-3-631-71086-9 (EPUB)

E-ISBN 978-3-631-71087-6 (MOBI)

DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-06889-4

© Peter Lang GmbH

Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften

Berlin 2018

All rights reserved.

Peter Lang – Berlin ∙ Bern ∙ Bruxelles ∙ New York ∙ Oxford ∙ Warszawa ∙ Wien

All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

This publication has been peer reviewed.

www.peterlang.com

Introduction

It is commonly believed that turning thirty is a kind of a turning point in one’s life – a time for reflection, a moment of summing up own achievements as well as an attempt to check if the strategies we have adopted in our private and professional lives are efficient and satisfactory.

For me too that time turned out to be important, especially with regard to my own history, origins and a wider look at the past and the present. The scholarly study undertaken by me is a result of who I am, what family I originate from and what elements I absorbed from the early years. In personal and the family’s micro-history there are aspects common to most Tatars. Namely, my mother’s entire family was Tatar from time immemorial. Men, traditionally, worked in the tanning industry. My grandfather’s father, Aleksander Aleksandrowicz, was an uhlan and served in a Tatar regiment in Vilnius. The consequences of World War II affected my family as well – after the borders were shifted in 1945, the family found themselves in a foreign country. Thanks to family’s help and the repatriation action, my grandparents came to Poland in 1957 to the Recovered Territories. My mother and her sister grew up in the new reality. The grandparents were taken away from their farm in the countryside, far from their close family and friends who were also Tatars. They lived in Oleśnica near Wrocław, among other repatriates from the Eastern borderland and people arriving from Central Poland. The only support system they had were the four Tatar families who lived in the same town as well. Far from the previous centres of the Tatar community, without mosques and mizars, they tried to keep, although discretely, their traditions and religion. The post-war reality did not favour revealing too much of one’s personal history, therefore, it should not come as a surprise that they did not manifest the fact that they belonged to another ethnic group which was so little known to Poles, who regarded the word ‘Tatar’ as a synonym for a barbarian invader.

Sometimes, certain images run through my head:

The first one – a flat in Oleśnica – a ceramic board with Arabic letters; a small carpet hanging on the wall with an image of a temple with soaring towers and a black shape, half-covered with a cloth; on a bookcase, two leather-bound volumes with golden letters saying K – O – R – A – N; a long crossed out row in a school report, where the grade for a religious class should be; familiar faces with slightly slanted, dark eyes. ←13 | 14→

The second image – Wrocław, a villa by the Franciscan monastery, adapted for the needs of a Muslim centre; the upper floor covered with a soft carpet, where Palestinians, Syrians, Egyptians, Chechens, Kenyans and Poles – including myself – pray to one God.

The third image – Białystok – a row of women in a small room, dressed in a modern manner, with scarves and shawls on their heads, all wrapped in different ways; the calling of an imam, hands raised in prayer, quiet whisper, bowing, prostration, singing, candies, lots of candies – each dedicated to somebody’s health or peace for the dead.

The fourth image – Bohoniki – a dead bull hanging on a hook, men in suits standing next to it, women wearing elegant coats, a crowd, a hubbub, joy. Cuts of meat chopped into smaller pieces, old and young hands, held out eagerly to get a piece of the “blessed food”.

The fifth image – Białystok – tension, a dress with golden appliqué design, a veil, ram’s skin, a spencer covering the neck and shoulders; a thumb, prepared and ready to be connected with the thumb of the fiancé – a theologian, imam and Polish mufti.

Where shall I start the story, the observation, the research? Here and now or with the memories and recollections of the elderly or with my own story? Or maybe I should reach back to a few centuries ago? I started with my own memories and experience because it is thanks to them that the subject of this thesis was established – from my own life experience and a desire to learn more about the things that concern me in the most personal of ways. Being raised in a Tatar family, maintaining relations with the community, a husband – a Tatar from a long line of Tatars – they all directed my focus of ‘I – the researcher’ towards a deep analysis of the performances of identity of one of the smallest ethnic groups in Poland; performances – holidays and rituals – that allow the community to construct and maintain an identity as well as to create communitas. In the beginning, I took on the approach of the anthropologist, sir Raymond Firth, concerning the research of one’s own community:

Since we can explore anthropological problems anywhere, we might as well go to places where it is comfortable to spend some time 2.

Details

Pages
290
Publication Year
2018
ISBN (Hardcover)
9783631672808
ISBN (ePUB)
9783631710869
ISBN (MOBI)
9783631710876
ISBN (PDF)
9783653068894
DOI
10.3726/978-3-653-06889-4
Language
English
Publication date
2018 (December)
Keywords
Islam Ethnic identity Performance studies Islam in Poland Ethnic minority Cultural heritage
Published
Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2018., 290 pp., 108 fig. b/w, 2 tables
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Barbara Pawlic-Miskiewicz (Author)

Barbara Pawlic-Miśkiewicz is a researcher in Cultural Studies, author and coordinator of cultural and publishing projects and editor in the publishing section of the Muslim Highest Board of the Muslim Religious Union in Poland. Her field of research includes the history and tradition of Polish Tatars, as well as protection of memory and Tatar cultural heritage. She set up the foundation Salam Polska.

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Title: Performance of Identity of Polish Tatars