Utilizing the boost in anti-Muslim sentiment, Semi Korycki transformed his lens onto a tiny Sunni Muslim neighborhood labeled as Polish Tatars or Lipka Tatars in his indigenous Poland
The Podlasie region of north-eastern Poland hosts a small Sunni Muslim society known as shine Tatars or Lipka Tatars, who have established there for over 300 age. Professional photographer Selim Korycki is just one of the 3000 posts with Tatar traditions.
For hundreds of years, the Tatar relation on his father’s area resided as to what is well known today due to the fact Grodno area for Belarus. Like many some other Tatar folks unable to go back to their own ancestral land following next globe battle, his parents moved to Gdansk. Several other Polish Tatars transferred to Wroclaw, Szczecin, Gorzow Wielkopolski and Bialystok. This past year, the guy started initially to research his genealogy and family history plus the existing community of Polish Tatars in north-eastern Poland.
“Despite getting raised as an atheist, I happened to be always very familiar with my family record also the reputation of Lipka Tatars. Soon after most conversations about soaring nationalism and Islamophobia, we realized so just how hardly any people are aware of the Muslim people peacefully satisfied in the heart of European countries for over 600 many years. Comprehending that Podlasie part is the sole destination within today’s Polish borders where Tatars just stayed for generations, but they are nevertheless existing nowadays I made the decision to execute your panels there. This is my personal basic visit to the location,” states Korycki, exactly who shot their venture The Waning Crescent during the summer of 2017.
There are a lot of myths about Lipka Tatars within his room country. “There was an opinion, for instance, that Polish Tatars appear to be Mongolian nomads, which they talk ‘another’ code, and tend to be un-Polish. The truth is, after 600 years of absorption, posts of Tatar traditions are typically undistinguishable from the remainder of the society. As their own mothers, their particular grandparents and their great-grandparents they communicate Shine, believe Polish, believe Polish, has Polish surnames, eat Polish items.” As well gloss Tatars grow their community by exercising Islam, keeping traditional Turkic names, and nurturing old-fashioned Tatar food (main Asian dishes with Eastern European impact).
“Today when significantly less than 5% of this population of Poland consider themselves as an associate of an ethnic fraction, and over 85per cent Poles declares themselves getting Roman Catholic,” the professional photographer urges, “Lipka Tatars is a striking indication that Poland was once a hugely multicultural and multi-religious nation”
Dz?emil Gembicki, caretaker of Kruszyniany mosque, prepares to start the temple on a young autumn day. The community of Kruszyniany had been one of the areas where Lipka Tatars first satisfied in 1679 soon after a royal decree giving several benefits to loyal Muslim soldiers.
a decorative crescent moonlight ornament throughout the window ledge within Muftiate workplace in Bialystok.
The Gembicki family home. Kasia acts lunch their girls and boys Lilia and Selim. Dz?emil is a Muslim and Kasia is a Catholic. The conundrum that lots of blended faith groups face whenever choosing a faith for his or her girls and boys got conveniently resolved: Lilia is actually brought up as Catholic and Selim as Muslim.
Eugenia Radkiewicz could be the instructions at Bohoniki mosque. The girl moms and dads, Lipka Tatars from Lithuania, gone to live in Podlasie at the end of the Second business battle to become listed on their expanded family. They settled inside the village of Malawicze, several kilometres from Bohoniki.
The 13th Cavalry Regiment associated with the Polish Army is created in 1930 and from the extremely beginning the 1st Squadron got partly staffed by Muslims (shine Tatars together with escapees from Bolshevik Russia). The term ‘Tatar’ was formally added to the squadron’s title in 1936 and any Polish Lipka labeled as up for army service had been most likely to get serving in the First Squadron. Pictured are an archival graphics associated with the First Tatar Squadron at 13th Cavalry Regiment’s barracks in Nowa Wilejka (in todays Lithuania) drawn in July 1937.
Secure near the communities of Drahle and Bohoniki was given in collarspace stronka 1679 by Muslim Lipka troops by royal decree from King Jan III Sobieski. For the seventeenth century the Kingdom of Poland ended up being involved with a number of wars with growing Ottoman Empire. Through the reign of Jan III Sobieski, Poland reached some significant victories, certainly that was the war of Vienna in 1683. The paradox would be that in very xenophobic and anti-Islamic climate of today’s Poland, the Battle of Vienna is oftentimes portrayed since the clash between Europe and Islam, and supreme historic proof that Poland ended up being constantly anti-Islam. Unsurprisingly the fact Polish Muslim troops battled regarding the Polish part was seldom talked about.
Although today retired, Halina Szahidewicz remains the bedrock regarding the Polish Tatar area in Bialystok.
Their parents involved Podlasie from today’s Belarus following the 2nd globe War. Halina worked as a teacher for many years. She has also been a long-standing chair of the Muslim spiritual Association of Poland, co-founder of Poland’s Joint Council of Catholics and Muslims, and the 2010 person of the individual of Dialogue honor, provided annually to the people advertising discussion among various religions. In 1999 Halina single-handedly intitiated teens musical organization Bun?czuk, in fact it is active to this day.
“Witaj Szkolo!” This is school! Every youngsters in Poland try greeted from this sentence during the early September when school starts after the summer getaways. Although spiritual education is not mandatory in Poland, a massive most of school children sign up for sessions of religion, frequently operated by a Catholic priest/nun (often, if enough parents/students request they, instructions of ethics tend to be taught). Muslim students often aren’t as happy because the youngsters in Bialystok, where in fact the neighborhood Muslim spiritual connection in co-operation with Bialystok’s training board therefore the Muftiate Religious Association organises Islam tuition. Your kids whom attend tend to be a blend of Polish and Crimean Tatars and Chechen refugees. Pictured try Mirza, a local imam, who is leading a prayer course to a mixed number of boys and girls.
Connection over Mahomet. View on a h2o tank from the connection over Mahomet lake near Siemiatycze. The chart of north-eastern Poland is dotted with hamlets and places deriving their unique labels from Tatars in addition to their culture. A lot of those labels are completely Polonised and just a qualified researcher can point to her Muslim or Asian etymology. Couple of others tend to be unmistakably influenced by Islam, plus the Mahomet lake is the better sample.
Mufti of Poland Tomasz Mis?kiewicz from inside the prayer space of Muslim Religious organization in Bialystok. The concept of Mufti is provided to an informed Muslim that is qualifed to offer advice on software of religious laws in all aspects of every day life. Mis?kiewicz, a Polish Tatar from Podlasie, could be the 2nd Mufti from inside the reputation for Poland holding his company since 2004. One Polish Mufti Jakub Szynkiewicz (also a Lipka Tatar) got the concept in 1925. Szynkiewicz lived-in exile from 1945 and passed away in the united states in 1966.