Tatar land ownership in Vilnius province in the second half of the 19th century

Abstract

The development of land ownership by Tatars in the second half of the 19th century was not subject to restrictions imposed after the 1863 uprising. The ordinance of the 10th of December 1865, which prohibited the nobility of Polish origin from acquiring land in nine western provinces, did not apply to Tatars. Tatars managed to negotiate this exemption from the government by reminding it of its merits and declaring allegiance to the emperor of Russia. After collecting information about the number of Lithuanian Tatars, their material situation, lifestyle and reliability, it was decided to separate Tatars from “Polish landowners”, withdraw the contribution imposed on them, ensure the loyalty of Tatars, and finally to resolve the “Tatar issue”. On the 22th of July 1867, the Committee of Ministers adopted a resolution granting the same privileges to Lithuanian Tatars in the area of land ownership as those granted to Russians and Protestants.
The political aspect of ethnic differentiation provided conditions for Tatars to improve their material situation and for some of them to become large landowners. Army officers and government officials of Tatar descent purchased larger estates in Vilnius Province. Tatars from the Ašmena area were particularly active in the land market. Throughout the entire second half of the 19th century until the beginning of the 20th century, landowners of Tatar descent consistently bought estates. Transactions typically involved medium and small size estates or just parcels of land. The structure of land ownership among Lithuanian Tatars was very similar to that of other nobility where small-scale land ownership dominated. The land that was acquired in the second half of the 19th century until the beginning of the 20th century changed the rural area inhabited by Tatars very little. It remained quite traditional, because Tatars tried to buy estates and land inhabited by their fellow Tatars.