Ethnic strata of Nizhny Novgorod Tatars

The article studies the modern sub-ethnos of the Tatar nation - Nizhny Novgorod Mishar Tatars (Nizhghars) that includes various ethnic groups and ethnic social layers. Describing the Nizhny Novgorod Tatars, the scholars pay more attention to the later, newly arrived groups of immigrants from the Western Meshchera. The author shows that in the Nizhny Novgorod lands there were old-timer Tatar population groups, and there have been phonetic differences between the dialects of different subgroups of Nizhny Novgorod Tatars established on a geographic basis. Basing upon the analysis of the late medieval period sources the article indicates such social groups of Nizhny Novgorod Tatars, as princes, murzas, tarkhanes. Along with service class Arzamas, Alatyr and Kurmysh Tatars, the author considers the Cossacks related to the population of the Chervlyonyi Yar of the Golden Horde’s collapse period as the ancestors of the Nizhny Novgorod Tatars.