Bulat Murssov
Bulat Murssov (also spelled Bulaat Murssov) was a Tatar boyar (nobleman) mentioned among the events of the Livonian War (1558–1583). According to Balthasar Russow's Livonian Chronicle, he was the best-known of the Tatars who, during the war, came over from the forces of the Grand Duchy of Muscovy to the Swedish side and settled in Estonia. He is thus one of the earliest named Tatars in Estonian history — several centuries before today's Estonian Tatar community took shape.
Tatars in the Livonian War
The Livonian War brought large armies to the territory of present-day Estonia. In 1561 Tallinn and northern Estonia submitted to the Kingdom of Sweden. Tatars served in the army of the Grand Prince of Muscovy: Estonian history textbooks usually mention their leader, the Tatar khan Şigaley (Shah Ali), and his weeks-long raid in the Tartu bishopric in 1558. According to Ege Lepa's dissertation, of the roughly 40,000 Muscovite troops besieging Tallinn in 1570, about a quarter are thought to have been Tatars.
Some of these Tatars crossed over from the Muscovite forces to the Swedish side and stayed to live in Estonia. Historians stress, however, that this early presence had no significant effect on the later community: the first notable community of Muslim Tatars arose in Estonia only after the Great Northern War, when Tatar soldiers of the local Russian army, discharged from service, settled mainly in Tallinn.
Bulat Murssov
Among these Tatars who changed sides, the sources single out Bulat Murssov as the best-known. Russow's chronicle calls him a boyar — meaning he was of the nobility. Beyond that, nothing about the man himself survives: his dates of birth and death, his place of origin and his family are not recorded. Effectively everything known comes from Russow's Livonian Chronicle, one of the most important 16th-century sources on Livonia.
Place in the history of the Estonian Tatars
Bulat Murssov ties the Tatar presence in Estonia back to the Livonian War. Today's Estonian Tatar community, however, stems from a much later time: after serfdom was abolished in Russia in 1861, Mišär itinerant merchants began arriving in Estonia, and from them the present community grew. Murssov does not belong to that direct line — he is an earlier, separate link in the Tatars' long connection with Estonia.
See also
Sources: Ege Lepa, The Dynamics of the Estonian Islamic Community since the Restoration of Independence (University of Tartu, 2019), p. 19; Balthasar Russow, Livonian Chronicle (transl., Tallinn: Hotger, 1993), p. 264. Background: Wikipedia (Livonian War, Siege of Tallinn 1570–1571, Balthasar Russow's Livonian Chronicle).