Freedom of religion
The Estonian Tatar Union supports freedom of religion — everyone's right to decide for themselves about their faith and religious customs. Faith is a personal matter and a personal decision; the union does not make anyone's belonging or worth in the community depend on whether and how they practise a religion.
The principle
For us freedom of religion means two things at once: the freedom to believe and the freedom not to believe. Among the Estonian Tatars there are people who keep Islamic customs, people who live secular lives, members of mixed families, followers of other faiths and non-believers — all of them are full members of the community. The same principle is laid down in § 40 of the Estonian Constitution: everyone has freedom of conscience, religion and thought.
It follows that choices connected with religion — customs, food, holidays, marriages, funerals, the raising of children — are the personal decisions of each person and each family. The union prescribes them to no one and judges no one by them.
An Estonianised cultural space
The Estonian Tatars have lived here for over a century and have in many ways mixed with Estonians: mixed marriages are common and a large share of families are bicultural. Our cultural space is far more similar to that of the Estonians than to that of the old Volga homeland — and so our religious customs and ways of behaving have become more Estonian as well. Estonia is one of the most secular societies in Europe, and the Estonian Tatars share that character: for many of us Islam is above all a heritage — the faith of our ancestors, part of family history and identity — rather than a daily rulebook.
This is not a story of loss but of adaptation. Already in the first era of independent Estonia the community lived in a free and secular state where faith was protected but never imposed; the congregations worked freely, side by side with secular community life. That same balance — respectful of heritage, but free — is our stance today.
What unites us
What unites the community is not religious practice but language, history and culture: the Mišär language this platform preserves, our road to Tallinn, the families' stories and the customs — both those still kept and those remembered. Preserving the heritage does not require religious practice: Mišär can be learned, ancestors remembered and Tatar food cooked by a Muslim, a Christian and a non-believer alike.
In practice this means that:
every member decides about their own religious customs, and that decision is respected;
the union's events are open to all, regardless of faith or degree of practice;
we treat the Islamic heritage as part of history and culture — with dignity, but obliging no one;
members with mixed families and Estonianised ways of life are a natural part of the community, not an exception.
See also
The Estonian Tatar Union · Who is an Estonian Tatar? · Tatar customs and traditions · The community 1918–1940