This book is a collection of papers and speeches (vystuplenii) presented at various nauchno-prakticheskie (scientific-practical) conferences in Kazan in spring and summer 2004. At these conferences, not only scientific but political and ideological matters are discussed by scholars, politicians and leaders of various organizations. Included are some papers presented at other occasions. From the editor’s foreword it is possible to tell that this book is meant as an important step toward creating the programme Put’ tatar v XXI veke (“The Way of the Tatars in the Twenty-First Century”) adopted by the Tsentr etnopoliticheskogo monitoringa, a department of the Institute of History of the Tatar Academy of Sciences in Kazan, created in 2003 and headed by Damir Iskhakov. The contributors represent the very best Tatar scholars, and some known political activists and leaders of Tatar organizations in Russia. The only contributor from outside Russia is Uli Shamiloglu, from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who is a scholar with Tatar roots. Most of the articles are in Russian, with a few in Tatar. Some contributors author more than one article. It is noteworthy that Tatar scholars like Bulat Sultanbekov or Midchat Farukshin who criticize the nationalizing spirit that dominate at the Tatar Academy of Science are not among the contributors.
The book has three chapters. Additionally there is an appendix with two parts: a draft of the conception of a project entitled “Conception and Programme of the Further Development of the Tatar people of the Middle Volga: Steps in the Twenty-First Century” (designed by M. A. Khuseinov, chairman of the “World Congress of Tatars”); and a small collection of data of the All-Russian Census of 2002. Since a review of all forty-five items would be beyond the scope, I will try to synthesize the main arguments.
The first chapter deals with general problems and national self-perception of the Tatars. It spans a variety of issues reaching from general reflections on the further development of the Tatar nation and Islam, to Tatar history, the dispute on the ethnonym, education, and mass media. Some authors repeat issues and theses which they have presented in earlier publications.^[1] Since Damir Iskhakov is the one of the leading proponents of Tatar nationalism and presents some of its basic ideas and conceptions, his article O kontseptualґnykh podkhodakh k issledovaniiu problem razvitiia tatarskoi natsii v XXI veke (Pp. 12-23) will be reviewed in more depth than other articles.
In Iskhakov’s theoretical reflections on examining the problems of the further advancement of the Tatar nation in the twenty-first century, he makes an attempt to revitalize the Tatar national spirit from the Tatar national movement of the years 1988-1994. He blames the political elite for not recognizing the democratic potential inherent in the ethnic mobilization of Tatars. This is not amazing, since Iskahkov was one of the key members of the Tatar national movement, Tatarskii obshchestvennyi tsentr, active mainly from 1988 to 1994. He then fought for Tatarstan as a republic for Tatars, while the political elite pursued the conception of a civic nation, i.e., tatarstanskaia natsiia. To the great dismay of the Tatar national movement, the conception of “civic nation” was fixed in the new constitution of Tatarstan. Iskhakov blames Tatarstan’s political elite for acting as a vassal of the federal center.
Iskhakov here, like in many other publications, is fighting for the Tatar nation and its unity. According to a new perception of the Tatar nation,^[2] developed not least by Iskhakov himself, not only Tatars from the middle Volga and their diaspora, but Astrakhan Tatars and Siberian Tatars belong to the titular nation of Tatarstan as well. This model is rejected by many Siberian Tatars who claim to be a separate people. A similar line of argument was pursued by Christian Tatars (kriasheny) in the wake of the Russian census of 2002.^[3] They also claimed to be a separate people with their own traditions, history and language. This created a heated debate for Tatar national activists with Iskhakov as one of the frontmen. In the article reviewed here, he comes back to this. Iskhakov concludes his paper with the appeal for Tatar cultural autonomy for all Tatars in Russia, and a renewed demand to create a Tatar University in Kazan – a plan which had been negotiated by politicians, who finally came to the conclusion that it was not the right time to do that.
The articles on Islam (R. Z. Zakirov, Pp. 24-30, in Tatar; R. Mukhametshin, Pp. 71-73, 117-128, in Tatar) often repeat positions long pursued. Zakirov, deputy of the executive committee of the World Congress of Tatars (WKT), emphasizes the adherence of the older generation of Tatars to Islam even in Soviet times. Opposing many media articles on “Tatar Wahhabism,” Zakirov claims that Islam in Tatarstan today is tolerant and liberal. In his article in Tatar, Mukhametshin briefly analyzes the function of contemporary Tatar religious community (mahalla). Referring to Ismail Gasprinskii, Mukhametshin explains that a mahalla is a kind of state, following the rules of Islam. For Muslims the mahalla is of outstanding significance. For Tatar Muslims this is especially true, because they do not have their own sovereign state.
The vast part of Mukhametshin’s second article addresses the function of Islam in the wake of the first process of Tatar nation-building at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Tatar nation-builders then like today, overemphasize the role of Islam as a provider of ethical-moral and cultural values. The author then turns to Islam in contemporary Tatarstan and points to the significant religious revival in the early 1990s, a process comprehensively described and analyzed by scholars of Tatar and non-Tatar Western background alike.^[4] Muslim authorities in Tatarstan currently blame Tatar politicians and scholars for reducing Islam to its role as a base for Tatar nation-building, stating that such an interpretation fails in a major sphere of Islam – namely, the religious duties of every Muslim (i.e., the obligatory daily prayers and moral purity). Mukhametshin supports this contention. With respect to the Islamic construction of Tatar intellectuals like “Euroislam,” “Tatar Islam” and “Real Islam,” the author critically asks to what extent these constructions match the religious feelings of ordinary Tatar Muslims.
Chapter two deals with the Tatar diaspora in a number of Russian regions: St. Petersburg, Udmurtiia, Mordoviia, Penza, Samara, Astrakhan, Tiumen, Novosibirsk, and Sverdlovsk. The articles show that the Tatar diasporic communities flourish in many regions of the Russian Federation. Some authors provide historical data and survey results; comprehensive data can be found about the Tatars in Udmurtiia, including their fields of occupation, the dynamics of Tatar language, and surveys on national self-perceptions (F. Z. Khuzhin, Pp. 224-256).
The last chapter explores problems of education in two parts. The first part deals with general questions, while the second part focuses on plans to establish a Tatar university in Kazan. In the first part, problems of cultural diversity in the era of globalization (L. V. Sagitova, Pp. 298-308), enlargements in the sphere of teaching the Tatar language (V. Sh. Fetkhullin, R. E. Shakirzhanov, and A. I. Narbekov, Pp. 309-319; V. Sh. Fetkhullin, Pp. 330-332), and programs to develop bilingualism (N. K. Tukhtamyshev, Pp. 326-329) are all discussed. The second part gathers articles on a planned Tatar university. Included is a paper on Tatar faculties at universities in Kazan that already exist (I. A. Giliazov, Pp 387-368). A Tatar university has been discussed for years; the government of Tatarstan promised to establish this university, but later refrained. Interestingly a project of such a university was developed by Uli Shamiloglu, and is included here (Pp. 369-386). In a somewhat utopian vision, Shamiloglu develops the idea and a detailed draft of a Tatar university built along the model of universities in the US. The language of education at the university would be Tatar. Given that the number of pupils in schools with Tatar as the language of education decreased during the last years, who and from where enrolees might come from is a major question;^[5] moreover, who would be willing to pay for preparatory language courses for students with insufficient knowledge of the Tatar language poses a second major hurdle. With regard to the idea of charging substantial fees and collecting money for grants, it seems unlikely that enough sponsors could be found within the current Tatar community to pay for those students who cannot afford to pay for their study at such a university. Finally, given that Tatar authorities do not back the idea of a Tatar university, Shamiloglu’s project appears somewhat unrealistic. The chapter ends with some reflections on the upgrading of Tatar education through new institutions. One is a reprint of an interview with Iskander Gilyazov, head of the Tatar Faculty at Kazan State University (Pp. 390-392). Gilyazov feels uncomfortable with the current situation of Tatar education, and complains about the lack of institutions of higher education. He is not content with the newly established Tatarskii gosudarstvennyi gumanitarno-pedagogicheskii universitet (Tatar State University for Humanities and Pedagogy), saying that it is little more than an upgrading of the Pedagogical University, and not an institution to educate a new young Tatar intellectual elite. Damir Iskhakov also offers a conception for a planned Tatar university (Pp. 393-396). What follows is the conception of this Tatar university adopted by Milli Medzhlis, a national organization claiming the rights of a real Tatar national parliament (Pp. 400-408). The book ends with a paper presented on September 20, 2005 to the Komitet po kulґture, obrazovaniiu i natsional’nym voprosam Gosudarstvennogo Soveta RT (Committee of Culture, Education, and National Questions of the Tatar Parliament) by Z. G. Nigmatov, the rector of Tatar State University for Humanities and Pedagogics. Nigmatov comprehensively explains his university’s conception, main ideas, and curriculum.
In conclusion I would say that the goal of this book is a revitalization of the intense Tatar national spirit that prevailed among the Tatar elite when the Soviet Union began to collapse and the Russian Federation emerged as its successor, and an appeal to the political elite to remember what they promised at that time. The wave of Tatar nationalism ebbed after the Power Sharing Treaty between Tatarstan and the Russian Federation in 1994. Given that afterwards the Tatar political elite became a close ally of Moscow and the federal center all but backs Tatar nationalism, it seems unlikely that the demands and plans presented in the last chapter of the book are realizable.