Doctrine for the Preservation of the Tatar Nation

Author opinion. This publication reflects the author's views and is presented for public discussion. Some provisions — including those concerning religion, interethnic relations and institutional design — are not the official position of the Government of Independent Tatarstan and may differ from the published draft Program for the State-Building of Independent Tatarstan.

Today the Tatar people face another grave challenge. The number of children who know the Tatar language — and especially those who actually speak it — is rapidly declining. If this trend continues, in two or three generations (40–50 years) Tatar may disappear from everyday use. Language, as is well known, is one of the principal conditions for the existence of a nation.

The Tatar people have faced the danger of disappearance before. After the Kazan, Nogai, Siberian, Astrakhan and Crimean khanates were conquered by the Russian state, the Tatars faced the threat of ceasing to exist as a nation. Mass killings and attempts to forcibly Christianize and Russify those who survived undoubtedly inflicted severe damage on the people.

Yet even if there is no immediate threat of physical extermination today, the situation may be considered even more dangerous in another sense. The dominance of Russian in kindergartens, obstacles to education in the mother tongue, the shift of schools toward predominantly Russian-language instruction, and Russian-language gadgets, television and the internet reaching every Tatar community — including the most remote villages — gradually create a Russian-speaking environment. Russian begins to displace Tatar even from people's habits of thought. As a result, Tatar children increasingly speak Russian with one another.

For a nation to survive and develop, its language — the soul of the nation — must be preserved and learned. It is through the native language that the spiritual world of a people can reveal itself in its full beauty and depth.

Another treasure carried by our people through the centuries and passed to our generation together with the language is tradition and religion. Passing these on to future generations is also an extremely important task.

But while giving great attention to two pillars of the national structure — language and tradition, religion — we often give too little attention to a third pillar: national history. If language, tradition and religion are the soul of the nation, national history is its backbone.

Historical memory and national consciousness

It is often said that if you want to destroy a people, destroy its historical memory. Destroying historical memory does not mean only refusing to write or teach history. The most dangerous method is to distort history and present it in a humiliating form.

History grounded in historical memory and national dignity allows people to feel equal among other peoples. Conversely, those who are ashamed of their history begin to be ashamed of their nation and eventually stop seeing a need for their native language.

In the author's view, the history of the Tatar people is among those most heavily surrounded by malicious falsehoods. Russian history textbooks still portray the era of the Golden Horde almost exclusively in black tones. Emotionally charged expressions such as “the yoke” and “life under oppression” are placed in pupils' minds without explaining the actual content of the political and social relations of the period.

Yet, the author asks, why did Russian cities develop and strengthen for centuries under this alleged “yoke,” why were new towns founded, why did people cultivate the land and raise children, and why was there no continuous struggle against a supposed “Tatar yoke”?

Even the population census is used, in the author's assessment, to weaken a common Tatar nation. Before censuses, attempts are made to divide the Tatar nation into dozens of groups, to record some Tatars as members of other peoples, and to portray modern Tatars as a people separate from the Tatars of the Golden Horde.

The history of Tatars in the territory of present-day Bashkortostan, where a very large Tatar population lives, remains insufficiently studied. Few researchers work systematically on the subject. Moreover, the author argues that some Bashkir scholars go even further than Russian historians in distorting Tatar history in the region.

This is expressed both in claims that a substantial share of local Tatars are supposedly Bashkirs and in presenting Tatars as newcomers to the territory.

The fact that lands within present-day Bashkortostan once belonged to Tatar state formations — the Kazan and Siberian khanates and the Nogai Horde — is rejected. Consequently, the author argues, the fact that Tatars lived there within their own state formations and therefore constituted an indigenous population of these lands is also denied.

When discussing the problems of Tatars in Bashkortostan and, above all, possible solutions, Tatars in Tatarstan and elsewhere often display, in the author's view, a strange caution: Tatars in Bashkortostan are said to need protection, yet the Bashkir elite must not be irritated — an attempt to keep both sides satisfied.

The author believes experience has shown that this approach does not work. He argues that during censuses Bashkir ideologues use administrative resources to reclassify large numbers of Tatars as Bashkirs, thereby contributing to imperial forces that fragment the Tatar ethnic community.

These phenomena, the author maintains, are connected by a broader policy. He sees Russification and Christianization of non-Russian peoples at the core of Kremlin ideology, with the Russian Orthodox Church's ideology used as an instrument: first depriving non-Russian peoples of an authentic history, then of language and religion.

If Russia was once called a “prison of peoples,” the author writes, today it is rapidly becoming a cemetery of non-Russian peoples.

Factors leading to the destruction of the Tatar nation

• Moscow's assimilationist nationalities policy (a factor the author says the “congress concept” does not mention);
• the dispersal of Tatars across many regions;
• the movements of Bulgarism, Kryashen identity, Tengrism and “western Bashkir-centrism”;
• the gradual distancing of Crimean, Nogai and Siberian Tatar elites from a common Tatar identity;
• what the author describes as a principled policy of the Bashkir elite aimed at the spiritual suppression and absorption of Tatars in Bashkortostan;
• the weakening of national consciousness among Tatars themselves.

Factors pushing Tatars toward the loss of national consciousness and language

• the disappearance of Tatar from kindergartens;
• the reduction of Tatar to a secondary role in schools;
• television and the internet operating predominantly in Russian;
• children's digital devices functioning almost entirely in Russian;
• distorted and humiliating teaching of Tatar history in schools;
• the absence of mechanisms for introducing children to Islam.

Stages of the struggle to preserve Tatar identity

• continually appeal to international institutions regarding violations of the rights of the Tatar nation;
• organize a movement for the territorial consolidation of Tatars within Russia;
• create “centers of crystallization” of Tatar identity in different regions on the basis of Islamic and business structures;
• promote the preservation of Tatar identity in families, showing in social media how prominent Tatar families maintain language, religion and traditions;
• use social media, video and animation to convey to children what the author regards as the authentic history of the Tatar people rather than a history written and imposed by outside forces;
• promote Tatar identity in mosques. The author proposes replacing the thesis “there are no nations in Islam” with “there is Islam in Tatar identity,” arguing that a Russified Tatar begins to lose not only language but religion as well.

The core doctrine

The reality, the author argues, is harsh: in the long term, even under a very thoughtful policy, the Tatars most likely to retain their identity will be those living in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan.

Only in these two neighboring regions are Tatars both numerous and territorially concentrated, and it is above all there that new Tatar songs and literary works continue to be created.

Tatars living outside these territories gradually disappear through assimilation — becoming Russified or joining other national communities. The author presents this as a natural demographic process shaped largely by the numerical strength of an ethnic group and its proportion relative to surrounding populations.

At the same time, he argues that the distinct place of the Tatar of Bashkortostan within the wider Tatar world has long been underestimated.

From high platforms in Kazan, references are made to Kurgan Tatars, Finnish Tatars, Far Eastern Tatars, while the “Tatar of Bashkortostan” is mentioned merely as one item in a list.

Treating the Tatar world as a set of identical subjects separated by commas, however fair it may seem, prevents recognition of the actual demographic weight, national potential and viability of Tatars living in these regions.

Of course, the preservation of Tatars outside Tatarstan and Bashkortostan must also be considered — including, in the author's proposal, a resettlement program to the Volga-Ural region.

The main task, however, should be a program for preserving Tatars in the Volga-Ural region.

The Doctrine for the Preservation of the Tatar Nation, the author argues, should be based on bringing Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, and the Tatars of the two republics, closer through state, economic, cultural and civic ties.

On this basis he proposes:

• regular Days of the Tatars of Bashkortostan in Tatarstan;
• stronger economic links between western districts of Bashkortostan, Tatar entrepreneurs living there and Tatarstan;
• the protection of the constitutional rights of Tatars in Bashkortostan with extensive use of the administrative resources of official Tatarstan.

The Fund for the Preservation of the Tatar Nation (“Tatar Fund”) — the backbone of the Doctrine

Work to preserve the Tatar nation, the author argues, can be organized only with a strong financial base.

Funds should be accumulated in a foundation or bank intended to act as a kind of international public Tatar government. Raising money is therefore described as a decisive question.

Financing could be organized through the Tatar Fund's participation in economic projects, regular national contributions from Tatar businesspeople and other sources of income.

The Tatar Fund should create a dedicated website and social-media pages.

One of its most important tasks should be grants for publishing and distributing books presenting what the author regards as an objective history of the Tatar people, producing documentaries that challenge negative portrayals of the Golden Horde period, and circulating these materials through social media.

For this purpose, close ties should be established with the Shigabutdin Marjani Institute of History.

The Tatar Fund, together with an all-Tatar movement for national preservation, should strongly oppose efforts that obstruct the construction of mosques and madrasas in different regions, especially in Tatarstan and western Bashkortostan.

At the same time, the author calls for continuing “scholarly criticism” of Tengrism, Kryashen identity, Bulgarism and “western Bashkir-centrism,” which he considers directed against Islam and Tatar identity.

Preserving Tatars outside Tatarstan and Bashkortostan

The author considers organized large-scale return and resettlement to Tatarstan and western Bashkortostan the most reliable way to preserve Tatars living in other regions.

He proposes providing resettlers with land in rural areas and jobs in cities.

For that reason, land and the creation of a land fund are treated as major national questions.

For Tatars who, for various reasons, cannot move to the Volga-Ural region, the author proposes local “centers of crystallization” strengthening language, national consciousness and religion.

These centers would be built around religious and business structures.

Every mosque, in this model, would become a kind of “Tatar House,” with the Tatar Fund helping to establish and equip such centers.

They would host Tatar madrasas, shops selling Tatar products, dining facilities and guest accommodation, as well as free meals for people in need.

Local Tatar businesses could become a second center of national preservation.

Official Tatarstan and the Tatar Fund would maintain close economic relations with such entrepreneurs, support business links among them and help create a common “Business Center.”

The author proposes that local Tatars should be preferentially employed in such business structures.

Organizing an All-Tatar Movement for National Preservation

To bring Tatar issues to the international arena, exert political pressure on the Russian leadership and unite dispersed Tatars in a common political space, the author proposes creating, with support from the Tatar Fund, an international Tatar society organized along party-like principles.

Ninety percent of delegates elected to its congresses, in this proposal, would be Tatars from Tatarstan and Bashkortostan; the remaining ten percent would represent Tatars from other regions where assimilation is most advanced.

In this way, delegates from what the author calls the center of preservation of the Tatar nation would have a decisive voice in major decisions.

Relations with other Tatar organizations

The Society, envisaged as a leading political organization of the Tatar nation, would establish working relations with all movements that serve or are capable of serving Tatar interests.

At the same time, the World Congress of Tatars is criticized as an organization that, in the author's assessment, has not adequately addressed the preservation and development of the Tatar nation or communicated its problems objectively to Russia's leadership.

The author argues that it is likely to continue concentrating on Sabantuy celebrations, songs and dances while Tatar communities in many regions continue to decline.

The All-Tatar Public Center, the Azatlyk Union of Tatar Youth and the Ak Kalfak Tatar women's organization, in his view, can become allies in a common struggle.

The Mejlis of Tatar Murzas, which has so far focused largely on genealogy, could also contribute if it directs more of its work toward national preservation and defense.

Tatar murzas prepared to serve their people may, from a historical point of view, be regarded as a surviving framework linking the present to the former Tatar khanates.

The author notes that Bolshevik and Soviet historians frequently portrayed the Tatar aristocracy primarily as people ready to betray their nation.

A future task, he argues, is to popularize the names and lives of those Tatar beks and murzas who sacrificed for their people and worked to strengthen Tatar statehood.

Without this, he writes, it will be difficult to cultivate respect for the Tatar khanates.

The Society should also take political changes inside Russia and internationally into account and allow for the creation of new Tatar organizations.

Dear compatriots!

This Doctrine defines only the principal directions for preserving our nation.

Special programs and strategies must be developed for each of these directions.

The most important thing is to identify the directions correctly.

Others may supplement them.

But our time is limited. Concrete action must begin as soon as possible.

Karim YAUSHEV
Honored Worker of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan,
member of the Mejlis of Tatar Murzas of Tatarstan.