Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 5 – Elmira Abdrazakova,
whose father is a Tatar and whose mother is an ethnic Russian, was crowned Miss
Russia 2013 and will represent the Russian Federation at the Miss World and
Miss Universe competitions. But because of her ethnic background, many Russians
have indicated that they are unhappy with her selection.
Abdrazakova herself attempted to
calm the situation, pointing out after her selection that “Russia is a
multi-national country and that there is nothing criminal about a competition
in which the winner should turn out to be a girl who has ‘a Russian mother and
a Tatar father’” (nazaccent.ru/content/7018-miss-rossiya-2013-moya-mama-russkaya.html).
She said that
the day after her election, on her return home, she found thousands of posts on
her social network site, among which were “many” that were very “negative”
about her nationality. It was pleasing,
she said, that there positive comments, but the number of negative ones and
their content went beyond the boundary of good tone.
During the competition, she
identified herself as [ethnically] Russia, responding to one question about the
music she liked with the following words: “I consider that an [ethnic] Russian
girl should list to [ethnic] Russian music.” But the blogosphere has ignored
that, calling her a Tatar and even suggesting that she was from the North
Caucasus.
One writer, Nazaccent.ru reported,
even noted that the new Miss Russia resembled a perfect Shor, a member of one
of the smaller Turkic nationalities whose 20,000 members live primarily in
Kemerovo Oblast. That writer said that
she was sure she was right because “Abdrazakova is a typical Shor family name.”
Unfortunately, this controversy
shows little sign of dying down. The new
Miss Russia has had to shut down all here social sites, and new articles about
her “Tatarness” are appearing almost every hour on the Russian Internet where
many posts are suggesting that Russia should not have a beauty contest winner “with
a non-Slavic appearance.”
Unfortunately, too, some of the more
responsible media outlets in Moscow are in fact promoting this. Both Ekho
Moskvy and the “Vzglyad” newspaper are running polls on whether their visitors think
it is a good thing or a bad thing for Russia to have a Tatar as its
representative in this field (echo.msk.ru/polls/1024918-echo.html
and vz.ru/news/2013/3/4/622974.html).
A happy exception to this general
pattern is provided in a commentary by Tatyana Fedotkina on Mk.ru. She writes that “beauty of course requires
sacrifices” but asks whether there is any justification for the kind that the
new Miss Russia is currently experiencing (mk.ru/social/article/2013/03/04/821178-miss-rossiya2013-elmiru-abdrazakovu-zatravili-za-krov-i-vneshnost.html)
“Who
could have thought that [beauty’s’ latest victim would turn out to be
18-year-old Elmira Abdrazakova, who was elected Miss Russia over the weekend?” Could anyone think, as one writer put it,
that the jury “spat in the face” of Russia by choosing a Tatar even though her
visage and biography were completely within the norms of such competitions?
Elmira,
Fedotkina observed, is “a typical [non-ethnic] Russian girl.” Given the mixed
marriage of her parents, should anyone have required her to “cross her heart”
and swear that “she doesn’t have a single drop of Tatar blood?” How could anyone ask that of anyone else, the
MK.ru commentator asks in despair.
“It is understandable when people
are angry at politicians and milliionaires,” she continues. “It is even
understandable whenthey hate their colleagues or neighbors. But
persecuting an 18-year-old girl is beyond the pale. Even according to the most primitive
measures.” And anyone who does so should be “ashamed.”
Anger among Russians about this is so
great, the commentator notes, that her paper had to close down the comments
section on articles about Abdrazakova.
It simply wasn’t able to “cope with the insulting commentaries about
their girl, her appearance and her nationality.” Beauty, Fedotkina concluded, clearly does not
justify this kind of sacrifice.
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