Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 23 – In an article
entitled “Incompetence or Betrayal? Gagauzia Learns to De-Russify from
Tatarstan,” Ivan Shilov calls attention to and expresses outrage over the
latest effort of the Kazan Tatars to provide leadership for fellow Turkic
groups not only in Russia but in former Soviet republics like Moldova (http://regnum.ru/news/polit/2100106.html).
The
Regnum commentator is especially angry about Tatarstan’s role with the 100,000 Gagauz
given than Moscow has long counted on this ethnically Turkic but predominantly
Russian Orthodox and Russian-speaking group to bring pressure, along with
Transdniestria on Chisinau.
But
his words also reflect the anger of many in the Russian capital about Tatarstan’s
efforts to reach out to other Turkic groups not only inside the Russian
Federation but across the entire post-Soviet space and its unwillingness to
break ties with Turkey, despite Moscow’s insistence that Kazan do so.
Indeed,
some Russian writers are now pointing to Tatarstan as an example of Turkey’s successful
use of “soft power” inside Russia and demanding that Moscow take a harder line
against it, even though doing so could provoke a new rise of nationalism among
the Tatars. (On this, see ruskline.ru/analitika/2016/03/23/vliyanie_turcii_v_tatarstane_faktor_myagkoj_sily/).
To
some extent, Moscow has only itself to blame. Not only did it promote Tatarstan
as a link and model for the Crimean Tatars after the annexation of that
Ukrainian peninsula, but it has generally welcomed Kazan’s support for cultural
activities in other Turkic republics in Russia (nazaccent.ru/content/19675-tatarstan-podderzhit-razvitie-tatarskoj-kultury-v.html).
But
Shilov’s article suggests that many in Moscow are outraged by cooperation
between Kazan and Komrat and especially by the comments of participants in
meetings between them in Kazan last week (nazaccent.ru/content/19772-v-kazani-projdut-dni-gagauzskoj-kultury.html,
and
According to Shilov, “the
authorities of Gagauzia intend to study and introduce in the autonmy the
experience of Tatarstan on ‘the preservation and development of native language’
and ‘the realization of bilingualism.’”
Rimma Ratnikova, head of Tatarstan’s State
Council, told the Gagauz visitors that their two peoples have much in common
because “at one and the same time we passed through the same historical path of
the upsurge of national self-consciousness and the preservation of traditions,
language and culture.”
The Gagauz leaders visiting Kazan, Shilov
continues, were “particularly interested in the issue of the preservation and
development of the native language.”
Gagauzia currently has three state languages – Russian, Gagauz and
Moldovan – but government work is conducted almost exclusively in Russia. Some
Gagauz would like to change that.
Shilov says that “practically 100 percent
of the population” of Gagauzia speaks Russian, although he acknowledges that
92.3 percent of the Gagauz living in Moldova declared in the 2004 Moldovan
census that they consider Gagauz their native language.
What is striking, he adds, is that the
supposedly “’pro-Russian’” Gagauz leadership is suddenly promoting the Gagauz
language at the expense of Russian and doing so with the help of the Tatars. In
this, Shilov says, the Gagauz are pursuing precisely the line that “Russophobes
from Chisinau” favor.
Indeed, the Regnum commentator notes, some
in the Moldovan capital routinely criticize the Gagauz because they say that “the
Gagauz autonomy is hardly ‘Gagauz’ given that people there speak Russian,
educate their children in Russian and on the whole are oriented toward Russia.”
Shilov concludes his commentary by noting
that Irina Vlakh, the bashkan (head) of Gagauzia was elected to that post “with
the active support of the Kremlin and its ‘reliable’ Moldovan ‘partners’” and
brought in many people from Chisinau to run things in Komrat. Now, however, she or at least some of her
subordinates appear prepared to go in a different direction -- and with Tatarstan’s help.
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