Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 21 – For the first
time in 20 years, the Turkic-language peoples assembled last week to share
their common cultures; but the event became an occasion for sharp exchanges
between those from Moscow who want to elevate the Russian language and a common
civic Russian identity above all others and those who want to defend their
nations.
The meeting was organized by Moscow
and Chuvash officials with the explicit purpose of promoting cultural links
among the more than 12 million people in Russia who speak closely related
Turkic languages, but it rapidly became something more, an indication that the
Turks of Russia, long divided by Moscow, may be uniting to defend their common
culture.
And while there is a long road
between expressions of anger at Moscow and of friendship among the Turkic
peoples to political unity, this meeting served notice that the Russian
authorities cannot count on their past divide-and-rule policies to keep these
peoples and their eleven republics apart and thus easier targets for the
Kremlin.
Moscow’s policies and
hopes were presented by Vladimir Zorin, a prominent Russian ethnographer, who
began by admitting Moscow’s nationality policy is “often criticized” for being
either about festivals or the suppression of conflicts and suggesting that it
must focus on “everything in between as well” (idelreal.org/a/turki-rossii-chuvashia/28688104.html).
Asked whether meetings like last
weekend’s might lead to greater divisions among the peoples of Russia and
particularly between large linguistic communities like the Slavic, the
Finno-Ugric and Turkic peoples, Zorin insisted that was not possible: “we
already from the times of the formation of the state have lived together.”
“We all together are today solving a
two-in-one task: the formation of an all-Russian civic unity and the
ethno-cultural development of all peoples who populate our country.” According to Zorin, “the term ‘civic Russian
nation’ ‘does not in any case contradict or reduce the meaning of the nation as
an ethnos.”
He added that he “very much likes
the expression that Russia is a nation of nations. It objectively reflects the current
moment.” But if the Moscow ethnographer likes it, many of the participants
suggested that the promotion of a civic Russian nation is “the beginning of the
end” of the country.
Alfinur Dibayeva from Orenburg asked
“How can we all be joined together if we are different nations? I am against
this. Each nation has its own traditions, its own customs, its own language.
The variant ‘nation of nations’ is absolutely inappropriate. In the Russian
nation, all our nations will be dissolved.”
“I
am not against Russia and am not opposed to be a civic Russian. But I am
against one nation. I am a Tatar and will be a Tatar. I will always represent the
Tatar nation,” she said. “But how will I teach Tatar if we will all have a
Russian nation? What will be the national language” in that event?
According to her, “we have lived in
a fraternal fashion and will do so in the future without a civic Russian
nation,” however much some people want that.
Indeed, she continued, “the civic
Russian nation is the very same thing that the Soviet people was: we are
turning back to the past and thus may repeat the fate of the Soviet Union.”
[stress supplied]
Elvira Khasanova, a Nogay from
Astrakhan, said that from what she can see, Moscow is “afraid that each nation
will defend its rights and its sovereignty. But why shouldn’t this be the case?
Now the self-consciousness of peoples has become higher and they want to
acquire sovereignty.”
What then will remain of Russia? “Only
‘the Golden ring’?”
The Nogays, she pointed out, have
not been allowed to organize “their own sovereign territory. We have a Nogay
autonomous district in Daghestan but it isn’t allowed to unit with the
Astrakhan Nogays.” Moscow today is continuing the oppression of the Nogay
people that dates to Catherine’s times.
But today, she added, “the Nogays
have the resources in order to form a Nogay Republic within the Russian
Federation.”
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