Neither Tatar nor Non-Tatar Telegram Channels Treated Retitling of Tatarstan Head as Extraordinary, Milliard.Tatar Analysts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 5 – Many Moscow media outlets treated Tatarstan’s decision to retitle the head of the republic as rais rather than president as something extraordinary, an act of continuing national assertiveness. But telegram channels, both Tatar and non-Tatar, in contrast suggested that it was an entirely normal means of making republic law conform to federal ones.

            That is the conclusion of analysts at the Milliard.Tatar site who used word embedding analysis of 16 non-Tatar and nine Tatar telegram channels, places where politically attentive people are most likely to express their opinions (milliard.tatar/news/rais-kak-telegram-kanaly-rasskazali-o-pereimenovanii-dolznosti-prezidenta-tatarstana-2688).

            The only difference between the Tatar and non-Tatar channels as far as the use of rais is concerned is that the Tatar ones devoted far less attention to that Arabic term than did the non-Tatar ones, likely because, the Milliard.Tatar analysts say, it is quite familiar to Tatars even though it may seem very foreign to others.

            The results, presented in the form of two word clouds, suggest that media hype notwithstanding, the political class both in Moscow and in the regions and republics accepts what Tatarstan has done as entirely normal and acceptable and that the adoption of the word “rais” is a step that they are quite prepared to live with.

            That suggests that Moscow is likely to be satisfied with what Tatarstan has done rather than take any future steps to force Kazan to drop the term “rais” and replace it with something like “head” as other republics have done. As a result, Tatarstan will remain in this respect an outlier and potential bellwether within the Russian Federation.