‘Like Russians, Tatars are a Political Nation and a State-Forming People,’ Fakhrutdinov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 14 – All groups which include Tatar in their names are part of the Tatar nation, a group “like the Russians” which represent “a political nation” formed by the experience of the states they formed or lived within and even form are “a state-forming people,” Rail Fakhrutdinov says

            The direction of Kazan’s Institution of International Relations, History and Oriental Studies adds that again like the Russians, the Tatars passed from being “a confessional identity” into being “a national one” at about the same time in the 19^th century, the Russians a little earlier and the Tatars only a little later (milliard.tatar/news/rail-faxrutdinov-tatary-eto-politiceskaya-naciya-gosudarstvoobrazuyushhii-narod-9496).

            The Soviet state sought to divide up the Tatars, but “the thing is that the Kazan, Astrakhan, Siberian Tatars and the Mishars entered a single Russian state at approximately the same time having preserved a common cultural and linguistic space,” he says. To this day, they are all part of the modern Tatar nation.

            More to the point, “the Tatars like the Russians are a single nation” despite differences in dialects and regional identities. “More than that, our history is indivisibly connected with the history of a state: we are a state-forming, imperial nation” as the history of those Tatars who worked for the Russian state at various points demonstrates.

            And Fakhrutdinov concludes: “despite the presence of ethno-territorial groups with local language and cultural distinctions, which characterizes many peoples of the world, the Tatars form a single people, single with a common language, a common culture, historical straditions, self-consciousness and finally with a common ethnonym, Tatars.”

            The Tatar historian’s argument is likely to inspire many Tatars, but it will certainly outrage many Russian nationalists and Moscow centralists both because it posits that the Tatars have evolved in ways parallel to the Russians and because it suggests that many in Kazan view all Tatars are part of their patrimony.