Tatarstan Brings Its Nationality Policy Strategy Document Closely into Line with Moscow’s

Paul Goble

               Staunton, May 19 – From the end of Gorbachev’s time until now, Tatarstan invariably adopted nationality strategy documents that focused on the republic and its titular nationality and were to a greater or lesser extent at odds with Moscow’s. Now that has changed, and Kazan has promulgated one that is now tightly aligned with Moscow’s.

            The republic’s new nationality policy strategy, which was signed off on by republic head Rustam Minnikhanov on May 16, was drafted by scholars and officials in Kazan; but there can be little doubt that they were under orders to come up with a new document echoing on all key issues the November 2025 all-Russian document of the same kind.

            On the one hand, it seems clear as well that many in Kazan will be unhappy with the new provisions and will work to oppose the policy implications of the new declaration; but on the other, these declarations common to the Moscow and Kazan documents likely point to some of the directions the Putin regime is likely to pursue in the coming months and years.

            That makes a new article in Kazan’s Business-Gazeta by two Tatarstan journalists, Anna Skryp and Ivan Skryabin, who compare the language of the republic and all-Russian strategy documents, important not only for their republic but for other republics and nationalities and also for Moscow as well (business-gazeta.ru/article/702544).

            They lead off with the following conclusion: “the republic’s strategy has been brought into alignment with the federal strategy adopted in November 2025, especially with regard to the equalization of Russian and Tatar languages as native, the challenges identified – neo-Nazism rather than religious extremism – and the creation of adaptation centers for migrants.

            Even more, the two write, “the primary objective of the strategy” Tatarstan has signed off on “is the preservation of the state unity and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, the bolstering of internal stability, and the formation of a pan-Russian civic identity” rather than any ethno-national one.

            Among the other changes the new coordinated Tatarstan nationality policy strategy document makes from its predecessors are the following:

·       The new document makes no reference to the task of safeguarding the constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens whereas the previous Tatarstan one did.

·       The new document specifies that it is a priority to strengthen the unity and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, something the previous strategy document did not.

·       The new document makes no reference to a central plank of the earlier one, “strengthening Tatarstan as the historically established form of the Tatar people's statehood."

·       The new document refers to both Russian and Tatar as native languages, something the earlier version did not.

·       The new document specifies that Kazan must seek to “ensure the use” of Russian but makes no similar demand as far as Tatar is concerned. The earlier version spoke only of Tatar in this regard.

·       Throughout, the new program speaks about “risks” rather than “problems” and specifies that these come from abroad. The older program did not do either.

·       And the new version speaks of the ethnic Russians as “a state-forming people,” something the earlier Tatarstan version did not.