Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 10 – Albert
Razin, 79, an Udmurt scholar, set himself aflame in front of the Udmurt legislature
building today in order to call attention to what he said on a placard and in
two open letters he distributed to passers-by was the destruction of his language
and his nation as a result of Moscow’s policies. He died in hospital shortly
thereafter.
There is no tradition among the Udmurts
of using suicide as a form of protest, but Razin clearly felt that this was the
only way to attract attention to the situation created by Vladimir Putin’s
making the study of non-Russian languages completely voluntary and one in which
the non-Russians have few ways to fight back (idelreal.org/a/30156700.html).
Razin’s action did attract attention
– Yandex lists more than 100 stories about his self-immolation and the issues of
russification he raised. In that sense, the
Udmurt’s protest succeeded; but in another, it may have failed. Even in
Udmurtia the authorities are trying to portray him as mentally unstable – and Moscow
shows no sign of being willing to change.
On his Facebook page, Razin
described himself as “a teacher and sociologist, a candidate of philosophical sciences,
a student of humanity and the peasantry, and a Tolstoyan” (facebook.com/people/Альберт-Разин/100034013405252).
For 50 years, he had been a widely respected scholar who focused fo rural life
in Udmurtia and on the Udmurt language, and for 30 years he had been at the forefront
of the Udmurt national movement.
When Razin came arrived at the
square in front of the Udmurt State Council, he was carrying a placard bearing
the words of Daghestani poet Rasul Gamzatov -- “If my language will be forgotten
tomorrow, I am prepared to die today” -- as well as two letters detailing his concerns
about his nation and his program for addressing its needs (business-gazeta.ru/article/438264).
In addition, Razin was carrying two
letters, copies of which his friends and associates distributed to people in
the square. The first, an eight-page missive t the State Council
declared that “the Udmurt ethnos is disappearing [but] it is in our power to
save it.” In the 1920s, all Udmurts spoke
Udmurt; now, only a third do, the letter said.
And the future looks even more bleak
as a result of Putin’s approach to non-Russian languages and republics. He
called for the reversal of Putin’s decision to make the study of non-Russian
languages in the republics voluntary, and he also demanded that Udmurtia send
only a third of the taxes it collects to Moscow, using the rest to save the language
and the villages.
The second letter was addressed to
Udmurtia’s representatives in the Russian State Duma and the chairman of the
Udmurt Republic State Council Aleksey Prasolov. In it, Razin reminded them that
“all empires are doomed to fall apart” and called on the elites of Russia and
Udmurtia to adopt the approach to nationality problems Finland, Switzerland and
other countries have.
In many ways, these two letters and
even his act of self-immolation was the natural culmination of a life devoted
to defending a small nation against the depradations visited upon it by
Moscoow. Razin was born in 1940 and
wrote a dissertation on the problems of the formation of the personalities of
rural workers.
According to his friend and
colleague Leoonid Gonin, Razin was
deeply conservative and wanted to save what he could of the patriarchal society
of the Udmurt past. He believed that the
Udmurts had a very ancient tradition in which they should take pride and use as
a defense against those who would destroy the nation by russification.
“His dream” in retirement, Gonin
said, “was to make a trip to Israel and study how a kibbutz functions and
works. One can say that the was a ruralist.” After his retirement which was
occasioned by the destruction of the special group he formed to study the
peasantry, Razin devoted his time to the Udmurt Kenesh national movement
he had helped establish in the 1980s.
Most of his friends and colleagues
are in shock at his suicide and few of them think it will force Moscow to
change curse, although they do believe that it will lead to move discussion about
the problems of language and identity among non-Russians. (For indications this
is happening, see among others forum-msk.org/material/news/15914658.html,
region.expert/razin/, facebook.com/Free.IdelUral/posts/489474348275796,
idelreal.org/a/30156548.html,
mariuver.com/2019/09/10/izhevsk-podzheg-sebja/,
azatliq.org/a/30156224.html,
udm-info.ru/news/politics/10-09-2019/chelovek-podzheg-sebya-u-zdaniya-gossoveta-udmurtii,
novayagazeta.ru/articles/2019/09/10/81922-vspyshka-gneva
and facebook.com/groups/kazakia/permalink/2744016185631768/.)
But the senior officials in Moscow
and Udmurtia who have commented on Razin’s actions so far have been dismissive,
suggesting this was the step of a very old and possibly deeply unsettled
individual and that the ideas Razin had put forward were without foundation (ridus.ru/news/307554,
nazaccent.ru/content/30879-chlen-soveta-po-mezhnacionalnym-otnosheniyam-prokommentiroval.html
and nazaccent.ru/content/30875-ministr-nacionalnoj-politiki-udmurtskoj-respubliki-ne.html).
Such attitudes are what one would
expect in the Putin era, but the protest that Razin’s self-immolation
represents is certain to be remembered long after they and the system they
represent are long gone. At least, no one will be able to doubt that the non-Russians
are not only angry about the Putin regime but are prepared to take extreme
actions to protest against it.
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