Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 5 – When Tatars shift
from speaking Tatar to speaking Russian, there are more possibilities than many
typically assume. They may be on their way to assimilation as many Tatars fear
and some Russians want. But they may also become Russian-speaking Tatars, “Russian
Muslims,” or Muslims who reject an ethnic identity, Harun Sidorov says.
That range of possibilities means,
the ethnic Russian convert to Islam says, that such a linguistic shift may or
may not be to the liking of either Tatars or Russians because it could
transform the meaning of the latter and pose serious and unexpected challenges
to the latter (idelreal.org/a/30591444.html).
Sidorov, who lives in Prague, says
that Tatars typically consider only two possibilities – that those who lose
Tatar as a language nonetheless become Russian-speaking Tatars or that those
who do so have already passed beyond the normal boundaries of that ethnic
identity and are on the way to becoming Russians -- a dichotomous visions Russians tend to share.
But there are at least two other possibilities
given that most Tatars are also committed Muslims. These include becoming part
of “the Russian Muslims,” a community made up of ethnic Russians who have
accepted Islam, like Sidorov himself, or giving up their ethnic identity
altogether, given the view of many Muslims that religion should trump
nationality.
Ethnic Russian Muslims, the analyst
says, “up to now do not form a stable ethno-confessional community even in
comparison with the Kryashens [who are Tatar in origin but Christian in faith],
whose identity and community has been reproduced already over many generations.”
But they are a community that could
grow as a result of the Russification of Tatars and other historically Muslim
nations and thus become “a new community” altogether, one that might prove more
of a threat in the eyes of ethnic Russians to the Russian nation than even to the
Tatar-speaking Tatars.
“There are no objective reasons
standing on the way for such cooptation” of Tatars who come to speak Russian,
Sidorov continues. Such individuals would be Russian-speaking and European in
culture and find many people like themselves who are emerged from other Tatar
communities.
“However,” he notes, “as the
experience of our community shows, subjective and more precisely psychological
obstacles arise among a not small portion of these people.” That is because
Russian Muslims are still “a community at the beginning stage of establishment
who lack any lengthy history and have been formed” by conversion.
This gives rise to conflicts between
those who bring their national traditions with them to some degree and those
who decide as many neophytes do to become more Muslim than Mohammed. The latter often do not really want to have
anything in common with those who have similar ethnic and cultural
characteristics.
As an ethnic Russian Muslim himself,
Sidorov would like Russianized Tatars to join his community but only after they
have fully recognized the difficulties involved. But the point he raises is more important
than he may think because it touches on what it means to be a Tatar and perhaps
even more on what it means to be a Russian.
Non-Russians who lose their native language
may be lost to their nationality, but they may also become key players in its
future, just as the Irish did not become nationalists until they gave up
speaking Gaelic and adopted the language of the empire. (Now, of course, many of them want to restore
their traditional tongue.)
This is a problem for the Tatar
nation. But the problems of Russianized Tatars who become Russian Muslims or
anational Muslims are more serious for the Russian nation, despite the advocacy
for assimilation by linguistic change that many Russians especially now are engaged
in.
On the one hand, those who retain
their religious identity even if they lose their linguistic and national ones
are a clear reminder that the assumption that a change in language is
everything are wrong. Russian-speaking Tatars are a possibility and possibly a
welcome one from the perspective of Russians.
But on the other hand, the
possibility that promoting Russian language among Tatars may lead not to their
assimilation but rather to their becoming members of the Russian Muslim
community or even more adopting a non-national religious identity is not
something that most Russians would like – and that many would view as a threat
to Russian identity as such.
Those who became Russian Muslims in
this way could in principle become like the Kryashens within the Tatar nation,
a potentially divisive group others might exploit, and those who having taken
to speaking Russian became Muslims tout court could mean that Russia would face
a more radical Islamic threat than it does now.
Whether Sidorov intended it or not,
his words should serve as a warning to Moscow that its Russianizing policies
may not work as planned and could even lead to a situation more unfavorable to
its interests than continuing to provide support for the non-Russian languages,
a possibility few Russians appear to have considered.
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