Paul
Goble
Staunton, June 3 – When word spread
last month that Kazan might liquidate the Marjani Institute of History by
stripping it of its independent status, combining it with the Tatarstan
Institute of Archaeology, and ousting its intellectual leader, Rafael Khakimov,
a prominent advocate of greater autonomy for Tatarstan, Tatars around the world
sprang into action.
Scholars at the institute and beyond
its doors published an open letter to Tatarstsan President Rustam Minnikhanov
urging him not to move against the Institute (business-gazeta.ru/article/470344).
Fifteen hundred Tatars signed an online petition requesting the same (change.org/p//президенту-республики-татарстан-рустаму-минниханову-в-поддержку-академической-свободы-и-сохранения-института-истории-им-ш-марджани-ан-рт).
And the institute itself issued an appeal (татаровед.рф/news/485).
In the words of Khakimov, “Tatars
from all corners of the world wrote letters in defense of the Institute” even
though the World Congress of Tatars, hobbled by pandemic restrictions, was not
in a position to play an active role.
The upshot of all this, something that highlights the importance of the diaspora
for Kazan, is that the Institute has been saved.
The Tatarstan presidential
administration has told Khakimov that the Institute will retain its independent
status, Khakimov will give up the directorship to his deputy Radikh Salikhov,
until a new director can be elected, but that the current director will become the
academic leader of the Institute (business-gazeta.ru/article/470701).
In
short, the Institute will remain the generator of ideas about autonomy and
federalism it has been since its founding in 1996 and Khakimov will be its
intellectual leader. Moscow likely wanted him out, but final decision was Kazan’s
and not Moscow’s as some had earlier thought (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/05/under-pressure-from-moscow-kazan.html).
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