Gaspirali v. Il'Minskii: Two Identity Projects for the Muslims of the Russian Empire

In: Nationalities papers: the journal of nationalism and ethnicity, Band 30, Heft 2, S. 265-289

Abstract

In 1913, an article in a Russian missionary journal compared two "very typical representatives" of Islamic studies in Russia: İsmail Bey Gaspıralı (1851–1914) and Nikolai Ivanovich Il'minskii (1822–1891). Nothing could better symbolize the two opposing points of view about the past, present and future of the Muslims of Russia in 1913. Il'minskii was a Russian Orthodox missionary whose ideas and efforts had formed the imperial perceptions and policies about the Muslims of the Russian empire in the late Tsarist period, while Gaspıralı was a Muslim educator and publisher whose ideas and efforts had shaped the Muslim society per se in the same period. Il'minskii, beginning in the 1860s, and Gaspıralı, beginning in the 1880s, developed two formally similar but inherently contradictory programs for the Muslims of the Russian empire. Schooling and the creation of a literary language or literary languages constituted the hearts of both of their programs. Besides their own efforts, both Gaspıralı and Il'minskii had a large number of followers that diligently worked to put their programs into practice among the Muslims of Russia. As a result of the inherent contradiction of these programs, a bitter controversy developed between what we may call the Il'minskii and Gaspıralı groups, which particularly intensified after the revolution of 1905. In this article, I will discuss the underlying causes and development of this controversy by focusing on the role of language in the programs of Gaspıralı and Il'minskii. Then, I will conclude my article with an evaluation of the legacies of these two individuals in their own time and beyond.