Suchergebnisse

The article by Diliara Usmanova offers the first comprehensive treatment of the practice of population registration and vital statistics of the Muslims of the Russian Empire through "metrical books" (parish registers). The author argues that the institution of Muslim parish registers reflected the hybrid nature of the imperial legal regime, which not only incorporated different confessional and regional systems of law but also practiced a kind of "outsourcing" by recruiting local elites to communicate administrative assignments to culturally diverse populations in their language and through their customary institutions. This thesis is unfolded against the background of early Modern and Modern European patterns of vital statistics and identification of the population, all originating in parish registers. At the same time, Usmanova points out the absence of such a practice in the Ottoman Empire, which collected population statistics through state censuses rather than Muslim confessional institutions. Russian Muslims not only embraced the Christian Church institution of parish registers, but turned it into an instrument of contestation with the state over religious and, later, national autonomy of the Muslim community. The article reconstructs the history of the introduction of parish registers for the Russian Muslims, the content of registers and the specifics of bookkeeping by clergy, the controversy over the language of documentation, and the problem of control over the vital statistics by the state and the Muslim religious elites. Usmanova shows how, in its need for population statistics and identification, the modernizing imperial state depended on the Muslim clergy, and at the same time resented granting them more administrative authority. On the other hand, the growing complexity and internal diversity within the Muslim community itself contributed to rising appreciation of the practical importance of the parish registers and competition for control over them among rival factions. Eventually, parish registers emerged as a principal institution of religious and national (Tatar) identification and cohesion. It was only in 1918 when the Soviet state officially outlawed parish registers as the basis for identification of individuals and population statistics, despite the fierce protests of Muslims.

The article presents an attempt to characterize parliamentary culture in the wake of the First Russian Revolution of 1905 through an analysis of debates in the first and second State Dumas. Three key aspects had shaped this culture and revealed themselves in the rhetoric of Duma speakers. First, the specific circumstances of establishing the Duma as the cornerstone of the modernizing political system; second, the revolution as the context of Duma activities that directly affected the behavior and stylistics of the Duma's speakers; third, the peculiarities of communication of the multiethnic and multiconfessional deputy corps of the imperial parliament. The rise of public politics in the Duma and the formation of a new type of politicians heavily drew on the traditional and even archaic institutions, social personae, and norms of behavior. This mixture of new and old elements was captured in the manner and rhetoric of Duma speakers and the culture of parliamentary polemics.

В статье даётся сравнительный анализ различных практик использования концепта элита в работах социологического, политологического и исторического характера, а также рассматривается применимость данного термина в отношении мусульманских представителей в российском имперском парламенте. На основе анализа истории образования и характера деятельности мусульманской парламентской фракции сделан вывод о том, что мусульманские депутаты представляли собой скорее контрэлиту или часть новой политической элиты в стадии её становления, что объясняется сложным характером формирования новых политических элит в позднеимперской России.This article compares how the concept "elite" has been used in the works of sociology, history and political science, and then explores how this term can be useful for understanding the work of Muslim deputies in the Russian parliament of 1906–1917. An analysis of the educational background of the deputies and their activities in the Muslim parliamentary faction suggests they should rather be seen as a "counter-elite" or a part of a new political elite at the stage of its formation. A conclusion is made about the complexity of formation of new political elites in late imperial Russia.

SUMMARY:
The archival section in this issue of Ab Imperio features the recently uncovered documents of the Vaisov God's regiment of the Muslim old-believers , or Vaisov movement . This was a controversial religious sect (which evolved from a Sufi order) with social, ethnic and political dimensions to it. Chronologically its story encompasses the period from the early 1860s to the late 1920s, when the last participants of the movement were prosecuted. In the Introduction to the archival publication, the historian Dilyara Usmanova explains why the Vaisov movement is hard to interpret within one particular historical mode. Its religious status within the Volga Sufi community is still a debatable issue. Among various issues, its religious self-descriptive terms differ from the Russian terms of description (like sect ), which were used by the Russian officials and the adherents of the movement ( Vaisians ) in their Russian-language texts; the group invented its own original historical genealogy from the ancient Bulgar khanate, which tied them to the Volga region; government persecutions politicized their leadership; they experimented with social identities and proposed their own social categories; and finally, they simultaneously opposed Russification and the Tatars as an emerging national entity. The Vaisov movement is a case indicative of the inevitability of taking into account the semantics of the languages of self-description while studying a historically evolving groupness. Moreover, it is illustrative of the power of a religious mobilization to compete with national mobilization or even substitute for the latter.

The history of the movement and the complicated conjunctures of its religious, social and political appearances are reconstructed in the Introduction to provide a context for the documents from the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA) and the National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan (NART), covering the period from the 1880s to 1917. Six documents selected for this publication together show how religious community may act or be perceived as a form of proto-national, social and political groupness; and how the language of the Vaisians' self-description changes depending on the context of the event, the actual language of the document (Russian or Tatar, original or translation, composed by an activist of the movement or by an interpreter) and its addressee.

SUMMARY:
Diliara Usmanova poses a question whether the framework of national history captures vicissitudes of historical experience of Tatars in the Russian empire and Soviet Union. The author also surveys history of the construction of the past that had gradually shifted from a narrative of a Muslim religious community to the one of national community (Tatars). Usmanova points to the fact that the "father-founders" of Tatar national history at the beginning of the 20 th century came out from the Muslim intellectual milieu and educational network and yet they represented a shift from a religious to a more secular and ethno-centric perspective in imagining history of the Volga region population. Usmanova observes that the first stage in the formation of the canon Tatar national history was represented by the recovery of history of ancient states that had existed in the Volga region (including history of the Golden Horde). In an effort that was both a scholarly pursuit and a political action, Tatar intellectuals created a continuous narrative of Tatar history, which stressed the ancient roots of the nation and imagined an integral Tatar nation with the inclusion of Mishari, Kriashcheny, Teptiari and other diaspora and ethnic groups. Usmanova emphasizes the fact that the construction of ancient history for the Tatar national narrative did not preclude a heated debate over the key concepts that were to capture the Tatar national identity. The author argues that at the beginning of the 20 th century the concept of Tatar nationhood was no longer religious but neither was it ethnically exclusive: the concept of the Tatar people was supplemented with the notion of Turkic community. Usmanova then surveys the development of the Tatar national history narrative in the Soviet period and through the post Soviet years, describing a crystallization of the Tatar national identity on the one hand and the persistent ambiguity of historical definitions of the Volga Tatars' nationhood (Bulgar-Tatar debate), on the other.

SUMMARY:
Diliara Usmanova's article is an account of an uneasy relationship between the Kadet party and Muslim fractions in the State Dumas. Usmanova argues that the liberal disregard for minority problems as well as the general shift in political alliances that made the Kadets less attractive allies in terms of influence account for the break between the Kadets and Muslim representatives. The article also looks at projects of a united representation of minorities in the legislature (the fraction of "autonomists") and analyzes relationships between important minority fractions (e.g., the Polish Kolo).