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Tatarstan explores culture, semi-independence
Language revived after 70 years of Communist rule
KAZAN, Russia - Far from Moscow in a quiet, snowy neighborhood in the ancient capital of Tatarstan, three generations of actors are performing an operetta in a warm, old theater. A young actress stretches her arms out and sings in a language that, for the 70 years of Communist rule, people here were ashamed to speak.
Half of the audience listens to earphone translations of the performance from Tatar to Russian. The ethnically mixed crowd reflects modern society in Tatarstan, a place that is trying to manage a full-scale revival of Tatar culture without alienating its other citizens.
The operetta in the Chinchurina Theater is a traditional Tatar tale and a rather typical love story. But its significance goes deeper for both the audience and the performers. For them, this small theater has become one of the few living examples of a culture driven to the brink of extinction under centuries of Moscow domination.
"Here, in this theater, this is one of our tasks, to promote the sources and roots of Tatar culture," says Ilsiar Safyulina, a young actress. She is putting on makeup backstage and looking into a mirror that shows a room strewn with colorful, traditional Tatar costumes.
"We learn about Tatar practices, language, customs, and we accept these traditions from the older generation because younger people can only see it on television and not in real life," she says.
When the Soviet Union broke apart nearly a decade ago, many regions began to explore their separateness. Regional leaders reached for independence from a severely weakened federal center that they felt could no longer help them. Since then, Moscow has been losing its grip on Russia's far-flung regions.
"All of the republics are separate, and they still want more separation from within," says Eric Rahkmatullin, a sociology professor at Kazan State University.
"This happens while all of Europe unites and even develops a single currency. And we are splitting. And to my mind, Moscow just doesn't care because it thinks, `The worse, the better.'
While Russian troops continue to pound Chechnya, the Republic of Tatarstan is quietly going about its own affairs, peacefully reviving the culture, language and religion that had nearly disappeared.
In 1992, Tatarstan became the only other republic to join Chechnya in refusing to sign the treaty forming the Russian Federation after the Soviet Union dissolved.
Instead, these 3.7 million people spread along the Volga River, 500 miles east of Moscow, waged a political battle with the Kremlin to establish their largely Muslim territory as a separate state united with the Russian Federation.
The region is home to more than 100 ethnic groups, the largest of which are Tatars, who make up nearly half of the population.
Tatars are descended from Turkic tribes that migrated to the region 1,000 years ago. In 1552, Ivan the Terrible sent his Muscovite troops to sack the city in a bloody battle that even toppled the Kul Sharif mosque in Kazan's Kremlin. Down with the mosque's minarets fell Tatarstan's history.
"Without its culture, history, national studies and education, a nation cannot exist," says Robert Minnullin, chairman of the Tatarstan parliament's Committee on Issues of Culture and Nations. "This mosque is a symbol of the Tatar people and we had a dream to rebuild this mosque."
RECONSTRUCTING HISTORY
Four and a half centuries later, cranes are swinging over the Kremlin and crews of mostly Turkish laborers work in the snow to rebuild the Kul Sharif mosque, a towering Turkish design. Mr. Minnullin says the rebuilding of the mosque marks a new beginning for the region's history and the acceptance of a difficult task.
"The only state for Tatars is Tatarstan," Mr. Minnullin says. "And it is the historical mission of Tatars here to help Tatars abroad. Tatar people are a great people, a very ancient people with big traditions, big history. We have to restore our culture in all spheres, theater, literature."
Of the 7 million Tatars living in the former Soviet Union, only 1.5 million live in Tatarstan. The republic has adopted the role of caretaker for Tatar culture, promoting its language and traditions abroad and hosting two world congresses of Tatars.
Eight years ago, the republic made Tatar and Russian the two official languages. Recently, Tatarstan's parliament even decided to dump the Cyrillic alphabet and return the Tatar language to Latin letters.
"Before perestroika there were no Tatar schools," says Mr. Minnullin, referring to former President Mikhail Gorbachev's reformist policy. "The Tatar language was like a kitchen language."
Centuries of Russification and Christianization took its toll on the region's identity. Now there are 1,129 Tatar language schools in the region, and 98 percent of all students, including Russians, learn Tatar.
DE FACTO INDEPENDENCE
In a republic surrounded by new national symbols and monuments, people's sense of separateness goes beyond language. You won't find any Russian flags flying here.
Tatarstan's green, red and white flag adorns everything from buildings to the sides of brightly-painted trams and busses.
A few signs of the past linger here and are the subject of jokes, including the statue of a young Vladimir Lenin that still looms outside the university.
But Kazan has westernized its city center and re-bricked its main pedestrian street in Western European style. A McDonald's even opened here in April.
The region's semi-independence has led to more than cultural revival. Tatarstan's transition to market capitalism has been more successful than the rest of Russia. Its 1994 treaty with Moscow gave Tatarstan the right to keep half of its tax revenues at home.
The legally cumbersome agreement, which even contradicts the Russian Constitution in several places, allows Tatarstan to enter the international arena without Russia. Tatarstan has since negotiated 50 international treaties and has representative offices in 16 countries, including the United States and France. Legal experts say these treaties with other countries add up to a de facto independence for Tatarstan, a claim that puts a thorn in the side of a beleaguered Moscow.
"It's very important, this pioneer role of Tatarstan," says Goulnara Shaihutdinova, an adviser on international affairs to Tatarstan's parliament. "It was the first republic to sign such a treaty. It changed the situation in Russia as a whole."
Sixty other regions and republics followed Tatarstan, securing their own rights and agreements with Moscow. Mrs. Shaihutdinova says it was the first step in building a new type of federation in Russia based on treaties between the federal center and the regions.
"It's an asymmetric federation because the treaties are each different. Regions cannot be equal economically, historically, geographically and they cannot be equally treated."
Indeed, Tatarstan's initial success in rising above Russia's problems came about by its determination to be different. Pride and a growing national self-consciousness have pushed many of Russia's 89 regions, or republics further adrift from Moscow.
Lilia Nizamova, a sociologist at Kazan State University, insists that Tatarstan has moved past the virulent nationalism of the early 1990s, when people here were calling for the creation of an independent Islamic state.
"Authorities declared independence not only to protect the rights of the Tatar population, but in the interests of the whole, multiethnic population," she says.
Many people here are hoping that federal leaders will begin to accept Russia's multicultural character. The Tatars are among 20 million Muslims in Russia who account for 13.6 percent of the population and do not fit into either the Orthodox or Slavic image that many Russians feel defines their country.
But the success of cultural revival and political autonomy, to some extent, hinge upon Tatarstan's now uncertain future.
Tatarstan's special treaty with Moscow expires in June. Whether it is renewed may depend on the outcome of Russian presidential elections in March. Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin, a front-runner for president, has already declared his opposition to such regional treaties.
AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
Tatarstan's battle to go its own way economically is also in question these days.
Shamil Idiatullin, assistant editor of the Kazan journal Time and Money, says the region's wealth in oil made it one of Russia's richest republics and lured more foreign investors than any other region, except St.Petersburg and Moscow.
The minimum wage grew to four times the rate of the rest of Russia. Tatarstan was the closest thing to a success story in Russia's punishing transition to a market economy.
But the region is still recovering from 1998s economic crisis. Tatarstan's government failed to repay a $100 million loan in August of that year, becoming the first region to default on a foreign loan.
The republic's two biggest companies, an oil company called Tatneft and the Kamaz truck company, were both left with debts close to $1 billion.
"People haven't enough money to live," Mr. Idiatullin says. "During Soviet times we had lots of problems with empty shops. So now we have problems with money. The shops are full of things that we can't buy."
But no matter what the future brings, the people of this centuries-old city along the Volga River are armed with Russia's strongest commodity these days - pride.
"It is a new discovery, this sense of being Tatar," says Miss Nizamova, in her office overlooking the city. "Our young people will no longer be ashamed to be Tatar."
Language revived after 70 years of Communist rule
KAZAN, Russia - Far from Moscow in a quiet, snowy neighborhood in the ancient capital of Tatarstan, three generations of actors are performing an operetta in a warm, old theater. A young actress stretches her arms out and sings in a language that, for the 70 years of Communist rule, people here were ashamed to speak.
Half of the audience listens to earphone translations of the performance from Tatar to Russian. The ethnically mixed crowd reflects modern society in Tatarstan, a place that is trying to manage a full-scale revival of Tatar culture without alienating its other citizens.
The operetta in the Chinchurina Theater is a traditional Tatar tale and a rather typical love story. But its significance goes deeper for both the audience and the performers. For them, this small theater has become one of the few living examples of a culture driven to the brink of extinction under centuries of Moscow domination.
"Here, in this theater, this is one of our tasks, to promote the sources and roots of Tatar culture," says Ilsiar Safyulina, a young actress. She is putting on makeup backstage and looking into a mirror that shows a room strewn with colorful, traditional Tatar costumes.
"We learn about Tatar practices, language, customs, and we accept these traditions from the older generation because younger people can only see it on television and not in real life," she says.
When the Soviet Union broke apart nearly a decade ago, many regions began to explore their separateness. Regional leaders reached for independence from a severely weakened federal center that they felt could no longer help them. Since then, Moscow has been losing its grip on Russia's far-flung regions.
"All of the republics are separate, and they still want more separation from within," says Eric Rahkmatullin, a sociology professor at Kazan State University.
"This happens while all of Europe unites and even develops a single currency. And we are splitting. And to my mind, Moscow just doesn't care because it thinks, `The worse, the better.'
While Russian troops continue to pound Chechnya, the Republic of Tatarstan is quietly going about its own affairs, peacefully reviving the culture, language and religion that had nearly disappeared.
In 1992, Tatarstan became the only other republic to join Chechnya in refusing to sign the treaty forming the Russian Federation after the Soviet Union dissolved.
Instead, these 3.7 million people spread along the Volga River, 500 miles east of Moscow, waged a political battle with the Kremlin to establish their largely Muslim territory as a separate state united with the Russian Federation.
The region is home to more than 100 ethnic groups, the largest of which are Tatars, who make up nearly half of the population.
Tatars are descended from Turkic tribes that migrated to the region 1,000 years ago. In 1552, Ivan the Terrible sent his Muscovite troops to sack the city in a bloody battle that even toppled the Kul Sharif mosque in Kazan's Kremlin. Down with the mosque's minarets fell Tatarstan's history.
"Without its culture, history, national studies and education, a nation cannot exist," says Robert Minnullin, chairman of the Tatarstan parliament's Committee on Issues of Culture and Nations. "This mosque is a symbol of the Tatar people and we had a dream to rebuild this mosque."
RECONSTRUCTING HISTORY
Four and a half centuries later, cranes are swinging over the Kremlin and crews of mostly Turkish laborers work in the snow to rebuild the Kul Sharif mosque, a towering Turkish design. Mr. Minnullin says the rebuilding of the mosque marks a new beginning for the region's history and the acceptance of a difficult task.
"The only state for Tatars is Tatarstan," Mr. Minnullin says. "And it is the historical mission of Tatars here to help Tatars abroad. Tatar people are a great people, a very ancient people with big traditions, big history. We have to restore our culture in all spheres, theater, literature."
Of the 7 million Tatars living in the former Soviet Union, only 1.5 million live in Tatarstan. The republic has adopted the role of caretaker for Tatar culture, promoting its language and traditions abroad and hosting two world congresses of Tatars.
Eight years ago, the republic made Tatar and Russian the two official languages. Recently, Tatarstan's parliament even decided to dump the Cyrillic alphabet and return the Tatar language to Latin letters.
"Before perestroika there were no Tatar schools," says Mr. Minnullin, referring to former President Mikhail Gorbachev's reformist policy. "The Tatar language was like a kitchen language."
Centuries of Russification and Christianization took its toll on the region's identity. Now there are 1,129 Tatar language schools in the region, and 98 percent of all students, including Russians, learn Tatar.
DE FACTO INDEPENDENCE
In a republic surrounded by new national symbols and monuments, people's sense of separateness goes beyond language. You won't find any Russian flags flying here.
Tatarstan's green, red and white flag adorns everything from buildings to the sides of brightly-painted trams and busses.
A few signs of the past linger here and are the subject of jokes, including the statue of a young Vladimir Lenin that still looms outside the university.
But Kazan has westernized its city center and re-bricked its main pedestrian street in Western European style. A McDonald's even opened here in April.
The region's semi-independence has led to more than cultural revival. Tatarstan's transition to market capitalism has been more successful than the rest of Russia. Its 1994 treaty with Moscow gave Tatarstan the right to keep half of its tax revenues at home.
The legally cumbersome agreement, which even contradicts the Russian Constitution in several places, allows Tatarstan to enter the international arena without Russia. Tatarstan has since negotiated 50 international treaties and has representative offices in 16 countries, including the United States and France. Legal experts say these treaties with other countries add up to a de facto independence for Tatarstan, a claim that puts a thorn in the side of a beleaguered Moscow.
"It's very important, this pioneer role of Tatarstan," says Goulnara Shaihutdinova, an adviser on international affairs to Tatarstan's parliament. "It was the first republic to sign such a treaty. It changed the situation in Russia as a whole."
Sixty other regions and republics followed Tatarstan, securing their own rights and agreements with Moscow. Mrs. Shaihutdinova says it was the first step in building a new type of federation in Russia based on treaties between the federal center and the regions.
"It's an asymmetric federation because the treaties are each different. Regions cannot be equal economically, historically, geographically and they cannot be equally treated."
Indeed, Tatarstan's initial success in rising above Russia's problems came about by its determination to be different. Pride and a growing national self-consciousness have pushed many of Russia's 89 regions, or republics further adrift from Moscow.
Lilia Nizamova, a sociologist at Kazan State University, insists that Tatarstan has moved past the virulent nationalism of the early 1990s, when people here were calling for the creation of an independent Islamic state.
"Authorities declared independence not only to protect the rights of the Tatar population, but in the interests of the whole, multiethnic population," she says.
Many people here are hoping that federal leaders will begin to accept Russia's multicultural character. The Tatars are among 20 million Muslims in Russia who account for 13.6 percent of the population and do not fit into either the Orthodox or Slavic image that many Russians feel defines their country.
But the success of cultural revival and political autonomy, to some extent, hinge upon Tatarstan's now uncertain future.
Tatarstan's special treaty with Moscow expires in June. Whether it is renewed may depend on the outcome of Russian presidential elections in March. Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin, a front-runner for president, has already declared his opposition to such regional treaties.
AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
Tatarstan's battle to go its own way economically is also in question these days.
Shamil Idiatullin, assistant editor of the Kazan journal Time and Money, says the region's wealth in oil made it one of Russia's richest republics and lured more foreign investors than any other region, except St.Petersburg and Moscow.
The minimum wage grew to four times the rate of the rest of Russia. Tatarstan was the closest thing to a success story in Russia's punishing transition to a market economy.
But the region is still recovering from 1998s economic crisis. Tatarstan's government failed to repay a $100 million loan in August of that year, becoming the first region to default on a foreign loan.
The republic's two biggest companies, an oil company called Tatneft and the Kamaz truck company, were both left with debts close to $1 billion.
"People haven't enough money to live," Mr. Idiatullin says. "During Soviet times we had lots of problems with empty shops. So now we have problems with money. The shops are full of things that we can't buy."
But no matter what the future brings, the people of this centuries-old city along the Volga River are armed with Russia's strongest commodity these days - pride.
"It is a new discovery, this sense of being Tatar," says Miss Nizamova, in her office overlooking the city. "Our young people will no longer be ashamed to be Tatar."
By: Jason Keyser, Washington Times ( WT ) - Sunday, January 16, 2000