Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the creation of an imperial image of Kazan, the former capital of the Kazan khanate separated from the Golden Horde. This distant past played a great role in representation of empire in city's 19th - early 20th century urban landscape.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the creation of imperial image of Kazan, the former capital of the Kazan khanate separated from the Golden Horde. Conquered by Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible in 1552, it symbolized Russian empire's beginning. I argue that region's distant past played a great role in representation of empire in the emerging urban landscape of the 19th - early 20th century imperial city of Kazan.

The imperial idea of state greatness inspired the government of Catherine the Great to start an ambitious project of transformation of the medieval structures of all Russian cities. The architectural model of an imperial city was first materialized in absolute terms during the construction of the new capital of St.-Petersburg. Since the second half of the 18th century, it was implemented by the government on the vast expanse of the rest of Russia through strict regulation of building including the artistic styles of the edifices. I consider how the state vision of an imperial city was realized, paying particular attention to the city center and Tatar quarters. Tatars-Muslims with their own architectural and planning traditions, and their own points of historical memory formed a significant part of the population of the city. I wonder how these traditions interacted with state norms and legislation; what tools and approaches the authorities on the one hand, and local population on the other, used for the success of the imperial project of modern city and resolution of the cultural conflicts. Local historical and architectural monuments are also the focus of my attention, with the kremlin viewed by the official St.-Petersburg as a captured Tatar fortress at the center. Russian power appropriated the Kazan past physically embodying the city's history and using it in representative purposes. I show that the process of urban transformation in 19th century Kazan fully reflected the essence of the empire itself.

This paper, which is an attempt to comprehend the urban process in late imperial Kazan, is based on archival materials from the National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan and author's published materials concerning the construction history of some city buildings and ensembles.

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Paper long abstract:

Situated between the Ottoman, Russian, and Persian Empires, the Ferghana Valley (the heartland of Central Asia) witnessed revolution, political upheaval and dramatic social transformation. But despite the numerous bandits, revolutionaries, and radicals, in the face of economic dislocation, hyper urbanization, and unlawful land seizure by Russian peasants, this restive area has been dismissed as a region where not much—in terms of revolutionary activities—was going on. This project examines multi-ethnic social movements—particularly banditry in the historically important Ferghana Valley at the turn of the century, when revolutions rocked the Persian, Chinese, Ottoman and Russian empires.

This paper explores banditry as one of the major social movements that I use in my research to reveal the stresses of empire and one of the major destabilizing factors during the revolutionary era. In arguing that the Ferghana Valley was a region of tension and anger during the revolutionary years of 1905-1907, the paper reveals that this political uncertainty was expressed through banditry. In addition to displaying the social disorder and lawlessness of banditry during this "quiet" time in the Ferghana Valley, the research highlights the disruptive and extensive political and economic violence of the period.

Paper long abstract:

In the early 20th century, a Turkic-Tatar immigrant community formed in Japan, though not considerable in size but rather conspicuous and significant in terms of cultural activities. Especially in the 1920s and 1930s, the community had a very active communal life. For example, in 1927, the community school was opened, in which Japan's primary school curriculum was applied; at the same time, children of the school were taught Tatar, Turkish, Russian and English languages. In 1934, a printing house was founded in Tokyo. Two mosques were built: Kobe Mosque in 1935 and Tokyo Mosque in 1938. The Turkic-Tatar community organized a range of cultural events, such as religious celebrations, literary evenings, theatrical performances, commemoration meetings, festivals and social gatherings.

After the Second World War many members of the Turkic-Tatar diaspora in Japan migrated to Turkey - some of them later went to USA and Australia - while preserving ties with relatives and Turkic-Tatar fellows left behind. In Turkey, Turkic-Tatar immigrants found a rather comfortable environment due to friendly government policies as well as Islamic religious tradition and kindred language of the Turks.

This paper focuses on the processes of linguistic and cultural adjustment and transformation Tatar immigrants from Japan experienced in a new national setting. In this paper I will consider an individual case, basing my analysis on a diary kept by a young woman from a Tatar family that migrated from Japan to Turkey in the late 1950's. The diary was kept by the woman irregularly between January 1961 and December 1964. While content of the diary provides details of daily routine of an immigrant Tatar family, its linguistic features give insight into the processes of cultural transformation. Based on this material, I will firstly draw attention to and consider reasons for the drastic linguistic shift observed in the diary as its first entries are written in Tatar language with Arabic letters and the last ones in Turkish language with Latin letters, with an intermediate period of zigzagging between two languages and two alphabets. Then I will examine how various cultural elements from different backgrounds became entangled in the everyday life of a Tatar immigrant family in the process of cultural adjustment to Turkey.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on a history of Tatar migration to China before Russian Revolution following its flow into different parts of East Asia (Korea, Japan, Shanghai) after it, explains the reasons of migration (at the first as labor migration, next merchandizing, last as emigrants without nationality), facts of contradictions and ideological struggles inside of the Diaspora between leaders. This paper is based on results of my PhD research investigating archival materials from Japanese, Russian archives, Tatar emigrants periodicals, especially newspaper «Milly Bairaq» (1935-1945, Mukden) that are kept in Japanese archives and at the first time openly researched myself, individual emigrants' letters and diaries. I argue that Tatar migration became a big partner of Japanese government in «Islamic policy» carrying out over the East-Asian region. The main results of cultural and political aspects of the partnership were, besides of surviving Tatar culture from Soviet and Chinese assimilation, an official accepting Turk-Tatar and Muslim cultures as well as Islamic religion in Japan and Korea, an intercultural intellectual exchange of two different civilizations - Confucian and Islamic. Moreover, I argue that Tatar Diaspora itself was able to create a strong organizing structure which let it save national identity and keep national model of nation according the Gayz Ishaki' «Idel-Ural state» concept. The Tatar migration on the East Asia evaluated from Muslim community of labor migrants through emigrants' community with Muslim identity (Russian muslims) to a centralized society over the region with strong national Turk-Tatar identity. The dream to recover the Tatar nation-state was not able come true. But experience to organize nation in emigration with exterritorial status could help Tatar emigrants who re-move to new places over the world to find their new homes and keep national identity till present time. In framework of «personal history» approach, stories of Tatar emigrants' families are pictured the global view on transnational history of Tatar migration in 20th century.