Nationalities Papers Vol 30 No 2 2002

ISSN 0090-5992 print ISSN 1465-3923 online02020265-25 copy 2002 Association for the Study of NationalitiesDOI 10108000905990220140658

In 1913 an article in a Russian missionary journal compared two ldquovery typicalrepresentativesrdquo of Islamic studies in Russia Imiddotsmail Bey Gasp otilde ral otilde (1851ndash1914) andNikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskii (1822ndash1891)1 Nothing could better symbolize the twoopposing points of view about the past present and future of the Muslims of Russiain 1913 Ilrsquominskii was a Russian Orthodox missionary whose ideas and efforts hadformed the imperial perceptions and policies about the Muslims of the Russianempire in the late Tsarist period while Gasp otilde ral otilde was a Muslim educator andpublisher whose ideas and efforts had shaped the Muslim society per se in the sameperiod2 Ilrsquominskii beginning in the 1860s and Gasp otilde ral otilde beginning in the 1880sdeveloped two formally similar but inherently contradictory programs for theMuslims of the Russian empire3 Schooling and the creation of a literary language orliterary languages constituted the hearts of both of their programs Besides their ownefforts both Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii had a large number of followers that diligentlyworked to put their programs into practice among the Muslims of Russia As a resultof the inherent contradiction of these programs a bitter controversy developedbetween what we may call the Ilrsquominskii and Gasp otilde ral otilde groups which particularlyintensified after the revolution of 1905 In this article I will discuss the underlyingcauses and development of this controversy by focusing on the role of language inthe programs of Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii Then I will conclude my article with anevaluation of the legacies of these two individuals in their own time and beyond

Background to the Ideas

Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii developed the basics of their ideas in the mid-nineteenthcentury Understanding the social and political developments that influencedGasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii in this time period will help us to evaluate their works betterTherefore before proceeding to a discussion of their programs I will first try todescribe the social political and cultural environments of Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii inthe formative years of their lives

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII TWO IDENTITYPROJECTS FOR THE MUSLIMS OF THE

RUSSIAN EMPIRE

Mustafa Oumlzguumlr Tuna

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Ilrsquominskii

Ilrsquominskii was the son of a Russian priest in Penza Following an education in thechurch schools of this city he enrolled in the newly founded Kazan EcclesiasticalAcademy in 1842 Since this academy was geographically close to the so-calledinorodtsy the Synod introduced languages of the inorodtsy in its curriculum in18454 From then on Ilrsquominskii developed a long-lasting interest in linguistics Helater became a specialist on most Altaic languages as well as Hebrew Greek LatinChurch Slavonic Persian and Arabic5 Nevertheless since he preferred to devote hisexpertise and life to missionary purposes his renown as a Christian missionary over-shadows his works in linguistics Ilrsquominskii had grown up as a devout Christian inclose contact with the baptized Muslim and pagan non-Russians in the Kazanregion Later he also spent 2 years in the Middle East and 3 years in Turkistanamong the Kazakhs

The nineteenth century was the time of missionary revival in Russia6 Archi-mandrite Makarius in the Altai region and Archbishop Innocent Veniaminov amongthe Aleuts had both founded successful missions in the 1830s and 1840s7 Ilrsquominskiiwas aware of the works of Makarius and Veniaminov as well as many othermissionaries who founded missions later in the frontier regions and foreigncountries8 but the general atmosphere in the Kazan region was not that of a revivalOn the contrary the inorodtsy who had been forcibly baptized in the eighteenthcentury9 were now attempting to leave Orthodoxy in a series of movements thatintensified in the years 1802ndash1803 1827ndash1830 1858ndash1870 and 190510

In 1848 Archbishop Grigorii wanted Ilrsquominskii to travel around the baptized Tatarvillages in the Kazan region and learn about the actual situation of the baptizedTatars in relation to Orthodoxy Ilrsquominskiirsquos conclusions as he wrote later in 1870were that the conversion of Tatars after the conquest of Kazan was nominal Thebaptized Tatars had not learned Christianity properly and they had remained some-where between Christianity and Islam As a result the Muslims had begun toinfluence them beginning in the late-eighteenth century11 Therefore consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy and stemming the power of Muslimsbecame the guiding principles of Ilrsquominskiirsquos work12

Gaspotilderalotilde

Gasp otilde ral otilde was born in the Crimea to a recently ennobled Tatar who worked in theservice of a Russian prince as a translator Following an education in a traditionalMuslim school Gasp otilde ral otilde went to a Russian gymnasium and ended up in the MoscowMilitary Academy in 186513 Following the Crimean War and the Polish RebellionPan-Slavism and anti-Turkism had become particularly popular in Russia in the1860s Gasp otilde ral otilde had close relations with people who espoused these views andsentiments It is not difficult to estimate what kind of an influence the anti-Turkish

266

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

mood of Moscow had on this Crimean Tatar youth In 1867 he left his education inthe academy to go to the Ottoman Empire and fight against the Greek rebels Russianauthorities intercepted the fugitive in Odessa and Gasp otilde ral otilde had to return toBahccedilesaray in the Crimea14 After teaching Russian here for some time he spent 2years in Paris and 1 year in Imiddotstanbul He came back to the Crimea in 1875 In themeantime he had become acquainted with several Russian eacutemigreacute intellectualsincluding Ivan S Turgenev and several prominent figures of the Ottoman EmpireBetween 1878 and 1882 he served as the mayor of Bahccedilesaray and published a fewpamphlets on social issues His 1879 appeal to the Russian authorities to publish aTatar language journal shows that he had reached a certain level of intellectualsophistication by this time and wanted to put his ideas into practice15

The Muslim society Gasp otilde ral otilde observed in Russia in the 1870s was in a destitutesituation Catherine II had adopted a tolerant stance toward Islam after she hadannexed the Crimea in 1783 but her ldquoGreek projectrdquo and the following colonizationhad stripped the Crimean Tatars of their means of subsistence16 The result was thecontinuous emigration of Crimearsquos Muslim population to the Ottoman lands17 Whileexplaining the most massive emigration that took place in 1860 following theCrimean War A Bezchinskii wrote ldquoA rumor spread among the people [theCrimean Tatars] that the government would deliberately cleanse the Crimea from theuseless and even harmful Tatar populationrdquo18 The exact number of emigrants is stillunknown but it is possible to say that the total number of people who migrated fromRussia to the Ottoman Empire between 1855 and 1866 including the immigrantsfrom the Caucasus is over one million19 Gasp otilde ral otilde was a little boy when this greatescape took place When he began to think about the problems of his people in the1870s the conditions that led to this escape had still not disappeared Besides elitesamong the Muslims of Russia were either impoverished or co-opted and alienatedfrom their kin Because of the fear of being Christianized and Russified ordinaryMuslims did not want to have any contact with the outside Russian world20

Consequently they also did not have much contact with the Muslim communitiesbeyond their localities On the other hand the outside world was changing rapidly inthe reform years of the 1860s and the insular Muslim communities were graduallylosing their ability to exist as modernization accelerated The only solution theycould findmdashemigrationmdashwas either limited for practical reasons or often ended up intragedies21 The Muslims had a strong tradition of education but the traditionaleducation did not provide the knowledge and skills needed in the modernizing worldOn the contrary it left the Muslims in stagnation22 Although there were previousattempts to end this stagnation particularly in the Kazan region they remainedisolated and did not translate into a general movement until Gasp otilde ral otilde began his workin the early 1880s23

The contrast between the perceptions of Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii may seemstriking in fact it is Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii looked at different aspects of thesituation and naturally they saw different things Ilrsquominskii was concerned with

267

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

keeping the baptized inorodtsy Christian and spreading Orthodoxy further TheMuslim and baptized Tatars lived close to each other and the Muslim Tatarsinfluenced their baptized kin through traditional every day relations24 This wasenough for Ilrsquominskii to think that ldquothe kingdom of Muhammedrdquo ruled in the easternlands of Russia Something had to be done to put an end to this kingdom25 On theother hand Gasp otilde ral otilde wanted the Muslims to become active members of the modernsociety without losing their Muslim identities This had nothing to do with the localevery day relations between baptized and Muslim Tatar communities ldquoThe Muslimsin Russia were in a deep sleep of ignorancerdquo recalled Gasp otilde ral otilde in 1908 and itfollowed that someone had to awaken them26

Development of Their Respective Programs

Although the perceptions and purposes of Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were completelydifferent from each other there were a number of parallels in their works Educationconstituted the heart of their programs they both opposed formalism in schoolingand they both gave a special importance to language Despite these parallels in formhowever the contradiction of their purposes reflected the content of their programs

Ilrsquominskii

While traveling in the baptized Tatar villages in 1848 Ilrsquominskii had noticed that thevillagers did not understand the Tatar language translations of the Christian texts heshowed to them These translations Ilrsquominskii wrote in 1883 were in the ldquobookishMuhammedan languagerdquo After further contact with the Tatars Kazakhs andTurkmens he noticed that the vernaculars of these people were different from theldquobookishrdquo Tatar that the Russian translators had long been using Thus Ilrsquominskiildquobegan to consider the vernaculars specially important and indispensable ineducation and missionary workrdquo27 Only the vernacular could move a group of peopleto Christianity A foreign language could not do this28 One of the most importantfailures of the conversions in the earlier centuries was that the Russian missionariesdid not care whether the inorodtsy understood what was being told to them or notMissionaries held liturgies in Church Slavonic they did not try to teach the tenets ofOrthodoxy to the inorodtsy and did not educate native priests Veniaminov andMakarius had already begun to change these practices but it was Ilrsquominskii whosystematized and popularized reforms such as translating Orthodox liturgy intovernaculars ordaining native priests and using vernaculars as the main medium ofeducation29

Ilrsquominskiirsquos educational enterprise began with an unforeseen development Afterhe returned to Kazan from Turkistan in 1861 he wanted to find a native Tatarspeaker to help him with translations In 1863 he met Vasilii Timofeev a baptizedTatar peasant whom he brought to Kazan Soon after three boys from his village

268

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

followed Timofeev to his living quarters in Kazan Under the guidance of IlrsquominskiiTimofeev began to educate these boys in the Tatar language In 1866 Ilrsquominskiifound a strong supporter for this enterprise in the person of Dimitrii A Tolstoi theprocurator of the Holy Synod30 In 1867 first an anonymous article and then anarticle by Ilrsquominskii related Timofeevrsquos experience in the Journal of the Ministry ofEducation31 A loyal group of people mostly the graduates of Kazan EcclesiasticalAcademy gathered around Ilrsquominskii and founded the Brotherhood of St Gurii topromote his ideas As early as 1869 the Russian public had begun to discuss theldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo in the education of the inorodtsy32 In this system the childrenwould firs t learn reading writing and the basics of Orthodoxy in their ownlanguages Only after they had sufficiently learned and internalized Orthodoxy wouldthey begin to learn Russian and Church Slavonic The teachers would be nativespeakers of the language of the students whenever possible and the entire schoolingwould take place in a cozy atmosphere in the Christian spirit33 Through his relationswith strong personalities like Tolstoi and Konstantin D Pobedonostsev Ilrsquominskiicould even influence the general government policies about education Beginning in1870 Ilrsquominskii andor his followers would provide significant input into imperialregulations about the education of the inorodtsy34

Providing a detailed account of Ilrsquominskiirsquos education system is beyond thepurpose of this article Instead I will focus on the relevance of his educational andlinguistic ideas to the Muslims of the Russian empire Ilrsquominskii did not see theMuslims of Russia as a united whole He made a clear distinction between what heconsidered the nominal Muslims and the fully-confirmed ones He believed that itwas useless to try to Christianize fully-confirmed Muslims like the Tatars and theinhabitants of sedentary Central Asia but it was worth trying to influence less-confirmed Muslims like the Kazakhs35 According to Ilrsquominskii the degree ofcloseness to the Tatars was a good indication of a Kazakh tribersquos degree ofIslamicization36

During Ilrsquominskiirsquos stay in Turkistan the famous Orientalist Vasilii V Grigorrsquoevhad convinced Ilrsquominskii that stemming the Tatar influence over the Kazakhs couldopen the way for their Christianization In 1859 Ilrsquominskii met an enthusiasticKazakh youth Imiddotbray Alt otilde nsarin From then on Alt otilde nsarin remained a friend andproteacutegeacutee of Ilrsquominskii In 1879 Alt otilde nsarin became the inspector of Kazakh schools inthe Turgai oblast and remained so until his death in 188937 In 1900 an official reportmentioned the schools Alt otilde nsarin had founded under the guidance of Ilrsquominskii as themodel to be followed for other Kazakhs because these schools had spread Russianeducation and proved to be successful against the Tatar mullahs Language ofinstruction in this model was the Kazakh vernacular The curriculum includedIslamic religious education but instead of a ldquosuspicious and staunch mullah hellip aKirgiz teacher more or less enlightened in the Russian wayrdquo taught the classes andthis prevented the Kazakh students from developing ldquofanatic and harmful feelingsrdquoThe Russian language study in these schools was the most important way to bring the

269

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

children closer to the Russians38 The method of teaching Russian was the ldquotrans-lative methodrdquo that Ilrsquominskii had introduced in all his schools39 Ilrsquominskii wasespecially careful to keep the developing Kazakh literary language away from theinfluence of Tatar40 Developing a Kazakh literary language independent from Tatarhe thought would decrease the influence of Islam and consequently increase theinfluence of Russian culture among the Kazakhs In 1870 he wrote ldquoIf the schoolsof the mullahs will continue to exist [among the Kazakhs] let them teach in the Tatarlanguage and torture the children with the Arabic phonetics This will in any case beless influential than spreading Muhammedanism in the strong native languageOtherwise Russian education should spread in the Kirgiz languagerdquo41

Unification of the Muslims of the Russian empire was one of the things Ilrsquominskiifeared the most42 Beginning with the reign of Catherine II the Russian governmenthad been addressing all the Muslims of the empire in the Tatar language43 Ilrsquominskiithought of this as a unifying factor Developing literary languages from the localvernaculars of different Turkic and Muslim communities could prevent it44 Thealphabet used had a special role in this respect The Muslims including the Kazakhsexclusively used the Arabic script From his experience among the baptized TatarsIlrsquominskii had noticed that use of the Russian script ldquosharply separated the baptizedTatars from their Muslim kinrdquo45 Although he published a Kazakh language bookwith the Arabic script in 1861 he later thought that this was a mistake46 and correctedthe mistake by designing a Cyrillic-based Kazakh alphabet in the same year 47

Although Alt otilde nsarin wanted to keep the Arabic script and even published some worksusing the Arabic script48 Ilrsquominskii insisted on employing the Cyrillic script in theKazakh schools According to the aforementioned official report in 1900 use of theCyrillic alphabet had limited the spread of ldquoundesirable and harmful publications inthe Muslim languagerdquo among the Kazakhs49

According to Ilrsquominskii the purpose of the Cyrillic alphabet had to be bringing theinorodtsy closer to the Russians and not bringing them closer to each otherTherefore he suggested designing separate Cyrillic alphabets for each inorodetspeople50 Although there were other attempts to introduce the Cyrillic script into thelanguages of Muslim peoples other than the Kazakhs this did not take place until theSoviet period51 In addition to these government projects about changing thealphabets Nikolai Ostroumov one of Ilrsquominskiirsquos most loyal followers and one ofthe key personalities in the education of the Muslims in Central Asia continued toapply Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas of separating the inorodtsy by creating separate literarylanguages out of their vernaculars Ostroumov tried to bring out a literary languagewhich he called ldquoSartrdquo from the language of the sedentary Muslims in Central Asia52

Ilrsquominskii did not develop a clear program for the education of Muslim peoplesother than the Kazakhs but still it is possible to detect some basic ideas explaininghis thoughts about the education of other Muslims Ilrsquominskii approved the GovernorGeneral of Turkistan Konstantin von Kaufmanrsquos policy of non-interference in theMuslim schools in Turkistan53 The logic was simple If the state interfered in the

270

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

Muslim schools ldquolsquoit would have to concern itself with their blossomingrsquo hellip and thecombination of Muslim ideology and European culture would not only fail to achieverussification but could even become lsquoa weapon against the Russian people and theRussian statersquordquo54 In 1882 Vasilii D Smirnov whom Ilrsquominskii would recommend toPobedonostsev as a personal observer of the Muslim press in 1890 opposed theintroduction of a reformed medrese system in the Caucasus for similar reasons55 Ifnatural sciences were taught in the medreses they would be Islamized and thiswould only consolidate the Muslim worldview The real question was how to attractthe Muslims to the Russian schools and not what kind of a school the Muslimsshould have From Smirnovrsquos relationship with Ilrsquominskii we can deduce that theyhad parallel ideas56 Ilrsquominskii found the traditional Muslim schools strong regardingtheir acceptance by the Muslims57 but weak regarding their ability to improve thesocial consciousness of the Muslims58 Therefore the Russian authorities shouldleave the Muslim educational institutions in their present situation provided that aRussian alternative also existed This alternative should not have a Christianmissionary character lest this would agitate the Muslims but it should be in the spiritof Russian civilization59 If the Muslims attempted to improve the Muslim educationsystem independent of the Russians it was necessary to limit their freedom ofmovement as much as possible60

Gaspotilderalotilde

According to Gasp otilde ral otilde the traditional Muslim schools that taught ldquono book otherthan the Qurrsquoan and no science other than theologyrdquo were unable to reform theMuslim society in a positive way On the other hand the number of Muslim schoolswas high enough to reach the Muslims of the empire through education and theMuslim society had a strong confidence in these schools61 Therefore Gasp otilde ral otildeagreed with Ilrsquominskii about the strength and limitations of the traditional Muslimschools but his intentions about the Muslim education system in Russia were quitedifferent from those of Ilrsquominskii

In 1881 Gasp otilde ral otilde published a series of articles in a Russian newspaper under thetitle ldquoRussian Islamrdquo In these articles he laid out the basics of his future programFirst of all Gasp otilde ral otilde saw the Muslims of Russia as a united group that professed thesame faith spoke dialects of the same language and had the same social charac-teristics and traditions62 ldquoTurk-Tatar peoplesrdquo ldquoMuslimsrdquo ldquoTatarsrdquo and rarelyldquoTurksrdquo were all terms that he used to denote this united group of people63 ldquoTatarTuumlrkicircrdquo was the language of this ldquonationrdquo and only some Caucasian mountain tribesused other languages64

As I explained earlier Gasp otilde ral otilde did not see many positives when he looked at hisldquoMuslim nationrdquo The imperial policies that demanded that Muslims pay their taxesand left them on their own in their internal social life according to Gasp otilde ral otilde resultedin ldquothe social and mental isolation of the Muslimsrdquo The Muslims could not think

271

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

beyond their petty local interests The situation of their mental development judgingfrom their schools and writings was not successful either It was possible to seeEuropean influence among the Muslims of other countries but among the Muslimsof Russia only the Lithuanian Tatars had acquired European culture65 Time hadproved that Russification as it was applied until then was not a viable policy It wasnot possible to find any completely Russified non-Russians in Russia on thecontrary in some places the Russians had adopted manners of the non-Russians66

What was the solution then Gasp otilde ral otilde answered ldquounification and moral rapproche-ment [of the Russians and Muslims] on the basis of equality freedom science andeducationrdquo ldquoIn a wordrdquo he wrote ldquomoral Russification of the Muslims can beachieved by raising their intellectual level and this can be possible only by givingthe Tatar language the right to be the language of school and literature Muslims ofRussia have neither science nor literature or press and I think that it is necessary tofacilitate their development Russian-Tatar schools that are opened in order to teachRussian to the Tatar students cannot achieve this task at allrdquo67 Thus Gasp otilde ral otildedemanded the introduction of elementary sciences to the traditional Muslim schoolsin the Tatar language and the support of publications again in the Tatar language Infact spread of knowledge among the Muslims was so necessary that all kinds ofpublications in the Muslim dialects should also be supported Neither the Russiangovernment nor the Russian language would suffer from this in any way68 ldquoWhen welearn our fatherland Russia and its system from books in Tatarrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde wroteldquothen you can feel sure that we will have the will and opportunity to fill your gym-nasiums and universities in order to work together with you in the fields of life andsciencerdquo Otherwise the Muslims would never understand the Russians and keepescaping from them69

In 1883 Gasp otilde ral otilde finally received permission to publish a newspaper Tercuumlmanor Perevodchik in its Russian version both meaning ldquotranslatorrdquo The permissionstipulated that the newspaper should be a bilingual publication in Russian and TatarAlthough there had been previous attempts by the Muslims of Russia to publishperiodicals none of these attempts had yielded a lasting and substantial result70

Tercuumlmanrsquos first issue came out on the 100th anniversary of the annexation of theCrimea From the very beginning Gasp otilde ral otilde adopted a cautious tone which enabledhim to publish his newspaper without interruption for 31 years until his deathTercuumlman is the best example of the language that Gasp otilde ral otilde considered the commonliterary language of the Muslims of Russia It was a simplified form of literaryOttoman Turkish with occasional Crimean Tatar expressions In addition when headdressed a certain group of Muslims Gasp otilde ral otilde would also use some expressionsfrom their tongue Tercuumlman was published in the Arabic script The lack ofcharacters for most of the vowels was a drawback of the Arabic script as Ilrsquominskiihad also noted71 but Gasp otilde ral otilde used this situation to cover some of the differences inthe pronunciations of different Muslim groups in Russia72 Gasp otilde ral otilde was a prolificwriter Aside from Tercuumlman and many manuscripts he published a few other

272

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

periodicals but the impact of Tercuumlman not only among the Muslims of Russia butalso in the entire Turkic world cannot be exaggerated73 The famous historian andBashkir political leader Zeki V Togan relates that the most prestigious personalitiesamong the Muslims of Russia had all followed Tercuumlman74

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos second reform was the improvement of traditional Muslim schoolsAccording to Ostroumov the traditional mekteb was a place where the ldquochild-likecharacteristicsrdquo of children were blunted75 In these schools the children memorizedthe alphabet but ldquoacquisition of functional literacy was not the goalrdquo of schooling76

The students learned the names of the letters but not the sounds they represented Asa result it was possible that they would remain functionally illiterate after years ofstudy77 The Russian Orientalist Nil S Lykoshin called this ldquoNot Education butTorturerdquo (Muchenie a ne uchenie) He described the buildings where this educationtook place as unsuitable dark cold and stifling places78 On the other hand themedreses were not efficient either The education in a medrese could continue formore than 20 years and the student would graduate without even learning Arabicwhich constituted the heart of medrese education79 Nevertheless more than 16000mektebs and 214 medreses in the late nineteenth century represented a strongcommitment to education and a solid basis for a dynamic society after a well-plannedreform80

Gasp otilde ral otilde called the system he introduced to the mektebs ldquousucircl-i cedidrdquo that isldquonew methodrdquo81 The most important aspect of usucircl-i cedid was a shift to the phoneticmethod In this way Gasp otilde ral otilde succeeded in shortening the time a student beganto read and write to approximately 40 days Then he regularized the duration ofeducation and the curriculum and improved the class atmosphere82 Finally he intro-duced subjects that had not been in the mekteb curriculum before his reforms Asidefrom Qurrsquoanic recitation and the basic principles of Islam he began to teach basicarithmetic geography and history83 Gasp otilde ral otilde opened the first cedid school in 1884in Bahccedilesaray This was not the first attempt to reform the Muslim schools in Russiabut it was the one that yielded the most significant results84 In 1908 there wereapproximately 6000 reformed schools in Russia according to Gasp otilde ral otilde Althoughfully enlightening the students in the short period they attended these schools was notpossible it was still possible to instill a love for further learning in their hearts Thesechildren continued their studies with this love and many of the graduates of cedidschools had successful careers85

The Clash Prior to 1905

Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were perceptive enough to notice the challenge of eachotherrsquos efforts Ilrsquominskii was in a better situation to express his ideas In his publicworks he frequently wrote about the danger of ldquoTatarizationrdquo with which he meantthe influence of Muslim Tatars over other inorodtsy while in his personal corres-pondence he more openly and directly accused Gasp otilde ral otilde and urged the authorities to

273

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

take precautions against him86 The best-known and most frequently cited example ofthis correspondence is Ilrsquominskiirsquos letters to Pobedonostsev which were published in1895 4 years after Ilrsquominskiirsquos death87

Ilrsquominskiirsquos first warning to Pobedonostsev about Gasp otilde ral otilde was in December1883 8 months after the first appearance of Tercuumlman He wrote that Gasp otilde ral otildewanted to unite the millions of Muslims under Russian sovereignty ldquofrom the Crimeato the Caucasus and Central Asiardquo with science and civilization and that hislanguage was borrowed from the newspapers of Imiddotstanbul88 After receiving moreinformation from his student in Turkistan Ostroumov Ilrsquominskii continued to warnPobedonostsev in February 1884

Gasprinskii the publisher of Tercuumlman (perevodchik) in Bahccedilesaray has this aim firstto spread among the Muslims of the Russian empire European enlightenment on aMuhammedan basis coloring European education with Muhammedan ideas second tounite and rally the millions of wide-spread Muhammedan peoples of Russia withdifferent tongues (examplemdashGerman unification) third to sow a Turkish germ amongall the Muslims of Russia the Ottoman language89

In 1889 Ilrsquominskii read an open letter to Tercuumlman in a local Kazakh newspaperpublished in Akmolinsk He was upset He wrote to Pobedonostsev ldquoIn the opinionof competent people the Tatar newspaper lsquoPerevodchikrsquo revealed its artfulnessdirection and tendency during the eight years [sic] it was publishedrdquo90 As the formerSteppe Governor-General G A Kolpakovskii had also suggested it was necessary toofficially restrict this newspaper and unofficially promote alternative publications byldquounskillful and uneducated translatorsrdquo91

Ilrsquominskii died in 1891 In his farewell address Pobedonostsev wrote ldquoHe[Ilrsquominskii] vigilantly followed the Muslim propaganda that strengthened in therecent times in our near and far East and the service of his timely warnings cannot beexaggeratedrdquo92 The influence of Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers gradually decreased with therise of a relatively secular and ethno-nationalist educated society in Russia but theystil l enjoyed considerable power until the end of the imperial regime TheBrotherhood of St Gurii continued its activities under the leadership of Ilrsquominskiirsquosadopted son Nikolai A Bobrovnikov93 Besides a number of Ilrsquominskii sympathizersoccupied key decision-making positions on the education of Muslims in RussiaAccording to my research there was no personal communication between Gasp otilde ral otildeand Ilrsquominskii but Gasp otilde ral otilde got into contact with the followers of Ilrsquominskii and it ispossible to make some comments on Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas about Ilrsquominskii and hissystem based on these contacts

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos first reference to the Ilrsquominskii system was in his ldquoRussian IslamrdquoWhile demanding the recognition of Tatar as the language of education in Muslimschools he stated that the Ministry of Education had also recognized the importanceof native language in education94 This was a rather vague reference to the regulationsof 1870 which were promulgated following a debate over the Ilrsquominskii system andhad sanctioned the use of native languages in the government schools for the

274

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

inorodtsy In relation to the Muslim schools the emphasis of the 1870 regulationswas on the introduction of Russian language classes in the mektebs but still thegeneral insistence of the Ilrsquominskii system on native languages provided somesupport to Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas95

By the 1890s Gasp otilde ral otilde had secured considerable support for his school systemamong the Muslims of European Russia Now he wanted to expand usucircl-i cedid tothe rest of the empire In 1892 he sent a memorandum to the Governor-General ofTurkistan and suggested the introduction of usucircl-i cedid in Turkistan because the2-year programs of this system were short enough to leave sufficient time for thestudy of Russian language as opposed to the 6-year programs of traditional mektebs96

The Governor-General passed the plan on to Ostroumov and the Orientalist VladimirP Nalivkin Both Ostroumov and Nalivkin agreed with Gasp otilde ral otilde on the content ofhis suggestions but still they responded negatively to the Governor-Generalrsquosinquiry ldquoIn the matter of the education of inorodtsy in Russiardquo Ostroumov wroteldquowe need the direction of a Russian member of the Ministry of Education not that ofa Tatar inorodetsrdquo The solution was to provide education ldquolsquoin the spirit of Russianstate interestsrsquo using administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo97 Nalivkinrsquos argument was similar to that of Ostroumov thoughless enthusiastic98 The Governor-General ignored the memorandum did not answerGasp otilde ral otilde and filed the report Gasp otilde ral otilde traveled to Central Asia in 1893 and openeda cedid school During this trip he also met with Ostroumov to ask for his supportGasp otilde ral otilde probably did not know how Ostroumov had responded to the Governor-Generalrsquos inquiry The school Gasp otilde ral otilde opened closed soon after99

In 1905 Gasp otilde ral otilde once again tried to find support from the Russian authoritiesShortly before the revolution of 1905 the Minister of Education V G Glazovconvened a commission to discuss the question of schools for non-Russians100

Gasp otilde ral otilde presented a petition to the commission He wrote that though 30000schools were necessary for the education of 15 million Muslims in Russia thegovernment had only opened less than 300 during the previous 70 years It wasapparent that the government lacked the funds to open so many schools however itwould be possible if the Muslims themselves supported the schools On the otherhand the present government schools were unable to gain the support of theMuslims because the classes were held in Russian and the students could notunderstand anything The average student graduated ldquowithout any intellectualdevelopmentrdquo ldquoFor the intellectual enlightenment of the Muslims of Russiardquo it wasnecessary to follow Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and use the native language of the childrenOnly then would the Muslims support government schools101

Members of the 1905 commission also known as the ldquoBudilovich Commissionrdquowere all supporters of Ilrsquominskii including Ostroumov and Bobrovnikov102 Contraryto what Ilrsquominskii had suggested the commission decided that the Ilrsquominskii systemas it was applied to the baptized inorodtsy should be used for all non-Russians withsome room for certain amendments to comply with local necessities The first year

275

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

should be fully in the vernacular Russian should enter the curriculum as a subject ofstudy in the second year and only in the third year could the language of instructionbecome Russian With regard to the Muslims the commission stated that theIlrsquominskii system had full respect for the studentsrsquo beliefs Therefore it allowedreligious education in the Muslim schools but taking into consideration that thiswould not bring the Muslims close to the Russian people basic subjects such asnatural and social sciences should also be in the curriculum It was necessary toprepare books for the Muslims in their local languages with Cyrillic scripts so thatthe common alphabet would serve as a path to Russian books the Russian languageand the Russian outlook on the world

With regard to the mektebs and medreses the commission first recommended theauthorities not to intervene in the internal affairs of the Muslims but then it listed anumber of requirements for the Muslim schools The mullahs should know Russianand be of the same nationality as the students The language of instruction shouldbe the native language spoken in the childrsquos house and not ldquoartificial Tatarrdquo Theeducation should not encourage opposition against the state The schools should openwith the permission of the Ministry of Education The mullahs should submitstatistical data about the students each year The curriculum of mektebs shouldinclude Russian and basic subjects like mathematics The purpose of teachingRussian should be bringing the Muslims closer to Russian education and instillingthe feeling of ldquopatriotic solidarityrdquo in their hearts103

Since usucircl-i cedid was only recently and gradually making its way into CentralAsia most of the cedid teachers in this region were Tatars from European RussiaAside from other restrictions it was apparent that the condition of ldquosame nationalityrdquowas intended to limit Tatar influence Non-interference was not working anymorebecause the Muslim schools had gone through an internal reform and had begun toimprove the social and political consciousness of the Muslims After the BudilovichCommission the followers of Ilrsquominskii would try to limit the influence of theMuslim reformers ldquousing administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo as Ostroumov had suggested to the Governor-General ofTurkistan in 1892104 An additional measure was to take advantage of the conflictbetween the traditionalist opposition that had begun to develop among the Muslimclergy against Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos reforms and support the traditionalists against thereformers105 These may seem to be a diversion from the non-interference policyIlrsquominskii had adopted in the 1860s but what happened is rather an adaptation of theold system to the new conditions because the purpose of limiting social and politicalconsciousness of the Muslims remained unchanged The Budilovich Commissionrsquossuggestions were approved as regulation in 1906 Because of the opposition from theMuslims the Ministry of Education had to drop the provisions regarding the use ofCyrillic script in school materials ldquoRussian classes in the Muslim confessionalschools the requirement that mullahs know Russian and ministry inspection ofconfessional schoolsrdquo However the requirement that the mullahs should be of the

276

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

same nationality as students remained106

From Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos references to Ilrsquominskii before the revolution of 1905 it ispossible to see that he refrained from attacking Ilrsquominskii and even tried to use someof Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas to support his own arguments In the liberal atmosphere of theyears following the revolution of 1905 he could speak more openly In 1908 hewrote that it was necessary to be cautious before 1905 because of the opposition ofIlrsquominskii and his followers ldquowho did not accept the Tatar Bashkir Kirgiz and Sartchildren to the same schools and tried to separate themrdquo But the conditions hadchanged by 1908 Now Gasp otilde ral otilde could even criticize the regulations of the Ministryof Education According to him the ministry had made a mistake by defining nativelanguage as the language spoken in the childrsquos house Accepting this position wouldrequire instruction in the languages of each city or region The native language of theRussian children was the Russian language not the languages of Volgograd KurskSaratovsk and Yaroslavl Thus Gasp otilde ral otilde concluded ldquoOur native language is theliterary lsquoTuumlrkrsquo languagerdquo107

Post-1905 and the Wider Society

The openness in Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos statements was not the only thing that changed after therevolution of 1905 The Russian empire in its entirety went through a period ofreform Several journals and newspapers appeared among the Muslims Gasp otilde ral otildeestimated that the total number of subscribers to these periodicals was between60000 and 70000 in 1908108 The Muslims had generally not joined the strikes andinsurgencies that had paralyzed the empire during 1905 but they had well sensedthe approaching administrative changes and through a number of rather peacefulgatherings they had tried to bring about a common representative body for theMuslims of the empire In August 1906 between the first and second DumasMuslim representatives from all over the empire met in a congress in NizhniiNovgorod This was the third Muslim congress since March 1905 and it was the bestorganized one The Muslim representatives agreed on a 33-point resolution onschooling The resolution stated inter alia that the education in Muslim schoolsshould be in the native language with the Arabic script Special importance should begiven to the study of ldquoliterary Turkish languagerdquo in the Muslim secondary schoolsand wherever possible in the elementary schools The study of the Russian languagewas not necessary in the elementary schools but it could enter the curriculum as asubject of study in the secondary schools Education of all Muslims should bestandardized as much as possible Muslim students should have the same rights asRussian students In the Muslim teachersrsquo schools with preparatory Russian classesthe study of the ldquoliterary national languagerdquo should improve so that the Muslimteachers could teach in their own language Elementary education should beobligatory for all Muslim children and the Muslim teachers should meet in acongress to prepare a standard program of education and materials for use in the

277

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Muslim schools109 Muslims of Russia would hold several other meetings in thefollowing years and reaffirm the decisions of this resolution110

The resolution was a victory for Gasp otilde ral otilde but the congress also showed tensionsthat he had not foreseen 25 years before in ldquoRussian Islamrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde had alwaysconcentrated his work on social and cultural issues In the years of the revolution hehad expressed this concentration as follows ldquoSome thoughts are forbidden to us Letus leave these to the generations that will come later Let us form a spiritual unity letus unite the languages [but] let others think of political unityrdquo111 Nevertheless themembers of the new generation who to a large extent were graduates of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosschools did not want to leave political action to future generations The Muslimcongress approved the formation of a Muslim political party despite Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosinitial opposition Later Gasp otilde ral otilde consented to this formation112 but the lack ofpopular support after the initial political excitement of the revolution showed thatMuslims of Russia were not ready to support a political party yet113 Moreover thepolitical ideals of the new generation were not always compatible with the unity ofthe Turkic and Muslim nation that Gasp otilde ral otilde had in mind

In 1911 two articles appeared in the biweekly supplement of an Orenburg-basednewspaper ldquoWe are Tatarsrdquo by lsquoAlimcan Imiddotbrahimov from Kazan114 and ldquoWe areTurksrdquo by an author who wrote under the pseudonym TuumlrkogAElig lu which means ldquoson ofa Turkrdquo115 The titles well summarized the contents of the articles Imiddotbrahimov wroteldquoWe are Tatars our language is the Tatar language our literature is the Tatarliterature all our affairs are Tatar affairs our civilization will be the Tatar civiliza-tionrdquo While saying ldquowerdquo Imiddotbrahimov was referring to the people who are calledldquoKazan Tatarsrdquo today TuumlrkogAElig lu did not l ike Imiddotbrahimovrsquos statements It wasnecessary to put an end to these ldquowhims of Tatarismrdquo according to him After thespread of that ldquoso-called Tatar literaturerdquo now a ldquoso-called Kazakh literaturerdquo hadbegun to appear This was all dividing the common ldquoTuumlrkrdquo people116 The Ministry ofEducation was trying to impose the use of local dialects in inorodets schools This ofcourse was harmful to the Turks of the Russian empire117 Division weakened theTurks of Russia It was necessary to end all those wrong tendencies and begin towork for the creation of a ldquoTuumlrkicircrdquo literature118 Until the very end of the imperialregime a heated discussion continued between the Kazakh Volga Tatar CrimeanTatar Bashkir and other ethno-territorial nationalists and pan-Turkists in the Muslimpress Language was the key issue in these discussions119

The Muslim intellectuals who entered such discussions always expressed a certainrespect for and gratefulness to Gasp otilde ral otilde the ldquoold teacherrdquo or the ldquofatherrdquo regardlessof whether they agreed with him or not120 The very fact that the Muslims werepublicly discussing social and political issues was the proof of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos success inreforming the Muslim society But the old teacher was in an ambivalent situation Hewas happy for the appearance of a flourishing press but he was upset because of themistakes made about language With all due respect to the common people he wrotein 1912 the literary and scientific publications should not be published in the

278

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

language spoken by a Kazakh shepherd The several Turkic tribes could not becomea nation if they insisted on separating their languages121

While Gasp otilde ral otilde found himself in this ambivalent situation followers of Ilrsquominskiialso had a number of things to worry about Following the edict of religioustoleration on 17 April 1905 approximately 49000 inorodtsy left Orthodoxy forIslam in 5 years122 Ilrsquominskiirsquos biographer Petr V Znamenskii wrote in a work aboutthe Kazan Tatars that the mission among the Muslims was completely paralyzed123 In1910 a missionary congress gathered in Kazan124 The atmosphere of the congresswas quite gloomy It did not yield a substantive result other than the publication of ajournal to observe and study the Muslim world Mir Islama Writers of the journalwere quick to notice the ideological currents among the Muslims of the empire In1913 two articles discussed pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia According tothese articles pan-Islamism was losing its influence in the Ottoman Empire andamong the Muslims of Russia On the other hand pan-Turkism and territorialnationalisms were gaining strength125 Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers had definitely failed toprevent the development of social and political consciousness among the Muslims ofRussia Local nationalists were opposing a political Turkic unity but they were by nomeans closer to the Russians On the other hand the mission of consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy with the Ilrsquominskii system was not workingsmoothly either

When Ilrsquominskii had first presented his system to Russian society in the 1860sclaiming that the native language is most effective in instilling Christianity and thatthe path to Russification would be open to the inorodtsy once they were sufficientlyChristianized the opposition had contended that the proper way of national assimila-tion was through language and strengthening the native languages would result inthe alienation of the inorodtsy126 Thanks to the support of Tolstoi and Pobe-donostsev the Ilrsquominskii system had gained official recognition in those days but thepolitical composition of the empire had changed significantly by the early twentiethcentury In 1897 an article appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Educationabout a new language teaching technique the natural method ldquoThe main channel forthe inorodtsy to approach the Russiansrdquo was the Russian language according to theauthor and with the natural method it was possible to teach Russian to the inorodtsywithout using their native languages In this method the teacher was supposed toteach first by miming and with gestures and then by building on the words that thestudents had already learned127 Soon after the natural method developed as analternative to Ilrsquominskiirsquos translative method It also found supporters in the Russianbureaucracy and despite the legal recognition of the Ilrsquominskii system with a numberof regulations local authorities decided which method to use in practice As theimperial bureaucracy became increasingly secularized and ethno-nationalist towardthe end of the imperial regime followers of Ilrsquominskii lost their control in theeducation of the non-Muslim inorodtsy128 but their ideas about the Muslims were notthat incompatible with the ideas of the new ruling elite The Ilrsquominskii group had

279

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Ilrsquominskii

Ilrsquominskii was the son of a Russian priest in Penza Following an education in thechurch schools of this city he enrolled in the newly founded Kazan EcclesiasticalAcademy in 1842 Since this academy was geographically close to the so-calledinorodtsy the Synod introduced languages of the inorodtsy in its curriculum in18454 From then on Ilrsquominskii developed a long-lasting interest in linguistics Helater became a specialist on most Altaic languages as well as Hebrew Greek LatinChurch Slavonic Persian and Arabic5 Nevertheless since he preferred to devote hisexpertise and life to missionary purposes his renown as a Christian missionary over-shadows his works in linguistics Ilrsquominskii had grown up as a devout Christian inclose contact with the baptized Muslim and pagan non-Russians in the Kazanregion Later he also spent 2 years in the Middle East and 3 years in Turkistanamong the Kazakhs

The nineteenth century was the time of missionary revival in Russia6 Archi-mandrite Makarius in the Altai region and Archbishop Innocent Veniaminov amongthe Aleuts had both founded successful missions in the 1830s and 1840s7 Ilrsquominskiiwas aware of the works of Makarius and Veniaminov as well as many othermissionaries who founded missions later in the frontier regions and foreigncountries8 but the general atmosphere in the Kazan region was not that of a revivalOn the contrary the inorodtsy who had been forcibly baptized in the eighteenthcentury9 were now attempting to leave Orthodoxy in a series of movements thatintensified in the years 1802ndash1803 1827ndash1830 1858ndash1870 and 190510

In 1848 Archbishop Grigorii wanted Ilrsquominskii to travel around the baptized Tatarvillages in the Kazan region and learn about the actual situation of the baptizedTatars in relation to Orthodoxy Ilrsquominskiirsquos conclusions as he wrote later in 1870were that the conversion of Tatars after the conquest of Kazan was nominal Thebaptized Tatars had not learned Christianity properly and they had remained some-where between Christianity and Islam As a result the Muslims had begun toinfluence them beginning in the late-eighteenth century11 Therefore consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy and stemming the power of Muslimsbecame the guiding principles of Ilrsquominskiirsquos work12

Gaspotilderalotilde

Gasp otilde ral otilde was born in the Crimea to a recently ennobled Tatar who worked in theservice of a Russian prince as a translator Following an education in a traditionalMuslim school Gasp otilde ral otilde went to a Russian gymnasium and ended up in the MoscowMilitary Academy in 186513 Following the Crimean War and the Polish RebellionPan-Slavism and anti-Turkism had become particularly popular in Russia in the1860s Gasp otilde ral otilde had close relations with people who espoused these views andsentiments It is not difficult to estimate what kind of an influence the anti-Turkish

266

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

mood of Moscow had on this Crimean Tatar youth In 1867 he left his education inthe academy to go to the Ottoman Empire and fight against the Greek rebels Russianauthorities intercepted the fugitive in Odessa and Gasp otilde ral otilde had to return toBahccedilesaray in the Crimea14 After teaching Russian here for some time he spent 2years in Paris and 1 year in Imiddotstanbul He came back to the Crimea in 1875 In themeantime he had become acquainted with several Russian eacutemigreacute intellectualsincluding Ivan S Turgenev and several prominent figures of the Ottoman EmpireBetween 1878 and 1882 he served as the mayor of Bahccedilesaray and published a fewpamphlets on social issues His 1879 appeal to the Russian authorities to publish aTatar language journal shows that he had reached a certain level of intellectualsophistication by this time and wanted to put his ideas into practice15

The Muslim society Gasp otilde ral otilde observed in Russia in the 1870s was in a destitutesituation Catherine II had adopted a tolerant stance toward Islam after she hadannexed the Crimea in 1783 but her ldquoGreek projectrdquo and the following colonizationhad stripped the Crimean Tatars of their means of subsistence16 The result was thecontinuous emigration of Crimearsquos Muslim population to the Ottoman lands17 Whileexplaining the most massive emigration that took place in 1860 following theCrimean War A Bezchinskii wrote ldquoA rumor spread among the people [theCrimean Tatars] that the government would deliberately cleanse the Crimea from theuseless and even harmful Tatar populationrdquo18 The exact number of emigrants is stillunknown but it is possible to say that the total number of people who migrated fromRussia to the Ottoman Empire between 1855 and 1866 including the immigrantsfrom the Caucasus is over one million19 Gasp otilde ral otilde was a little boy when this greatescape took place When he began to think about the problems of his people in the1870s the conditions that led to this escape had still not disappeared Besides elitesamong the Muslims of Russia were either impoverished or co-opted and alienatedfrom their kin Because of the fear of being Christianized and Russified ordinaryMuslims did not want to have any contact with the outside Russian world20

Consequently they also did not have much contact with the Muslim communitiesbeyond their localities On the other hand the outside world was changing rapidly inthe reform years of the 1860s and the insular Muslim communities were graduallylosing their ability to exist as modernization accelerated The only solution theycould findmdashemigrationmdashwas either limited for practical reasons or often ended up intragedies21 The Muslims had a strong tradition of education but the traditionaleducation did not provide the knowledge and skills needed in the modernizing worldOn the contrary it left the Muslims in stagnation22 Although there were previousattempts to end this stagnation particularly in the Kazan region they remainedisolated and did not translate into a general movement until Gasp otilde ral otilde began his workin the early 1880s23

The contrast between the perceptions of Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii may seemstriking in fact it is Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii looked at different aspects of thesituation and naturally they saw different things Ilrsquominskii was concerned with

267

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

keeping the baptized inorodtsy Christian and spreading Orthodoxy further TheMuslim and baptized Tatars lived close to each other and the Muslim Tatarsinfluenced their baptized kin through traditional every day relations24 This wasenough for Ilrsquominskii to think that ldquothe kingdom of Muhammedrdquo ruled in the easternlands of Russia Something had to be done to put an end to this kingdom25 On theother hand Gasp otilde ral otilde wanted the Muslims to become active members of the modernsociety without losing their Muslim identities This had nothing to do with the localevery day relations between baptized and Muslim Tatar communities ldquoThe Muslimsin Russia were in a deep sleep of ignorancerdquo recalled Gasp otilde ral otilde in 1908 and itfollowed that someone had to awaken them26

Development of Their Respective Programs

Although the perceptions and purposes of Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were completelydifferent from each other there were a number of parallels in their works Educationconstituted the heart of their programs they both opposed formalism in schoolingand they both gave a special importance to language Despite these parallels in formhowever the contradiction of their purposes reflected the content of their programs

Ilrsquominskii

While traveling in the baptized Tatar villages in 1848 Ilrsquominskii had noticed that thevillagers did not understand the Tatar language translations of the Christian texts heshowed to them These translations Ilrsquominskii wrote in 1883 were in the ldquobookishMuhammedan languagerdquo After further contact with the Tatars Kazakhs andTurkmens he noticed that the vernaculars of these people were different from theldquobookishrdquo Tatar that the Russian translators had long been using Thus Ilrsquominskiildquobegan to consider the vernaculars specially important and indispensable ineducation and missionary workrdquo27 Only the vernacular could move a group of peopleto Christianity A foreign language could not do this28 One of the most importantfailures of the conversions in the earlier centuries was that the Russian missionariesdid not care whether the inorodtsy understood what was being told to them or notMissionaries held liturgies in Church Slavonic they did not try to teach the tenets ofOrthodoxy to the inorodtsy and did not educate native priests Veniaminov andMakarius had already begun to change these practices but it was Ilrsquominskii whosystematized and popularized reforms such as translating Orthodox liturgy intovernaculars ordaining native priests and using vernaculars as the main medium ofeducation29

Ilrsquominskiirsquos educational enterprise began with an unforeseen development Afterhe returned to Kazan from Turkistan in 1861 he wanted to find a native Tatarspeaker to help him with translations In 1863 he met Vasilii Timofeev a baptizedTatar peasant whom he brought to Kazan Soon after three boys from his village

268

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

followed Timofeev to his living quarters in Kazan Under the guidance of IlrsquominskiiTimofeev began to educate these boys in the Tatar language In 1866 Ilrsquominskiifound a strong supporter for this enterprise in the person of Dimitrii A Tolstoi theprocurator of the Holy Synod30 In 1867 first an anonymous article and then anarticle by Ilrsquominskii related Timofeevrsquos experience in the Journal of the Ministry ofEducation31 A loyal group of people mostly the graduates of Kazan EcclesiasticalAcademy gathered around Ilrsquominskii and founded the Brotherhood of St Gurii topromote his ideas As early as 1869 the Russian public had begun to discuss theldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo in the education of the inorodtsy32 In this system the childrenwould firs t learn reading writing and the basics of Orthodoxy in their ownlanguages Only after they had sufficiently learned and internalized Orthodoxy wouldthey begin to learn Russian and Church Slavonic The teachers would be nativespeakers of the language of the students whenever possible and the entire schoolingwould take place in a cozy atmosphere in the Christian spirit33 Through his relationswith strong personalities like Tolstoi and Konstantin D Pobedonostsev Ilrsquominskiicould even influence the general government policies about education Beginning in1870 Ilrsquominskii andor his followers would provide significant input into imperialregulations about the education of the inorodtsy34

Providing a detailed account of Ilrsquominskiirsquos education system is beyond thepurpose of this article Instead I will focus on the relevance of his educational andlinguistic ideas to the Muslims of the Russian empire Ilrsquominskii did not see theMuslims of Russia as a united whole He made a clear distinction between what heconsidered the nominal Muslims and the fully-confirmed ones He believed that itwas useless to try to Christianize fully-confirmed Muslims like the Tatars and theinhabitants of sedentary Central Asia but it was worth trying to influence less-confirmed Muslims like the Kazakhs35 According to Ilrsquominskii the degree ofcloseness to the Tatars was a good indication of a Kazakh tribersquos degree ofIslamicization36

During Ilrsquominskiirsquos stay in Turkistan the famous Orientalist Vasilii V Grigorrsquoevhad convinced Ilrsquominskii that stemming the Tatar influence over the Kazakhs couldopen the way for their Christianization In 1859 Ilrsquominskii met an enthusiasticKazakh youth Imiddotbray Alt otilde nsarin From then on Alt otilde nsarin remained a friend andproteacutegeacutee of Ilrsquominskii In 1879 Alt otilde nsarin became the inspector of Kazakh schools inthe Turgai oblast and remained so until his death in 188937 In 1900 an official reportmentioned the schools Alt otilde nsarin had founded under the guidance of Ilrsquominskii as themodel to be followed for other Kazakhs because these schools had spread Russianeducation and proved to be successful against the Tatar mullahs Language ofinstruction in this model was the Kazakh vernacular The curriculum includedIslamic religious education but instead of a ldquosuspicious and staunch mullah hellip aKirgiz teacher more or less enlightened in the Russian wayrdquo taught the classes andthis prevented the Kazakh students from developing ldquofanatic and harmful feelingsrdquoThe Russian language study in these schools was the most important way to bring the

269

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

children closer to the Russians38 The method of teaching Russian was the ldquotrans-lative methodrdquo that Ilrsquominskii had introduced in all his schools39 Ilrsquominskii wasespecially careful to keep the developing Kazakh literary language away from theinfluence of Tatar40 Developing a Kazakh literary language independent from Tatarhe thought would decrease the influence of Islam and consequently increase theinfluence of Russian culture among the Kazakhs In 1870 he wrote ldquoIf the schoolsof the mullahs will continue to exist [among the Kazakhs] let them teach in the Tatarlanguage and torture the children with the Arabic phonetics This will in any case beless influential than spreading Muhammedanism in the strong native languageOtherwise Russian education should spread in the Kirgiz languagerdquo41

Unification of the Muslims of the Russian empire was one of the things Ilrsquominskiifeared the most42 Beginning with the reign of Catherine II the Russian governmenthad been addressing all the Muslims of the empire in the Tatar language43 Ilrsquominskiithought of this as a unifying factor Developing literary languages from the localvernaculars of different Turkic and Muslim communities could prevent it44 Thealphabet used had a special role in this respect The Muslims including the Kazakhsexclusively used the Arabic script From his experience among the baptized TatarsIlrsquominskii had noticed that use of the Russian script ldquosharply separated the baptizedTatars from their Muslim kinrdquo45 Although he published a Kazakh language bookwith the Arabic script in 1861 he later thought that this was a mistake46 and correctedthe mistake by designing a Cyrillic-based Kazakh alphabet in the same year 47

Although Alt otilde nsarin wanted to keep the Arabic script and even published some worksusing the Arabic script48 Ilrsquominskii insisted on employing the Cyrillic script in theKazakh schools According to the aforementioned official report in 1900 use of theCyrillic alphabet had limited the spread of ldquoundesirable and harmful publications inthe Muslim languagerdquo among the Kazakhs49

According to Ilrsquominskii the purpose of the Cyrillic alphabet had to be bringing theinorodtsy closer to the Russians and not bringing them closer to each otherTherefore he suggested designing separate Cyrillic alphabets for each inorodetspeople50 Although there were other attempts to introduce the Cyrillic script into thelanguages of Muslim peoples other than the Kazakhs this did not take place until theSoviet period51 In addition to these government projects about changing thealphabets Nikolai Ostroumov one of Ilrsquominskiirsquos most loyal followers and one ofthe key personalities in the education of the Muslims in Central Asia continued toapply Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas of separating the inorodtsy by creating separate literarylanguages out of their vernaculars Ostroumov tried to bring out a literary languagewhich he called ldquoSartrdquo from the language of the sedentary Muslims in Central Asia52

Ilrsquominskii did not develop a clear program for the education of Muslim peoplesother than the Kazakhs but still it is possible to detect some basic ideas explaininghis thoughts about the education of other Muslims Ilrsquominskii approved the GovernorGeneral of Turkistan Konstantin von Kaufmanrsquos policy of non-interference in theMuslim schools in Turkistan53 The logic was simple If the state interfered in the

270

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

Muslim schools ldquolsquoit would have to concern itself with their blossomingrsquo hellip and thecombination of Muslim ideology and European culture would not only fail to achieverussification but could even become lsquoa weapon against the Russian people and theRussian statersquordquo54 In 1882 Vasilii D Smirnov whom Ilrsquominskii would recommend toPobedonostsev as a personal observer of the Muslim press in 1890 opposed theintroduction of a reformed medrese system in the Caucasus for similar reasons55 Ifnatural sciences were taught in the medreses they would be Islamized and thiswould only consolidate the Muslim worldview The real question was how to attractthe Muslims to the Russian schools and not what kind of a school the Muslimsshould have From Smirnovrsquos relationship with Ilrsquominskii we can deduce that theyhad parallel ideas56 Ilrsquominskii found the traditional Muslim schools strong regardingtheir acceptance by the Muslims57 but weak regarding their ability to improve thesocial consciousness of the Muslims58 Therefore the Russian authorities shouldleave the Muslim educational institutions in their present situation provided that aRussian alternative also existed This alternative should not have a Christianmissionary character lest this would agitate the Muslims but it should be in the spiritof Russian civilization59 If the Muslims attempted to improve the Muslim educationsystem independent of the Russians it was necessary to limit their freedom ofmovement as much as possible60

Gaspotilderalotilde

According to Gasp otilde ral otilde the traditional Muslim schools that taught ldquono book otherthan the Qurrsquoan and no science other than theologyrdquo were unable to reform theMuslim society in a positive way On the other hand the number of Muslim schoolswas high enough to reach the Muslims of the empire through education and theMuslim society had a strong confidence in these schools61 Therefore Gasp otilde ral otildeagreed with Ilrsquominskii about the strength and limitations of the traditional Muslimschools but his intentions about the Muslim education system in Russia were quitedifferent from those of Ilrsquominskii

In 1881 Gasp otilde ral otilde published a series of articles in a Russian newspaper under thetitle ldquoRussian Islamrdquo In these articles he laid out the basics of his future programFirst of all Gasp otilde ral otilde saw the Muslims of Russia as a united group that professed thesame faith spoke dialects of the same language and had the same social charac-teristics and traditions62 ldquoTurk-Tatar peoplesrdquo ldquoMuslimsrdquo ldquoTatarsrdquo and rarelyldquoTurksrdquo were all terms that he used to denote this united group of people63 ldquoTatarTuumlrkicircrdquo was the language of this ldquonationrdquo and only some Caucasian mountain tribesused other languages64

As I explained earlier Gasp otilde ral otilde did not see many positives when he looked at hisldquoMuslim nationrdquo The imperial policies that demanded that Muslims pay their taxesand left them on their own in their internal social life according to Gasp otilde ral otilde resultedin ldquothe social and mental isolation of the Muslimsrdquo The Muslims could not think

271

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

beyond their petty local interests The situation of their mental development judgingfrom their schools and writings was not successful either It was possible to seeEuropean influence among the Muslims of other countries but among the Muslimsof Russia only the Lithuanian Tatars had acquired European culture65 Time hadproved that Russification as it was applied until then was not a viable policy It wasnot possible to find any completely Russified non-Russians in Russia on thecontrary in some places the Russians had adopted manners of the non-Russians66

What was the solution then Gasp otilde ral otilde answered ldquounification and moral rapproche-ment [of the Russians and Muslims] on the basis of equality freedom science andeducationrdquo ldquoIn a wordrdquo he wrote ldquomoral Russification of the Muslims can beachieved by raising their intellectual level and this can be possible only by givingthe Tatar language the right to be the language of school and literature Muslims ofRussia have neither science nor literature or press and I think that it is necessary tofacilitate their development Russian-Tatar schools that are opened in order to teachRussian to the Tatar students cannot achieve this task at allrdquo67 Thus Gasp otilde ral otildedemanded the introduction of elementary sciences to the traditional Muslim schoolsin the Tatar language and the support of publications again in the Tatar language Infact spread of knowledge among the Muslims was so necessary that all kinds ofpublications in the Muslim dialects should also be supported Neither the Russiangovernment nor the Russian language would suffer from this in any way68 ldquoWhen welearn our fatherland Russia and its system from books in Tatarrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde wroteldquothen you can feel sure that we will have the will and opportunity to fill your gym-nasiums and universities in order to work together with you in the fields of life andsciencerdquo Otherwise the Muslims would never understand the Russians and keepescaping from them69

In 1883 Gasp otilde ral otilde finally received permission to publish a newspaper Tercuumlmanor Perevodchik in its Russian version both meaning ldquotranslatorrdquo The permissionstipulated that the newspaper should be a bilingual publication in Russian and TatarAlthough there had been previous attempts by the Muslims of Russia to publishperiodicals none of these attempts had yielded a lasting and substantial result70

Tercuumlmanrsquos first issue came out on the 100th anniversary of the annexation of theCrimea From the very beginning Gasp otilde ral otilde adopted a cautious tone which enabledhim to publish his newspaper without interruption for 31 years until his deathTercuumlman is the best example of the language that Gasp otilde ral otilde considered the commonliterary language of the Muslims of Russia It was a simplified form of literaryOttoman Turkish with occasional Crimean Tatar expressions In addition when headdressed a certain group of Muslims Gasp otilde ral otilde would also use some expressionsfrom their tongue Tercuumlman was published in the Arabic script The lack ofcharacters for most of the vowels was a drawback of the Arabic script as Ilrsquominskiihad also noted71 but Gasp otilde ral otilde used this situation to cover some of the differences inthe pronunciations of different Muslim groups in Russia72 Gasp otilde ral otilde was a prolificwriter Aside from Tercuumlman and many manuscripts he published a few other

272

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

periodicals but the impact of Tercuumlman not only among the Muslims of Russia butalso in the entire Turkic world cannot be exaggerated73 The famous historian andBashkir political leader Zeki V Togan relates that the most prestigious personalitiesamong the Muslims of Russia had all followed Tercuumlman74

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos second reform was the improvement of traditional Muslim schoolsAccording to Ostroumov the traditional mekteb was a place where the ldquochild-likecharacteristicsrdquo of children were blunted75 In these schools the children memorizedthe alphabet but ldquoacquisition of functional literacy was not the goalrdquo of schooling76

The students learned the names of the letters but not the sounds they represented Asa result it was possible that they would remain functionally illiterate after years ofstudy77 The Russian Orientalist Nil S Lykoshin called this ldquoNot Education butTorturerdquo (Muchenie a ne uchenie) He described the buildings where this educationtook place as unsuitable dark cold and stifling places78 On the other hand themedreses were not efficient either The education in a medrese could continue formore than 20 years and the student would graduate without even learning Arabicwhich constituted the heart of medrese education79 Nevertheless more than 16000mektebs and 214 medreses in the late nineteenth century represented a strongcommitment to education and a solid basis for a dynamic society after a well-plannedreform80

Gasp otilde ral otilde called the system he introduced to the mektebs ldquousucircl-i cedidrdquo that isldquonew methodrdquo81 The most important aspect of usucircl-i cedid was a shift to the phoneticmethod In this way Gasp otilde ral otilde succeeded in shortening the time a student beganto read and write to approximately 40 days Then he regularized the duration ofeducation and the curriculum and improved the class atmosphere82 Finally he intro-duced subjects that had not been in the mekteb curriculum before his reforms Asidefrom Qurrsquoanic recitation and the basic principles of Islam he began to teach basicarithmetic geography and history83 Gasp otilde ral otilde opened the first cedid school in 1884in Bahccedilesaray This was not the first attempt to reform the Muslim schools in Russiabut it was the one that yielded the most significant results84 In 1908 there wereapproximately 6000 reformed schools in Russia according to Gasp otilde ral otilde Althoughfully enlightening the students in the short period they attended these schools was notpossible it was still possible to instill a love for further learning in their hearts Thesechildren continued their studies with this love and many of the graduates of cedidschools had successful careers85

The Clash Prior to 1905

Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were perceptive enough to notice the challenge of eachotherrsquos efforts Ilrsquominskii was in a better situation to express his ideas In his publicworks he frequently wrote about the danger of ldquoTatarizationrdquo with which he meantthe influence of Muslim Tatars over other inorodtsy while in his personal corres-pondence he more openly and directly accused Gasp otilde ral otilde and urged the authorities to

273

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

take precautions against him86 The best-known and most frequently cited example ofthis correspondence is Ilrsquominskiirsquos letters to Pobedonostsev which were published in1895 4 years after Ilrsquominskiirsquos death87

Ilrsquominskiirsquos first warning to Pobedonostsev about Gasp otilde ral otilde was in December1883 8 months after the first appearance of Tercuumlman He wrote that Gasp otilde ral otildewanted to unite the millions of Muslims under Russian sovereignty ldquofrom the Crimeato the Caucasus and Central Asiardquo with science and civilization and that hislanguage was borrowed from the newspapers of Imiddotstanbul88 After receiving moreinformation from his student in Turkistan Ostroumov Ilrsquominskii continued to warnPobedonostsev in February 1884

Gasprinskii the publisher of Tercuumlman (perevodchik) in Bahccedilesaray has this aim firstto spread among the Muslims of the Russian empire European enlightenment on aMuhammedan basis coloring European education with Muhammedan ideas second tounite and rally the millions of wide-spread Muhammedan peoples of Russia withdifferent tongues (examplemdashGerman unification) third to sow a Turkish germ amongall the Muslims of Russia the Ottoman language89

In 1889 Ilrsquominskii read an open letter to Tercuumlman in a local Kazakh newspaperpublished in Akmolinsk He was upset He wrote to Pobedonostsev ldquoIn the opinionof competent people the Tatar newspaper lsquoPerevodchikrsquo revealed its artfulnessdirection and tendency during the eight years [sic] it was publishedrdquo90 As the formerSteppe Governor-General G A Kolpakovskii had also suggested it was necessary toofficially restrict this newspaper and unofficially promote alternative publications byldquounskillful and uneducated translatorsrdquo91

Ilrsquominskii died in 1891 In his farewell address Pobedonostsev wrote ldquoHe[Ilrsquominskii] vigilantly followed the Muslim propaganda that strengthened in therecent times in our near and far East and the service of his timely warnings cannot beexaggeratedrdquo92 The influence of Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers gradually decreased with therise of a relatively secular and ethno-nationalist educated society in Russia but theystil l enjoyed considerable power until the end of the imperial regime TheBrotherhood of St Gurii continued its activities under the leadership of Ilrsquominskiirsquosadopted son Nikolai A Bobrovnikov93 Besides a number of Ilrsquominskii sympathizersoccupied key decision-making positions on the education of Muslims in RussiaAccording to my research there was no personal communication between Gasp otilde ral otildeand Ilrsquominskii but Gasp otilde ral otilde got into contact with the followers of Ilrsquominskii and it ispossible to make some comments on Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas about Ilrsquominskii and hissystem based on these contacts

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos first reference to the Ilrsquominskii system was in his ldquoRussian IslamrdquoWhile demanding the recognition of Tatar as the language of education in Muslimschools he stated that the Ministry of Education had also recognized the importanceof native language in education94 This was a rather vague reference to the regulationsof 1870 which were promulgated following a debate over the Ilrsquominskii system andhad sanctioned the use of native languages in the government schools for the

274

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

inorodtsy In relation to the Muslim schools the emphasis of the 1870 regulationswas on the introduction of Russian language classes in the mektebs but still thegeneral insistence of the Ilrsquominskii system on native languages provided somesupport to Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas95

By the 1890s Gasp otilde ral otilde had secured considerable support for his school systemamong the Muslims of European Russia Now he wanted to expand usucircl-i cedid tothe rest of the empire In 1892 he sent a memorandum to the Governor-General ofTurkistan and suggested the introduction of usucircl-i cedid in Turkistan because the2-year programs of this system were short enough to leave sufficient time for thestudy of Russian language as opposed to the 6-year programs of traditional mektebs96

The Governor-General passed the plan on to Ostroumov and the Orientalist VladimirP Nalivkin Both Ostroumov and Nalivkin agreed with Gasp otilde ral otilde on the content ofhis suggestions but still they responded negatively to the Governor-Generalrsquosinquiry ldquoIn the matter of the education of inorodtsy in Russiardquo Ostroumov wroteldquowe need the direction of a Russian member of the Ministry of Education not that ofa Tatar inorodetsrdquo The solution was to provide education ldquolsquoin the spirit of Russianstate interestsrsquo using administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo97 Nalivkinrsquos argument was similar to that of Ostroumov thoughless enthusiastic98 The Governor-General ignored the memorandum did not answerGasp otilde ral otilde and filed the report Gasp otilde ral otilde traveled to Central Asia in 1893 and openeda cedid school During this trip he also met with Ostroumov to ask for his supportGasp otilde ral otilde probably did not know how Ostroumov had responded to the Governor-Generalrsquos inquiry The school Gasp otilde ral otilde opened closed soon after99

In 1905 Gasp otilde ral otilde once again tried to find support from the Russian authoritiesShortly before the revolution of 1905 the Minister of Education V G Glazovconvened a commission to discuss the question of schools for non-Russians100

Gasp otilde ral otilde presented a petition to the commission He wrote that though 30000schools were necessary for the education of 15 million Muslims in Russia thegovernment had only opened less than 300 during the previous 70 years It wasapparent that the government lacked the funds to open so many schools however itwould be possible if the Muslims themselves supported the schools On the otherhand the present government schools were unable to gain the support of theMuslims because the classes were held in Russian and the students could notunderstand anything The average student graduated ldquowithout any intellectualdevelopmentrdquo ldquoFor the intellectual enlightenment of the Muslims of Russiardquo it wasnecessary to follow Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and use the native language of the childrenOnly then would the Muslims support government schools101

Members of the 1905 commission also known as the ldquoBudilovich Commissionrdquowere all supporters of Ilrsquominskii including Ostroumov and Bobrovnikov102 Contraryto what Ilrsquominskii had suggested the commission decided that the Ilrsquominskii systemas it was applied to the baptized inorodtsy should be used for all non-Russians withsome room for certain amendments to comply with local necessities The first year

275

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

should be fully in the vernacular Russian should enter the curriculum as a subject ofstudy in the second year and only in the third year could the language of instructionbecome Russian With regard to the Muslims the commission stated that theIlrsquominskii system had full respect for the studentsrsquo beliefs Therefore it allowedreligious education in the Muslim schools but taking into consideration that thiswould not bring the Muslims close to the Russian people basic subjects such asnatural and social sciences should also be in the curriculum It was necessary toprepare books for the Muslims in their local languages with Cyrillic scripts so thatthe common alphabet would serve as a path to Russian books the Russian languageand the Russian outlook on the world

With regard to the mektebs and medreses the commission first recommended theauthorities not to intervene in the internal affairs of the Muslims but then it listed anumber of requirements for the Muslim schools The mullahs should know Russianand be of the same nationality as the students The language of instruction shouldbe the native language spoken in the childrsquos house and not ldquoartificial Tatarrdquo Theeducation should not encourage opposition against the state The schools should openwith the permission of the Ministry of Education The mullahs should submitstatistical data about the students each year The curriculum of mektebs shouldinclude Russian and basic subjects like mathematics The purpose of teachingRussian should be bringing the Muslims closer to Russian education and instillingthe feeling of ldquopatriotic solidarityrdquo in their hearts103

Since usucircl-i cedid was only recently and gradually making its way into CentralAsia most of the cedid teachers in this region were Tatars from European RussiaAside from other restrictions it was apparent that the condition of ldquosame nationalityrdquowas intended to limit Tatar influence Non-interference was not working anymorebecause the Muslim schools had gone through an internal reform and had begun toimprove the social and political consciousness of the Muslims After the BudilovichCommission the followers of Ilrsquominskii would try to limit the influence of theMuslim reformers ldquousing administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo as Ostroumov had suggested to the Governor-General ofTurkistan in 1892104 An additional measure was to take advantage of the conflictbetween the traditionalist opposition that had begun to develop among the Muslimclergy against Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos reforms and support the traditionalists against thereformers105 These may seem to be a diversion from the non-interference policyIlrsquominskii had adopted in the 1860s but what happened is rather an adaptation of theold system to the new conditions because the purpose of limiting social and politicalconsciousness of the Muslims remained unchanged The Budilovich Commissionrsquossuggestions were approved as regulation in 1906 Because of the opposition from theMuslims the Ministry of Education had to drop the provisions regarding the use ofCyrillic script in school materials ldquoRussian classes in the Muslim confessionalschools the requirement that mullahs know Russian and ministry inspection ofconfessional schoolsrdquo However the requirement that the mullahs should be of the

276

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

same nationality as students remained106

From Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos references to Ilrsquominskii before the revolution of 1905 it ispossible to see that he refrained from attacking Ilrsquominskii and even tried to use someof Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas to support his own arguments In the liberal atmosphere of theyears following the revolution of 1905 he could speak more openly In 1908 hewrote that it was necessary to be cautious before 1905 because of the opposition ofIlrsquominskii and his followers ldquowho did not accept the Tatar Bashkir Kirgiz and Sartchildren to the same schools and tried to separate themrdquo But the conditions hadchanged by 1908 Now Gasp otilde ral otilde could even criticize the regulations of the Ministryof Education According to him the ministry had made a mistake by defining nativelanguage as the language spoken in the childrsquos house Accepting this position wouldrequire instruction in the languages of each city or region The native language of theRussian children was the Russian language not the languages of Volgograd KurskSaratovsk and Yaroslavl Thus Gasp otilde ral otilde concluded ldquoOur native language is theliterary lsquoTuumlrkrsquo languagerdquo107

Post-1905 and the Wider Society

The openness in Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos statements was not the only thing that changed after therevolution of 1905 The Russian empire in its entirety went through a period ofreform Several journals and newspapers appeared among the Muslims Gasp otilde ral otildeestimated that the total number of subscribers to these periodicals was between60000 and 70000 in 1908108 The Muslims had generally not joined the strikes andinsurgencies that had paralyzed the empire during 1905 but they had well sensedthe approaching administrative changes and through a number of rather peacefulgatherings they had tried to bring about a common representative body for theMuslims of the empire In August 1906 between the first and second DumasMuslim representatives from all over the empire met in a congress in NizhniiNovgorod This was the third Muslim congress since March 1905 and it was the bestorganized one The Muslim representatives agreed on a 33-point resolution onschooling The resolution stated inter alia that the education in Muslim schoolsshould be in the native language with the Arabic script Special importance should begiven to the study of ldquoliterary Turkish languagerdquo in the Muslim secondary schoolsand wherever possible in the elementary schools The study of the Russian languagewas not necessary in the elementary schools but it could enter the curriculum as asubject of study in the secondary schools Education of all Muslims should bestandardized as much as possible Muslim students should have the same rights asRussian students In the Muslim teachersrsquo schools with preparatory Russian classesthe study of the ldquoliterary national languagerdquo should improve so that the Muslimteachers could teach in their own language Elementary education should beobligatory for all Muslim children and the Muslim teachers should meet in acongress to prepare a standard program of education and materials for use in the

277

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Muslim schools109 Muslims of Russia would hold several other meetings in thefollowing years and reaffirm the decisions of this resolution110

The resolution was a victory for Gasp otilde ral otilde but the congress also showed tensionsthat he had not foreseen 25 years before in ldquoRussian Islamrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde had alwaysconcentrated his work on social and cultural issues In the years of the revolution hehad expressed this concentration as follows ldquoSome thoughts are forbidden to us Letus leave these to the generations that will come later Let us form a spiritual unity letus unite the languages [but] let others think of political unityrdquo111 Nevertheless themembers of the new generation who to a large extent were graduates of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosschools did not want to leave political action to future generations The Muslimcongress approved the formation of a Muslim political party despite Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosinitial opposition Later Gasp otilde ral otilde consented to this formation112 but the lack ofpopular support after the initial political excitement of the revolution showed thatMuslims of Russia were not ready to support a political party yet113 Moreover thepolitical ideals of the new generation were not always compatible with the unity ofthe Turkic and Muslim nation that Gasp otilde ral otilde had in mind

In 1911 two articles appeared in the biweekly supplement of an Orenburg-basednewspaper ldquoWe are Tatarsrdquo by lsquoAlimcan Imiddotbrahimov from Kazan114 and ldquoWe areTurksrdquo by an author who wrote under the pseudonym TuumlrkogAElig lu which means ldquoson ofa Turkrdquo115 The titles well summarized the contents of the articles Imiddotbrahimov wroteldquoWe are Tatars our language is the Tatar language our literature is the Tatarliterature all our affairs are Tatar affairs our civilization will be the Tatar civiliza-tionrdquo While saying ldquowerdquo Imiddotbrahimov was referring to the people who are calledldquoKazan Tatarsrdquo today TuumlrkogAElig lu did not l ike Imiddotbrahimovrsquos statements It wasnecessary to put an end to these ldquowhims of Tatarismrdquo according to him After thespread of that ldquoso-called Tatar literaturerdquo now a ldquoso-called Kazakh literaturerdquo hadbegun to appear This was all dividing the common ldquoTuumlrkrdquo people116 The Ministry ofEducation was trying to impose the use of local dialects in inorodets schools This ofcourse was harmful to the Turks of the Russian empire117 Division weakened theTurks of Russia It was necessary to end all those wrong tendencies and begin towork for the creation of a ldquoTuumlrkicircrdquo literature118 Until the very end of the imperialregime a heated discussion continued between the Kazakh Volga Tatar CrimeanTatar Bashkir and other ethno-territorial nationalists and pan-Turkists in the Muslimpress Language was the key issue in these discussions119

The Muslim intellectuals who entered such discussions always expressed a certainrespect for and gratefulness to Gasp otilde ral otilde the ldquoold teacherrdquo or the ldquofatherrdquo regardlessof whether they agreed with him or not120 The very fact that the Muslims werepublicly discussing social and political issues was the proof of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos success inreforming the Muslim society But the old teacher was in an ambivalent situation Hewas happy for the appearance of a flourishing press but he was upset because of themistakes made about language With all due respect to the common people he wrotein 1912 the literary and scientific publications should not be published in the

278

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

language spoken by a Kazakh shepherd The several Turkic tribes could not becomea nation if they insisted on separating their languages121

While Gasp otilde ral otilde found himself in this ambivalent situation followers of Ilrsquominskiialso had a number of things to worry about Following the edict of religioustoleration on 17 April 1905 approximately 49000 inorodtsy left Orthodoxy forIslam in 5 years122 Ilrsquominskiirsquos biographer Petr V Znamenskii wrote in a work aboutthe Kazan Tatars that the mission among the Muslims was completely paralyzed123 In1910 a missionary congress gathered in Kazan124 The atmosphere of the congresswas quite gloomy It did not yield a substantive result other than the publication of ajournal to observe and study the Muslim world Mir Islama Writers of the journalwere quick to notice the ideological currents among the Muslims of the empire In1913 two articles discussed pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia According tothese articles pan-Islamism was losing its influence in the Ottoman Empire andamong the Muslims of Russia On the other hand pan-Turkism and territorialnationalisms were gaining strength125 Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers had definitely failed toprevent the development of social and political consciousness among the Muslims ofRussia Local nationalists were opposing a political Turkic unity but they were by nomeans closer to the Russians On the other hand the mission of consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy with the Ilrsquominskii system was not workingsmoothly either

When Ilrsquominskii had first presented his system to Russian society in the 1860sclaiming that the native language is most effective in instilling Christianity and thatthe path to Russification would be open to the inorodtsy once they were sufficientlyChristianized the opposition had contended that the proper way of national assimila-tion was through language and strengthening the native languages would result inthe alienation of the inorodtsy126 Thanks to the support of Tolstoi and Pobe-donostsev the Ilrsquominskii system had gained official recognition in those days but thepolitical composition of the empire had changed significantly by the early twentiethcentury In 1897 an article appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Educationabout a new language teaching technique the natural method ldquoThe main channel forthe inorodtsy to approach the Russiansrdquo was the Russian language according to theauthor and with the natural method it was possible to teach Russian to the inorodtsywithout using their native languages In this method the teacher was supposed toteach first by miming and with gestures and then by building on the words that thestudents had already learned127 Soon after the natural method developed as analternative to Ilrsquominskiirsquos translative method It also found supporters in the Russianbureaucracy and despite the legal recognition of the Ilrsquominskii system with a numberof regulations local authorities decided which method to use in practice As theimperial bureaucracy became increasingly secularized and ethno-nationalist towardthe end of the imperial regime followers of Ilrsquominskii lost their control in theeducation of the non-Muslim inorodtsy128 but their ideas about the Muslims were notthat incompatible with the ideas of the new ruling elite The Ilrsquominskii group had

279

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

mood of Moscow had on this Crimean Tatar youth In 1867 he left his education inthe academy to go to the Ottoman Empire and fight against the Greek rebels Russianauthorities intercepted the fugitive in Odessa and Gasp otilde ral otilde had to return toBahccedilesaray in the Crimea14 After teaching Russian here for some time he spent 2years in Paris and 1 year in Imiddotstanbul He came back to the Crimea in 1875 In themeantime he had become acquainted with several Russian eacutemigreacute intellectualsincluding Ivan S Turgenev and several prominent figures of the Ottoman EmpireBetween 1878 and 1882 he served as the mayor of Bahccedilesaray and published a fewpamphlets on social issues His 1879 appeal to the Russian authorities to publish aTatar language journal shows that he had reached a certain level of intellectualsophistication by this time and wanted to put his ideas into practice15

The Muslim society Gasp otilde ral otilde observed in Russia in the 1870s was in a destitutesituation Catherine II had adopted a tolerant stance toward Islam after she hadannexed the Crimea in 1783 but her ldquoGreek projectrdquo and the following colonizationhad stripped the Crimean Tatars of their means of subsistence16 The result was thecontinuous emigration of Crimearsquos Muslim population to the Ottoman lands17 Whileexplaining the most massive emigration that took place in 1860 following theCrimean War A Bezchinskii wrote ldquoA rumor spread among the people [theCrimean Tatars] that the government would deliberately cleanse the Crimea from theuseless and even harmful Tatar populationrdquo18 The exact number of emigrants is stillunknown but it is possible to say that the total number of people who migrated fromRussia to the Ottoman Empire between 1855 and 1866 including the immigrantsfrom the Caucasus is over one million19 Gasp otilde ral otilde was a little boy when this greatescape took place When he began to think about the problems of his people in the1870s the conditions that led to this escape had still not disappeared Besides elitesamong the Muslims of Russia were either impoverished or co-opted and alienatedfrom their kin Because of the fear of being Christianized and Russified ordinaryMuslims did not want to have any contact with the outside Russian world20

Consequently they also did not have much contact with the Muslim communitiesbeyond their localities On the other hand the outside world was changing rapidly inthe reform years of the 1860s and the insular Muslim communities were graduallylosing their ability to exist as modernization accelerated The only solution theycould findmdashemigrationmdashwas either limited for practical reasons or often ended up intragedies21 The Muslims had a strong tradition of education but the traditionaleducation did not provide the knowledge and skills needed in the modernizing worldOn the contrary it left the Muslims in stagnation22 Although there were previousattempts to end this stagnation particularly in the Kazan region they remainedisolated and did not translate into a general movement until Gasp otilde ral otilde began his workin the early 1880s23

The contrast between the perceptions of Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii may seemstriking in fact it is Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii looked at different aspects of thesituation and naturally they saw different things Ilrsquominskii was concerned with

267

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

keeping the baptized inorodtsy Christian and spreading Orthodoxy further TheMuslim and baptized Tatars lived close to each other and the Muslim Tatarsinfluenced their baptized kin through traditional every day relations24 This wasenough for Ilrsquominskii to think that ldquothe kingdom of Muhammedrdquo ruled in the easternlands of Russia Something had to be done to put an end to this kingdom25 On theother hand Gasp otilde ral otilde wanted the Muslims to become active members of the modernsociety without losing their Muslim identities This had nothing to do with the localevery day relations between baptized and Muslim Tatar communities ldquoThe Muslimsin Russia were in a deep sleep of ignorancerdquo recalled Gasp otilde ral otilde in 1908 and itfollowed that someone had to awaken them26

Development of Their Respective Programs

Although the perceptions and purposes of Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were completelydifferent from each other there were a number of parallels in their works Educationconstituted the heart of their programs they both opposed formalism in schoolingand they both gave a special importance to language Despite these parallels in formhowever the contradiction of their purposes reflected the content of their programs

Ilrsquominskii

While traveling in the baptized Tatar villages in 1848 Ilrsquominskii had noticed that thevillagers did not understand the Tatar language translations of the Christian texts heshowed to them These translations Ilrsquominskii wrote in 1883 were in the ldquobookishMuhammedan languagerdquo After further contact with the Tatars Kazakhs andTurkmens he noticed that the vernaculars of these people were different from theldquobookishrdquo Tatar that the Russian translators had long been using Thus Ilrsquominskiildquobegan to consider the vernaculars specially important and indispensable ineducation and missionary workrdquo27 Only the vernacular could move a group of peopleto Christianity A foreign language could not do this28 One of the most importantfailures of the conversions in the earlier centuries was that the Russian missionariesdid not care whether the inorodtsy understood what was being told to them or notMissionaries held liturgies in Church Slavonic they did not try to teach the tenets ofOrthodoxy to the inorodtsy and did not educate native priests Veniaminov andMakarius had already begun to change these practices but it was Ilrsquominskii whosystematized and popularized reforms such as translating Orthodox liturgy intovernaculars ordaining native priests and using vernaculars as the main medium ofeducation29

Ilrsquominskiirsquos educational enterprise began with an unforeseen development Afterhe returned to Kazan from Turkistan in 1861 he wanted to find a native Tatarspeaker to help him with translations In 1863 he met Vasilii Timofeev a baptizedTatar peasant whom he brought to Kazan Soon after three boys from his village

268

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

followed Timofeev to his living quarters in Kazan Under the guidance of IlrsquominskiiTimofeev began to educate these boys in the Tatar language In 1866 Ilrsquominskiifound a strong supporter for this enterprise in the person of Dimitrii A Tolstoi theprocurator of the Holy Synod30 In 1867 first an anonymous article and then anarticle by Ilrsquominskii related Timofeevrsquos experience in the Journal of the Ministry ofEducation31 A loyal group of people mostly the graduates of Kazan EcclesiasticalAcademy gathered around Ilrsquominskii and founded the Brotherhood of St Gurii topromote his ideas As early as 1869 the Russian public had begun to discuss theldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo in the education of the inorodtsy32 In this system the childrenwould firs t learn reading writing and the basics of Orthodoxy in their ownlanguages Only after they had sufficiently learned and internalized Orthodoxy wouldthey begin to learn Russian and Church Slavonic The teachers would be nativespeakers of the language of the students whenever possible and the entire schoolingwould take place in a cozy atmosphere in the Christian spirit33 Through his relationswith strong personalities like Tolstoi and Konstantin D Pobedonostsev Ilrsquominskiicould even influence the general government policies about education Beginning in1870 Ilrsquominskii andor his followers would provide significant input into imperialregulations about the education of the inorodtsy34

Providing a detailed account of Ilrsquominskiirsquos education system is beyond thepurpose of this article Instead I will focus on the relevance of his educational andlinguistic ideas to the Muslims of the Russian empire Ilrsquominskii did not see theMuslims of Russia as a united whole He made a clear distinction between what heconsidered the nominal Muslims and the fully-confirmed ones He believed that itwas useless to try to Christianize fully-confirmed Muslims like the Tatars and theinhabitants of sedentary Central Asia but it was worth trying to influence less-confirmed Muslims like the Kazakhs35 According to Ilrsquominskii the degree ofcloseness to the Tatars was a good indication of a Kazakh tribersquos degree ofIslamicization36

During Ilrsquominskiirsquos stay in Turkistan the famous Orientalist Vasilii V Grigorrsquoevhad convinced Ilrsquominskii that stemming the Tatar influence over the Kazakhs couldopen the way for their Christianization In 1859 Ilrsquominskii met an enthusiasticKazakh youth Imiddotbray Alt otilde nsarin From then on Alt otilde nsarin remained a friend andproteacutegeacutee of Ilrsquominskii In 1879 Alt otilde nsarin became the inspector of Kazakh schools inthe Turgai oblast and remained so until his death in 188937 In 1900 an official reportmentioned the schools Alt otilde nsarin had founded under the guidance of Ilrsquominskii as themodel to be followed for other Kazakhs because these schools had spread Russianeducation and proved to be successful against the Tatar mullahs Language ofinstruction in this model was the Kazakh vernacular The curriculum includedIslamic religious education but instead of a ldquosuspicious and staunch mullah hellip aKirgiz teacher more or less enlightened in the Russian wayrdquo taught the classes andthis prevented the Kazakh students from developing ldquofanatic and harmful feelingsrdquoThe Russian language study in these schools was the most important way to bring the

269

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

children closer to the Russians38 The method of teaching Russian was the ldquotrans-lative methodrdquo that Ilrsquominskii had introduced in all his schools39 Ilrsquominskii wasespecially careful to keep the developing Kazakh literary language away from theinfluence of Tatar40 Developing a Kazakh literary language independent from Tatarhe thought would decrease the influence of Islam and consequently increase theinfluence of Russian culture among the Kazakhs In 1870 he wrote ldquoIf the schoolsof the mullahs will continue to exist [among the Kazakhs] let them teach in the Tatarlanguage and torture the children with the Arabic phonetics This will in any case beless influential than spreading Muhammedanism in the strong native languageOtherwise Russian education should spread in the Kirgiz languagerdquo41

Unification of the Muslims of the Russian empire was one of the things Ilrsquominskiifeared the most42 Beginning with the reign of Catherine II the Russian governmenthad been addressing all the Muslims of the empire in the Tatar language43 Ilrsquominskiithought of this as a unifying factor Developing literary languages from the localvernaculars of different Turkic and Muslim communities could prevent it44 Thealphabet used had a special role in this respect The Muslims including the Kazakhsexclusively used the Arabic script From his experience among the baptized TatarsIlrsquominskii had noticed that use of the Russian script ldquosharply separated the baptizedTatars from their Muslim kinrdquo45 Although he published a Kazakh language bookwith the Arabic script in 1861 he later thought that this was a mistake46 and correctedthe mistake by designing a Cyrillic-based Kazakh alphabet in the same year 47

Although Alt otilde nsarin wanted to keep the Arabic script and even published some worksusing the Arabic script48 Ilrsquominskii insisted on employing the Cyrillic script in theKazakh schools According to the aforementioned official report in 1900 use of theCyrillic alphabet had limited the spread of ldquoundesirable and harmful publications inthe Muslim languagerdquo among the Kazakhs49

According to Ilrsquominskii the purpose of the Cyrillic alphabet had to be bringing theinorodtsy closer to the Russians and not bringing them closer to each otherTherefore he suggested designing separate Cyrillic alphabets for each inorodetspeople50 Although there were other attempts to introduce the Cyrillic script into thelanguages of Muslim peoples other than the Kazakhs this did not take place until theSoviet period51 In addition to these government projects about changing thealphabets Nikolai Ostroumov one of Ilrsquominskiirsquos most loyal followers and one ofthe key personalities in the education of the Muslims in Central Asia continued toapply Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas of separating the inorodtsy by creating separate literarylanguages out of their vernaculars Ostroumov tried to bring out a literary languagewhich he called ldquoSartrdquo from the language of the sedentary Muslims in Central Asia52

Ilrsquominskii did not develop a clear program for the education of Muslim peoplesother than the Kazakhs but still it is possible to detect some basic ideas explaininghis thoughts about the education of other Muslims Ilrsquominskii approved the GovernorGeneral of Turkistan Konstantin von Kaufmanrsquos policy of non-interference in theMuslim schools in Turkistan53 The logic was simple If the state interfered in the

270

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

Muslim schools ldquolsquoit would have to concern itself with their blossomingrsquo hellip and thecombination of Muslim ideology and European culture would not only fail to achieverussification but could even become lsquoa weapon against the Russian people and theRussian statersquordquo54 In 1882 Vasilii D Smirnov whom Ilrsquominskii would recommend toPobedonostsev as a personal observer of the Muslim press in 1890 opposed theintroduction of a reformed medrese system in the Caucasus for similar reasons55 Ifnatural sciences were taught in the medreses they would be Islamized and thiswould only consolidate the Muslim worldview The real question was how to attractthe Muslims to the Russian schools and not what kind of a school the Muslimsshould have From Smirnovrsquos relationship with Ilrsquominskii we can deduce that theyhad parallel ideas56 Ilrsquominskii found the traditional Muslim schools strong regardingtheir acceptance by the Muslims57 but weak regarding their ability to improve thesocial consciousness of the Muslims58 Therefore the Russian authorities shouldleave the Muslim educational institutions in their present situation provided that aRussian alternative also existed This alternative should not have a Christianmissionary character lest this would agitate the Muslims but it should be in the spiritof Russian civilization59 If the Muslims attempted to improve the Muslim educationsystem independent of the Russians it was necessary to limit their freedom ofmovement as much as possible60

Gaspotilderalotilde

According to Gasp otilde ral otilde the traditional Muslim schools that taught ldquono book otherthan the Qurrsquoan and no science other than theologyrdquo were unable to reform theMuslim society in a positive way On the other hand the number of Muslim schoolswas high enough to reach the Muslims of the empire through education and theMuslim society had a strong confidence in these schools61 Therefore Gasp otilde ral otildeagreed with Ilrsquominskii about the strength and limitations of the traditional Muslimschools but his intentions about the Muslim education system in Russia were quitedifferent from those of Ilrsquominskii

In 1881 Gasp otilde ral otilde published a series of articles in a Russian newspaper under thetitle ldquoRussian Islamrdquo In these articles he laid out the basics of his future programFirst of all Gasp otilde ral otilde saw the Muslims of Russia as a united group that professed thesame faith spoke dialects of the same language and had the same social charac-teristics and traditions62 ldquoTurk-Tatar peoplesrdquo ldquoMuslimsrdquo ldquoTatarsrdquo and rarelyldquoTurksrdquo were all terms that he used to denote this united group of people63 ldquoTatarTuumlrkicircrdquo was the language of this ldquonationrdquo and only some Caucasian mountain tribesused other languages64

As I explained earlier Gasp otilde ral otilde did not see many positives when he looked at hisldquoMuslim nationrdquo The imperial policies that demanded that Muslims pay their taxesand left them on their own in their internal social life according to Gasp otilde ral otilde resultedin ldquothe social and mental isolation of the Muslimsrdquo The Muslims could not think

271

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

beyond their petty local interests The situation of their mental development judgingfrom their schools and writings was not successful either It was possible to seeEuropean influence among the Muslims of other countries but among the Muslimsof Russia only the Lithuanian Tatars had acquired European culture65 Time hadproved that Russification as it was applied until then was not a viable policy It wasnot possible to find any completely Russified non-Russians in Russia on thecontrary in some places the Russians had adopted manners of the non-Russians66

What was the solution then Gasp otilde ral otilde answered ldquounification and moral rapproche-ment [of the Russians and Muslims] on the basis of equality freedom science andeducationrdquo ldquoIn a wordrdquo he wrote ldquomoral Russification of the Muslims can beachieved by raising their intellectual level and this can be possible only by givingthe Tatar language the right to be the language of school and literature Muslims ofRussia have neither science nor literature or press and I think that it is necessary tofacilitate their development Russian-Tatar schools that are opened in order to teachRussian to the Tatar students cannot achieve this task at allrdquo67 Thus Gasp otilde ral otildedemanded the introduction of elementary sciences to the traditional Muslim schoolsin the Tatar language and the support of publications again in the Tatar language Infact spread of knowledge among the Muslims was so necessary that all kinds ofpublications in the Muslim dialects should also be supported Neither the Russiangovernment nor the Russian language would suffer from this in any way68 ldquoWhen welearn our fatherland Russia and its system from books in Tatarrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde wroteldquothen you can feel sure that we will have the will and opportunity to fill your gym-nasiums and universities in order to work together with you in the fields of life andsciencerdquo Otherwise the Muslims would never understand the Russians and keepescaping from them69

In 1883 Gasp otilde ral otilde finally received permission to publish a newspaper Tercuumlmanor Perevodchik in its Russian version both meaning ldquotranslatorrdquo The permissionstipulated that the newspaper should be a bilingual publication in Russian and TatarAlthough there had been previous attempts by the Muslims of Russia to publishperiodicals none of these attempts had yielded a lasting and substantial result70

Tercuumlmanrsquos first issue came out on the 100th anniversary of the annexation of theCrimea From the very beginning Gasp otilde ral otilde adopted a cautious tone which enabledhim to publish his newspaper without interruption for 31 years until his deathTercuumlman is the best example of the language that Gasp otilde ral otilde considered the commonliterary language of the Muslims of Russia It was a simplified form of literaryOttoman Turkish with occasional Crimean Tatar expressions In addition when headdressed a certain group of Muslims Gasp otilde ral otilde would also use some expressionsfrom their tongue Tercuumlman was published in the Arabic script The lack ofcharacters for most of the vowels was a drawback of the Arabic script as Ilrsquominskiihad also noted71 but Gasp otilde ral otilde used this situation to cover some of the differences inthe pronunciations of different Muslim groups in Russia72 Gasp otilde ral otilde was a prolificwriter Aside from Tercuumlman and many manuscripts he published a few other

272

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

periodicals but the impact of Tercuumlman not only among the Muslims of Russia butalso in the entire Turkic world cannot be exaggerated73 The famous historian andBashkir political leader Zeki V Togan relates that the most prestigious personalitiesamong the Muslims of Russia had all followed Tercuumlman74

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos second reform was the improvement of traditional Muslim schoolsAccording to Ostroumov the traditional mekteb was a place where the ldquochild-likecharacteristicsrdquo of children were blunted75 In these schools the children memorizedthe alphabet but ldquoacquisition of functional literacy was not the goalrdquo of schooling76

The students learned the names of the letters but not the sounds they represented Asa result it was possible that they would remain functionally illiterate after years ofstudy77 The Russian Orientalist Nil S Lykoshin called this ldquoNot Education butTorturerdquo (Muchenie a ne uchenie) He described the buildings where this educationtook place as unsuitable dark cold and stifling places78 On the other hand themedreses were not efficient either The education in a medrese could continue formore than 20 years and the student would graduate without even learning Arabicwhich constituted the heart of medrese education79 Nevertheless more than 16000mektebs and 214 medreses in the late nineteenth century represented a strongcommitment to education and a solid basis for a dynamic society after a well-plannedreform80

Gasp otilde ral otilde called the system he introduced to the mektebs ldquousucircl-i cedidrdquo that isldquonew methodrdquo81 The most important aspect of usucircl-i cedid was a shift to the phoneticmethod In this way Gasp otilde ral otilde succeeded in shortening the time a student beganto read and write to approximately 40 days Then he regularized the duration ofeducation and the curriculum and improved the class atmosphere82 Finally he intro-duced subjects that had not been in the mekteb curriculum before his reforms Asidefrom Qurrsquoanic recitation and the basic principles of Islam he began to teach basicarithmetic geography and history83 Gasp otilde ral otilde opened the first cedid school in 1884in Bahccedilesaray This was not the first attempt to reform the Muslim schools in Russiabut it was the one that yielded the most significant results84 In 1908 there wereapproximately 6000 reformed schools in Russia according to Gasp otilde ral otilde Althoughfully enlightening the students in the short period they attended these schools was notpossible it was still possible to instill a love for further learning in their hearts Thesechildren continued their studies with this love and many of the graduates of cedidschools had successful careers85

The Clash Prior to 1905

Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were perceptive enough to notice the challenge of eachotherrsquos efforts Ilrsquominskii was in a better situation to express his ideas In his publicworks he frequently wrote about the danger of ldquoTatarizationrdquo with which he meantthe influence of Muslim Tatars over other inorodtsy while in his personal corres-pondence he more openly and directly accused Gasp otilde ral otilde and urged the authorities to

273

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

take precautions against him86 The best-known and most frequently cited example ofthis correspondence is Ilrsquominskiirsquos letters to Pobedonostsev which were published in1895 4 years after Ilrsquominskiirsquos death87

Ilrsquominskiirsquos first warning to Pobedonostsev about Gasp otilde ral otilde was in December1883 8 months after the first appearance of Tercuumlman He wrote that Gasp otilde ral otildewanted to unite the millions of Muslims under Russian sovereignty ldquofrom the Crimeato the Caucasus and Central Asiardquo with science and civilization and that hislanguage was borrowed from the newspapers of Imiddotstanbul88 After receiving moreinformation from his student in Turkistan Ostroumov Ilrsquominskii continued to warnPobedonostsev in February 1884

Gasprinskii the publisher of Tercuumlman (perevodchik) in Bahccedilesaray has this aim firstto spread among the Muslims of the Russian empire European enlightenment on aMuhammedan basis coloring European education with Muhammedan ideas second tounite and rally the millions of wide-spread Muhammedan peoples of Russia withdifferent tongues (examplemdashGerman unification) third to sow a Turkish germ amongall the Muslims of Russia the Ottoman language89

In 1889 Ilrsquominskii read an open letter to Tercuumlman in a local Kazakh newspaperpublished in Akmolinsk He was upset He wrote to Pobedonostsev ldquoIn the opinionof competent people the Tatar newspaper lsquoPerevodchikrsquo revealed its artfulnessdirection and tendency during the eight years [sic] it was publishedrdquo90 As the formerSteppe Governor-General G A Kolpakovskii had also suggested it was necessary toofficially restrict this newspaper and unofficially promote alternative publications byldquounskillful and uneducated translatorsrdquo91

Ilrsquominskii died in 1891 In his farewell address Pobedonostsev wrote ldquoHe[Ilrsquominskii] vigilantly followed the Muslim propaganda that strengthened in therecent times in our near and far East and the service of his timely warnings cannot beexaggeratedrdquo92 The influence of Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers gradually decreased with therise of a relatively secular and ethno-nationalist educated society in Russia but theystil l enjoyed considerable power until the end of the imperial regime TheBrotherhood of St Gurii continued its activities under the leadership of Ilrsquominskiirsquosadopted son Nikolai A Bobrovnikov93 Besides a number of Ilrsquominskii sympathizersoccupied key decision-making positions on the education of Muslims in RussiaAccording to my research there was no personal communication between Gasp otilde ral otildeand Ilrsquominskii but Gasp otilde ral otilde got into contact with the followers of Ilrsquominskii and it ispossible to make some comments on Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas about Ilrsquominskii and hissystem based on these contacts

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos first reference to the Ilrsquominskii system was in his ldquoRussian IslamrdquoWhile demanding the recognition of Tatar as the language of education in Muslimschools he stated that the Ministry of Education had also recognized the importanceof native language in education94 This was a rather vague reference to the regulationsof 1870 which were promulgated following a debate over the Ilrsquominskii system andhad sanctioned the use of native languages in the government schools for the

274

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

inorodtsy In relation to the Muslim schools the emphasis of the 1870 regulationswas on the introduction of Russian language classes in the mektebs but still thegeneral insistence of the Ilrsquominskii system on native languages provided somesupport to Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas95

By the 1890s Gasp otilde ral otilde had secured considerable support for his school systemamong the Muslims of European Russia Now he wanted to expand usucircl-i cedid tothe rest of the empire In 1892 he sent a memorandum to the Governor-General ofTurkistan and suggested the introduction of usucircl-i cedid in Turkistan because the2-year programs of this system were short enough to leave sufficient time for thestudy of Russian language as opposed to the 6-year programs of traditional mektebs96

The Governor-General passed the plan on to Ostroumov and the Orientalist VladimirP Nalivkin Both Ostroumov and Nalivkin agreed with Gasp otilde ral otilde on the content ofhis suggestions but still they responded negatively to the Governor-Generalrsquosinquiry ldquoIn the matter of the education of inorodtsy in Russiardquo Ostroumov wroteldquowe need the direction of a Russian member of the Ministry of Education not that ofa Tatar inorodetsrdquo The solution was to provide education ldquolsquoin the spirit of Russianstate interestsrsquo using administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo97 Nalivkinrsquos argument was similar to that of Ostroumov thoughless enthusiastic98 The Governor-General ignored the memorandum did not answerGasp otilde ral otilde and filed the report Gasp otilde ral otilde traveled to Central Asia in 1893 and openeda cedid school During this trip he also met with Ostroumov to ask for his supportGasp otilde ral otilde probably did not know how Ostroumov had responded to the Governor-Generalrsquos inquiry The school Gasp otilde ral otilde opened closed soon after99

In 1905 Gasp otilde ral otilde once again tried to find support from the Russian authoritiesShortly before the revolution of 1905 the Minister of Education V G Glazovconvened a commission to discuss the question of schools for non-Russians100

Gasp otilde ral otilde presented a petition to the commission He wrote that though 30000schools were necessary for the education of 15 million Muslims in Russia thegovernment had only opened less than 300 during the previous 70 years It wasapparent that the government lacked the funds to open so many schools however itwould be possible if the Muslims themselves supported the schools On the otherhand the present government schools were unable to gain the support of theMuslims because the classes were held in Russian and the students could notunderstand anything The average student graduated ldquowithout any intellectualdevelopmentrdquo ldquoFor the intellectual enlightenment of the Muslims of Russiardquo it wasnecessary to follow Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and use the native language of the childrenOnly then would the Muslims support government schools101

Members of the 1905 commission also known as the ldquoBudilovich Commissionrdquowere all supporters of Ilrsquominskii including Ostroumov and Bobrovnikov102 Contraryto what Ilrsquominskii had suggested the commission decided that the Ilrsquominskii systemas it was applied to the baptized inorodtsy should be used for all non-Russians withsome room for certain amendments to comply with local necessities The first year

275

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

should be fully in the vernacular Russian should enter the curriculum as a subject ofstudy in the second year and only in the third year could the language of instructionbecome Russian With regard to the Muslims the commission stated that theIlrsquominskii system had full respect for the studentsrsquo beliefs Therefore it allowedreligious education in the Muslim schools but taking into consideration that thiswould not bring the Muslims close to the Russian people basic subjects such asnatural and social sciences should also be in the curriculum It was necessary toprepare books for the Muslims in their local languages with Cyrillic scripts so thatthe common alphabet would serve as a path to Russian books the Russian languageand the Russian outlook on the world

With regard to the mektebs and medreses the commission first recommended theauthorities not to intervene in the internal affairs of the Muslims but then it listed anumber of requirements for the Muslim schools The mullahs should know Russianand be of the same nationality as the students The language of instruction shouldbe the native language spoken in the childrsquos house and not ldquoartificial Tatarrdquo Theeducation should not encourage opposition against the state The schools should openwith the permission of the Ministry of Education The mullahs should submitstatistical data about the students each year The curriculum of mektebs shouldinclude Russian and basic subjects like mathematics The purpose of teachingRussian should be bringing the Muslims closer to Russian education and instillingthe feeling of ldquopatriotic solidarityrdquo in their hearts103

Since usucircl-i cedid was only recently and gradually making its way into CentralAsia most of the cedid teachers in this region were Tatars from European RussiaAside from other restrictions it was apparent that the condition of ldquosame nationalityrdquowas intended to limit Tatar influence Non-interference was not working anymorebecause the Muslim schools had gone through an internal reform and had begun toimprove the social and political consciousness of the Muslims After the BudilovichCommission the followers of Ilrsquominskii would try to limit the influence of theMuslim reformers ldquousing administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo as Ostroumov had suggested to the Governor-General ofTurkistan in 1892104 An additional measure was to take advantage of the conflictbetween the traditionalist opposition that had begun to develop among the Muslimclergy against Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos reforms and support the traditionalists against thereformers105 These may seem to be a diversion from the non-interference policyIlrsquominskii had adopted in the 1860s but what happened is rather an adaptation of theold system to the new conditions because the purpose of limiting social and politicalconsciousness of the Muslims remained unchanged The Budilovich Commissionrsquossuggestions were approved as regulation in 1906 Because of the opposition from theMuslims the Ministry of Education had to drop the provisions regarding the use ofCyrillic script in school materials ldquoRussian classes in the Muslim confessionalschools the requirement that mullahs know Russian and ministry inspection ofconfessional schoolsrdquo However the requirement that the mullahs should be of the

276

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

same nationality as students remained106

From Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos references to Ilrsquominskii before the revolution of 1905 it ispossible to see that he refrained from attacking Ilrsquominskii and even tried to use someof Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas to support his own arguments In the liberal atmosphere of theyears following the revolution of 1905 he could speak more openly In 1908 hewrote that it was necessary to be cautious before 1905 because of the opposition ofIlrsquominskii and his followers ldquowho did not accept the Tatar Bashkir Kirgiz and Sartchildren to the same schools and tried to separate themrdquo But the conditions hadchanged by 1908 Now Gasp otilde ral otilde could even criticize the regulations of the Ministryof Education According to him the ministry had made a mistake by defining nativelanguage as the language spoken in the childrsquos house Accepting this position wouldrequire instruction in the languages of each city or region The native language of theRussian children was the Russian language not the languages of Volgograd KurskSaratovsk and Yaroslavl Thus Gasp otilde ral otilde concluded ldquoOur native language is theliterary lsquoTuumlrkrsquo languagerdquo107

Post-1905 and the Wider Society

The openness in Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos statements was not the only thing that changed after therevolution of 1905 The Russian empire in its entirety went through a period ofreform Several journals and newspapers appeared among the Muslims Gasp otilde ral otildeestimated that the total number of subscribers to these periodicals was between60000 and 70000 in 1908108 The Muslims had generally not joined the strikes andinsurgencies that had paralyzed the empire during 1905 but they had well sensedthe approaching administrative changes and through a number of rather peacefulgatherings they had tried to bring about a common representative body for theMuslims of the empire In August 1906 between the first and second DumasMuslim representatives from all over the empire met in a congress in NizhniiNovgorod This was the third Muslim congress since March 1905 and it was the bestorganized one The Muslim representatives agreed on a 33-point resolution onschooling The resolution stated inter alia that the education in Muslim schoolsshould be in the native language with the Arabic script Special importance should begiven to the study of ldquoliterary Turkish languagerdquo in the Muslim secondary schoolsand wherever possible in the elementary schools The study of the Russian languagewas not necessary in the elementary schools but it could enter the curriculum as asubject of study in the secondary schools Education of all Muslims should bestandardized as much as possible Muslim students should have the same rights asRussian students In the Muslim teachersrsquo schools with preparatory Russian classesthe study of the ldquoliterary national languagerdquo should improve so that the Muslimteachers could teach in their own language Elementary education should beobligatory for all Muslim children and the Muslim teachers should meet in acongress to prepare a standard program of education and materials for use in the

277

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Muslim schools109 Muslims of Russia would hold several other meetings in thefollowing years and reaffirm the decisions of this resolution110

The resolution was a victory for Gasp otilde ral otilde but the congress also showed tensionsthat he had not foreseen 25 years before in ldquoRussian Islamrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde had alwaysconcentrated his work on social and cultural issues In the years of the revolution hehad expressed this concentration as follows ldquoSome thoughts are forbidden to us Letus leave these to the generations that will come later Let us form a spiritual unity letus unite the languages [but] let others think of political unityrdquo111 Nevertheless themembers of the new generation who to a large extent were graduates of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosschools did not want to leave political action to future generations The Muslimcongress approved the formation of a Muslim political party despite Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosinitial opposition Later Gasp otilde ral otilde consented to this formation112 but the lack ofpopular support after the initial political excitement of the revolution showed thatMuslims of Russia were not ready to support a political party yet113 Moreover thepolitical ideals of the new generation were not always compatible with the unity ofthe Turkic and Muslim nation that Gasp otilde ral otilde had in mind

In 1911 two articles appeared in the biweekly supplement of an Orenburg-basednewspaper ldquoWe are Tatarsrdquo by lsquoAlimcan Imiddotbrahimov from Kazan114 and ldquoWe areTurksrdquo by an author who wrote under the pseudonym TuumlrkogAElig lu which means ldquoson ofa Turkrdquo115 The titles well summarized the contents of the articles Imiddotbrahimov wroteldquoWe are Tatars our language is the Tatar language our literature is the Tatarliterature all our affairs are Tatar affairs our civilization will be the Tatar civiliza-tionrdquo While saying ldquowerdquo Imiddotbrahimov was referring to the people who are calledldquoKazan Tatarsrdquo today TuumlrkogAElig lu did not l ike Imiddotbrahimovrsquos statements It wasnecessary to put an end to these ldquowhims of Tatarismrdquo according to him After thespread of that ldquoso-called Tatar literaturerdquo now a ldquoso-called Kazakh literaturerdquo hadbegun to appear This was all dividing the common ldquoTuumlrkrdquo people116 The Ministry ofEducation was trying to impose the use of local dialects in inorodets schools This ofcourse was harmful to the Turks of the Russian empire117 Division weakened theTurks of Russia It was necessary to end all those wrong tendencies and begin towork for the creation of a ldquoTuumlrkicircrdquo literature118 Until the very end of the imperialregime a heated discussion continued between the Kazakh Volga Tatar CrimeanTatar Bashkir and other ethno-territorial nationalists and pan-Turkists in the Muslimpress Language was the key issue in these discussions119

The Muslim intellectuals who entered such discussions always expressed a certainrespect for and gratefulness to Gasp otilde ral otilde the ldquoold teacherrdquo or the ldquofatherrdquo regardlessof whether they agreed with him or not120 The very fact that the Muslims werepublicly discussing social and political issues was the proof of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos success inreforming the Muslim society But the old teacher was in an ambivalent situation Hewas happy for the appearance of a flourishing press but he was upset because of themistakes made about language With all due respect to the common people he wrotein 1912 the literary and scientific publications should not be published in the

278

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

language spoken by a Kazakh shepherd The several Turkic tribes could not becomea nation if they insisted on separating their languages121

While Gasp otilde ral otilde found himself in this ambivalent situation followers of Ilrsquominskiialso had a number of things to worry about Following the edict of religioustoleration on 17 April 1905 approximately 49000 inorodtsy left Orthodoxy forIslam in 5 years122 Ilrsquominskiirsquos biographer Petr V Znamenskii wrote in a work aboutthe Kazan Tatars that the mission among the Muslims was completely paralyzed123 In1910 a missionary congress gathered in Kazan124 The atmosphere of the congresswas quite gloomy It did not yield a substantive result other than the publication of ajournal to observe and study the Muslim world Mir Islama Writers of the journalwere quick to notice the ideological currents among the Muslims of the empire In1913 two articles discussed pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia According tothese articles pan-Islamism was losing its influence in the Ottoman Empire andamong the Muslims of Russia On the other hand pan-Turkism and territorialnationalisms were gaining strength125 Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers had definitely failed toprevent the development of social and political consciousness among the Muslims ofRussia Local nationalists were opposing a political Turkic unity but they were by nomeans closer to the Russians On the other hand the mission of consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy with the Ilrsquominskii system was not workingsmoothly either

When Ilrsquominskii had first presented his system to Russian society in the 1860sclaiming that the native language is most effective in instilling Christianity and thatthe path to Russification would be open to the inorodtsy once they were sufficientlyChristianized the opposition had contended that the proper way of national assimila-tion was through language and strengthening the native languages would result inthe alienation of the inorodtsy126 Thanks to the support of Tolstoi and Pobe-donostsev the Ilrsquominskii system had gained official recognition in those days but thepolitical composition of the empire had changed significantly by the early twentiethcentury In 1897 an article appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Educationabout a new language teaching technique the natural method ldquoThe main channel forthe inorodtsy to approach the Russiansrdquo was the Russian language according to theauthor and with the natural method it was possible to teach Russian to the inorodtsywithout using their native languages In this method the teacher was supposed toteach first by miming and with gestures and then by building on the words that thestudents had already learned127 Soon after the natural method developed as analternative to Ilrsquominskiirsquos translative method It also found supporters in the Russianbureaucracy and despite the legal recognition of the Ilrsquominskii system with a numberof regulations local authorities decided which method to use in practice As theimperial bureaucracy became increasingly secularized and ethno-nationalist towardthe end of the imperial regime followers of Ilrsquominskii lost their control in theeducation of the non-Muslim inorodtsy128 but their ideas about the Muslims were notthat incompatible with the ideas of the new ruling elite The Ilrsquominskii group had

279

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

keeping the baptized inorodtsy Christian and spreading Orthodoxy further TheMuslim and baptized Tatars lived close to each other and the Muslim Tatarsinfluenced their baptized kin through traditional every day relations24 This wasenough for Ilrsquominskii to think that ldquothe kingdom of Muhammedrdquo ruled in the easternlands of Russia Something had to be done to put an end to this kingdom25 On theother hand Gasp otilde ral otilde wanted the Muslims to become active members of the modernsociety without losing their Muslim identities This had nothing to do with the localevery day relations between baptized and Muslim Tatar communities ldquoThe Muslimsin Russia were in a deep sleep of ignorancerdquo recalled Gasp otilde ral otilde in 1908 and itfollowed that someone had to awaken them26

Development of Their Respective Programs

Although the perceptions and purposes of Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were completelydifferent from each other there were a number of parallels in their works Educationconstituted the heart of their programs they both opposed formalism in schoolingand they both gave a special importance to language Despite these parallels in formhowever the contradiction of their purposes reflected the content of their programs

Ilrsquominskii

While traveling in the baptized Tatar villages in 1848 Ilrsquominskii had noticed that thevillagers did not understand the Tatar language translations of the Christian texts heshowed to them These translations Ilrsquominskii wrote in 1883 were in the ldquobookishMuhammedan languagerdquo After further contact with the Tatars Kazakhs andTurkmens he noticed that the vernaculars of these people were different from theldquobookishrdquo Tatar that the Russian translators had long been using Thus Ilrsquominskiildquobegan to consider the vernaculars specially important and indispensable ineducation and missionary workrdquo27 Only the vernacular could move a group of peopleto Christianity A foreign language could not do this28 One of the most importantfailures of the conversions in the earlier centuries was that the Russian missionariesdid not care whether the inorodtsy understood what was being told to them or notMissionaries held liturgies in Church Slavonic they did not try to teach the tenets ofOrthodoxy to the inorodtsy and did not educate native priests Veniaminov andMakarius had already begun to change these practices but it was Ilrsquominskii whosystematized and popularized reforms such as translating Orthodox liturgy intovernaculars ordaining native priests and using vernaculars as the main medium ofeducation29

Ilrsquominskiirsquos educational enterprise began with an unforeseen development Afterhe returned to Kazan from Turkistan in 1861 he wanted to find a native Tatarspeaker to help him with translations In 1863 he met Vasilii Timofeev a baptizedTatar peasant whom he brought to Kazan Soon after three boys from his village

268

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

followed Timofeev to his living quarters in Kazan Under the guidance of IlrsquominskiiTimofeev began to educate these boys in the Tatar language In 1866 Ilrsquominskiifound a strong supporter for this enterprise in the person of Dimitrii A Tolstoi theprocurator of the Holy Synod30 In 1867 first an anonymous article and then anarticle by Ilrsquominskii related Timofeevrsquos experience in the Journal of the Ministry ofEducation31 A loyal group of people mostly the graduates of Kazan EcclesiasticalAcademy gathered around Ilrsquominskii and founded the Brotherhood of St Gurii topromote his ideas As early as 1869 the Russian public had begun to discuss theldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo in the education of the inorodtsy32 In this system the childrenwould firs t learn reading writing and the basics of Orthodoxy in their ownlanguages Only after they had sufficiently learned and internalized Orthodoxy wouldthey begin to learn Russian and Church Slavonic The teachers would be nativespeakers of the language of the students whenever possible and the entire schoolingwould take place in a cozy atmosphere in the Christian spirit33 Through his relationswith strong personalities like Tolstoi and Konstantin D Pobedonostsev Ilrsquominskiicould even influence the general government policies about education Beginning in1870 Ilrsquominskii andor his followers would provide significant input into imperialregulations about the education of the inorodtsy34

Providing a detailed account of Ilrsquominskiirsquos education system is beyond thepurpose of this article Instead I will focus on the relevance of his educational andlinguistic ideas to the Muslims of the Russian empire Ilrsquominskii did not see theMuslims of Russia as a united whole He made a clear distinction between what heconsidered the nominal Muslims and the fully-confirmed ones He believed that itwas useless to try to Christianize fully-confirmed Muslims like the Tatars and theinhabitants of sedentary Central Asia but it was worth trying to influence less-confirmed Muslims like the Kazakhs35 According to Ilrsquominskii the degree ofcloseness to the Tatars was a good indication of a Kazakh tribersquos degree ofIslamicization36

During Ilrsquominskiirsquos stay in Turkistan the famous Orientalist Vasilii V Grigorrsquoevhad convinced Ilrsquominskii that stemming the Tatar influence over the Kazakhs couldopen the way for their Christianization In 1859 Ilrsquominskii met an enthusiasticKazakh youth Imiddotbray Alt otilde nsarin From then on Alt otilde nsarin remained a friend andproteacutegeacutee of Ilrsquominskii In 1879 Alt otilde nsarin became the inspector of Kazakh schools inthe Turgai oblast and remained so until his death in 188937 In 1900 an official reportmentioned the schools Alt otilde nsarin had founded under the guidance of Ilrsquominskii as themodel to be followed for other Kazakhs because these schools had spread Russianeducation and proved to be successful against the Tatar mullahs Language ofinstruction in this model was the Kazakh vernacular The curriculum includedIslamic religious education but instead of a ldquosuspicious and staunch mullah hellip aKirgiz teacher more or less enlightened in the Russian wayrdquo taught the classes andthis prevented the Kazakh students from developing ldquofanatic and harmful feelingsrdquoThe Russian language study in these schools was the most important way to bring the

269

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

children closer to the Russians38 The method of teaching Russian was the ldquotrans-lative methodrdquo that Ilrsquominskii had introduced in all his schools39 Ilrsquominskii wasespecially careful to keep the developing Kazakh literary language away from theinfluence of Tatar40 Developing a Kazakh literary language independent from Tatarhe thought would decrease the influence of Islam and consequently increase theinfluence of Russian culture among the Kazakhs In 1870 he wrote ldquoIf the schoolsof the mullahs will continue to exist [among the Kazakhs] let them teach in the Tatarlanguage and torture the children with the Arabic phonetics This will in any case beless influential than spreading Muhammedanism in the strong native languageOtherwise Russian education should spread in the Kirgiz languagerdquo41

Unification of the Muslims of the Russian empire was one of the things Ilrsquominskiifeared the most42 Beginning with the reign of Catherine II the Russian governmenthad been addressing all the Muslims of the empire in the Tatar language43 Ilrsquominskiithought of this as a unifying factor Developing literary languages from the localvernaculars of different Turkic and Muslim communities could prevent it44 Thealphabet used had a special role in this respect The Muslims including the Kazakhsexclusively used the Arabic script From his experience among the baptized TatarsIlrsquominskii had noticed that use of the Russian script ldquosharply separated the baptizedTatars from their Muslim kinrdquo45 Although he published a Kazakh language bookwith the Arabic script in 1861 he later thought that this was a mistake46 and correctedthe mistake by designing a Cyrillic-based Kazakh alphabet in the same year 47

Although Alt otilde nsarin wanted to keep the Arabic script and even published some worksusing the Arabic script48 Ilrsquominskii insisted on employing the Cyrillic script in theKazakh schools According to the aforementioned official report in 1900 use of theCyrillic alphabet had limited the spread of ldquoundesirable and harmful publications inthe Muslim languagerdquo among the Kazakhs49

According to Ilrsquominskii the purpose of the Cyrillic alphabet had to be bringing theinorodtsy closer to the Russians and not bringing them closer to each otherTherefore he suggested designing separate Cyrillic alphabets for each inorodetspeople50 Although there were other attempts to introduce the Cyrillic script into thelanguages of Muslim peoples other than the Kazakhs this did not take place until theSoviet period51 In addition to these government projects about changing thealphabets Nikolai Ostroumov one of Ilrsquominskiirsquos most loyal followers and one ofthe key personalities in the education of the Muslims in Central Asia continued toapply Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas of separating the inorodtsy by creating separate literarylanguages out of their vernaculars Ostroumov tried to bring out a literary languagewhich he called ldquoSartrdquo from the language of the sedentary Muslims in Central Asia52

Ilrsquominskii did not develop a clear program for the education of Muslim peoplesother than the Kazakhs but still it is possible to detect some basic ideas explaininghis thoughts about the education of other Muslims Ilrsquominskii approved the GovernorGeneral of Turkistan Konstantin von Kaufmanrsquos policy of non-interference in theMuslim schools in Turkistan53 The logic was simple If the state interfered in the

270

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

Muslim schools ldquolsquoit would have to concern itself with their blossomingrsquo hellip and thecombination of Muslim ideology and European culture would not only fail to achieverussification but could even become lsquoa weapon against the Russian people and theRussian statersquordquo54 In 1882 Vasilii D Smirnov whom Ilrsquominskii would recommend toPobedonostsev as a personal observer of the Muslim press in 1890 opposed theintroduction of a reformed medrese system in the Caucasus for similar reasons55 Ifnatural sciences were taught in the medreses they would be Islamized and thiswould only consolidate the Muslim worldview The real question was how to attractthe Muslims to the Russian schools and not what kind of a school the Muslimsshould have From Smirnovrsquos relationship with Ilrsquominskii we can deduce that theyhad parallel ideas56 Ilrsquominskii found the traditional Muslim schools strong regardingtheir acceptance by the Muslims57 but weak regarding their ability to improve thesocial consciousness of the Muslims58 Therefore the Russian authorities shouldleave the Muslim educational institutions in their present situation provided that aRussian alternative also existed This alternative should not have a Christianmissionary character lest this would agitate the Muslims but it should be in the spiritof Russian civilization59 If the Muslims attempted to improve the Muslim educationsystem independent of the Russians it was necessary to limit their freedom ofmovement as much as possible60

Gaspotilderalotilde

According to Gasp otilde ral otilde the traditional Muslim schools that taught ldquono book otherthan the Qurrsquoan and no science other than theologyrdquo were unable to reform theMuslim society in a positive way On the other hand the number of Muslim schoolswas high enough to reach the Muslims of the empire through education and theMuslim society had a strong confidence in these schools61 Therefore Gasp otilde ral otildeagreed with Ilrsquominskii about the strength and limitations of the traditional Muslimschools but his intentions about the Muslim education system in Russia were quitedifferent from those of Ilrsquominskii

In 1881 Gasp otilde ral otilde published a series of articles in a Russian newspaper under thetitle ldquoRussian Islamrdquo In these articles he laid out the basics of his future programFirst of all Gasp otilde ral otilde saw the Muslims of Russia as a united group that professed thesame faith spoke dialects of the same language and had the same social charac-teristics and traditions62 ldquoTurk-Tatar peoplesrdquo ldquoMuslimsrdquo ldquoTatarsrdquo and rarelyldquoTurksrdquo were all terms that he used to denote this united group of people63 ldquoTatarTuumlrkicircrdquo was the language of this ldquonationrdquo and only some Caucasian mountain tribesused other languages64

As I explained earlier Gasp otilde ral otilde did not see many positives when he looked at hisldquoMuslim nationrdquo The imperial policies that demanded that Muslims pay their taxesand left them on their own in their internal social life according to Gasp otilde ral otilde resultedin ldquothe social and mental isolation of the Muslimsrdquo The Muslims could not think

271

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

beyond their petty local interests The situation of their mental development judgingfrom their schools and writings was not successful either It was possible to seeEuropean influence among the Muslims of other countries but among the Muslimsof Russia only the Lithuanian Tatars had acquired European culture65 Time hadproved that Russification as it was applied until then was not a viable policy It wasnot possible to find any completely Russified non-Russians in Russia on thecontrary in some places the Russians had adopted manners of the non-Russians66

What was the solution then Gasp otilde ral otilde answered ldquounification and moral rapproche-ment [of the Russians and Muslims] on the basis of equality freedom science andeducationrdquo ldquoIn a wordrdquo he wrote ldquomoral Russification of the Muslims can beachieved by raising their intellectual level and this can be possible only by givingthe Tatar language the right to be the language of school and literature Muslims ofRussia have neither science nor literature or press and I think that it is necessary tofacilitate their development Russian-Tatar schools that are opened in order to teachRussian to the Tatar students cannot achieve this task at allrdquo67 Thus Gasp otilde ral otildedemanded the introduction of elementary sciences to the traditional Muslim schoolsin the Tatar language and the support of publications again in the Tatar language Infact spread of knowledge among the Muslims was so necessary that all kinds ofpublications in the Muslim dialects should also be supported Neither the Russiangovernment nor the Russian language would suffer from this in any way68 ldquoWhen welearn our fatherland Russia and its system from books in Tatarrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde wroteldquothen you can feel sure that we will have the will and opportunity to fill your gym-nasiums and universities in order to work together with you in the fields of life andsciencerdquo Otherwise the Muslims would never understand the Russians and keepescaping from them69

In 1883 Gasp otilde ral otilde finally received permission to publish a newspaper Tercuumlmanor Perevodchik in its Russian version both meaning ldquotranslatorrdquo The permissionstipulated that the newspaper should be a bilingual publication in Russian and TatarAlthough there had been previous attempts by the Muslims of Russia to publishperiodicals none of these attempts had yielded a lasting and substantial result70

Tercuumlmanrsquos first issue came out on the 100th anniversary of the annexation of theCrimea From the very beginning Gasp otilde ral otilde adopted a cautious tone which enabledhim to publish his newspaper without interruption for 31 years until his deathTercuumlman is the best example of the language that Gasp otilde ral otilde considered the commonliterary language of the Muslims of Russia It was a simplified form of literaryOttoman Turkish with occasional Crimean Tatar expressions In addition when headdressed a certain group of Muslims Gasp otilde ral otilde would also use some expressionsfrom their tongue Tercuumlman was published in the Arabic script The lack ofcharacters for most of the vowels was a drawback of the Arabic script as Ilrsquominskiihad also noted71 but Gasp otilde ral otilde used this situation to cover some of the differences inthe pronunciations of different Muslim groups in Russia72 Gasp otilde ral otilde was a prolificwriter Aside from Tercuumlman and many manuscripts he published a few other

272

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

periodicals but the impact of Tercuumlman not only among the Muslims of Russia butalso in the entire Turkic world cannot be exaggerated73 The famous historian andBashkir political leader Zeki V Togan relates that the most prestigious personalitiesamong the Muslims of Russia had all followed Tercuumlman74

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos second reform was the improvement of traditional Muslim schoolsAccording to Ostroumov the traditional mekteb was a place where the ldquochild-likecharacteristicsrdquo of children were blunted75 In these schools the children memorizedthe alphabet but ldquoacquisition of functional literacy was not the goalrdquo of schooling76

The students learned the names of the letters but not the sounds they represented Asa result it was possible that they would remain functionally illiterate after years ofstudy77 The Russian Orientalist Nil S Lykoshin called this ldquoNot Education butTorturerdquo (Muchenie a ne uchenie) He described the buildings where this educationtook place as unsuitable dark cold and stifling places78 On the other hand themedreses were not efficient either The education in a medrese could continue formore than 20 years and the student would graduate without even learning Arabicwhich constituted the heart of medrese education79 Nevertheless more than 16000mektebs and 214 medreses in the late nineteenth century represented a strongcommitment to education and a solid basis for a dynamic society after a well-plannedreform80

Gasp otilde ral otilde called the system he introduced to the mektebs ldquousucircl-i cedidrdquo that isldquonew methodrdquo81 The most important aspect of usucircl-i cedid was a shift to the phoneticmethod In this way Gasp otilde ral otilde succeeded in shortening the time a student beganto read and write to approximately 40 days Then he regularized the duration ofeducation and the curriculum and improved the class atmosphere82 Finally he intro-duced subjects that had not been in the mekteb curriculum before his reforms Asidefrom Qurrsquoanic recitation and the basic principles of Islam he began to teach basicarithmetic geography and history83 Gasp otilde ral otilde opened the first cedid school in 1884in Bahccedilesaray This was not the first attempt to reform the Muslim schools in Russiabut it was the one that yielded the most significant results84 In 1908 there wereapproximately 6000 reformed schools in Russia according to Gasp otilde ral otilde Althoughfully enlightening the students in the short period they attended these schools was notpossible it was still possible to instill a love for further learning in their hearts Thesechildren continued their studies with this love and many of the graduates of cedidschools had successful careers85

The Clash Prior to 1905

Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were perceptive enough to notice the challenge of eachotherrsquos efforts Ilrsquominskii was in a better situation to express his ideas In his publicworks he frequently wrote about the danger of ldquoTatarizationrdquo with which he meantthe influence of Muslim Tatars over other inorodtsy while in his personal corres-pondence he more openly and directly accused Gasp otilde ral otilde and urged the authorities to

273

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

take precautions against him86 The best-known and most frequently cited example ofthis correspondence is Ilrsquominskiirsquos letters to Pobedonostsev which were published in1895 4 years after Ilrsquominskiirsquos death87

Ilrsquominskiirsquos first warning to Pobedonostsev about Gasp otilde ral otilde was in December1883 8 months after the first appearance of Tercuumlman He wrote that Gasp otilde ral otildewanted to unite the millions of Muslims under Russian sovereignty ldquofrom the Crimeato the Caucasus and Central Asiardquo with science and civilization and that hislanguage was borrowed from the newspapers of Imiddotstanbul88 After receiving moreinformation from his student in Turkistan Ostroumov Ilrsquominskii continued to warnPobedonostsev in February 1884

Gasprinskii the publisher of Tercuumlman (perevodchik) in Bahccedilesaray has this aim firstto spread among the Muslims of the Russian empire European enlightenment on aMuhammedan basis coloring European education with Muhammedan ideas second tounite and rally the millions of wide-spread Muhammedan peoples of Russia withdifferent tongues (examplemdashGerman unification) third to sow a Turkish germ amongall the Muslims of Russia the Ottoman language89

In 1889 Ilrsquominskii read an open letter to Tercuumlman in a local Kazakh newspaperpublished in Akmolinsk He was upset He wrote to Pobedonostsev ldquoIn the opinionof competent people the Tatar newspaper lsquoPerevodchikrsquo revealed its artfulnessdirection and tendency during the eight years [sic] it was publishedrdquo90 As the formerSteppe Governor-General G A Kolpakovskii had also suggested it was necessary toofficially restrict this newspaper and unofficially promote alternative publications byldquounskillful and uneducated translatorsrdquo91

Ilrsquominskii died in 1891 In his farewell address Pobedonostsev wrote ldquoHe[Ilrsquominskii] vigilantly followed the Muslim propaganda that strengthened in therecent times in our near and far East and the service of his timely warnings cannot beexaggeratedrdquo92 The influence of Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers gradually decreased with therise of a relatively secular and ethno-nationalist educated society in Russia but theystil l enjoyed considerable power until the end of the imperial regime TheBrotherhood of St Gurii continued its activities under the leadership of Ilrsquominskiirsquosadopted son Nikolai A Bobrovnikov93 Besides a number of Ilrsquominskii sympathizersoccupied key decision-making positions on the education of Muslims in RussiaAccording to my research there was no personal communication between Gasp otilde ral otildeand Ilrsquominskii but Gasp otilde ral otilde got into contact with the followers of Ilrsquominskii and it ispossible to make some comments on Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas about Ilrsquominskii and hissystem based on these contacts

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos first reference to the Ilrsquominskii system was in his ldquoRussian IslamrdquoWhile demanding the recognition of Tatar as the language of education in Muslimschools he stated that the Ministry of Education had also recognized the importanceof native language in education94 This was a rather vague reference to the regulationsof 1870 which were promulgated following a debate over the Ilrsquominskii system andhad sanctioned the use of native languages in the government schools for the

274

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

inorodtsy In relation to the Muslim schools the emphasis of the 1870 regulationswas on the introduction of Russian language classes in the mektebs but still thegeneral insistence of the Ilrsquominskii system on native languages provided somesupport to Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas95

By the 1890s Gasp otilde ral otilde had secured considerable support for his school systemamong the Muslims of European Russia Now he wanted to expand usucircl-i cedid tothe rest of the empire In 1892 he sent a memorandum to the Governor-General ofTurkistan and suggested the introduction of usucircl-i cedid in Turkistan because the2-year programs of this system were short enough to leave sufficient time for thestudy of Russian language as opposed to the 6-year programs of traditional mektebs96

The Governor-General passed the plan on to Ostroumov and the Orientalist VladimirP Nalivkin Both Ostroumov and Nalivkin agreed with Gasp otilde ral otilde on the content ofhis suggestions but still they responded negatively to the Governor-Generalrsquosinquiry ldquoIn the matter of the education of inorodtsy in Russiardquo Ostroumov wroteldquowe need the direction of a Russian member of the Ministry of Education not that ofa Tatar inorodetsrdquo The solution was to provide education ldquolsquoin the spirit of Russianstate interestsrsquo using administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo97 Nalivkinrsquos argument was similar to that of Ostroumov thoughless enthusiastic98 The Governor-General ignored the memorandum did not answerGasp otilde ral otilde and filed the report Gasp otilde ral otilde traveled to Central Asia in 1893 and openeda cedid school During this trip he also met with Ostroumov to ask for his supportGasp otilde ral otilde probably did not know how Ostroumov had responded to the Governor-Generalrsquos inquiry The school Gasp otilde ral otilde opened closed soon after99

In 1905 Gasp otilde ral otilde once again tried to find support from the Russian authoritiesShortly before the revolution of 1905 the Minister of Education V G Glazovconvened a commission to discuss the question of schools for non-Russians100

Gasp otilde ral otilde presented a petition to the commission He wrote that though 30000schools were necessary for the education of 15 million Muslims in Russia thegovernment had only opened less than 300 during the previous 70 years It wasapparent that the government lacked the funds to open so many schools however itwould be possible if the Muslims themselves supported the schools On the otherhand the present government schools were unable to gain the support of theMuslims because the classes were held in Russian and the students could notunderstand anything The average student graduated ldquowithout any intellectualdevelopmentrdquo ldquoFor the intellectual enlightenment of the Muslims of Russiardquo it wasnecessary to follow Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and use the native language of the childrenOnly then would the Muslims support government schools101

Members of the 1905 commission also known as the ldquoBudilovich Commissionrdquowere all supporters of Ilrsquominskii including Ostroumov and Bobrovnikov102 Contraryto what Ilrsquominskii had suggested the commission decided that the Ilrsquominskii systemas it was applied to the baptized inorodtsy should be used for all non-Russians withsome room for certain amendments to comply with local necessities The first year

275

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

should be fully in the vernacular Russian should enter the curriculum as a subject ofstudy in the second year and only in the third year could the language of instructionbecome Russian With regard to the Muslims the commission stated that theIlrsquominskii system had full respect for the studentsrsquo beliefs Therefore it allowedreligious education in the Muslim schools but taking into consideration that thiswould not bring the Muslims close to the Russian people basic subjects such asnatural and social sciences should also be in the curriculum It was necessary toprepare books for the Muslims in their local languages with Cyrillic scripts so thatthe common alphabet would serve as a path to Russian books the Russian languageand the Russian outlook on the world

With regard to the mektebs and medreses the commission first recommended theauthorities not to intervene in the internal affairs of the Muslims but then it listed anumber of requirements for the Muslim schools The mullahs should know Russianand be of the same nationality as the students The language of instruction shouldbe the native language spoken in the childrsquos house and not ldquoartificial Tatarrdquo Theeducation should not encourage opposition against the state The schools should openwith the permission of the Ministry of Education The mullahs should submitstatistical data about the students each year The curriculum of mektebs shouldinclude Russian and basic subjects like mathematics The purpose of teachingRussian should be bringing the Muslims closer to Russian education and instillingthe feeling of ldquopatriotic solidarityrdquo in their hearts103

Since usucircl-i cedid was only recently and gradually making its way into CentralAsia most of the cedid teachers in this region were Tatars from European RussiaAside from other restrictions it was apparent that the condition of ldquosame nationalityrdquowas intended to limit Tatar influence Non-interference was not working anymorebecause the Muslim schools had gone through an internal reform and had begun toimprove the social and political consciousness of the Muslims After the BudilovichCommission the followers of Ilrsquominskii would try to limit the influence of theMuslim reformers ldquousing administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo as Ostroumov had suggested to the Governor-General ofTurkistan in 1892104 An additional measure was to take advantage of the conflictbetween the traditionalist opposition that had begun to develop among the Muslimclergy against Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos reforms and support the traditionalists against thereformers105 These may seem to be a diversion from the non-interference policyIlrsquominskii had adopted in the 1860s but what happened is rather an adaptation of theold system to the new conditions because the purpose of limiting social and politicalconsciousness of the Muslims remained unchanged The Budilovich Commissionrsquossuggestions were approved as regulation in 1906 Because of the opposition from theMuslims the Ministry of Education had to drop the provisions regarding the use ofCyrillic script in school materials ldquoRussian classes in the Muslim confessionalschools the requirement that mullahs know Russian and ministry inspection ofconfessional schoolsrdquo However the requirement that the mullahs should be of the

276

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

same nationality as students remained106

From Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos references to Ilrsquominskii before the revolution of 1905 it ispossible to see that he refrained from attacking Ilrsquominskii and even tried to use someof Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas to support his own arguments In the liberal atmosphere of theyears following the revolution of 1905 he could speak more openly In 1908 hewrote that it was necessary to be cautious before 1905 because of the opposition ofIlrsquominskii and his followers ldquowho did not accept the Tatar Bashkir Kirgiz and Sartchildren to the same schools and tried to separate themrdquo But the conditions hadchanged by 1908 Now Gasp otilde ral otilde could even criticize the regulations of the Ministryof Education According to him the ministry had made a mistake by defining nativelanguage as the language spoken in the childrsquos house Accepting this position wouldrequire instruction in the languages of each city or region The native language of theRussian children was the Russian language not the languages of Volgograd KurskSaratovsk and Yaroslavl Thus Gasp otilde ral otilde concluded ldquoOur native language is theliterary lsquoTuumlrkrsquo languagerdquo107

Post-1905 and the Wider Society

The openness in Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos statements was not the only thing that changed after therevolution of 1905 The Russian empire in its entirety went through a period ofreform Several journals and newspapers appeared among the Muslims Gasp otilde ral otildeestimated that the total number of subscribers to these periodicals was between60000 and 70000 in 1908108 The Muslims had generally not joined the strikes andinsurgencies that had paralyzed the empire during 1905 but they had well sensedthe approaching administrative changes and through a number of rather peacefulgatherings they had tried to bring about a common representative body for theMuslims of the empire In August 1906 between the first and second DumasMuslim representatives from all over the empire met in a congress in NizhniiNovgorod This was the third Muslim congress since March 1905 and it was the bestorganized one The Muslim representatives agreed on a 33-point resolution onschooling The resolution stated inter alia that the education in Muslim schoolsshould be in the native language with the Arabic script Special importance should begiven to the study of ldquoliterary Turkish languagerdquo in the Muslim secondary schoolsand wherever possible in the elementary schools The study of the Russian languagewas not necessary in the elementary schools but it could enter the curriculum as asubject of study in the secondary schools Education of all Muslims should bestandardized as much as possible Muslim students should have the same rights asRussian students In the Muslim teachersrsquo schools with preparatory Russian classesthe study of the ldquoliterary national languagerdquo should improve so that the Muslimteachers could teach in their own language Elementary education should beobligatory for all Muslim children and the Muslim teachers should meet in acongress to prepare a standard program of education and materials for use in the

277

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Muslim schools109 Muslims of Russia would hold several other meetings in thefollowing years and reaffirm the decisions of this resolution110

The resolution was a victory for Gasp otilde ral otilde but the congress also showed tensionsthat he had not foreseen 25 years before in ldquoRussian Islamrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde had alwaysconcentrated his work on social and cultural issues In the years of the revolution hehad expressed this concentration as follows ldquoSome thoughts are forbidden to us Letus leave these to the generations that will come later Let us form a spiritual unity letus unite the languages [but] let others think of political unityrdquo111 Nevertheless themembers of the new generation who to a large extent were graduates of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosschools did not want to leave political action to future generations The Muslimcongress approved the formation of a Muslim political party despite Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosinitial opposition Later Gasp otilde ral otilde consented to this formation112 but the lack ofpopular support after the initial political excitement of the revolution showed thatMuslims of Russia were not ready to support a political party yet113 Moreover thepolitical ideals of the new generation were not always compatible with the unity ofthe Turkic and Muslim nation that Gasp otilde ral otilde had in mind

In 1911 two articles appeared in the biweekly supplement of an Orenburg-basednewspaper ldquoWe are Tatarsrdquo by lsquoAlimcan Imiddotbrahimov from Kazan114 and ldquoWe areTurksrdquo by an author who wrote under the pseudonym TuumlrkogAElig lu which means ldquoson ofa Turkrdquo115 The titles well summarized the contents of the articles Imiddotbrahimov wroteldquoWe are Tatars our language is the Tatar language our literature is the Tatarliterature all our affairs are Tatar affairs our civilization will be the Tatar civiliza-tionrdquo While saying ldquowerdquo Imiddotbrahimov was referring to the people who are calledldquoKazan Tatarsrdquo today TuumlrkogAElig lu did not l ike Imiddotbrahimovrsquos statements It wasnecessary to put an end to these ldquowhims of Tatarismrdquo according to him After thespread of that ldquoso-called Tatar literaturerdquo now a ldquoso-called Kazakh literaturerdquo hadbegun to appear This was all dividing the common ldquoTuumlrkrdquo people116 The Ministry ofEducation was trying to impose the use of local dialects in inorodets schools This ofcourse was harmful to the Turks of the Russian empire117 Division weakened theTurks of Russia It was necessary to end all those wrong tendencies and begin towork for the creation of a ldquoTuumlrkicircrdquo literature118 Until the very end of the imperialregime a heated discussion continued between the Kazakh Volga Tatar CrimeanTatar Bashkir and other ethno-territorial nationalists and pan-Turkists in the Muslimpress Language was the key issue in these discussions119

The Muslim intellectuals who entered such discussions always expressed a certainrespect for and gratefulness to Gasp otilde ral otilde the ldquoold teacherrdquo or the ldquofatherrdquo regardlessof whether they agreed with him or not120 The very fact that the Muslims werepublicly discussing social and political issues was the proof of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos success inreforming the Muslim society But the old teacher was in an ambivalent situation Hewas happy for the appearance of a flourishing press but he was upset because of themistakes made about language With all due respect to the common people he wrotein 1912 the literary and scientific publications should not be published in the

278

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

language spoken by a Kazakh shepherd The several Turkic tribes could not becomea nation if they insisted on separating their languages121

While Gasp otilde ral otilde found himself in this ambivalent situation followers of Ilrsquominskiialso had a number of things to worry about Following the edict of religioustoleration on 17 April 1905 approximately 49000 inorodtsy left Orthodoxy forIslam in 5 years122 Ilrsquominskiirsquos biographer Petr V Znamenskii wrote in a work aboutthe Kazan Tatars that the mission among the Muslims was completely paralyzed123 In1910 a missionary congress gathered in Kazan124 The atmosphere of the congresswas quite gloomy It did not yield a substantive result other than the publication of ajournal to observe and study the Muslim world Mir Islama Writers of the journalwere quick to notice the ideological currents among the Muslims of the empire In1913 two articles discussed pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia According tothese articles pan-Islamism was losing its influence in the Ottoman Empire andamong the Muslims of Russia On the other hand pan-Turkism and territorialnationalisms were gaining strength125 Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers had definitely failed toprevent the development of social and political consciousness among the Muslims ofRussia Local nationalists were opposing a political Turkic unity but they were by nomeans closer to the Russians On the other hand the mission of consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy with the Ilrsquominskii system was not workingsmoothly either

When Ilrsquominskii had first presented his system to Russian society in the 1860sclaiming that the native language is most effective in instilling Christianity and thatthe path to Russification would be open to the inorodtsy once they were sufficientlyChristianized the opposition had contended that the proper way of national assimila-tion was through language and strengthening the native languages would result inthe alienation of the inorodtsy126 Thanks to the support of Tolstoi and Pobe-donostsev the Ilrsquominskii system had gained official recognition in those days but thepolitical composition of the empire had changed significantly by the early twentiethcentury In 1897 an article appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Educationabout a new language teaching technique the natural method ldquoThe main channel forthe inorodtsy to approach the Russiansrdquo was the Russian language according to theauthor and with the natural method it was possible to teach Russian to the inorodtsywithout using their native languages In this method the teacher was supposed toteach first by miming and with gestures and then by building on the words that thestudents had already learned127 Soon after the natural method developed as analternative to Ilrsquominskiirsquos translative method It also found supporters in the Russianbureaucracy and despite the legal recognition of the Ilrsquominskii system with a numberof regulations local authorities decided which method to use in practice As theimperial bureaucracy became increasingly secularized and ethno-nationalist towardthe end of the imperial regime followers of Ilrsquominskii lost their control in theeducation of the non-Muslim inorodtsy128 but their ideas about the Muslims were notthat incompatible with the ideas of the new ruling elite The Ilrsquominskii group had

279

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

followed Timofeev to his living quarters in Kazan Under the guidance of IlrsquominskiiTimofeev began to educate these boys in the Tatar language In 1866 Ilrsquominskiifound a strong supporter for this enterprise in the person of Dimitrii A Tolstoi theprocurator of the Holy Synod30 In 1867 first an anonymous article and then anarticle by Ilrsquominskii related Timofeevrsquos experience in the Journal of the Ministry ofEducation31 A loyal group of people mostly the graduates of Kazan EcclesiasticalAcademy gathered around Ilrsquominskii and founded the Brotherhood of St Gurii topromote his ideas As early as 1869 the Russian public had begun to discuss theldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo in the education of the inorodtsy32 In this system the childrenwould firs t learn reading writing and the basics of Orthodoxy in their ownlanguages Only after they had sufficiently learned and internalized Orthodoxy wouldthey begin to learn Russian and Church Slavonic The teachers would be nativespeakers of the language of the students whenever possible and the entire schoolingwould take place in a cozy atmosphere in the Christian spirit33 Through his relationswith strong personalities like Tolstoi and Konstantin D Pobedonostsev Ilrsquominskiicould even influence the general government policies about education Beginning in1870 Ilrsquominskii andor his followers would provide significant input into imperialregulations about the education of the inorodtsy34

Providing a detailed account of Ilrsquominskiirsquos education system is beyond thepurpose of this article Instead I will focus on the relevance of his educational andlinguistic ideas to the Muslims of the Russian empire Ilrsquominskii did not see theMuslims of Russia as a united whole He made a clear distinction between what heconsidered the nominal Muslims and the fully-confirmed ones He believed that itwas useless to try to Christianize fully-confirmed Muslims like the Tatars and theinhabitants of sedentary Central Asia but it was worth trying to influence less-confirmed Muslims like the Kazakhs35 According to Ilrsquominskii the degree ofcloseness to the Tatars was a good indication of a Kazakh tribersquos degree ofIslamicization36

During Ilrsquominskiirsquos stay in Turkistan the famous Orientalist Vasilii V Grigorrsquoevhad convinced Ilrsquominskii that stemming the Tatar influence over the Kazakhs couldopen the way for their Christianization In 1859 Ilrsquominskii met an enthusiasticKazakh youth Imiddotbray Alt otilde nsarin From then on Alt otilde nsarin remained a friend andproteacutegeacutee of Ilrsquominskii In 1879 Alt otilde nsarin became the inspector of Kazakh schools inthe Turgai oblast and remained so until his death in 188937 In 1900 an official reportmentioned the schools Alt otilde nsarin had founded under the guidance of Ilrsquominskii as themodel to be followed for other Kazakhs because these schools had spread Russianeducation and proved to be successful against the Tatar mullahs Language ofinstruction in this model was the Kazakh vernacular The curriculum includedIslamic religious education but instead of a ldquosuspicious and staunch mullah hellip aKirgiz teacher more or less enlightened in the Russian wayrdquo taught the classes andthis prevented the Kazakh students from developing ldquofanatic and harmful feelingsrdquoThe Russian language study in these schools was the most important way to bring the

269

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

children closer to the Russians38 The method of teaching Russian was the ldquotrans-lative methodrdquo that Ilrsquominskii had introduced in all his schools39 Ilrsquominskii wasespecially careful to keep the developing Kazakh literary language away from theinfluence of Tatar40 Developing a Kazakh literary language independent from Tatarhe thought would decrease the influence of Islam and consequently increase theinfluence of Russian culture among the Kazakhs In 1870 he wrote ldquoIf the schoolsof the mullahs will continue to exist [among the Kazakhs] let them teach in the Tatarlanguage and torture the children with the Arabic phonetics This will in any case beless influential than spreading Muhammedanism in the strong native languageOtherwise Russian education should spread in the Kirgiz languagerdquo41

Unification of the Muslims of the Russian empire was one of the things Ilrsquominskiifeared the most42 Beginning with the reign of Catherine II the Russian governmenthad been addressing all the Muslims of the empire in the Tatar language43 Ilrsquominskiithought of this as a unifying factor Developing literary languages from the localvernaculars of different Turkic and Muslim communities could prevent it44 Thealphabet used had a special role in this respect The Muslims including the Kazakhsexclusively used the Arabic script From his experience among the baptized TatarsIlrsquominskii had noticed that use of the Russian script ldquosharply separated the baptizedTatars from their Muslim kinrdquo45 Although he published a Kazakh language bookwith the Arabic script in 1861 he later thought that this was a mistake46 and correctedthe mistake by designing a Cyrillic-based Kazakh alphabet in the same year 47

Although Alt otilde nsarin wanted to keep the Arabic script and even published some worksusing the Arabic script48 Ilrsquominskii insisted on employing the Cyrillic script in theKazakh schools According to the aforementioned official report in 1900 use of theCyrillic alphabet had limited the spread of ldquoundesirable and harmful publications inthe Muslim languagerdquo among the Kazakhs49

According to Ilrsquominskii the purpose of the Cyrillic alphabet had to be bringing theinorodtsy closer to the Russians and not bringing them closer to each otherTherefore he suggested designing separate Cyrillic alphabets for each inorodetspeople50 Although there were other attempts to introduce the Cyrillic script into thelanguages of Muslim peoples other than the Kazakhs this did not take place until theSoviet period51 In addition to these government projects about changing thealphabets Nikolai Ostroumov one of Ilrsquominskiirsquos most loyal followers and one ofthe key personalities in the education of the Muslims in Central Asia continued toapply Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas of separating the inorodtsy by creating separate literarylanguages out of their vernaculars Ostroumov tried to bring out a literary languagewhich he called ldquoSartrdquo from the language of the sedentary Muslims in Central Asia52

Ilrsquominskii did not develop a clear program for the education of Muslim peoplesother than the Kazakhs but still it is possible to detect some basic ideas explaininghis thoughts about the education of other Muslims Ilrsquominskii approved the GovernorGeneral of Turkistan Konstantin von Kaufmanrsquos policy of non-interference in theMuslim schools in Turkistan53 The logic was simple If the state interfered in the

270

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

Muslim schools ldquolsquoit would have to concern itself with their blossomingrsquo hellip and thecombination of Muslim ideology and European culture would not only fail to achieverussification but could even become lsquoa weapon against the Russian people and theRussian statersquordquo54 In 1882 Vasilii D Smirnov whom Ilrsquominskii would recommend toPobedonostsev as a personal observer of the Muslim press in 1890 opposed theintroduction of a reformed medrese system in the Caucasus for similar reasons55 Ifnatural sciences were taught in the medreses they would be Islamized and thiswould only consolidate the Muslim worldview The real question was how to attractthe Muslims to the Russian schools and not what kind of a school the Muslimsshould have From Smirnovrsquos relationship with Ilrsquominskii we can deduce that theyhad parallel ideas56 Ilrsquominskii found the traditional Muslim schools strong regardingtheir acceptance by the Muslims57 but weak regarding their ability to improve thesocial consciousness of the Muslims58 Therefore the Russian authorities shouldleave the Muslim educational institutions in their present situation provided that aRussian alternative also existed This alternative should not have a Christianmissionary character lest this would agitate the Muslims but it should be in the spiritof Russian civilization59 If the Muslims attempted to improve the Muslim educationsystem independent of the Russians it was necessary to limit their freedom ofmovement as much as possible60

Gaspotilderalotilde

According to Gasp otilde ral otilde the traditional Muslim schools that taught ldquono book otherthan the Qurrsquoan and no science other than theologyrdquo were unable to reform theMuslim society in a positive way On the other hand the number of Muslim schoolswas high enough to reach the Muslims of the empire through education and theMuslim society had a strong confidence in these schools61 Therefore Gasp otilde ral otildeagreed with Ilrsquominskii about the strength and limitations of the traditional Muslimschools but his intentions about the Muslim education system in Russia were quitedifferent from those of Ilrsquominskii

In 1881 Gasp otilde ral otilde published a series of articles in a Russian newspaper under thetitle ldquoRussian Islamrdquo In these articles he laid out the basics of his future programFirst of all Gasp otilde ral otilde saw the Muslims of Russia as a united group that professed thesame faith spoke dialects of the same language and had the same social charac-teristics and traditions62 ldquoTurk-Tatar peoplesrdquo ldquoMuslimsrdquo ldquoTatarsrdquo and rarelyldquoTurksrdquo were all terms that he used to denote this united group of people63 ldquoTatarTuumlrkicircrdquo was the language of this ldquonationrdquo and only some Caucasian mountain tribesused other languages64

As I explained earlier Gasp otilde ral otilde did not see many positives when he looked at hisldquoMuslim nationrdquo The imperial policies that demanded that Muslims pay their taxesand left them on their own in their internal social life according to Gasp otilde ral otilde resultedin ldquothe social and mental isolation of the Muslimsrdquo The Muslims could not think

271

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

beyond their petty local interests The situation of their mental development judgingfrom their schools and writings was not successful either It was possible to seeEuropean influence among the Muslims of other countries but among the Muslimsof Russia only the Lithuanian Tatars had acquired European culture65 Time hadproved that Russification as it was applied until then was not a viable policy It wasnot possible to find any completely Russified non-Russians in Russia on thecontrary in some places the Russians had adopted manners of the non-Russians66

What was the solution then Gasp otilde ral otilde answered ldquounification and moral rapproche-ment [of the Russians and Muslims] on the basis of equality freedom science andeducationrdquo ldquoIn a wordrdquo he wrote ldquomoral Russification of the Muslims can beachieved by raising their intellectual level and this can be possible only by givingthe Tatar language the right to be the language of school and literature Muslims ofRussia have neither science nor literature or press and I think that it is necessary tofacilitate their development Russian-Tatar schools that are opened in order to teachRussian to the Tatar students cannot achieve this task at allrdquo67 Thus Gasp otilde ral otildedemanded the introduction of elementary sciences to the traditional Muslim schoolsin the Tatar language and the support of publications again in the Tatar language Infact spread of knowledge among the Muslims was so necessary that all kinds ofpublications in the Muslim dialects should also be supported Neither the Russiangovernment nor the Russian language would suffer from this in any way68 ldquoWhen welearn our fatherland Russia and its system from books in Tatarrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde wroteldquothen you can feel sure that we will have the will and opportunity to fill your gym-nasiums and universities in order to work together with you in the fields of life andsciencerdquo Otherwise the Muslims would never understand the Russians and keepescaping from them69

In 1883 Gasp otilde ral otilde finally received permission to publish a newspaper Tercuumlmanor Perevodchik in its Russian version both meaning ldquotranslatorrdquo The permissionstipulated that the newspaper should be a bilingual publication in Russian and TatarAlthough there had been previous attempts by the Muslims of Russia to publishperiodicals none of these attempts had yielded a lasting and substantial result70

Tercuumlmanrsquos first issue came out on the 100th anniversary of the annexation of theCrimea From the very beginning Gasp otilde ral otilde adopted a cautious tone which enabledhim to publish his newspaper without interruption for 31 years until his deathTercuumlman is the best example of the language that Gasp otilde ral otilde considered the commonliterary language of the Muslims of Russia It was a simplified form of literaryOttoman Turkish with occasional Crimean Tatar expressions In addition when headdressed a certain group of Muslims Gasp otilde ral otilde would also use some expressionsfrom their tongue Tercuumlman was published in the Arabic script The lack ofcharacters for most of the vowels was a drawback of the Arabic script as Ilrsquominskiihad also noted71 but Gasp otilde ral otilde used this situation to cover some of the differences inthe pronunciations of different Muslim groups in Russia72 Gasp otilde ral otilde was a prolificwriter Aside from Tercuumlman and many manuscripts he published a few other

272

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

periodicals but the impact of Tercuumlman not only among the Muslims of Russia butalso in the entire Turkic world cannot be exaggerated73 The famous historian andBashkir political leader Zeki V Togan relates that the most prestigious personalitiesamong the Muslims of Russia had all followed Tercuumlman74

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos second reform was the improvement of traditional Muslim schoolsAccording to Ostroumov the traditional mekteb was a place where the ldquochild-likecharacteristicsrdquo of children were blunted75 In these schools the children memorizedthe alphabet but ldquoacquisition of functional literacy was not the goalrdquo of schooling76

The students learned the names of the letters but not the sounds they represented Asa result it was possible that they would remain functionally illiterate after years ofstudy77 The Russian Orientalist Nil S Lykoshin called this ldquoNot Education butTorturerdquo (Muchenie a ne uchenie) He described the buildings where this educationtook place as unsuitable dark cold and stifling places78 On the other hand themedreses were not efficient either The education in a medrese could continue formore than 20 years and the student would graduate without even learning Arabicwhich constituted the heart of medrese education79 Nevertheless more than 16000mektebs and 214 medreses in the late nineteenth century represented a strongcommitment to education and a solid basis for a dynamic society after a well-plannedreform80

Gasp otilde ral otilde called the system he introduced to the mektebs ldquousucircl-i cedidrdquo that isldquonew methodrdquo81 The most important aspect of usucircl-i cedid was a shift to the phoneticmethod In this way Gasp otilde ral otilde succeeded in shortening the time a student beganto read and write to approximately 40 days Then he regularized the duration ofeducation and the curriculum and improved the class atmosphere82 Finally he intro-duced subjects that had not been in the mekteb curriculum before his reforms Asidefrom Qurrsquoanic recitation and the basic principles of Islam he began to teach basicarithmetic geography and history83 Gasp otilde ral otilde opened the first cedid school in 1884in Bahccedilesaray This was not the first attempt to reform the Muslim schools in Russiabut it was the one that yielded the most significant results84 In 1908 there wereapproximately 6000 reformed schools in Russia according to Gasp otilde ral otilde Althoughfully enlightening the students in the short period they attended these schools was notpossible it was still possible to instill a love for further learning in their hearts Thesechildren continued their studies with this love and many of the graduates of cedidschools had successful careers85

The Clash Prior to 1905

Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were perceptive enough to notice the challenge of eachotherrsquos efforts Ilrsquominskii was in a better situation to express his ideas In his publicworks he frequently wrote about the danger of ldquoTatarizationrdquo with which he meantthe influence of Muslim Tatars over other inorodtsy while in his personal corres-pondence he more openly and directly accused Gasp otilde ral otilde and urged the authorities to

273

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

take precautions against him86 The best-known and most frequently cited example ofthis correspondence is Ilrsquominskiirsquos letters to Pobedonostsev which were published in1895 4 years after Ilrsquominskiirsquos death87

Ilrsquominskiirsquos first warning to Pobedonostsev about Gasp otilde ral otilde was in December1883 8 months after the first appearance of Tercuumlman He wrote that Gasp otilde ral otildewanted to unite the millions of Muslims under Russian sovereignty ldquofrom the Crimeato the Caucasus and Central Asiardquo with science and civilization and that hislanguage was borrowed from the newspapers of Imiddotstanbul88 After receiving moreinformation from his student in Turkistan Ostroumov Ilrsquominskii continued to warnPobedonostsev in February 1884

Gasprinskii the publisher of Tercuumlman (perevodchik) in Bahccedilesaray has this aim firstto spread among the Muslims of the Russian empire European enlightenment on aMuhammedan basis coloring European education with Muhammedan ideas second tounite and rally the millions of wide-spread Muhammedan peoples of Russia withdifferent tongues (examplemdashGerman unification) third to sow a Turkish germ amongall the Muslims of Russia the Ottoman language89

In 1889 Ilrsquominskii read an open letter to Tercuumlman in a local Kazakh newspaperpublished in Akmolinsk He was upset He wrote to Pobedonostsev ldquoIn the opinionof competent people the Tatar newspaper lsquoPerevodchikrsquo revealed its artfulnessdirection and tendency during the eight years [sic] it was publishedrdquo90 As the formerSteppe Governor-General G A Kolpakovskii had also suggested it was necessary toofficially restrict this newspaper and unofficially promote alternative publications byldquounskillful and uneducated translatorsrdquo91

Ilrsquominskii died in 1891 In his farewell address Pobedonostsev wrote ldquoHe[Ilrsquominskii] vigilantly followed the Muslim propaganda that strengthened in therecent times in our near and far East and the service of his timely warnings cannot beexaggeratedrdquo92 The influence of Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers gradually decreased with therise of a relatively secular and ethno-nationalist educated society in Russia but theystil l enjoyed considerable power until the end of the imperial regime TheBrotherhood of St Gurii continued its activities under the leadership of Ilrsquominskiirsquosadopted son Nikolai A Bobrovnikov93 Besides a number of Ilrsquominskii sympathizersoccupied key decision-making positions on the education of Muslims in RussiaAccording to my research there was no personal communication between Gasp otilde ral otildeand Ilrsquominskii but Gasp otilde ral otilde got into contact with the followers of Ilrsquominskii and it ispossible to make some comments on Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas about Ilrsquominskii and hissystem based on these contacts

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos first reference to the Ilrsquominskii system was in his ldquoRussian IslamrdquoWhile demanding the recognition of Tatar as the language of education in Muslimschools he stated that the Ministry of Education had also recognized the importanceof native language in education94 This was a rather vague reference to the regulationsof 1870 which were promulgated following a debate over the Ilrsquominskii system andhad sanctioned the use of native languages in the government schools for the

274

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

inorodtsy In relation to the Muslim schools the emphasis of the 1870 regulationswas on the introduction of Russian language classes in the mektebs but still thegeneral insistence of the Ilrsquominskii system on native languages provided somesupport to Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas95

By the 1890s Gasp otilde ral otilde had secured considerable support for his school systemamong the Muslims of European Russia Now he wanted to expand usucircl-i cedid tothe rest of the empire In 1892 he sent a memorandum to the Governor-General ofTurkistan and suggested the introduction of usucircl-i cedid in Turkistan because the2-year programs of this system were short enough to leave sufficient time for thestudy of Russian language as opposed to the 6-year programs of traditional mektebs96

The Governor-General passed the plan on to Ostroumov and the Orientalist VladimirP Nalivkin Both Ostroumov and Nalivkin agreed with Gasp otilde ral otilde on the content ofhis suggestions but still they responded negatively to the Governor-Generalrsquosinquiry ldquoIn the matter of the education of inorodtsy in Russiardquo Ostroumov wroteldquowe need the direction of a Russian member of the Ministry of Education not that ofa Tatar inorodetsrdquo The solution was to provide education ldquolsquoin the spirit of Russianstate interestsrsquo using administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo97 Nalivkinrsquos argument was similar to that of Ostroumov thoughless enthusiastic98 The Governor-General ignored the memorandum did not answerGasp otilde ral otilde and filed the report Gasp otilde ral otilde traveled to Central Asia in 1893 and openeda cedid school During this trip he also met with Ostroumov to ask for his supportGasp otilde ral otilde probably did not know how Ostroumov had responded to the Governor-Generalrsquos inquiry The school Gasp otilde ral otilde opened closed soon after99

In 1905 Gasp otilde ral otilde once again tried to find support from the Russian authoritiesShortly before the revolution of 1905 the Minister of Education V G Glazovconvened a commission to discuss the question of schools for non-Russians100

Gasp otilde ral otilde presented a petition to the commission He wrote that though 30000schools were necessary for the education of 15 million Muslims in Russia thegovernment had only opened less than 300 during the previous 70 years It wasapparent that the government lacked the funds to open so many schools however itwould be possible if the Muslims themselves supported the schools On the otherhand the present government schools were unable to gain the support of theMuslims because the classes were held in Russian and the students could notunderstand anything The average student graduated ldquowithout any intellectualdevelopmentrdquo ldquoFor the intellectual enlightenment of the Muslims of Russiardquo it wasnecessary to follow Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and use the native language of the childrenOnly then would the Muslims support government schools101

Members of the 1905 commission also known as the ldquoBudilovich Commissionrdquowere all supporters of Ilrsquominskii including Ostroumov and Bobrovnikov102 Contraryto what Ilrsquominskii had suggested the commission decided that the Ilrsquominskii systemas it was applied to the baptized inorodtsy should be used for all non-Russians withsome room for certain amendments to comply with local necessities The first year

275

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

should be fully in the vernacular Russian should enter the curriculum as a subject ofstudy in the second year and only in the third year could the language of instructionbecome Russian With regard to the Muslims the commission stated that theIlrsquominskii system had full respect for the studentsrsquo beliefs Therefore it allowedreligious education in the Muslim schools but taking into consideration that thiswould not bring the Muslims close to the Russian people basic subjects such asnatural and social sciences should also be in the curriculum It was necessary toprepare books for the Muslims in their local languages with Cyrillic scripts so thatthe common alphabet would serve as a path to Russian books the Russian languageand the Russian outlook on the world

With regard to the mektebs and medreses the commission first recommended theauthorities not to intervene in the internal affairs of the Muslims but then it listed anumber of requirements for the Muslim schools The mullahs should know Russianand be of the same nationality as the students The language of instruction shouldbe the native language spoken in the childrsquos house and not ldquoartificial Tatarrdquo Theeducation should not encourage opposition against the state The schools should openwith the permission of the Ministry of Education The mullahs should submitstatistical data about the students each year The curriculum of mektebs shouldinclude Russian and basic subjects like mathematics The purpose of teachingRussian should be bringing the Muslims closer to Russian education and instillingthe feeling of ldquopatriotic solidarityrdquo in their hearts103

Since usucircl-i cedid was only recently and gradually making its way into CentralAsia most of the cedid teachers in this region were Tatars from European RussiaAside from other restrictions it was apparent that the condition of ldquosame nationalityrdquowas intended to limit Tatar influence Non-interference was not working anymorebecause the Muslim schools had gone through an internal reform and had begun toimprove the social and political consciousness of the Muslims After the BudilovichCommission the followers of Ilrsquominskii would try to limit the influence of theMuslim reformers ldquousing administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo as Ostroumov had suggested to the Governor-General ofTurkistan in 1892104 An additional measure was to take advantage of the conflictbetween the traditionalist opposition that had begun to develop among the Muslimclergy against Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos reforms and support the traditionalists against thereformers105 These may seem to be a diversion from the non-interference policyIlrsquominskii had adopted in the 1860s but what happened is rather an adaptation of theold system to the new conditions because the purpose of limiting social and politicalconsciousness of the Muslims remained unchanged The Budilovich Commissionrsquossuggestions were approved as regulation in 1906 Because of the opposition from theMuslims the Ministry of Education had to drop the provisions regarding the use ofCyrillic script in school materials ldquoRussian classes in the Muslim confessionalschools the requirement that mullahs know Russian and ministry inspection ofconfessional schoolsrdquo However the requirement that the mullahs should be of the

276

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

same nationality as students remained106

From Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos references to Ilrsquominskii before the revolution of 1905 it ispossible to see that he refrained from attacking Ilrsquominskii and even tried to use someof Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas to support his own arguments In the liberal atmosphere of theyears following the revolution of 1905 he could speak more openly In 1908 hewrote that it was necessary to be cautious before 1905 because of the opposition ofIlrsquominskii and his followers ldquowho did not accept the Tatar Bashkir Kirgiz and Sartchildren to the same schools and tried to separate themrdquo But the conditions hadchanged by 1908 Now Gasp otilde ral otilde could even criticize the regulations of the Ministryof Education According to him the ministry had made a mistake by defining nativelanguage as the language spoken in the childrsquos house Accepting this position wouldrequire instruction in the languages of each city or region The native language of theRussian children was the Russian language not the languages of Volgograd KurskSaratovsk and Yaroslavl Thus Gasp otilde ral otilde concluded ldquoOur native language is theliterary lsquoTuumlrkrsquo languagerdquo107

Post-1905 and the Wider Society

The openness in Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos statements was not the only thing that changed after therevolution of 1905 The Russian empire in its entirety went through a period ofreform Several journals and newspapers appeared among the Muslims Gasp otilde ral otildeestimated that the total number of subscribers to these periodicals was between60000 and 70000 in 1908108 The Muslims had generally not joined the strikes andinsurgencies that had paralyzed the empire during 1905 but they had well sensedthe approaching administrative changes and through a number of rather peacefulgatherings they had tried to bring about a common representative body for theMuslims of the empire In August 1906 between the first and second DumasMuslim representatives from all over the empire met in a congress in NizhniiNovgorod This was the third Muslim congress since March 1905 and it was the bestorganized one The Muslim representatives agreed on a 33-point resolution onschooling The resolution stated inter alia that the education in Muslim schoolsshould be in the native language with the Arabic script Special importance should begiven to the study of ldquoliterary Turkish languagerdquo in the Muslim secondary schoolsand wherever possible in the elementary schools The study of the Russian languagewas not necessary in the elementary schools but it could enter the curriculum as asubject of study in the secondary schools Education of all Muslims should bestandardized as much as possible Muslim students should have the same rights asRussian students In the Muslim teachersrsquo schools with preparatory Russian classesthe study of the ldquoliterary national languagerdquo should improve so that the Muslimteachers could teach in their own language Elementary education should beobligatory for all Muslim children and the Muslim teachers should meet in acongress to prepare a standard program of education and materials for use in the

277

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Muslim schools109 Muslims of Russia would hold several other meetings in thefollowing years and reaffirm the decisions of this resolution110

The resolution was a victory for Gasp otilde ral otilde but the congress also showed tensionsthat he had not foreseen 25 years before in ldquoRussian Islamrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde had alwaysconcentrated his work on social and cultural issues In the years of the revolution hehad expressed this concentration as follows ldquoSome thoughts are forbidden to us Letus leave these to the generations that will come later Let us form a spiritual unity letus unite the languages [but] let others think of political unityrdquo111 Nevertheless themembers of the new generation who to a large extent were graduates of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosschools did not want to leave political action to future generations The Muslimcongress approved the formation of a Muslim political party despite Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosinitial opposition Later Gasp otilde ral otilde consented to this formation112 but the lack ofpopular support after the initial political excitement of the revolution showed thatMuslims of Russia were not ready to support a political party yet113 Moreover thepolitical ideals of the new generation were not always compatible with the unity ofthe Turkic and Muslim nation that Gasp otilde ral otilde had in mind

In 1911 two articles appeared in the biweekly supplement of an Orenburg-basednewspaper ldquoWe are Tatarsrdquo by lsquoAlimcan Imiddotbrahimov from Kazan114 and ldquoWe areTurksrdquo by an author who wrote under the pseudonym TuumlrkogAElig lu which means ldquoson ofa Turkrdquo115 The titles well summarized the contents of the articles Imiddotbrahimov wroteldquoWe are Tatars our language is the Tatar language our literature is the Tatarliterature all our affairs are Tatar affairs our civilization will be the Tatar civiliza-tionrdquo While saying ldquowerdquo Imiddotbrahimov was referring to the people who are calledldquoKazan Tatarsrdquo today TuumlrkogAElig lu did not l ike Imiddotbrahimovrsquos statements It wasnecessary to put an end to these ldquowhims of Tatarismrdquo according to him After thespread of that ldquoso-called Tatar literaturerdquo now a ldquoso-called Kazakh literaturerdquo hadbegun to appear This was all dividing the common ldquoTuumlrkrdquo people116 The Ministry ofEducation was trying to impose the use of local dialects in inorodets schools This ofcourse was harmful to the Turks of the Russian empire117 Division weakened theTurks of Russia It was necessary to end all those wrong tendencies and begin towork for the creation of a ldquoTuumlrkicircrdquo literature118 Until the very end of the imperialregime a heated discussion continued between the Kazakh Volga Tatar CrimeanTatar Bashkir and other ethno-territorial nationalists and pan-Turkists in the Muslimpress Language was the key issue in these discussions119

The Muslim intellectuals who entered such discussions always expressed a certainrespect for and gratefulness to Gasp otilde ral otilde the ldquoold teacherrdquo or the ldquofatherrdquo regardlessof whether they agreed with him or not120 The very fact that the Muslims werepublicly discussing social and political issues was the proof of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos success inreforming the Muslim society But the old teacher was in an ambivalent situation Hewas happy for the appearance of a flourishing press but he was upset because of themistakes made about language With all due respect to the common people he wrotein 1912 the literary and scientific publications should not be published in the

278

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

language spoken by a Kazakh shepherd The several Turkic tribes could not becomea nation if they insisted on separating their languages121

While Gasp otilde ral otilde found himself in this ambivalent situation followers of Ilrsquominskiialso had a number of things to worry about Following the edict of religioustoleration on 17 April 1905 approximately 49000 inorodtsy left Orthodoxy forIslam in 5 years122 Ilrsquominskiirsquos biographer Petr V Znamenskii wrote in a work aboutthe Kazan Tatars that the mission among the Muslims was completely paralyzed123 In1910 a missionary congress gathered in Kazan124 The atmosphere of the congresswas quite gloomy It did not yield a substantive result other than the publication of ajournal to observe and study the Muslim world Mir Islama Writers of the journalwere quick to notice the ideological currents among the Muslims of the empire In1913 two articles discussed pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia According tothese articles pan-Islamism was losing its influence in the Ottoman Empire andamong the Muslims of Russia On the other hand pan-Turkism and territorialnationalisms were gaining strength125 Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers had definitely failed toprevent the development of social and political consciousness among the Muslims ofRussia Local nationalists were opposing a political Turkic unity but they were by nomeans closer to the Russians On the other hand the mission of consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy with the Ilrsquominskii system was not workingsmoothly either

When Ilrsquominskii had first presented his system to Russian society in the 1860sclaiming that the native language is most effective in instilling Christianity and thatthe path to Russification would be open to the inorodtsy once they were sufficientlyChristianized the opposition had contended that the proper way of national assimila-tion was through language and strengthening the native languages would result inthe alienation of the inorodtsy126 Thanks to the support of Tolstoi and Pobe-donostsev the Ilrsquominskii system had gained official recognition in those days but thepolitical composition of the empire had changed significantly by the early twentiethcentury In 1897 an article appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Educationabout a new language teaching technique the natural method ldquoThe main channel forthe inorodtsy to approach the Russiansrdquo was the Russian language according to theauthor and with the natural method it was possible to teach Russian to the inorodtsywithout using their native languages In this method the teacher was supposed toteach first by miming and with gestures and then by building on the words that thestudents had already learned127 Soon after the natural method developed as analternative to Ilrsquominskiirsquos translative method It also found supporters in the Russianbureaucracy and despite the legal recognition of the Ilrsquominskii system with a numberof regulations local authorities decided which method to use in practice As theimperial bureaucracy became increasingly secularized and ethno-nationalist towardthe end of the imperial regime followers of Ilrsquominskii lost their control in theeducation of the non-Muslim inorodtsy128 but their ideas about the Muslims were notthat incompatible with the ideas of the new ruling elite The Ilrsquominskii group had

279

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

children closer to the Russians38 The method of teaching Russian was the ldquotrans-lative methodrdquo that Ilrsquominskii had introduced in all his schools39 Ilrsquominskii wasespecially careful to keep the developing Kazakh literary language away from theinfluence of Tatar40 Developing a Kazakh literary language independent from Tatarhe thought would decrease the influence of Islam and consequently increase theinfluence of Russian culture among the Kazakhs In 1870 he wrote ldquoIf the schoolsof the mullahs will continue to exist [among the Kazakhs] let them teach in the Tatarlanguage and torture the children with the Arabic phonetics This will in any case beless influential than spreading Muhammedanism in the strong native languageOtherwise Russian education should spread in the Kirgiz languagerdquo41

Unification of the Muslims of the Russian empire was one of the things Ilrsquominskiifeared the most42 Beginning with the reign of Catherine II the Russian governmenthad been addressing all the Muslims of the empire in the Tatar language43 Ilrsquominskiithought of this as a unifying factor Developing literary languages from the localvernaculars of different Turkic and Muslim communities could prevent it44 Thealphabet used had a special role in this respect The Muslims including the Kazakhsexclusively used the Arabic script From his experience among the baptized TatarsIlrsquominskii had noticed that use of the Russian script ldquosharply separated the baptizedTatars from their Muslim kinrdquo45 Although he published a Kazakh language bookwith the Arabic script in 1861 he later thought that this was a mistake46 and correctedthe mistake by designing a Cyrillic-based Kazakh alphabet in the same year 47

Although Alt otilde nsarin wanted to keep the Arabic script and even published some worksusing the Arabic script48 Ilrsquominskii insisted on employing the Cyrillic script in theKazakh schools According to the aforementioned official report in 1900 use of theCyrillic alphabet had limited the spread of ldquoundesirable and harmful publications inthe Muslim languagerdquo among the Kazakhs49

According to Ilrsquominskii the purpose of the Cyrillic alphabet had to be bringing theinorodtsy closer to the Russians and not bringing them closer to each otherTherefore he suggested designing separate Cyrillic alphabets for each inorodetspeople50 Although there were other attempts to introduce the Cyrillic script into thelanguages of Muslim peoples other than the Kazakhs this did not take place until theSoviet period51 In addition to these government projects about changing thealphabets Nikolai Ostroumov one of Ilrsquominskiirsquos most loyal followers and one ofthe key personalities in the education of the Muslims in Central Asia continued toapply Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas of separating the inorodtsy by creating separate literarylanguages out of their vernaculars Ostroumov tried to bring out a literary languagewhich he called ldquoSartrdquo from the language of the sedentary Muslims in Central Asia52

Ilrsquominskii did not develop a clear program for the education of Muslim peoplesother than the Kazakhs but still it is possible to detect some basic ideas explaininghis thoughts about the education of other Muslims Ilrsquominskii approved the GovernorGeneral of Turkistan Konstantin von Kaufmanrsquos policy of non-interference in theMuslim schools in Turkistan53 The logic was simple If the state interfered in the

270

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

Muslim schools ldquolsquoit would have to concern itself with their blossomingrsquo hellip and thecombination of Muslim ideology and European culture would not only fail to achieverussification but could even become lsquoa weapon against the Russian people and theRussian statersquordquo54 In 1882 Vasilii D Smirnov whom Ilrsquominskii would recommend toPobedonostsev as a personal observer of the Muslim press in 1890 opposed theintroduction of a reformed medrese system in the Caucasus for similar reasons55 Ifnatural sciences were taught in the medreses they would be Islamized and thiswould only consolidate the Muslim worldview The real question was how to attractthe Muslims to the Russian schools and not what kind of a school the Muslimsshould have From Smirnovrsquos relationship with Ilrsquominskii we can deduce that theyhad parallel ideas56 Ilrsquominskii found the traditional Muslim schools strong regardingtheir acceptance by the Muslims57 but weak regarding their ability to improve thesocial consciousness of the Muslims58 Therefore the Russian authorities shouldleave the Muslim educational institutions in their present situation provided that aRussian alternative also existed This alternative should not have a Christianmissionary character lest this would agitate the Muslims but it should be in the spiritof Russian civilization59 If the Muslims attempted to improve the Muslim educationsystem independent of the Russians it was necessary to limit their freedom ofmovement as much as possible60

Gaspotilderalotilde

According to Gasp otilde ral otilde the traditional Muslim schools that taught ldquono book otherthan the Qurrsquoan and no science other than theologyrdquo were unable to reform theMuslim society in a positive way On the other hand the number of Muslim schoolswas high enough to reach the Muslims of the empire through education and theMuslim society had a strong confidence in these schools61 Therefore Gasp otilde ral otildeagreed with Ilrsquominskii about the strength and limitations of the traditional Muslimschools but his intentions about the Muslim education system in Russia were quitedifferent from those of Ilrsquominskii

In 1881 Gasp otilde ral otilde published a series of articles in a Russian newspaper under thetitle ldquoRussian Islamrdquo In these articles he laid out the basics of his future programFirst of all Gasp otilde ral otilde saw the Muslims of Russia as a united group that professed thesame faith spoke dialects of the same language and had the same social charac-teristics and traditions62 ldquoTurk-Tatar peoplesrdquo ldquoMuslimsrdquo ldquoTatarsrdquo and rarelyldquoTurksrdquo were all terms that he used to denote this united group of people63 ldquoTatarTuumlrkicircrdquo was the language of this ldquonationrdquo and only some Caucasian mountain tribesused other languages64

As I explained earlier Gasp otilde ral otilde did not see many positives when he looked at hisldquoMuslim nationrdquo The imperial policies that demanded that Muslims pay their taxesand left them on their own in their internal social life according to Gasp otilde ral otilde resultedin ldquothe social and mental isolation of the Muslimsrdquo The Muslims could not think

271

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

beyond their petty local interests The situation of their mental development judgingfrom their schools and writings was not successful either It was possible to seeEuropean influence among the Muslims of other countries but among the Muslimsof Russia only the Lithuanian Tatars had acquired European culture65 Time hadproved that Russification as it was applied until then was not a viable policy It wasnot possible to find any completely Russified non-Russians in Russia on thecontrary in some places the Russians had adopted manners of the non-Russians66

What was the solution then Gasp otilde ral otilde answered ldquounification and moral rapproche-ment [of the Russians and Muslims] on the basis of equality freedom science andeducationrdquo ldquoIn a wordrdquo he wrote ldquomoral Russification of the Muslims can beachieved by raising their intellectual level and this can be possible only by givingthe Tatar language the right to be the language of school and literature Muslims ofRussia have neither science nor literature or press and I think that it is necessary tofacilitate their development Russian-Tatar schools that are opened in order to teachRussian to the Tatar students cannot achieve this task at allrdquo67 Thus Gasp otilde ral otildedemanded the introduction of elementary sciences to the traditional Muslim schoolsin the Tatar language and the support of publications again in the Tatar language Infact spread of knowledge among the Muslims was so necessary that all kinds ofpublications in the Muslim dialects should also be supported Neither the Russiangovernment nor the Russian language would suffer from this in any way68 ldquoWhen welearn our fatherland Russia and its system from books in Tatarrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde wroteldquothen you can feel sure that we will have the will and opportunity to fill your gym-nasiums and universities in order to work together with you in the fields of life andsciencerdquo Otherwise the Muslims would never understand the Russians and keepescaping from them69

In 1883 Gasp otilde ral otilde finally received permission to publish a newspaper Tercuumlmanor Perevodchik in its Russian version both meaning ldquotranslatorrdquo The permissionstipulated that the newspaper should be a bilingual publication in Russian and TatarAlthough there had been previous attempts by the Muslims of Russia to publishperiodicals none of these attempts had yielded a lasting and substantial result70

Tercuumlmanrsquos first issue came out on the 100th anniversary of the annexation of theCrimea From the very beginning Gasp otilde ral otilde adopted a cautious tone which enabledhim to publish his newspaper without interruption for 31 years until his deathTercuumlman is the best example of the language that Gasp otilde ral otilde considered the commonliterary language of the Muslims of Russia It was a simplified form of literaryOttoman Turkish with occasional Crimean Tatar expressions In addition when headdressed a certain group of Muslims Gasp otilde ral otilde would also use some expressionsfrom their tongue Tercuumlman was published in the Arabic script The lack ofcharacters for most of the vowels was a drawback of the Arabic script as Ilrsquominskiihad also noted71 but Gasp otilde ral otilde used this situation to cover some of the differences inthe pronunciations of different Muslim groups in Russia72 Gasp otilde ral otilde was a prolificwriter Aside from Tercuumlman and many manuscripts he published a few other

272

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

periodicals but the impact of Tercuumlman not only among the Muslims of Russia butalso in the entire Turkic world cannot be exaggerated73 The famous historian andBashkir political leader Zeki V Togan relates that the most prestigious personalitiesamong the Muslims of Russia had all followed Tercuumlman74

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos second reform was the improvement of traditional Muslim schoolsAccording to Ostroumov the traditional mekteb was a place where the ldquochild-likecharacteristicsrdquo of children were blunted75 In these schools the children memorizedthe alphabet but ldquoacquisition of functional literacy was not the goalrdquo of schooling76

The students learned the names of the letters but not the sounds they represented Asa result it was possible that they would remain functionally illiterate after years ofstudy77 The Russian Orientalist Nil S Lykoshin called this ldquoNot Education butTorturerdquo (Muchenie a ne uchenie) He described the buildings where this educationtook place as unsuitable dark cold and stifling places78 On the other hand themedreses were not efficient either The education in a medrese could continue formore than 20 years and the student would graduate without even learning Arabicwhich constituted the heart of medrese education79 Nevertheless more than 16000mektebs and 214 medreses in the late nineteenth century represented a strongcommitment to education and a solid basis for a dynamic society after a well-plannedreform80

Gasp otilde ral otilde called the system he introduced to the mektebs ldquousucircl-i cedidrdquo that isldquonew methodrdquo81 The most important aspect of usucircl-i cedid was a shift to the phoneticmethod In this way Gasp otilde ral otilde succeeded in shortening the time a student beganto read and write to approximately 40 days Then he regularized the duration ofeducation and the curriculum and improved the class atmosphere82 Finally he intro-duced subjects that had not been in the mekteb curriculum before his reforms Asidefrom Qurrsquoanic recitation and the basic principles of Islam he began to teach basicarithmetic geography and history83 Gasp otilde ral otilde opened the first cedid school in 1884in Bahccedilesaray This was not the first attempt to reform the Muslim schools in Russiabut it was the one that yielded the most significant results84 In 1908 there wereapproximately 6000 reformed schools in Russia according to Gasp otilde ral otilde Althoughfully enlightening the students in the short period they attended these schools was notpossible it was still possible to instill a love for further learning in their hearts Thesechildren continued their studies with this love and many of the graduates of cedidschools had successful careers85

The Clash Prior to 1905

Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were perceptive enough to notice the challenge of eachotherrsquos efforts Ilrsquominskii was in a better situation to express his ideas In his publicworks he frequently wrote about the danger of ldquoTatarizationrdquo with which he meantthe influence of Muslim Tatars over other inorodtsy while in his personal corres-pondence he more openly and directly accused Gasp otilde ral otilde and urged the authorities to

273

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

take precautions against him86 The best-known and most frequently cited example ofthis correspondence is Ilrsquominskiirsquos letters to Pobedonostsev which were published in1895 4 years after Ilrsquominskiirsquos death87

Ilrsquominskiirsquos first warning to Pobedonostsev about Gasp otilde ral otilde was in December1883 8 months after the first appearance of Tercuumlman He wrote that Gasp otilde ral otildewanted to unite the millions of Muslims under Russian sovereignty ldquofrom the Crimeato the Caucasus and Central Asiardquo with science and civilization and that hislanguage was borrowed from the newspapers of Imiddotstanbul88 After receiving moreinformation from his student in Turkistan Ostroumov Ilrsquominskii continued to warnPobedonostsev in February 1884

Gasprinskii the publisher of Tercuumlman (perevodchik) in Bahccedilesaray has this aim firstto spread among the Muslims of the Russian empire European enlightenment on aMuhammedan basis coloring European education with Muhammedan ideas second tounite and rally the millions of wide-spread Muhammedan peoples of Russia withdifferent tongues (examplemdashGerman unification) third to sow a Turkish germ amongall the Muslims of Russia the Ottoman language89

In 1889 Ilrsquominskii read an open letter to Tercuumlman in a local Kazakh newspaperpublished in Akmolinsk He was upset He wrote to Pobedonostsev ldquoIn the opinionof competent people the Tatar newspaper lsquoPerevodchikrsquo revealed its artfulnessdirection and tendency during the eight years [sic] it was publishedrdquo90 As the formerSteppe Governor-General G A Kolpakovskii had also suggested it was necessary toofficially restrict this newspaper and unofficially promote alternative publications byldquounskillful and uneducated translatorsrdquo91

Ilrsquominskii died in 1891 In his farewell address Pobedonostsev wrote ldquoHe[Ilrsquominskii] vigilantly followed the Muslim propaganda that strengthened in therecent times in our near and far East and the service of his timely warnings cannot beexaggeratedrdquo92 The influence of Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers gradually decreased with therise of a relatively secular and ethno-nationalist educated society in Russia but theystil l enjoyed considerable power until the end of the imperial regime TheBrotherhood of St Gurii continued its activities under the leadership of Ilrsquominskiirsquosadopted son Nikolai A Bobrovnikov93 Besides a number of Ilrsquominskii sympathizersoccupied key decision-making positions on the education of Muslims in RussiaAccording to my research there was no personal communication between Gasp otilde ral otildeand Ilrsquominskii but Gasp otilde ral otilde got into contact with the followers of Ilrsquominskii and it ispossible to make some comments on Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas about Ilrsquominskii and hissystem based on these contacts

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos first reference to the Ilrsquominskii system was in his ldquoRussian IslamrdquoWhile demanding the recognition of Tatar as the language of education in Muslimschools he stated that the Ministry of Education had also recognized the importanceof native language in education94 This was a rather vague reference to the regulationsof 1870 which were promulgated following a debate over the Ilrsquominskii system andhad sanctioned the use of native languages in the government schools for the

274

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

inorodtsy In relation to the Muslim schools the emphasis of the 1870 regulationswas on the introduction of Russian language classes in the mektebs but still thegeneral insistence of the Ilrsquominskii system on native languages provided somesupport to Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas95

By the 1890s Gasp otilde ral otilde had secured considerable support for his school systemamong the Muslims of European Russia Now he wanted to expand usucircl-i cedid tothe rest of the empire In 1892 he sent a memorandum to the Governor-General ofTurkistan and suggested the introduction of usucircl-i cedid in Turkistan because the2-year programs of this system were short enough to leave sufficient time for thestudy of Russian language as opposed to the 6-year programs of traditional mektebs96

The Governor-General passed the plan on to Ostroumov and the Orientalist VladimirP Nalivkin Both Ostroumov and Nalivkin agreed with Gasp otilde ral otilde on the content ofhis suggestions but still they responded negatively to the Governor-Generalrsquosinquiry ldquoIn the matter of the education of inorodtsy in Russiardquo Ostroumov wroteldquowe need the direction of a Russian member of the Ministry of Education not that ofa Tatar inorodetsrdquo The solution was to provide education ldquolsquoin the spirit of Russianstate interestsrsquo using administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo97 Nalivkinrsquos argument was similar to that of Ostroumov thoughless enthusiastic98 The Governor-General ignored the memorandum did not answerGasp otilde ral otilde and filed the report Gasp otilde ral otilde traveled to Central Asia in 1893 and openeda cedid school During this trip he also met with Ostroumov to ask for his supportGasp otilde ral otilde probably did not know how Ostroumov had responded to the Governor-Generalrsquos inquiry The school Gasp otilde ral otilde opened closed soon after99

In 1905 Gasp otilde ral otilde once again tried to find support from the Russian authoritiesShortly before the revolution of 1905 the Minister of Education V G Glazovconvened a commission to discuss the question of schools for non-Russians100

Gasp otilde ral otilde presented a petition to the commission He wrote that though 30000schools were necessary for the education of 15 million Muslims in Russia thegovernment had only opened less than 300 during the previous 70 years It wasapparent that the government lacked the funds to open so many schools however itwould be possible if the Muslims themselves supported the schools On the otherhand the present government schools were unable to gain the support of theMuslims because the classes were held in Russian and the students could notunderstand anything The average student graduated ldquowithout any intellectualdevelopmentrdquo ldquoFor the intellectual enlightenment of the Muslims of Russiardquo it wasnecessary to follow Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and use the native language of the childrenOnly then would the Muslims support government schools101

Members of the 1905 commission also known as the ldquoBudilovich Commissionrdquowere all supporters of Ilrsquominskii including Ostroumov and Bobrovnikov102 Contraryto what Ilrsquominskii had suggested the commission decided that the Ilrsquominskii systemas it was applied to the baptized inorodtsy should be used for all non-Russians withsome room for certain amendments to comply with local necessities The first year

275

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

should be fully in the vernacular Russian should enter the curriculum as a subject ofstudy in the second year and only in the third year could the language of instructionbecome Russian With regard to the Muslims the commission stated that theIlrsquominskii system had full respect for the studentsrsquo beliefs Therefore it allowedreligious education in the Muslim schools but taking into consideration that thiswould not bring the Muslims close to the Russian people basic subjects such asnatural and social sciences should also be in the curriculum It was necessary toprepare books for the Muslims in their local languages with Cyrillic scripts so thatthe common alphabet would serve as a path to Russian books the Russian languageand the Russian outlook on the world

With regard to the mektebs and medreses the commission first recommended theauthorities not to intervene in the internal affairs of the Muslims but then it listed anumber of requirements for the Muslim schools The mullahs should know Russianand be of the same nationality as the students The language of instruction shouldbe the native language spoken in the childrsquos house and not ldquoartificial Tatarrdquo Theeducation should not encourage opposition against the state The schools should openwith the permission of the Ministry of Education The mullahs should submitstatistical data about the students each year The curriculum of mektebs shouldinclude Russian and basic subjects like mathematics The purpose of teachingRussian should be bringing the Muslims closer to Russian education and instillingthe feeling of ldquopatriotic solidarityrdquo in their hearts103

Since usucircl-i cedid was only recently and gradually making its way into CentralAsia most of the cedid teachers in this region were Tatars from European RussiaAside from other restrictions it was apparent that the condition of ldquosame nationalityrdquowas intended to limit Tatar influence Non-interference was not working anymorebecause the Muslim schools had gone through an internal reform and had begun toimprove the social and political consciousness of the Muslims After the BudilovichCommission the followers of Ilrsquominskii would try to limit the influence of theMuslim reformers ldquousing administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo as Ostroumov had suggested to the Governor-General ofTurkistan in 1892104 An additional measure was to take advantage of the conflictbetween the traditionalist opposition that had begun to develop among the Muslimclergy against Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos reforms and support the traditionalists against thereformers105 These may seem to be a diversion from the non-interference policyIlrsquominskii had adopted in the 1860s but what happened is rather an adaptation of theold system to the new conditions because the purpose of limiting social and politicalconsciousness of the Muslims remained unchanged The Budilovich Commissionrsquossuggestions were approved as regulation in 1906 Because of the opposition from theMuslims the Ministry of Education had to drop the provisions regarding the use ofCyrillic script in school materials ldquoRussian classes in the Muslim confessionalschools the requirement that mullahs know Russian and ministry inspection ofconfessional schoolsrdquo However the requirement that the mullahs should be of the

276

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

same nationality as students remained106

From Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos references to Ilrsquominskii before the revolution of 1905 it ispossible to see that he refrained from attacking Ilrsquominskii and even tried to use someof Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas to support his own arguments In the liberal atmosphere of theyears following the revolution of 1905 he could speak more openly In 1908 hewrote that it was necessary to be cautious before 1905 because of the opposition ofIlrsquominskii and his followers ldquowho did not accept the Tatar Bashkir Kirgiz and Sartchildren to the same schools and tried to separate themrdquo But the conditions hadchanged by 1908 Now Gasp otilde ral otilde could even criticize the regulations of the Ministryof Education According to him the ministry had made a mistake by defining nativelanguage as the language spoken in the childrsquos house Accepting this position wouldrequire instruction in the languages of each city or region The native language of theRussian children was the Russian language not the languages of Volgograd KurskSaratovsk and Yaroslavl Thus Gasp otilde ral otilde concluded ldquoOur native language is theliterary lsquoTuumlrkrsquo languagerdquo107

Post-1905 and the Wider Society

The openness in Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos statements was not the only thing that changed after therevolution of 1905 The Russian empire in its entirety went through a period ofreform Several journals and newspapers appeared among the Muslims Gasp otilde ral otildeestimated that the total number of subscribers to these periodicals was between60000 and 70000 in 1908108 The Muslims had generally not joined the strikes andinsurgencies that had paralyzed the empire during 1905 but they had well sensedthe approaching administrative changes and through a number of rather peacefulgatherings they had tried to bring about a common representative body for theMuslims of the empire In August 1906 between the first and second DumasMuslim representatives from all over the empire met in a congress in NizhniiNovgorod This was the third Muslim congress since March 1905 and it was the bestorganized one The Muslim representatives agreed on a 33-point resolution onschooling The resolution stated inter alia that the education in Muslim schoolsshould be in the native language with the Arabic script Special importance should begiven to the study of ldquoliterary Turkish languagerdquo in the Muslim secondary schoolsand wherever possible in the elementary schools The study of the Russian languagewas not necessary in the elementary schools but it could enter the curriculum as asubject of study in the secondary schools Education of all Muslims should bestandardized as much as possible Muslim students should have the same rights asRussian students In the Muslim teachersrsquo schools with preparatory Russian classesthe study of the ldquoliterary national languagerdquo should improve so that the Muslimteachers could teach in their own language Elementary education should beobligatory for all Muslim children and the Muslim teachers should meet in acongress to prepare a standard program of education and materials for use in the

277

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Muslim schools109 Muslims of Russia would hold several other meetings in thefollowing years and reaffirm the decisions of this resolution110

The resolution was a victory for Gasp otilde ral otilde but the congress also showed tensionsthat he had not foreseen 25 years before in ldquoRussian Islamrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde had alwaysconcentrated his work on social and cultural issues In the years of the revolution hehad expressed this concentration as follows ldquoSome thoughts are forbidden to us Letus leave these to the generations that will come later Let us form a spiritual unity letus unite the languages [but] let others think of political unityrdquo111 Nevertheless themembers of the new generation who to a large extent were graduates of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosschools did not want to leave political action to future generations The Muslimcongress approved the formation of a Muslim political party despite Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosinitial opposition Later Gasp otilde ral otilde consented to this formation112 but the lack ofpopular support after the initial political excitement of the revolution showed thatMuslims of Russia were not ready to support a political party yet113 Moreover thepolitical ideals of the new generation were not always compatible with the unity ofthe Turkic and Muslim nation that Gasp otilde ral otilde had in mind

In 1911 two articles appeared in the biweekly supplement of an Orenburg-basednewspaper ldquoWe are Tatarsrdquo by lsquoAlimcan Imiddotbrahimov from Kazan114 and ldquoWe areTurksrdquo by an author who wrote under the pseudonym TuumlrkogAElig lu which means ldquoson ofa Turkrdquo115 The titles well summarized the contents of the articles Imiddotbrahimov wroteldquoWe are Tatars our language is the Tatar language our literature is the Tatarliterature all our affairs are Tatar affairs our civilization will be the Tatar civiliza-tionrdquo While saying ldquowerdquo Imiddotbrahimov was referring to the people who are calledldquoKazan Tatarsrdquo today TuumlrkogAElig lu did not l ike Imiddotbrahimovrsquos statements It wasnecessary to put an end to these ldquowhims of Tatarismrdquo according to him After thespread of that ldquoso-called Tatar literaturerdquo now a ldquoso-called Kazakh literaturerdquo hadbegun to appear This was all dividing the common ldquoTuumlrkrdquo people116 The Ministry ofEducation was trying to impose the use of local dialects in inorodets schools This ofcourse was harmful to the Turks of the Russian empire117 Division weakened theTurks of Russia It was necessary to end all those wrong tendencies and begin towork for the creation of a ldquoTuumlrkicircrdquo literature118 Until the very end of the imperialregime a heated discussion continued between the Kazakh Volga Tatar CrimeanTatar Bashkir and other ethno-territorial nationalists and pan-Turkists in the Muslimpress Language was the key issue in these discussions119

The Muslim intellectuals who entered such discussions always expressed a certainrespect for and gratefulness to Gasp otilde ral otilde the ldquoold teacherrdquo or the ldquofatherrdquo regardlessof whether they agreed with him or not120 The very fact that the Muslims werepublicly discussing social and political issues was the proof of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos success inreforming the Muslim society But the old teacher was in an ambivalent situation Hewas happy for the appearance of a flourishing press but he was upset because of themistakes made about language With all due respect to the common people he wrotein 1912 the literary and scientific publications should not be published in the

278

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

language spoken by a Kazakh shepherd The several Turkic tribes could not becomea nation if they insisted on separating their languages121

While Gasp otilde ral otilde found himself in this ambivalent situation followers of Ilrsquominskiialso had a number of things to worry about Following the edict of religioustoleration on 17 April 1905 approximately 49000 inorodtsy left Orthodoxy forIslam in 5 years122 Ilrsquominskiirsquos biographer Petr V Znamenskii wrote in a work aboutthe Kazan Tatars that the mission among the Muslims was completely paralyzed123 In1910 a missionary congress gathered in Kazan124 The atmosphere of the congresswas quite gloomy It did not yield a substantive result other than the publication of ajournal to observe and study the Muslim world Mir Islama Writers of the journalwere quick to notice the ideological currents among the Muslims of the empire In1913 two articles discussed pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia According tothese articles pan-Islamism was losing its influence in the Ottoman Empire andamong the Muslims of Russia On the other hand pan-Turkism and territorialnationalisms were gaining strength125 Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers had definitely failed toprevent the development of social and political consciousness among the Muslims ofRussia Local nationalists were opposing a political Turkic unity but they were by nomeans closer to the Russians On the other hand the mission of consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy with the Ilrsquominskii system was not workingsmoothly either

When Ilrsquominskii had first presented his system to Russian society in the 1860sclaiming that the native language is most effective in instilling Christianity and thatthe path to Russification would be open to the inorodtsy once they were sufficientlyChristianized the opposition had contended that the proper way of national assimila-tion was through language and strengthening the native languages would result inthe alienation of the inorodtsy126 Thanks to the support of Tolstoi and Pobe-donostsev the Ilrsquominskii system had gained official recognition in those days but thepolitical composition of the empire had changed significantly by the early twentiethcentury In 1897 an article appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Educationabout a new language teaching technique the natural method ldquoThe main channel forthe inorodtsy to approach the Russiansrdquo was the Russian language according to theauthor and with the natural method it was possible to teach Russian to the inorodtsywithout using their native languages In this method the teacher was supposed toteach first by miming and with gestures and then by building on the words that thestudents had already learned127 Soon after the natural method developed as analternative to Ilrsquominskiirsquos translative method It also found supporters in the Russianbureaucracy and despite the legal recognition of the Ilrsquominskii system with a numberof regulations local authorities decided which method to use in practice As theimperial bureaucracy became increasingly secularized and ethno-nationalist towardthe end of the imperial regime followers of Ilrsquominskii lost their control in theeducation of the non-Muslim inorodtsy128 but their ideas about the Muslims were notthat incompatible with the ideas of the new ruling elite The Ilrsquominskii group had

279

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

Muslim schools ldquolsquoit would have to concern itself with their blossomingrsquo hellip and thecombination of Muslim ideology and European culture would not only fail to achieverussification but could even become lsquoa weapon against the Russian people and theRussian statersquordquo54 In 1882 Vasilii D Smirnov whom Ilrsquominskii would recommend toPobedonostsev as a personal observer of the Muslim press in 1890 opposed theintroduction of a reformed medrese system in the Caucasus for similar reasons55 Ifnatural sciences were taught in the medreses they would be Islamized and thiswould only consolidate the Muslim worldview The real question was how to attractthe Muslims to the Russian schools and not what kind of a school the Muslimsshould have From Smirnovrsquos relationship with Ilrsquominskii we can deduce that theyhad parallel ideas56 Ilrsquominskii found the traditional Muslim schools strong regardingtheir acceptance by the Muslims57 but weak regarding their ability to improve thesocial consciousness of the Muslims58 Therefore the Russian authorities shouldleave the Muslim educational institutions in their present situation provided that aRussian alternative also existed This alternative should not have a Christianmissionary character lest this would agitate the Muslims but it should be in the spiritof Russian civilization59 If the Muslims attempted to improve the Muslim educationsystem independent of the Russians it was necessary to limit their freedom ofmovement as much as possible60

Gaspotilderalotilde

According to Gasp otilde ral otilde the traditional Muslim schools that taught ldquono book otherthan the Qurrsquoan and no science other than theologyrdquo were unable to reform theMuslim society in a positive way On the other hand the number of Muslim schoolswas high enough to reach the Muslims of the empire through education and theMuslim society had a strong confidence in these schools61 Therefore Gasp otilde ral otildeagreed with Ilrsquominskii about the strength and limitations of the traditional Muslimschools but his intentions about the Muslim education system in Russia were quitedifferent from those of Ilrsquominskii

In 1881 Gasp otilde ral otilde published a series of articles in a Russian newspaper under thetitle ldquoRussian Islamrdquo In these articles he laid out the basics of his future programFirst of all Gasp otilde ral otilde saw the Muslims of Russia as a united group that professed thesame faith spoke dialects of the same language and had the same social charac-teristics and traditions62 ldquoTurk-Tatar peoplesrdquo ldquoMuslimsrdquo ldquoTatarsrdquo and rarelyldquoTurksrdquo were all terms that he used to denote this united group of people63 ldquoTatarTuumlrkicircrdquo was the language of this ldquonationrdquo and only some Caucasian mountain tribesused other languages64

As I explained earlier Gasp otilde ral otilde did not see many positives when he looked at hisldquoMuslim nationrdquo The imperial policies that demanded that Muslims pay their taxesand left them on their own in their internal social life according to Gasp otilde ral otilde resultedin ldquothe social and mental isolation of the Muslimsrdquo The Muslims could not think

271

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

beyond their petty local interests The situation of their mental development judgingfrom their schools and writings was not successful either It was possible to seeEuropean influence among the Muslims of other countries but among the Muslimsof Russia only the Lithuanian Tatars had acquired European culture65 Time hadproved that Russification as it was applied until then was not a viable policy It wasnot possible to find any completely Russified non-Russians in Russia on thecontrary in some places the Russians had adopted manners of the non-Russians66

What was the solution then Gasp otilde ral otilde answered ldquounification and moral rapproche-ment [of the Russians and Muslims] on the basis of equality freedom science andeducationrdquo ldquoIn a wordrdquo he wrote ldquomoral Russification of the Muslims can beachieved by raising their intellectual level and this can be possible only by givingthe Tatar language the right to be the language of school and literature Muslims ofRussia have neither science nor literature or press and I think that it is necessary tofacilitate their development Russian-Tatar schools that are opened in order to teachRussian to the Tatar students cannot achieve this task at allrdquo67 Thus Gasp otilde ral otildedemanded the introduction of elementary sciences to the traditional Muslim schoolsin the Tatar language and the support of publications again in the Tatar language Infact spread of knowledge among the Muslims was so necessary that all kinds ofpublications in the Muslim dialects should also be supported Neither the Russiangovernment nor the Russian language would suffer from this in any way68 ldquoWhen welearn our fatherland Russia and its system from books in Tatarrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde wroteldquothen you can feel sure that we will have the will and opportunity to fill your gym-nasiums and universities in order to work together with you in the fields of life andsciencerdquo Otherwise the Muslims would never understand the Russians and keepescaping from them69

In 1883 Gasp otilde ral otilde finally received permission to publish a newspaper Tercuumlmanor Perevodchik in its Russian version both meaning ldquotranslatorrdquo The permissionstipulated that the newspaper should be a bilingual publication in Russian and TatarAlthough there had been previous attempts by the Muslims of Russia to publishperiodicals none of these attempts had yielded a lasting and substantial result70

Tercuumlmanrsquos first issue came out on the 100th anniversary of the annexation of theCrimea From the very beginning Gasp otilde ral otilde adopted a cautious tone which enabledhim to publish his newspaper without interruption for 31 years until his deathTercuumlman is the best example of the language that Gasp otilde ral otilde considered the commonliterary language of the Muslims of Russia It was a simplified form of literaryOttoman Turkish with occasional Crimean Tatar expressions In addition when headdressed a certain group of Muslims Gasp otilde ral otilde would also use some expressionsfrom their tongue Tercuumlman was published in the Arabic script The lack ofcharacters for most of the vowels was a drawback of the Arabic script as Ilrsquominskiihad also noted71 but Gasp otilde ral otilde used this situation to cover some of the differences inthe pronunciations of different Muslim groups in Russia72 Gasp otilde ral otilde was a prolificwriter Aside from Tercuumlman and many manuscripts he published a few other

272

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

periodicals but the impact of Tercuumlman not only among the Muslims of Russia butalso in the entire Turkic world cannot be exaggerated73 The famous historian andBashkir political leader Zeki V Togan relates that the most prestigious personalitiesamong the Muslims of Russia had all followed Tercuumlman74

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos second reform was the improvement of traditional Muslim schoolsAccording to Ostroumov the traditional mekteb was a place where the ldquochild-likecharacteristicsrdquo of children were blunted75 In these schools the children memorizedthe alphabet but ldquoacquisition of functional literacy was not the goalrdquo of schooling76

The students learned the names of the letters but not the sounds they represented Asa result it was possible that they would remain functionally illiterate after years ofstudy77 The Russian Orientalist Nil S Lykoshin called this ldquoNot Education butTorturerdquo (Muchenie a ne uchenie) He described the buildings where this educationtook place as unsuitable dark cold and stifling places78 On the other hand themedreses were not efficient either The education in a medrese could continue formore than 20 years and the student would graduate without even learning Arabicwhich constituted the heart of medrese education79 Nevertheless more than 16000mektebs and 214 medreses in the late nineteenth century represented a strongcommitment to education and a solid basis for a dynamic society after a well-plannedreform80

Gasp otilde ral otilde called the system he introduced to the mektebs ldquousucircl-i cedidrdquo that isldquonew methodrdquo81 The most important aspect of usucircl-i cedid was a shift to the phoneticmethod In this way Gasp otilde ral otilde succeeded in shortening the time a student beganto read and write to approximately 40 days Then he regularized the duration ofeducation and the curriculum and improved the class atmosphere82 Finally he intro-duced subjects that had not been in the mekteb curriculum before his reforms Asidefrom Qurrsquoanic recitation and the basic principles of Islam he began to teach basicarithmetic geography and history83 Gasp otilde ral otilde opened the first cedid school in 1884in Bahccedilesaray This was not the first attempt to reform the Muslim schools in Russiabut it was the one that yielded the most significant results84 In 1908 there wereapproximately 6000 reformed schools in Russia according to Gasp otilde ral otilde Althoughfully enlightening the students in the short period they attended these schools was notpossible it was still possible to instill a love for further learning in their hearts Thesechildren continued their studies with this love and many of the graduates of cedidschools had successful careers85

The Clash Prior to 1905

Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were perceptive enough to notice the challenge of eachotherrsquos efforts Ilrsquominskii was in a better situation to express his ideas In his publicworks he frequently wrote about the danger of ldquoTatarizationrdquo with which he meantthe influence of Muslim Tatars over other inorodtsy while in his personal corres-pondence he more openly and directly accused Gasp otilde ral otilde and urged the authorities to

273

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

take precautions against him86 The best-known and most frequently cited example ofthis correspondence is Ilrsquominskiirsquos letters to Pobedonostsev which were published in1895 4 years after Ilrsquominskiirsquos death87

Ilrsquominskiirsquos first warning to Pobedonostsev about Gasp otilde ral otilde was in December1883 8 months after the first appearance of Tercuumlman He wrote that Gasp otilde ral otildewanted to unite the millions of Muslims under Russian sovereignty ldquofrom the Crimeato the Caucasus and Central Asiardquo with science and civilization and that hislanguage was borrowed from the newspapers of Imiddotstanbul88 After receiving moreinformation from his student in Turkistan Ostroumov Ilrsquominskii continued to warnPobedonostsev in February 1884

Gasprinskii the publisher of Tercuumlman (perevodchik) in Bahccedilesaray has this aim firstto spread among the Muslims of the Russian empire European enlightenment on aMuhammedan basis coloring European education with Muhammedan ideas second tounite and rally the millions of wide-spread Muhammedan peoples of Russia withdifferent tongues (examplemdashGerman unification) third to sow a Turkish germ amongall the Muslims of Russia the Ottoman language89

In 1889 Ilrsquominskii read an open letter to Tercuumlman in a local Kazakh newspaperpublished in Akmolinsk He was upset He wrote to Pobedonostsev ldquoIn the opinionof competent people the Tatar newspaper lsquoPerevodchikrsquo revealed its artfulnessdirection and tendency during the eight years [sic] it was publishedrdquo90 As the formerSteppe Governor-General G A Kolpakovskii had also suggested it was necessary toofficially restrict this newspaper and unofficially promote alternative publications byldquounskillful and uneducated translatorsrdquo91

Ilrsquominskii died in 1891 In his farewell address Pobedonostsev wrote ldquoHe[Ilrsquominskii] vigilantly followed the Muslim propaganda that strengthened in therecent times in our near and far East and the service of his timely warnings cannot beexaggeratedrdquo92 The influence of Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers gradually decreased with therise of a relatively secular and ethno-nationalist educated society in Russia but theystil l enjoyed considerable power until the end of the imperial regime TheBrotherhood of St Gurii continued its activities under the leadership of Ilrsquominskiirsquosadopted son Nikolai A Bobrovnikov93 Besides a number of Ilrsquominskii sympathizersoccupied key decision-making positions on the education of Muslims in RussiaAccording to my research there was no personal communication between Gasp otilde ral otildeand Ilrsquominskii but Gasp otilde ral otilde got into contact with the followers of Ilrsquominskii and it ispossible to make some comments on Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas about Ilrsquominskii and hissystem based on these contacts

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos first reference to the Ilrsquominskii system was in his ldquoRussian IslamrdquoWhile demanding the recognition of Tatar as the language of education in Muslimschools he stated that the Ministry of Education had also recognized the importanceof native language in education94 This was a rather vague reference to the regulationsof 1870 which were promulgated following a debate over the Ilrsquominskii system andhad sanctioned the use of native languages in the government schools for the

274

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

inorodtsy In relation to the Muslim schools the emphasis of the 1870 regulationswas on the introduction of Russian language classes in the mektebs but still thegeneral insistence of the Ilrsquominskii system on native languages provided somesupport to Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas95

By the 1890s Gasp otilde ral otilde had secured considerable support for his school systemamong the Muslims of European Russia Now he wanted to expand usucircl-i cedid tothe rest of the empire In 1892 he sent a memorandum to the Governor-General ofTurkistan and suggested the introduction of usucircl-i cedid in Turkistan because the2-year programs of this system were short enough to leave sufficient time for thestudy of Russian language as opposed to the 6-year programs of traditional mektebs96

The Governor-General passed the plan on to Ostroumov and the Orientalist VladimirP Nalivkin Both Ostroumov and Nalivkin agreed with Gasp otilde ral otilde on the content ofhis suggestions but still they responded negatively to the Governor-Generalrsquosinquiry ldquoIn the matter of the education of inorodtsy in Russiardquo Ostroumov wroteldquowe need the direction of a Russian member of the Ministry of Education not that ofa Tatar inorodetsrdquo The solution was to provide education ldquolsquoin the spirit of Russianstate interestsrsquo using administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo97 Nalivkinrsquos argument was similar to that of Ostroumov thoughless enthusiastic98 The Governor-General ignored the memorandum did not answerGasp otilde ral otilde and filed the report Gasp otilde ral otilde traveled to Central Asia in 1893 and openeda cedid school During this trip he also met with Ostroumov to ask for his supportGasp otilde ral otilde probably did not know how Ostroumov had responded to the Governor-Generalrsquos inquiry The school Gasp otilde ral otilde opened closed soon after99

In 1905 Gasp otilde ral otilde once again tried to find support from the Russian authoritiesShortly before the revolution of 1905 the Minister of Education V G Glazovconvened a commission to discuss the question of schools for non-Russians100

Gasp otilde ral otilde presented a petition to the commission He wrote that though 30000schools were necessary for the education of 15 million Muslims in Russia thegovernment had only opened less than 300 during the previous 70 years It wasapparent that the government lacked the funds to open so many schools however itwould be possible if the Muslims themselves supported the schools On the otherhand the present government schools were unable to gain the support of theMuslims because the classes were held in Russian and the students could notunderstand anything The average student graduated ldquowithout any intellectualdevelopmentrdquo ldquoFor the intellectual enlightenment of the Muslims of Russiardquo it wasnecessary to follow Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and use the native language of the childrenOnly then would the Muslims support government schools101

Members of the 1905 commission also known as the ldquoBudilovich Commissionrdquowere all supporters of Ilrsquominskii including Ostroumov and Bobrovnikov102 Contraryto what Ilrsquominskii had suggested the commission decided that the Ilrsquominskii systemas it was applied to the baptized inorodtsy should be used for all non-Russians withsome room for certain amendments to comply with local necessities The first year

275

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

should be fully in the vernacular Russian should enter the curriculum as a subject ofstudy in the second year and only in the third year could the language of instructionbecome Russian With regard to the Muslims the commission stated that theIlrsquominskii system had full respect for the studentsrsquo beliefs Therefore it allowedreligious education in the Muslim schools but taking into consideration that thiswould not bring the Muslims close to the Russian people basic subjects such asnatural and social sciences should also be in the curriculum It was necessary toprepare books for the Muslims in their local languages with Cyrillic scripts so thatthe common alphabet would serve as a path to Russian books the Russian languageand the Russian outlook on the world

With regard to the mektebs and medreses the commission first recommended theauthorities not to intervene in the internal affairs of the Muslims but then it listed anumber of requirements for the Muslim schools The mullahs should know Russianand be of the same nationality as the students The language of instruction shouldbe the native language spoken in the childrsquos house and not ldquoartificial Tatarrdquo Theeducation should not encourage opposition against the state The schools should openwith the permission of the Ministry of Education The mullahs should submitstatistical data about the students each year The curriculum of mektebs shouldinclude Russian and basic subjects like mathematics The purpose of teachingRussian should be bringing the Muslims closer to Russian education and instillingthe feeling of ldquopatriotic solidarityrdquo in their hearts103

Since usucircl-i cedid was only recently and gradually making its way into CentralAsia most of the cedid teachers in this region were Tatars from European RussiaAside from other restrictions it was apparent that the condition of ldquosame nationalityrdquowas intended to limit Tatar influence Non-interference was not working anymorebecause the Muslim schools had gone through an internal reform and had begun toimprove the social and political consciousness of the Muslims After the BudilovichCommission the followers of Ilrsquominskii would try to limit the influence of theMuslim reformers ldquousing administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo as Ostroumov had suggested to the Governor-General ofTurkistan in 1892104 An additional measure was to take advantage of the conflictbetween the traditionalist opposition that had begun to develop among the Muslimclergy against Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos reforms and support the traditionalists against thereformers105 These may seem to be a diversion from the non-interference policyIlrsquominskii had adopted in the 1860s but what happened is rather an adaptation of theold system to the new conditions because the purpose of limiting social and politicalconsciousness of the Muslims remained unchanged The Budilovich Commissionrsquossuggestions were approved as regulation in 1906 Because of the opposition from theMuslims the Ministry of Education had to drop the provisions regarding the use ofCyrillic script in school materials ldquoRussian classes in the Muslim confessionalschools the requirement that mullahs know Russian and ministry inspection ofconfessional schoolsrdquo However the requirement that the mullahs should be of the

276

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

same nationality as students remained106

From Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos references to Ilrsquominskii before the revolution of 1905 it ispossible to see that he refrained from attacking Ilrsquominskii and even tried to use someof Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas to support his own arguments In the liberal atmosphere of theyears following the revolution of 1905 he could speak more openly In 1908 hewrote that it was necessary to be cautious before 1905 because of the opposition ofIlrsquominskii and his followers ldquowho did not accept the Tatar Bashkir Kirgiz and Sartchildren to the same schools and tried to separate themrdquo But the conditions hadchanged by 1908 Now Gasp otilde ral otilde could even criticize the regulations of the Ministryof Education According to him the ministry had made a mistake by defining nativelanguage as the language spoken in the childrsquos house Accepting this position wouldrequire instruction in the languages of each city or region The native language of theRussian children was the Russian language not the languages of Volgograd KurskSaratovsk and Yaroslavl Thus Gasp otilde ral otilde concluded ldquoOur native language is theliterary lsquoTuumlrkrsquo languagerdquo107

Post-1905 and the Wider Society

The openness in Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos statements was not the only thing that changed after therevolution of 1905 The Russian empire in its entirety went through a period ofreform Several journals and newspapers appeared among the Muslims Gasp otilde ral otildeestimated that the total number of subscribers to these periodicals was between60000 and 70000 in 1908108 The Muslims had generally not joined the strikes andinsurgencies that had paralyzed the empire during 1905 but they had well sensedthe approaching administrative changes and through a number of rather peacefulgatherings they had tried to bring about a common representative body for theMuslims of the empire In August 1906 between the first and second DumasMuslim representatives from all over the empire met in a congress in NizhniiNovgorod This was the third Muslim congress since March 1905 and it was the bestorganized one The Muslim representatives agreed on a 33-point resolution onschooling The resolution stated inter alia that the education in Muslim schoolsshould be in the native language with the Arabic script Special importance should begiven to the study of ldquoliterary Turkish languagerdquo in the Muslim secondary schoolsand wherever possible in the elementary schools The study of the Russian languagewas not necessary in the elementary schools but it could enter the curriculum as asubject of study in the secondary schools Education of all Muslims should bestandardized as much as possible Muslim students should have the same rights asRussian students In the Muslim teachersrsquo schools with preparatory Russian classesthe study of the ldquoliterary national languagerdquo should improve so that the Muslimteachers could teach in their own language Elementary education should beobligatory for all Muslim children and the Muslim teachers should meet in acongress to prepare a standard program of education and materials for use in the

277

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Muslim schools109 Muslims of Russia would hold several other meetings in thefollowing years and reaffirm the decisions of this resolution110

The resolution was a victory for Gasp otilde ral otilde but the congress also showed tensionsthat he had not foreseen 25 years before in ldquoRussian Islamrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde had alwaysconcentrated his work on social and cultural issues In the years of the revolution hehad expressed this concentration as follows ldquoSome thoughts are forbidden to us Letus leave these to the generations that will come later Let us form a spiritual unity letus unite the languages [but] let others think of political unityrdquo111 Nevertheless themembers of the new generation who to a large extent were graduates of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosschools did not want to leave political action to future generations The Muslimcongress approved the formation of a Muslim political party despite Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosinitial opposition Later Gasp otilde ral otilde consented to this formation112 but the lack ofpopular support after the initial political excitement of the revolution showed thatMuslims of Russia were not ready to support a political party yet113 Moreover thepolitical ideals of the new generation were not always compatible with the unity ofthe Turkic and Muslim nation that Gasp otilde ral otilde had in mind

In 1911 two articles appeared in the biweekly supplement of an Orenburg-basednewspaper ldquoWe are Tatarsrdquo by lsquoAlimcan Imiddotbrahimov from Kazan114 and ldquoWe areTurksrdquo by an author who wrote under the pseudonym TuumlrkogAElig lu which means ldquoson ofa Turkrdquo115 The titles well summarized the contents of the articles Imiddotbrahimov wroteldquoWe are Tatars our language is the Tatar language our literature is the Tatarliterature all our affairs are Tatar affairs our civilization will be the Tatar civiliza-tionrdquo While saying ldquowerdquo Imiddotbrahimov was referring to the people who are calledldquoKazan Tatarsrdquo today TuumlrkogAElig lu did not l ike Imiddotbrahimovrsquos statements It wasnecessary to put an end to these ldquowhims of Tatarismrdquo according to him After thespread of that ldquoso-called Tatar literaturerdquo now a ldquoso-called Kazakh literaturerdquo hadbegun to appear This was all dividing the common ldquoTuumlrkrdquo people116 The Ministry ofEducation was trying to impose the use of local dialects in inorodets schools This ofcourse was harmful to the Turks of the Russian empire117 Division weakened theTurks of Russia It was necessary to end all those wrong tendencies and begin towork for the creation of a ldquoTuumlrkicircrdquo literature118 Until the very end of the imperialregime a heated discussion continued between the Kazakh Volga Tatar CrimeanTatar Bashkir and other ethno-territorial nationalists and pan-Turkists in the Muslimpress Language was the key issue in these discussions119

The Muslim intellectuals who entered such discussions always expressed a certainrespect for and gratefulness to Gasp otilde ral otilde the ldquoold teacherrdquo or the ldquofatherrdquo regardlessof whether they agreed with him or not120 The very fact that the Muslims werepublicly discussing social and political issues was the proof of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos success inreforming the Muslim society But the old teacher was in an ambivalent situation Hewas happy for the appearance of a flourishing press but he was upset because of themistakes made about language With all due respect to the common people he wrotein 1912 the literary and scientific publications should not be published in the

278

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

language spoken by a Kazakh shepherd The several Turkic tribes could not becomea nation if they insisted on separating their languages121

While Gasp otilde ral otilde found himself in this ambivalent situation followers of Ilrsquominskiialso had a number of things to worry about Following the edict of religioustoleration on 17 April 1905 approximately 49000 inorodtsy left Orthodoxy forIslam in 5 years122 Ilrsquominskiirsquos biographer Petr V Znamenskii wrote in a work aboutthe Kazan Tatars that the mission among the Muslims was completely paralyzed123 In1910 a missionary congress gathered in Kazan124 The atmosphere of the congresswas quite gloomy It did not yield a substantive result other than the publication of ajournal to observe and study the Muslim world Mir Islama Writers of the journalwere quick to notice the ideological currents among the Muslims of the empire In1913 two articles discussed pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia According tothese articles pan-Islamism was losing its influence in the Ottoman Empire andamong the Muslims of Russia On the other hand pan-Turkism and territorialnationalisms were gaining strength125 Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers had definitely failed toprevent the development of social and political consciousness among the Muslims ofRussia Local nationalists were opposing a political Turkic unity but they were by nomeans closer to the Russians On the other hand the mission of consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy with the Ilrsquominskii system was not workingsmoothly either

When Ilrsquominskii had first presented his system to Russian society in the 1860sclaiming that the native language is most effective in instilling Christianity and thatthe path to Russification would be open to the inorodtsy once they were sufficientlyChristianized the opposition had contended that the proper way of national assimila-tion was through language and strengthening the native languages would result inthe alienation of the inorodtsy126 Thanks to the support of Tolstoi and Pobe-donostsev the Ilrsquominskii system had gained official recognition in those days but thepolitical composition of the empire had changed significantly by the early twentiethcentury In 1897 an article appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Educationabout a new language teaching technique the natural method ldquoThe main channel forthe inorodtsy to approach the Russiansrdquo was the Russian language according to theauthor and with the natural method it was possible to teach Russian to the inorodtsywithout using their native languages In this method the teacher was supposed toteach first by miming and with gestures and then by building on the words that thestudents had already learned127 Soon after the natural method developed as analternative to Ilrsquominskiirsquos translative method It also found supporters in the Russianbureaucracy and despite the legal recognition of the Ilrsquominskii system with a numberof regulations local authorities decided which method to use in practice As theimperial bureaucracy became increasingly secularized and ethno-nationalist towardthe end of the imperial regime followers of Ilrsquominskii lost their control in theeducation of the non-Muslim inorodtsy128 but their ideas about the Muslims were notthat incompatible with the ideas of the new ruling elite The Ilrsquominskii group had

279

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

beyond their petty local interests The situation of their mental development judgingfrom their schools and writings was not successful either It was possible to seeEuropean influence among the Muslims of other countries but among the Muslimsof Russia only the Lithuanian Tatars had acquired European culture65 Time hadproved that Russification as it was applied until then was not a viable policy It wasnot possible to find any completely Russified non-Russians in Russia on thecontrary in some places the Russians had adopted manners of the non-Russians66

What was the solution then Gasp otilde ral otilde answered ldquounification and moral rapproche-ment [of the Russians and Muslims] on the basis of equality freedom science andeducationrdquo ldquoIn a wordrdquo he wrote ldquomoral Russification of the Muslims can beachieved by raising their intellectual level and this can be possible only by givingthe Tatar language the right to be the language of school and literature Muslims ofRussia have neither science nor literature or press and I think that it is necessary tofacilitate their development Russian-Tatar schools that are opened in order to teachRussian to the Tatar students cannot achieve this task at allrdquo67 Thus Gasp otilde ral otildedemanded the introduction of elementary sciences to the traditional Muslim schoolsin the Tatar language and the support of publications again in the Tatar language Infact spread of knowledge among the Muslims was so necessary that all kinds ofpublications in the Muslim dialects should also be supported Neither the Russiangovernment nor the Russian language would suffer from this in any way68 ldquoWhen welearn our fatherland Russia and its system from books in Tatarrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde wroteldquothen you can feel sure that we will have the will and opportunity to fill your gym-nasiums and universities in order to work together with you in the fields of life andsciencerdquo Otherwise the Muslims would never understand the Russians and keepescaping from them69

In 1883 Gasp otilde ral otilde finally received permission to publish a newspaper Tercuumlmanor Perevodchik in its Russian version both meaning ldquotranslatorrdquo The permissionstipulated that the newspaper should be a bilingual publication in Russian and TatarAlthough there had been previous attempts by the Muslims of Russia to publishperiodicals none of these attempts had yielded a lasting and substantial result70

Tercuumlmanrsquos first issue came out on the 100th anniversary of the annexation of theCrimea From the very beginning Gasp otilde ral otilde adopted a cautious tone which enabledhim to publish his newspaper without interruption for 31 years until his deathTercuumlman is the best example of the language that Gasp otilde ral otilde considered the commonliterary language of the Muslims of Russia It was a simplified form of literaryOttoman Turkish with occasional Crimean Tatar expressions In addition when headdressed a certain group of Muslims Gasp otilde ral otilde would also use some expressionsfrom their tongue Tercuumlman was published in the Arabic script The lack ofcharacters for most of the vowels was a drawback of the Arabic script as Ilrsquominskiihad also noted71 but Gasp otilde ral otilde used this situation to cover some of the differences inthe pronunciations of different Muslim groups in Russia72 Gasp otilde ral otilde was a prolificwriter Aside from Tercuumlman and many manuscripts he published a few other

272

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

periodicals but the impact of Tercuumlman not only among the Muslims of Russia butalso in the entire Turkic world cannot be exaggerated73 The famous historian andBashkir political leader Zeki V Togan relates that the most prestigious personalitiesamong the Muslims of Russia had all followed Tercuumlman74

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos second reform was the improvement of traditional Muslim schoolsAccording to Ostroumov the traditional mekteb was a place where the ldquochild-likecharacteristicsrdquo of children were blunted75 In these schools the children memorizedthe alphabet but ldquoacquisition of functional literacy was not the goalrdquo of schooling76

The students learned the names of the letters but not the sounds they represented Asa result it was possible that they would remain functionally illiterate after years ofstudy77 The Russian Orientalist Nil S Lykoshin called this ldquoNot Education butTorturerdquo (Muchenie a ne uchenie) He described the buildings where this educationtook place as unsuitable dark cold and stifling places78 On the other hand themedreses were not efficient either The education in a medrese could continue formore than 20 years and the student would graduate without even learning Arabicwhich constituted the heart of medrese education79 Nevertheless more than 16000mektebs and 214 medreses in the late nineteenth century represented a strongcommitment to education and a solid basis for a dynamic society after a well-plannedreform80

Gasp otilde ral otilde called the system he introduced to the mektebs ldquousucircl-i cedidrdquo that isldquonew methodrdquo81 The most important aspect of usucircl-i cedid was a shift to the phoneticmethod In this way Gasp otilde ral otilde succeeded in shortening the time a student beganto read and write to approximately 40 days Then he regularized the duration ofeducation and the curriculum and improved the class atmosphere82 Finally he intro-duced subjects that had not been in the mekteb curriculum before his reforms Asidefrom Qurrsquoanic recitation and the basic principles of Islam he began to teach basicarithmetic geography and history83 Gasp otilde ral otilde opened the first cedid school in 1884in Bahccedilesaray This was not the first attempt to reform the Muslim schools in Russiabut it was the one that yielded the most significant results84 In 1908 there wereapproximately 6000 reformed schools in Russia according to Gasp otilde ral otilde Althoughfully enlightening the students in the short period they attended these schools was notpossible it was still possible to instill a love for further learning in their hearts Thesechildren continued their studies with this love and many of the graduates of cedidschools had successful careers85

The Clash Prior to 1905

Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were perceptive enough to notice the challenge of eachotherrsquos efforts Ilrsquominskii was in a better situation to express his ideas In his publicworks he frequently wrote about the danger of ldquoTatarizationrdquo with which he meantthe influence of Muslim Tatars over other inorodtsy while in his personal corres-pondence he more openly and directly accused Gasp otilde ral otilde and urged the authorities to

273

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

take precautions against him86 The best-known and most frequently cited example ofthis correspondence is Ilrsquominskiirsquos letters to Pobedonostsev which were published in1895 4 years after Ilrsquominskiirsquos death87

Ilrsquominskiirsquos first warning to Pobedonostsev about Gasp otilde ral otilde was in December1883 8 months after the first appearance of Tercuumlman He wrote that Gasp otilde ral otildewanted to unite the millions of Muslims under Russian sovereignty ldquofrom the Crimeato the Caucasus and Central Asiardquo with science and civilization and that hislanguage was borrowed from the newspapers of Imiddotstanbul88 After receiving moreinformation from his student in Turkistan Ostroumov Ilrsquominskii continued to warnPobedonostsev in February 1884

Gasprinskii the publisher of Tercuumlman (perevodchik) in Bahccedilesaray has this aim firstto spread among the Muslims of the Russian empire European enlightenment on aMuhammedan basis coloring European education with Muhammedan ideas second tounite and rally the millions of wide-spread Muhammedan peoples of Russia withdifferent tongues (examplemdashGerman unification) third to sow a Turkish germ amongall the Muslims of Russia the Ottoman language89

In 1889 Ilrsquominskii read an open letter to Tercuumlman in a local Kazakh newspaperpublished in Akmolinsk He was upset He wrote to Pobedonostsev ldquoIn the opinionof competent people the Tatar newspaper lsquoPerevodchikrsquo revealed its artfulnessdirection and tendency during the eight years [sic] it was publishedrdquo90 As the formerSteppe Governor-General G A Kolpakovskii had also suggested it was necessary toofficially restrict this newspaper and unofficially promote alternative publications byldquounskillful and uneducated translatorsrdquo91

Ilrsquominskii died in 1891 In his farewell address Pobedonostsev wrote ldquoHe[Ilrsquominskii] vigilantly followed the Muslim propaganda that strengthened in therecent times in our near and far East and the service of his timely warnings cannot beexaggeratedrdquo92 The influence of Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers gradually decreased with therise of a relatively secular and ethno-nationalist educated society in Russia but theystil l enjoyed considerable power until the end of the imperial regime TheBrotherhood of St Gurii continued its activities under the leadership of Ilrsquominskiirsquosadopted son Nikolai A Bobrovnikov93 Besides a number of Ilrsquominskii sympathizersoccupied key decision-making positions on the education of Muslims in RussiaAccording to my research there was no personal communication between Gasp otilde ral otildeand Ilrsquominskii but Gasp otilde ral otilde got into contact with the followers of Ilrsquominskii and it ispossible to make some comments on Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas about Ilrsquominskii and hissystem based on these contacts

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos first reference to the Ilrsquominskii system was in his ldquoRussian IslamrdquoWhile demanding the recognition of Tatar as the language of education in Muslimschools he stated that the Ministry of Education had also recognized the importanceof native language in education94 This was a rather vague reference to the regulationsof 1870 which were promulgated following a debate over the Ilrsquominskii system andhad sanctioned the use of native languages in the government schools for the

274

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

inorodtsy In relation to the Muslim schools the emphasis of the 1870 regulationswas on the introduction of Russian language classes in the mektebs but still thegeneral insistence of the Ilrsquominskii system on native languages provided somesupport to Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas95

By the 1890s Gasp otilde ral otilde had secured considerable support for his school systemamong the Muslims of European Russia Now he wanted to expand usucircl-i cedid tothe rest of the empire In 1892 he sent a memorandum to the Governor-General ofTurkistan and suggested the introduction of usucircl-i cedid in Turkistan because the2-year programs of this system were short enough to leave sufficient time for thestudy of Russian language as opposed to the 6-year programs of traditional mektebs96

The Governor-General passed the plan on to Ostroumov and the Orientalist VladimirP Nalivkin Both Ostroumov and Nalivkin agreed with Gasp otilde ral otilde on the content ofhis suggestions but still they responded negatively to the Governor-Generalrsquosinquiry ldquoIn the matter of the education of inorodtsy in Russiardquo Ostroumov wroteldquowe need the direction of a Russian member of the Ministry of Education not that ofa Tatar inorodetsrdquo The solution was to provide education ldquolsquoin the spirit of Russianstate interestsrsquo using administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo97 Nalivkinrsquos argument was similar to that of Ostroumov thoughless enthusiastic98 The Governor-General ignored the memorandum did not answerGasp otilde ral otilde and filed the report Gasp otilde ral otilde traveled to Central Asia in 1893 and openeda cedid school During this trip he also met with Ostroumov to ask for his supportGasp otilde ral otilde probably did not know how Ostroumov had responded to the Governor-Generalrsquos inquiry The school Gasp otilde ral otilde opened closed soon after99

In 1905 Gasp otilde ral otilde once again tried to find support from the Russian authoritiesShortly before the revolution of 1905 the Minister of Education V G Glazovconvened a commission to discuss the question of schools for non-Russians100

Gasp otilde ral otilde presented a petition to the commission He wrote that though 30000schools were necessary for the education of 15 million Muslims in Russia thegovernment had only opened less than 300 during the previous 70 years It wasapparent that the government lacked the funds to open so many schools however itwould be possible if the Muslims themselves supported the schools On the otherhand the present government schools were unable to gain the support of theMuslims because the classes were held in Russian and the students could notunderstand anything The average student graduated ldquowithout any intellectualdevelopmentrdquo ldquoFor the intellectual enlightenment of the Muslims of Russiardquo it wasnecessary to follow Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and use the native language of the childrenOnly then would the Muslims support government schools101

Members of the 1905 commission also known as the ldquoBudilovich Commissionrdquowere all supporters of Ilrsquominskii including Ostroumov and Bobrovnikov102 Contraryto what Ilrsquominskii had suggested the commission decided that the Ilrsquominskii systemas it was applied to the baptized inorodtsy should be used for all non-Russians withsome room for certain amendments to comply with local necessities The first year

275

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

should be fully in the vernacular Russian should enter the curriculum as a subject ofstudy in the second year and only in the third year could the language of instructionbecome Russian With regard to the Muslims the commission stated that theIlrsquominskii system had full respect for the studentsrsquo beliefs Therefore it allowedreligious education in the Muslim schools but taking into consideration that thiswould not bring the Muslims close to the Russian people basic subjects such asnatural and social sciences should also be in the curriculum It was necessary toprepare books for the Muslims in their local languages with Cyrillic scripts so thatthe common alphabet would serve as a path to Russian books the Russian languageand the Russian outlook on the world

With regard to the mektebs and medreses the commission first recommended theauthorities not to intervene in the internal affairs of the Muslims but then it listed anumber of requirements for the Muslim schools The mullahs should know Russianand be of the same nationality as the students The language of instruction shouldbe the native language spoken in the childrsquos house and not ldquoartificial Tatarrdquo Theeducation should not encourage opposition against the state The schools should openwith the permission of the Ministry of Education The mullahs should submitstatistical data about the students each year The curriculum of mektebs shouldinclude Russian and basic subjects like mathematics The purpose of teachingRussian should be bringing the Muslims closer to Russian education and instillingthe feeling of ldquopatriotic solidarityrdquo in their hearts103

Since usucircl-i cedid was only recently and gradually making its way into CentralAsia most of the cedid teachers in this region were Tatars from European RussiaAside from other restrictions it was apparent that the condition of ldquosame nationalityrdquowas intended to limit Tatar influence Non-interference was not working anymorebecause the Muslim schools had gone through an internal reform and had begun toimprove the social and political consciousness of the Muslims After the BudilovichCommission the followers of Ilrsquominskii would try to limit the influence of theMuslim reformers ldquousing administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo as Ostroumov had suggested to the Governor-General ofTurkistan in 1892104 An additional measure was to take advantage of the conflictbetween the traditionalist opposition that had begun to develop among the Muslimclergy against Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos reforms and support the traditionalists against thereformers105 These may seem to be a diversion from the non-interference policyIlrsquominskii had adopted in the 1860s but what happened is rather an adaptation of theold system to the new conditions because the purpose of limiting social and politicalconsciousness of the Muslims remained unchanged The Budilovich Commissionrsquossuggestions were approved as regulation in 1906 Because of the opposition from theMuslims the Ministry of Education had to drop the provisions regarding the use ofCyrillic script in school materials ldquoRussian classes in the Muslim confessionalschools the requirement that mullahs know Russian and ministry inspection ofconfessional schoolsrdquo However the requirement that the mullahs should be of the

276

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

same nationality as students remained106

From Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos references to Ilrsquominskii before the revolution of 1905 it ispossible to see that he refrained from attacking Ilrsquominskii and even tried to use someof Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas to support his own arguments In the liberal atmosphere of theyears following the revolution of 1905 he could speak more openly In 1908 hewrote that it was necessary to be cautious before 1905 because of the opposition ofIlrsquominskii and his followers ldquowho did not accept the Tatar Bashkir Kirgiz and Sartchildren to the same schools and tried to separate themrdquo But the conditions hadchanged by 1908 Now Gasp otilde ral otilde could even criticize the regulations of the Ministryof Education According to him the ministry had made a mistake by defining nativelanguage as the language spoken in the childrsquos house Accepting this position wouldrequire instruction in the languages of each city or region The native language of theRussian children was the Russian language not the languages of Volgograd KurskSaratovsk and Yaroslavl Thus Gasp otilde ral otilde concluded ldquoOur native language is theliterary lsquoTuumlrkrsquo languagerdquo107

Post-1905 and the Wider Society

The openness in Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos statements was not the only thing that changed after therevolution of 1905 The Russian empire in its entirety went through a period ofreform Several journals and newspapers appeared among the Muslims Gasp otilde ral otildeestimated that the total number of subscribers to these periodicals was between60000 and 70000 in 1908108 The Muslims had generally not joined the strikes andinsurgencies that had paralyzed the empire during 1905 but they had well sensedthe approaching administrative changes and through a number of rather peacefulgatherings they had tried to bring about a common representative body for theMuslims of the empire In August 1906 between the first and second DumasMuslim representatives from all over the empire met in a congress in NizhniiNovgorod This was the third Muslim congress since March 1905 and it was the bestorganized one The Muslim representatives agreed on a 33-point resolution onschooling The resolution stated inter alia that the education in Muslim schoolsshould be in the native language with the Arabic script Special importance should begiven to the study of ldquoliterary Turkish languagerdquo in the Muslim secondary schoolsand wherever possible in the elementary schools The study of the Russian languagewas not necessary in the elementary schools but it could enter the curriculum as asubject of study in the secondary schools Education of all Muslims should bestandardized as much as possible Muslim students should have the same rights asRussian students In the Muslim teachersrsquo schools with preparatory Russian classesthe study of the ldquoliterary national languagerdquo should improve so that the Muslimteachers could teach in their own language Elementary education should beobligatory for all Muslim children and the Muslim teachers should meet in acongress to prepare a standard program of education and materials for use in the

277

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Muslim schools109 Muslims of Russia would hold several other meetings in thefollowing years and reaffirm the decisions of this resolution110

The resolution was a victory for Gasp otilde ral otilde but the congress also showed tensionsthat he had not foreseen 25 years before in ldquoRussian Islamrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde had alwaysconcentrated his work on social and cultural issues In the years of the revolution hehad expressed this concentration as follows ldquoSome thoughts are forbidden to us Letus leave these to the generations that will come later Let us form a spiritual unity letus unite the languages [but] let others think of political unityrdquo111 Nevertheless themembers of the new generation who to a large extent were graduates of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosschools did not want to leave political action to future generations The Muslimcongress approved the formation of a Muslim political party despite Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosinitial opposition Later Gasp otilde ral otilde consented to this formation112 but the lack ofpopular support after the initial political excitement of the revolution showed thatMuslims of Russia were not ready to support a political party yet113 Moreover thepolitical ideals of the new generation were not always compatible with the unity ofthe Turkic and Muslim nation that Gasp otilde ral otilde had in mind

In 1911 two articles appeared in the biweekly supplement of an Orenburg-basednewspaper ldquoWe are Tatarsrdquo by lsquoAlimcan Imiddotbrahimov from Kazan114 and ldquoWe areTurksrdquo by an author who wrote under the pseudonym TuumlrkogAElig lu which means ldquoson ofa Turkrdquo115 The titles well summarized the contents of the articles Imiddotbrahimov wroteldquoWe are Tatars our language is the Tatar language our literature is the Tatarliterature all our affairs are Tatar affairs our civilization will be the Tatar civiliza-tionrdquo While saying ldquowerdquo Imiddotbrahimov was referring to the people who are calledldquoKazan Tatarsrdquo today TuumlrkogAElig lu did not l ike Imiddotbrahimovrsquos statements It wasnecessary to put an end to these ldquowhims of Tatarismrdquo according to him After thespread of that ldquoso-called Tatar literaturerdquo now a ldquoso-called Kazakh literaturerdquo hadbegun to appear This was all dividing the common ldquoTuumlrkrdquo people116 The Ministry ofEducation was trying to impose the use of local dialects in inorodets schools This ofcourse was harmful to the Turks of the Russian empire117 Division weakened theTurks of Russia It was necessary to end all those wrong tendencies and begin towork for the creation of a ldquoTuumlrkicircrdquo literature118 Until the very end of the imperialregime a heated discussion continued between the Kazakh Volga Tatar CrimeanTatar Bashkir and other ethno-territorial nationalists and pan-Turkists in the Muslimpress Language was the key issue in these discussions119

The Muslim intellectuals who entered such discussions always expressed a certainrespect for and gratefulness to Gasp otilde ral otilde the ldquoold teacherrdquo or the ldquofatherrdquo regardlessof whether they agreed with him or not120 The very fact that the Muslims werepublicly discussing social and political issues was the proof of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos success inreforming the Muslim society But the old teacher was in an ambivalent situation Hewas happy for the appearance of a flourishing press but he was upset because of themistakes made about language With all due respect to the common people he wrotein 1912 the literary and scientific publications should not be published in the

278

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

language spoken by a Kazakh shepherd The several Turkic tribes could not becomea nation if they insisted on separating their languages121

While Gasp otilde ral otilde found himself in this ambivalent situation followers of Ilrsquominskiialso had a number of things to worry about Following the edict of religioustoleration on 17 April 1905 approximately 49000 inorodtsy left Orthodoxy forIslam in 5 years122 Ilrsquominskiirsquos biographer Petr V Znamenskii wrote in a work aboutthe Kazan Tatars that the mission among the Muslims was completely paralyzed123 In1910 a missionary congress gathered in Kazan124 The atmosphere of the congresswas quite gloomy It did not yield a substantive result other than the publication of ajournal to observe and study the Muslim world Mir Islama Writers of the journalwere quick to notice the ideological currents among the Muslims of the empire In1913 two articles discussed pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia According tothese articles pan-Islamism was losing its influence in the Ottoman Empire andamong the Muslims of Russia On the other hand pan-Turkism and territorialnationalisms were gaining strength125 Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers had definitely failed toprevent the development of social and political consciousness among the Muslims ofRussia Local nationalists were opposing a political Turkic unity but they were by nomeans closer to the Russians On the other hand the mission of consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy with the Ilrsquominskii system was not workingsmoothly either

When Ilrsquominskii had first presented his system to Russian society in the 1860sclaiming that the native language is most effective in instilling Christianity and thatthe path to Russification would be open to the inorodtsy once they were sufficientlyChristianized the opposition had contended that the proper way of national assimila-tion was through language and strengthening the native languages would result inthe alienation of the inorodtsy126 Thanks to the support of Tolstoi and Pobe-donostsev the Ilrsquominskii system had gained official recognition in those days but thepolitical composition of the empire had changed significantly by the early twentiethcentury In 1897 an article appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Educationabout a new language teaching technique the natural method ldquoThe main channel forthe inorodtsy to approach the Russiansrdquo was the Russian language according to theauthor and with the natural method it was possible to teach Russian to the inorodtsywithout using their native languages In this method the teacher was supposed toteach first by miming and with gestures and then by building on the words that thestudents had already learned127 Soon after the natural method developed as analternative to Ilrsquominskiirsquos translative method It also found supporters in the Russianbureaucracy and despite the legal recognition of the Ilrsquominskii system with a numberof regulations local authorities decided which method to use in practice As theimperial bureaucracy became increasingly secularized and ethno-nationalist towardthe end of the imperial regime followers of Ilrsquominskii lost their control in theeducation of the non-Muslim inorodtsy128 but their ideas about the Muslims were notthat incompatible with the ideas of the new ruling elite The Ilrsquominskii group had

279

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

periodicals but the impact of Tercuumlman not only among the Muslims of Russia butalso in the entire Turkic world cannot be exaggerated73 The famous historian andBashkir political leader Zeki V Togan relates that the most prestigious personalitiesamong the Muslims of Russia had all followed Tercuumlman74

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos second reform was the improvement of traditional Muslim schoolsAccording to Ostroumov the traditional mekteb was a place where the ldquochild-likecharacteristicsrdquo of children were blunted75 In these schools the children memorizedthe alphabet but ldquoacquisition of functional literacy was not the goalrdquo of schooling76

The students learned the names of the letters but not the sounds they represented Asa result it was possible that they would remain functionally illiterate after years ofstudy77 The Russian Orientalist Nil S Lykoshin called this ldquoNot Education butTorturerdquo (Muchenie a ne uchenie) He described the buildings where this educationtook place as unsuitable dark cold and stifling places78 On the other hand themedreses were not efficient either The education in a medrese could continue formore than 20 years and the student would graduate without even learning Arabicwhich constituted the heart of medrese education79 Nevertheless more than 16000mektebs and 214 medreses in the late nineteenth century represented a strongcommitment to education and a solid basis for a dynamic society after a well-plannedreform80

Gasp otilde ral otilde called the system he introduced to the mektebs ldquousucircl-i cedidrdquo that isldquonew methodrdquo81 The most important aspect of usucircl-i cedid was a shift to the phoneticmethod In this way Gasp otilde ral otilde succeeded in shortening the time a student beganto read and write to approximately 40 days Then he regularized the duration ofeducation and the curriculum and improved the class atmosphere82 Finally he intro-duced subjects that had not been in the mekteb curriculum before his reforms Asidefrom Qurrsquoanic recitation and the basic principles of Islam he began to teach basicarithmetic geography and history83 Gasp otilde ral otilde opened the first cedid school in 1884in Bahccedilesaray This was not the first attempt to reform the Muslim schools in Russiabut it was the one that yielded the most significant results84 In 1908 there wereapproximately 6000 reformed schools in Russia according to Gasp otilde ral otilde Althoughfully enlightening the students in the short period they attended these schools was notpossible it was still possible to instill a love for further learning in their hearts Thesechildren continued their studies with this love and many of the graduates of cedidschools had successful careers85

The Clash Prior to 1905

Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were perceptive enough to notice the challenge of eachotherrsquos efforts Ilrsquominskii was in a better situation to express his ideas In his publicworks he frequently wrote about the danger of ldquoTatarizationrdquo with which he meantthe influence of Muslim Tatars over other inorodtsy while in his personal corres-pondence he more openly and directly accused Gasp otilde ral otilde and urged the authorities to

273

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

take precautions against him86 The best-known and most frequently cited example ofthis correspondence is Ilrsquominskiirsquos letters to Pobedonostsev which were published in1895 4 years after Ilrsquominskiirsquos death87

Ilrsquominskiirsquos first warning to Pobedonostsev about Gasp otilde ral otilde was in December1883 8 months after the first appearance of Tercuumlman He wrote that Gasp otilde ral otildewanted to unite the millions of Muslims under Russian sovereignty ldquofrom the Crimeato the Caucasus and Central Asiardquo with science and civilization and that hislanguage was borrowed from the newspapers of Imiddotstanbul88 After receiving moreinformation from his student in Turkistan Ostroumov Ilrsquominskii continued to warnPobedonostsev in February 1884

Gasprinskii the publisher of Tercuumlman (perevodchik) in Bahccedilesaray has this aim firstto spread among the Muslims of the Russian empire European enlightenment on aMuhammedan basis coloring European education with Muhammedan ideas second tounite and rally the millions of wide-spread Muhammedan peoples of Russia withdifferent tongues (examplemdashGerman unification) third to sow a Turkish germ amongall the Muslims of Russia the Ottoman language89

In 1889 Ilrsquominskii read an open letter to Tercuumlman in a local Kazakh newspaperpublished in Akmolinsk He was upset He wrote to Pobedonostsev ldquoIn the opinionof competent people the Tatar newspaper lsquoPerevodchikrsquo revealed its artfulnessdirection and tendency during the eight years [sic] it was publishedrdquo90 As the formerSteppe Governor-General G A Kolpakovskii had also suggested it was necessary toofficially restrict this newspaper and unofficially promote alternative publications byldquounskillful and uneducated translatorsrdquo91

Ilrsquominskii died in 1891 In his farewell address Pobedonostsev wrote ldquoHe[Ilrsquominskii] vigilantly followed the Muslim propaganda that strengthened in therecent times in our near and far East and the service of his timely warnings cannot beexaggeratedrdquo92 The influence of Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers gradually decreased with therise of a relatively secular and ethno-nationalist educated society in Russia but theystil l enjoyed considerable power until the end of the imperial regime TheBrotherhood of St Gurii continued its activities under the leadership of Ilrsquominskiirsquosadopted son Nikolai A Bobrovnikov93 Besides a number of Ilrsquominskii sympathizersoccupied key decision-making positions on the education of Muslims in RussiaAccording to my research there was no personal communication between Gasp otilde ral otildeand Ilrsquominskii but Gasp otilde ral otilde got into contact with the followers of Ilrsquominskii and it ispossible to make some comments on Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas about Ilrsquominskii and hissystem based on these contacts

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos first reference to the Ilrsquominskii system was in his ldquoRussian IslamrdquoWhile demanding the recognition of Tatar as the language of education in Muslimschools he stated that the Ministry of Education had also recognized the importanceof native language in education94 This was a rather vague reference to the regulationsof 1870 which were promulgated following a debate over the Ilrsquominskii system andhad sanctioned the use of native languages in the government schools for the

274

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

inorodtsy In relation to the Muslim schools the emphasis of the 1870 regulationswas on the introduction of Russian language classes in the mektebs but still thegeneral insistence of the Ilrsquominskii system on native languages provided somesupport to Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas95

By the 1890s Gasp otilde ral otilde had secured considerable support for his school systemamong the Muslims of European Russia Now he wanted to expand usucircl-i cedid tothe rest of the empire In 1892 he sent a memorandum to the Governor-General ofTurkistan and suggested the introduction of usucircl-i cedid in Turkistan because the2-year programs of this system were short enough to leave sufficient time for thestudy of Russian language as opposed to the 6-year programs of traditional mektebs96

The Governor-General passed the plan on to Ostroumov and the Orientalist VladimirP Nalivkin Both Ostroumov and Nalivkin agreed with Gasp otilde ral otilde on the content ofhis suggestions but still they responded negatively to the Governor-Generalrsquosinquiry ldquoIn the matter of the education of inorodtsy in Russiardquo Ostroumov wroteldquowe need the direction of a Russian member of the Ministry of Education not that ofa Tatar inorodetsrdquo The solution was to provide education ldquolsquoin the spirit of Russianstate interestsrsquo using administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo97 Nalivkinrsquos argument was similar to that of Ostroumov thoughless enthusiastic98 The Governor-General ignored the memorandum did not answerGasp otilde ral otilde and filed the report Gasp otilde ral otilde traveled to Central Asia in 1893 and openeda cedid school During this trip he also met with Ostroumov to ask for his supportGasp otilde ral otilde probably did not know how Ostroumov had responded to the Governor-Generalrsquos inquiry The school Gasp otilde ral otilde opened closed soon after99

In 1905 Gasp otilde ral otilde once again tried to find support from the Russian authoritiesShortly before the revolution of 1905 the Minister of Education V G Glazovconvened a commission to discuss the question of schools for non-Russians100

Gasp otilde ral otilde presented a petition to the commission He wrote that though 30000schools were necessary for the education of 15 million Muslims in Russia thegovernment had only opened less than 300 during the previous 70 years It wasapparent that the government lacked the funds to open so many schools however itwould be possible if the Muslims themselves supported the schools On the otherhand the present government schools were unable to gain the support of theMuslims because the classes were held in Russian and the students could notunderstand anything The average student graduated ldquowithout any intellectualdevelopmentrdquo ldquoFor the intellectual enlightenment of the Muslims of Russiardquo it wasnecessary to follow Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and use the native language of the childrenOnly then would the Muslims support government schools101

Members of the 1905 commission also known as the ldquoBudilovich Commissionrdquowere all supporters of Ilrsquominskii including Ostroumov and Bobrovnikov102 Contraryto what Ilrsquominskii had suggested the commission decided that the Ilrsquominskii systemas it was applied to the baptized inorodtsy should be used for all non-Russians withsome room for certain amendments to comply with local necessities The first year

275

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

should be fully in the vernacular Russian should enter the curriculum as a subject ofstudy in the second year and only in the third year could the language of instructionbecome Russian With regard to the Muslims the commission stated that theIlrsquominskii system had full respect for the studentsrsquo beliefs Therefore it allowedreligious education in the Muslim schools but taking into consideration that thiswould not bring the Muslims close to the Russian people basic subjects such asnatural and social sciences should also be in the curriculum It was necessary toprepare books for the Muslims in their local languages with Cyrillic scripts so thatthe common alphabet would serve as a path to Russian books the Russian languageand the Russian outlook on the world

With regard to the mektebs and medreses the commission first recommended theauthorities not to intervene in the internal affairs of the Muslims but then it listed anumber of requirements for the Muslim schools The mullahs should know Russianand be of the same nationality as the students The language of instruction shouldbe the native language spoken in the childrsquos house and not ldquoartificial Tatarrdquo Theeducation should not encourage opposition against the state The schools should openwith the permission of the Ministry of Education The mullahs should submitstatistical data about the students each year The curriculum of mektebs shouldinclude Russian and basic subjects like mathematics The purpose of teachingRussian should be bringing the Muslims closer to Russian education and instillingthe feeling of ldquopatriotic solidarityrdquo in their hearts103

Since usucircl-i cedid was only recently and gradually making its way into CentralAsia most of the cedid teachers in this region were Tatars from European RussiaAside from other restrictions it was apparent that the condition of ldquosame nationalityrdquowas intended to limit Tatar influence Non-interference was not working anymorebecause the Muslim schools had gone through an internal reform and had begun toimprove the social and political consciousness of the Muslims After the BudilovichCommission the followers of Ilrsquominskii would try to limit the influence of theMuslim reformers ldquousing administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo as Ostroumov had suggested to the Governor-General ofTurkistan in 1892104 An additional measure was to take advantage of the conflictbetween the traditionalist opposition that had begun to develop among the Muslimclergy against Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos reforms and support the traditionalists against thereformers105 These may seem to be a diversion from the non-interference policyIlrsquominskii had adopted in the 1860s but what happened is rather an adaptation of theold system to the new conditions because the purpose of limiting social and politicalconsciousness of the Muslims remained unchanged The Budilovich Commissionrsquossuggestions were approved as regulation in 1906 Because of the opposition from theMuslims the Ministry of Education had to drop the provisions regarding the use ofCyrillic script in school materials ldquoRussian classes in the Muslim confessionalschools the requirement that mullahs know Russian and ministry inspection ofconfessional schoolsrdquo However the requirement that the mullahs should be of the

276

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

same nationality as students remained106

From Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos references to Ilrsquominskii before the revolution of 1905 it ispossible to see that he refrained from attacking Ilrsquominskii and even tried to use someof Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas to support his own arguments In the liberal atmosphere of theyears following the revolution of 1905 he could speak more openly In 1908 hewrote that it was necessary to be cautious before 1905 because of the opposition ofIlrsquominskii and his followers ldquowho did not accept the Tatar Bashkir Kirgiz and Sartchildren to the same schools and tried to separate themrdquo But the conditions hadchanged by 1908 Now Gasp otilde ral otilde could even criticize the regulations of the Ministryof Education According to him the ministry had made a mistake by defining nativelanguage as the language spoken in the childrsquos house Accepting this position wouldrequire instruction in the languages of each city or region The native language of theRussian children was the Russian language not the languages of Volgograd KurskSaratovsk and Yaroslavl Thus Gasp otilde ral otilde concluded ldquoOur native language is theliterary lsquoTuumlrkrsquo languagerdquo107

Post-1905 and the Wider Society

The openness in Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos statements was not the only thing that changed after therevolution of 1905 The Russian empire in its entirety went through a period ofreform Several journals and newspapers appeared among the Muslims Gasp otilde ral otildeestimated that the total number of subscribers to these periodicals was between60000 and 70000 in 1908108 The Muslims had generally not joined the strikes andinsurgencies that had paralyzed the empire during 1905 but they had well sensedthe approaching administrative changes and through a number of rather peacefulgatherings they had tried to bring about a common representative body for theMuslims of the empire In August 1906 between the first and second DumasMuslim representatives from all over the empire met in a congress in NizhniiNovgorod This was the third Muslim congress since March 1905 and it was the bestorganized one The Muslim representatives agreed on a 33-point resolution onschooling The resolution stated inter alia that the education in Muslim schoolsshould be in the native language with the Arabic script Special importance should begiven to the study of ldquoliterary Turkish languagerdquo in the Muslim secondary schoolsand wherever possible in the elementary schools The study of the Russian languagewas not necessary in the elementary schools but it could enter the curriculum as asubject of study in the secondary schools Education of all Muslims should bestandardized as much as possible Muslim students should have the same rights asRussian students In the Muslim teachersrsquo schools with preparatory Russian classesthe study of the ldquoliterary national languagerdquo should improve so that the Muslimteachers could teach in their own language Elementary education should beobligatory for all Muslim children and the Muslim teachers should meet in acongress to prepare a standard program of education and materials for use in the

277

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Muslim schools109 Muslims of Russia would hold several other meetings in thefollowing years and reaffirm the decisions of this resolution110

The resolution was a victory for Gasp otilde ral otilde but the congress also showed tensionsthat he had not foreseen 25 years before in ldquoRussian Islamrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde had alwaysconcentrated his work on social and cultural issues In the years of the revolution hehad expressed this concentration as follows ldquoSome thoughts are forbidden to us Letus leave these to the generations that will come later Let us form a spiritual unity letus unite the languages [but] let others think of political unityrdquo111 Nevertheless themembers of the new generation who to a large extent were graduates of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosschools did not want to leave political action to future generations The Muslimcongress approved the formation of a Muslim political party despite Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosinitial opposition Later Gasp otilde ral otilde consented to this formation112 but the lack ofpopular support after the initial political excitement of the revolution showed thatMuslims of Russia were not ready to support a political party yet113 Moreover thepolitical ideals of the new generation were not always compatible with the unity ofthe Turkic and Muslim nation that Gasp otilde ral otilde had in mind

In 1911 two articles appeared in the biweekly supplement of an Orenburg-basednewspaper ldquoWe are Tatarsrdquo by lsquoAlimcan Imiddotbrahimov from Kazan114 and ldquoWe areTurksrdquo by an author who wrote under the pseudonym TuumlrkogAElig lu which means ldquoson ofa Turkrdquo115 The titles well summarized the contents of the articles Imiddotbrahimov wroteldquoWe are Tatars our language is the Tatar language our literature is the Tatarliterature all our affairs are Tatar affairs our civilization will be the Tatar civiliza-tionrdquo While saying ldquowerdquo Imiddotbrahimov was referring to the people who are calledldquoKazan Tatarsrdquo today TuumlrkogAElig lu did not l ike Imiddotbrahimovrsquos statements It wasnecessary to put an end to these ldquowhims of Tatarismrdquo according to him After thespread of that ldquoso-called Tatar literaturerdquo now a ldquoso-called Kazakh literaturerdquo hadbegun to appear This was all dividing the common ldquoTuumlrkrdquo people116 The Ministry ofEducation was trying to impose the use of local dialects in inorodets schools This ofcourse was harmful to the Turks of the Russian empire117 Division weakened theTurks of Russia It was necessary to end all those wrong tendencies and begin towork for the creation of a ldquoTuumlrkicircrdquo literature118 Until the very end of the imperialregime a heated discussion continued between the Kazakh Volga Tatar CrimeanTatar Bashkir and other ethno-territorial nationalists and pan-Turkists in the Muslimpress Language was the key issue in these discussions119

The Muslim intellectuals who entered such discussions always expressed a certainrespect for and gratefulness to Gasp otilde ral otilde the ldquoold teacherrdquo or the ldquofatherrdquo regardlessof whether they agreed with him or not120 The very fact that the Muslims werepublicly discussing social and political issues was the proof of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos success inreforming the Muslim society But the old teacher was in an ambivalent situation Hewas happy for the appearance of a flourishing press but he was upset because of themistakes made about language With all due respect to the common people he wrotein 1912 the literary and scientific publications should not be published in the

278

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

language spoken by a Kazakh shepherd The several Turkic tribes could not becomea nation if they insisted on separating their languages121

While Gasp otilde ral otilde found himself in this ambivalent situation followers of Ilrsquominskiialso had a number of things to worry about Following the edict of religioustoleration on 17 April 1905 approximately 49000 inorodtsy left Orthodoxy forIslam in 5 years122 Ilrsquominskiirsquos biographer Petr V Znamenskii wrote in a work aboutthe Kazan Tatars that the mission among the Muslims was completely paralyzed123 In1910 a missionary congress gathered in Kazan124 The atmosphere of the congresswas quite gloomy It did not yield a substantive result other than the publication of ajournal to observe and study the Muslim world Mir Islama Writers of the journalwere quick to notice the ideological currents among the Muslims of the empire In1913 two articles discussed pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia According tothese articles pan-Islamism was losing its influence in the Ottoman Empire andamong the Muslims of Russia On the other hand pan-Turkism and territorialnationalisms were gaining strength125 Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers had definitely failed toprevent the development of social and political consciousness among the Muslims ofRussia Local nationalists were opposing a political Turkic unity but they were by nomeans closer to the Russians On the other hand the mission of consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy with the Ilrsquominskii system was not workingsmoothly either

When Ilrsquominskii had first presented his system to Russian society in the 1860sclaiming that the native language is most effective in instilling Christianity and thatthe path to Russification would be open to the inorodtsy once they were sufficientlyChristianized the opposition had contended that the proper way of national assimila-tion was through language and strengthening the native languages would result inthe alienation of the inorodtsy126 Thanks to the support of Tolstoi and Pobe-donostsev the Ilrsquominskii system had gained official recognition in those days but thepolitical composition of the empire had changed significantly by the early twentiethcentury In 1897 an article appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Educationabout a new language teaching technique the natural method ldquoThe main channel forthe inorodtsy to approach the Russiansrdquo was the Russian language according to theauthor and with the natural method it was possible to teach Russian to the inorodtsywithout using their native languages In this method the teacher was supposed toteach first by miming and with gestures and then by building on the words that thestudents had already learned127 Soon after the natural method developed as analternative to Ilrsquominskiirsquos translative method It also found supporters in the Russianbureaucracy and despite the legal recognition of the Ilrsquominskii system with a numberof regulations local authorities decided which method to use in practice As theimperial bureaucracy became increasingly secularized and ethno-nationalist towardthe end of the imperial regime followers of Ilrsquominskii lost their control in theeducation of the non-Muslim inorodtsy128 but their ideas about the Muslims were notthat incompatible with the ideas of the new ruling elite The Ilrsquominskii group had

279

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

take precautions against him86 The best-known and most frequently cited example ofthis correspondence is Ilrsquominskiirsquos letters to Pobedonostsev which were published in1895 4 years after Ilrsquominskiirsquos death87

Ilrsquominskiirsquos first warning to Pobedonostsev about Gasp otilde ral otilde was in December1883 8 months after the first appearance of Tercuumlman He wrote that Gasp otilde ral otildewanted to unite the millions of Muslims under Russian sovereignty ldquofrom the Crimeato the Caucasus and Central Asiardquo with science and civilization and that hislanguage was borrowed from the newspapers of Imiddotstanbul88 After receiving moreinformation from his student in Turkistan Ostroumov Ilrsquominskii continued to warnPobedonostsev in February 1884

Gasprinskii the publisher of Tercuumlman (perevodchik) in Bahccedilesaray has this aim firstto spread among the Muslims of the Russian empire European enlightenment on aMuhammedan basis coloring European education with Muhammedan ideas second tounite and rally the millions of wide-spread Muhammedan peoples of Russia withdifferent tongues (examplemdashGerman unification) third to sow a Turkish germ amongall the Muslims of Russia the Ottoman language89

In 1889 Ilrsquominskii read an open letter to Tercuumlman in a local Kazakh newspaperpublished in Akmolinsk He was upset He wrote to Pobedonostsev ldquoIn the opinionof competent people the Tatar newspaper lsquoPerevodchikrsquo revealed its artfulnessdirection and tendency during the eight years [sic] it was publishedrdquo90 As the formerSteppe Governor-General G A Kolpakovskii had also suggested it was necessary toofficially restrict this newspaper and unofficially promote alternative publications byldquounskillful and uneducated translatorsrdquo91

Ilrsquominskii died in 1891 In his farewell address Pobedonostsev wrote ldquoHe[Ilrsquominskii] vigilantly followed the Muslim propaganda that strengthened in therecent times in our near and far East and the service of his timely warnings cannot beexaggeratedrdquo92 The influence of Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers gradually decreased with therise of a relatively secular and ethno-nationalist educated society in Russia but theystil l enjoyed considerable power until the end of the imperial regime TheBrotherhood of St Gurii continued its activities under the leadership of Ilrsquominskiirsquosadopted son Nikolai A Bobrovnikov93 Besides a number of Ilrsquominskii sympathizersoccupied key decision-making positions on the education of Muslims in RussiaAccording to my research there was no personal communication between Gasp otilde ral otildeand Ilrsquominskii but Gasp otilde ral otilde got into contact with the followers of Ilrsquominskii and it ispossible to make some comments on Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas about Ilrsquominskii and hissystem based on these contacts

Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos first reference to the Ilrsquominskii system was in his ldquoRussian IslamrdquoWhile demanding the recognition of Tatar as the language of education in Muslimschools he stated that the Ministry of Education had also recognized the importanceof native language in education94 This was a rather vague reference to the regulationsof 1870 which were promulgated following a debate over the Ilrsquominskii system andhad sanctioned the use of native languages in the government schools for the

274

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

inorodtsy In relation to the Muslim schools the emphasis of the 1870 regulationswas on the introduction of Russian language classes in the mektebs but still thegeneral insistence of the Ilrsquominskii system on native languages provided somesupport to Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas95

By the 1890s Gasp otilde ral otilde had secured considerable support for his school systemamong the Muslims of European Russia Now he wanted to expand usucircl-i cedid tothe rest of the empire In 1892 he sent a memorandum to the Governor-General ofTurkistan and suggested the introduction of usucircl-i cedid in Turkistan because the2-year programs of this system were short enough to leave sufficient time for thestudy of Russian language as opposed to the 6-year programs of traditional mektebs96

The Governor-General passed the plan on to Ostroumov and the Orientalist VladimirP Nalivkin Both Ostroumov and Nalivkin agreed with Gasp otilde ral otilde on the content ofhis suggestions but still they responded negatively to the Governor-Generalrsquosinquiry ldquoIn the matter of the education of inorodtsy in Russiardquo Ostroumov wroteldquowe need the direction of a Russian member of the Ministry of Education not that ofa Tatar inorodetsrdquo The solution was to provide education ldquolsquoin the spirit of Russianstate interestsrsquo using administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo97 Nalivkinrsquos argument was similar to that of Ostroumov thoughless enthusiastic98 The Governor-General ignored the memorandum did not answerGasp otilde ral otilde and filed the report Gasp otilde ral otilde traveled to Central Asia in 1893 and openeda cedid school During this trip he also met with Ostroumov to ask for his supportGasp otilde ral otilde probably did not know how Ostroumov had responded to the Governor-Generalrsquos inquiry The school Gasp otilde ral otilde opened closed soon after99

In 1905 Gasp otilde ral otilde once again tried to find support from the Russian authoritiesShortly before the revolution of 1905 the Minister of Education V G Glazovconvened a commission to discuss the question of schools for non-Russians100

Gasp otilde ral otilde presented a petition to the commission He wrote that though 30000schools were necessary for the education of 15 million Muslims in Russia thegovernment had only opened less than 300 during the previous 70 years It wasapparent that the government lacked the funds to open so many schools however itwould be possible if the Muslims themselves supported the schools On the otherhand the present government schools were unable to gain the support of theMuslims because the classes were held in Russian and the students could notunderstand anything The average student graduated ldquowithout any intellectualdevelopmentrdquo ldquoFor the intellectual enlightenment of the Muslims of Russiardquo it wasnecessary to follow Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and use the native language of the childrenOnly then would the Muslims support government schools101

Members of the 1905 commission also known as the ldquoBudilovich Commissionrdquowere all supporters of Ilrsquominskii including Ostroumov and Bobrovnikov102 Contraryto what Ilrsquominskii had suggested the commission decided that the Ilrsquominskii systemas it was applied to the baptized inorodtsy should be used for all non-Russians withsome room for certain amendments to comply with local necessities The first year

275

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

should be fully in the vernacular Russian should enter the curriculum as a subject ofstudy in the second year and only in the third year could the language of instructionbecome Russian With regard to the Muslims the commission stated that theIlrsquominskii system had full respect for the studentsrsquo beliefs Therefore it allowedreligious education in the Muslim schools but taking into consideration that thiswould not bring the Muslims close to the Russian people basic subjects such asnatural and social sciences should also be in the curriculum It was necessary toprepare books for the Muslims in their local languages with Cyrillic scripts so thatthe common alphabet would serve as a path to Russian books the Russian languageand the Russian outlook on the world

With regard to the mektebs and medreses the commission first recommended theauthorities not to intervene in the internal affairs of the Muslims but then it listed anumber of requirements for the Muslim schools The mullahs should know Russianand be of the same nationality as the students The language of instruction shouldbe the native language spoken in the childrsquos house and not ldquoartificial Tatarrdquo Theeducation should not encourage opposition against the state The schools should openwith the permission of the Ministry of Education The mullahs should submitstatistical data about the students each year The curriculum of mektebs shouldinclude Russian and basic subjects like mathematics The purpose of teachingRussian should be bringing the Muslims closer to Russian education and instillingthe feeling of ldquopatriotic solidarityrdquo in their hearts103

Since usucircl-i cedid was only recently and gradually making its way into CentralAsia most of the cedid teachers in this region were Tatars from European RussiaAside from other restrictions it was apparent that the condition of ldquosame nationalityrdquowas intended to limit Tatar influence Non-interference was not working anymorebecause the Muslim schools had gone through an internal reform and had begun toimprove the social and political consciousness of the Muslims After the BudilovichCommission the followers of Ilrsquominskii would try to limit the influence of theMuslim reformers ldquousing administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo as Ostroumov had suggested to the Governor-General ofTurkistan in 1892104 An additional measure was to take advantage of the conflictbetween the traditionalist opposition that had begun to develop among the Muslimclergy against Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos reforms and support the traditionalists against thereformers105 These may seem to be a diversion from the non-interference policyIlrsquominskii had adopted in the 1860s but what happened is rather an adaptation of theold system to the new conditions because the purpose of limiting social and politicalconsciousness of the Muslims remained unchanged The Budilovich Commissionrsquossuggestions were approved as regulation in 1906 Because of the opposition from theMuslims the Ministry of Education had to drop the provisions regarding the use ofCyrillic script in school materials ldquoRussian classes in the Muslim confessionalschools the requirement that mullahs know Russian and ministry inspection ofconfessional schoolsrdquo However the requirement that the mullahs should be of the

276

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

same nationality as students remained106

From Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos references to Ilrsquominskii before the revolution of 1905 it ispossible to see that he refrained from attacking Ilrsquominskii and even tried to use someof Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas to support his own arguments In the liberal atmosphere of theyears following the revolution of 1905 he could speak more openly In 1908 hewrote that it was necessary to be cautious before 1905 because of the opposition ofIlrsquominskii and his followers ldquowho did not accept the Tatar Bashkir Kirgiz and Sartchildren to the same schools and tried to separate themrdquo But the conditions hadchanged by 1908 Now Gasp otilde ral otilde could even criticize the regulations of the Ministryof Education According to him the ministry had made a mistake by defining nativelanguage as the language spoken in the childrsquos house Accepting this position wouldrequire instruction in the languages of each city or region The native language of theRussian children was the Russian language not the languages of Volgograd KurskSaratovsk and Yaroslavl Thus Gasp otilde ral otilde concluded ldquoOur native language is theliterary lsquoTuumlrkrsquo languagerdquo107

Post-1905 and the Wider Society

The openness in Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos statements was not the only thing that changed after therevolution of 1905 The Russian empire in its entirety went through a period ofreform Several journals and newspapers appeared among the Muslims Gasp otilde ral otildeestimated that the total number of subscribers to these periodicals was between60000 and 70000 in 1908108 The Muslims had generally not joined the strikes andinsurgencies that had paralyzed the empire during 1905 but they had well sensedthe approaching administrative changes and through a number of rather peacefulgatherings they had tried to bring about a common representative body for theMuslims of the empire In August 1906 between the first and second DumasMuslim representatives from all over the empire met in a congress in NizhniiNovgorod This was the third Muslim congress since March 1905 and it was the bestorganized one The Muslim representatives agreed on a 33-point resolution onschooling The resolution stated inter alia that the education in Muslim schoolsshould be in the native language with the Arabic script Special importance should begiven to the study of ldquoliterary Turkish languagerdquo in the Muslim secondary schoolsand wherever possible in the elementary schools The study of the Russian languagewas not necessary in the elementary schools but it could enter the curriculum as asubject of study in the secondary schools Education of all Muslims should bestandardized as much as possible Muslim students should have the same rights asRussian students In the Muslim teachersrsquo schools with preparatory Russian classesthe study of the ldquoliterary national languagerdquo should improve so that the Muslimteachers could teach in their own language Elementary education should beobligatory for all Muslim children and the Muslim teachers should meet in acongress to prepare a standard program of education and materials for use in the

277

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Muslim schools109 Muslims of Russia would hold several other meetings in thefollowing years and reaffirm the decisions of this resolution110

The resolution was a victory for Gasp otilde ral otilde but the congress also showed tensionsthat he had not foreseen 25 years before in ldquoRussian Islamrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde had alwaysconcentrated his work on social and cultural issues In the years of the revolution hehad expressed this concentration as follows ldquoSome thoughts are forbidden to us Letus leave these to the generations that will come later Let us form a spiritual unity letus unite the languages [but] let others think of political unityrdquo111 Nevertheless themembers of the new generation who to a large extent were graduates of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosschools did not want to leave political action to future generations The Muslimcongress approved the formation of a Muslim political party despite Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosinitial opposition Later Gasp otilde ral otilde consented to this formation112 but the lack ofpopular support after the initial political excitement of the revolution showed thatMuslims of Russia were not ready to support a political party yet113 Moreover thepolitical ideals of the new generation were not always compatible with the unity ofthe Turkic and Muslim nation that Gasp otilde ral otilde had in mind

In 1911 two articles appeared in the biweekly supplement of an Orenburg-basednewspaper ldquoWe are Tatarsrdquo by lsquoAlimcan Imiddotbrahimov from Kazan114 and ldquoWe areTurksrdquo by an author who wrote under the pseudonym TuumlrkogAElig lu which means ldquoson ofa Turkrdquo115 The titles well summarized the contents of the articles Imiddotbrahimov wroteldquoWe are Tatars our language is the Tatar language our literature is the Tatarliterature all our affairs are Tatar affairs our civilization will be the Tatar civiliza-tionrdquo While saying ldquowerdquo Imiddotbrahimov was referring to the people who are calledldquoKazan Tatarsrdquo today TuumlrkogAElig lu did not l ike Imiddotbrahimovrsquos statements It wasnecessary to put an end to these ldquowhims of Tatarismrdquo according to him After thespread of that ldquoso-called Tatar literaturerdquo now a ldquoso-called Kazakh literaturerdquo hadbegun to appear This was all dividing the common ldquoTuumlrkrdquo people116 The Ministry ofEducation was trying to impose the use of local dialects in inorodets schools This ofcourse was harmful to the Turks of the Russian empire117 Division weakened theTurks of Russia It was necessary to end all those wrong tendencies and begin towork for the creation of a ldquoTuumlrkicircrdquo literature118 Until the very end of the imperialregime a heated discussion continued between the Kazakh Volga Tatar CrimeanTatar Bashkir and other ethno-territorial nationalists and pan-Turkists in the Muslimpress Language was the key issue in these discussions119

The Muslim intellectuals who entered such discussions always expressed a certainrespect for and gratefulness to Gasp otilde ral otilde the ldquoold teacherrdquo or the ldquofatherrdquo regardlessof whether they agreed with him or not120 The very fact that the Muslims werepublicly discussing social and political issues was the proof of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos success inreforming the Muslim society But the old teacher was in an ambivalent situation Hewas happy for the appearance of a flourishing press but he was upset because of themistakes made about language With all due respect to the common people he wrotein 1912 the literary and scientific publications should not be published in the

278

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

language spoken by a Kazakh shepherd The several Turkic tribes could not becomea nation if they insisted on separating their languages121

While Gasp otilde ral otilde found himself in this ambivalent situation followers of Ilrsquominskiialso had a number of things to worry about Following the edict of religioustoleration on 17 April 1905 approximately 49000 inorodtsy left Orthodoxy forIslam in 5 years122 Ilrsquominskiirsquos biographer Petr V Znamenskii wrote in a work aboutthe Kazan Tatars that the mission among the Muslims was completely paralyzed123 In1910 a missionary congress gathered in Kazan124 The atmosphere of the congresswas quite gloomy It did not yield a substantive result other than the publication of ajournal to observe and study the Muslim world Mir Islama Writers of the journalwere quick to notice the ideological currents among the Muslims of the empire In1913 two articles discussed pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia According tothese articles pan-Islamism was losing its influence in the Ottoman Empire andamong the Muslims of Russia On the other hand pan-Turkism and territorialnationalisms were gaining strength125 Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers had definitely failed toprevent the development of social and political consciousness among the Muslims ofRussia Local nationalists were opposing a political Turkic unity but they were by nomeans closer to the Russians On the other hand the mission of consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy with the Ilrsquominskii system was not workingsmoothly either

When Ilrsquominskii had first presented his system to Russian society in the 1860sclaiming that the native language is most effective in instilling Christianity and thatthe path to Russification would be open to the inorodtsy once they were sufficientlyChristianized the opposition had contended that the proper way of national assimila-tion was through language and strengthening the native languages would result inthe alienation of the inorodtsy126 Thanks to the support of Tolstoi and Pobe-donostsev the Ilrsquominskii system had gained official recognition in those days but thepolitical composition of the empire had changed significantly by the early twentiethcentury In 1897 an article appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Educationabout a new language teaching technique the natural method ldquoThe main channel forthe inorodtsy to approach the Russiansrdquo was the Russian language according to theauthor and with the natural method it was possible to teach Russian to the inorodtsywithout using their native languages In this method the teacher was supposed toteach first by miming and with gestures and then by building on the words that thestudents had already learned127 Soon after the natural method developed as analternative to Ilrsquominskiirsquos translative method It also found supporters in the Russianbureaucracy and despite the legal recognition of the Ilrsquominskii system with a numberof regulations local authorities decided which method to use in practice As theimperial bureaucracy became increasingly secularized and ethno-nationalist towardthe end of the imperial regime followers of Ilrsquominskii lost their control in theeducation of the non-Muslim inorodtsy128 but their ideas about the Muslims were notthat incompatible with the ideas of the new ruling elite The Ilrsquominskii group had

279

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

inorodtsy In relation to the Muslim schools the emphasis of the 1870 regulationswas on the introduction of Russian language classes in the mektebs but still thegeneral insistence of the Ilrsquominskii system on native languages provided somesupport to Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos ideas95

By the 1890s Gasp otilde ral otilde had secured considerable support for his school systemamong the Muslims of European Russia Now he wanted to expand usucircl-i cedid tothe rest of the empire In 1892 he sent a memorandum to the Governor-General ofTurkistan and suggested the introduction of usucircl-i cedid in Turkistan because the2-year programs of this system were short enough to leave sufficient time for thestudy of Russian language as opposed to the 6-year programs of traditional mektebs96

The Governor-General passed the plan on to Ostroumov and the Orientalist VladimirP Nalivkin Both Ostroumov and Nalivkin agreed with Gasp otilde ral otilde on the content ofhis suggestions but still they responded negatively to the Governor-Generalrsquosinquiry ldquoIn the matter of the education of inorodtsy in Russiardquo Ostroumov wroteldquowe need the direction of a Russian member of the Ministry of Education not that ofa Tatar inorodetsrdquo The solution was to provide education ldquolsquoin the spirit of Russianstate interestsrsquo using administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo97 Nalivkinrsquos argument was similar to that of Ostroumov thoughless enthusiastic98 The Governor-General ignored the memorandum did not answerGasp otilde ral otilde and filed the report Gasp otilde ral otilde traveled to Central Asia in 1893 and openeda cedid school During this trip he also met with Ostroumov to ask for his supportGasp otilde ral otilde probably did not know how Ostroumov had responded to the Governor-Generalrsquos inquiry The school Gasp otilde ral otilde opened closed soon after99

In 1905 Gasp otilde ral otilde once again tried to find support from the Russian authoritiesShortly before the revolution of 1905 the Minister of Education V G Glazovconvened a commission to discuss the question of schools for non-Russians100

Gasp otilde ral otilde presented a petition to the commission He wrote that though 30000schools were necessary for the education of 15 million Muslims in Russia thegovernment had only opened less than 300 during the previous 70 years It wasapparent that the government lacked the funds to open so many schools however itwould be possible if the Muslims themselves supported the schools On the otherhand the present government schools were unable to gain the support of theMuslims because the classes were held in Russian and the students could notunderstand anything The average student graduated ldquowithout any intellectualdevelopmentrdquo ldquoFor the intellectual enlightenment of the Muslims of Russiardquo it wasnecessary to follow Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and use the native language of the childrenOnly then would the Muslims support government schools101

Members of the 1905 commission also known as the ldquoBudilovich Commissionrdquowere all supporters of Ilrsquominskii including Ostroumov and Bobrovnikov102 Contraryto what Ilrsquominskii had suggested the commission decided that the Ilrsquominskii systemas it was applied to the baptized inorodtsy should be used for all non-Russians withsome room for certain amendments to comply with local necessities The first year

275

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

should be fully in the vernacular Russian should enter the curriculum as a subject ofstudy in the second year and only in the third year could the language of instructionbecome Russian With regard to the Muslims the commission stated that theIlrsquominskii system had full respect for the studentsrsquo beliefs Therefore it allowedreligious education in the Muslim schools but taking into consideration that thiswould not bring the Muslims close to the Russian people basic subjects such asnatural and social sciences should also be in the curriculum It was necessary toprepare books for the Muslims in their local languages with Cyrillic scripts so thatthe common alphabet would serve as a path to Russian books the Russian languageand the Russian outlook on the world

With regard to the mektebs and medreses the commission first recommended theauthorities not to intervene in the internal affairs of the Muslims but then it listed anumber of requirements for the Muslim schools The mullahs should know Russianand be of the same nationality as the students The language of instruction shouldbe the native language spoken in the childrsquos house and not ldquoartificial Tatarrdquo Theeducation should not encourage opposition against the state The schools should openwith the permission of the Ministry of Education The mullahs should submitstatistical data about the students each year The curriculum of mektebs shouldinclude Russian and basic subjects like mathematics The purpose of teachingRussian should be bringing the Muslims closer to Russian education and instillingthe feeling of ldquopatriotic solidarityrdquo in their hearts103

Since usucircl-i cedid was only recently and gradually making its way into CentralAsia most of the cedid teachers in this region were Tatars from European RussiaAside from other restrictions it was apparent that the condition of ldquosame nationalityrdquowas intended to limit Tatar influence Non-interference was not working anymorebecause the Muslim schools had gone through an internal reform and had begun toimprove the social and political consciousness of the Muslims After the BudilovichCommission the followers of Ilrsquominskii would try to limit the influence of theMuslim reformers ldquousing administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo as Ostroumov had suggested to the Governor-General ofTurkistan in 1892104 An additional measure was to take advantage of the conflictbetween the traditionalist opposition that had begun to develop among the Muslimclergy against Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos reforms and support the traditionalists against thereformers105 These may seem to be a diversion from the non-interference policyIlrsquominskii had adopted in the 1860s but what happened is rather an adaptation of theold system to the new conditions because the purpose of limiting social and politicalconsciousness of the Muslims remained unchanged The Budilovich Commissionrsquossuggestions were approved as regulation in 1906 Because of the opposition from theMuslims the Ministry of Education had to drop the provisions regarding the use ofCyrillic script in school materials ldquoRussian classes in the Muslim confessionalschools the requirement that mullahs know Russian and ministry inspection ofconfessional schoolsrdquo However the requirement that the mullahs should be of the

276

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

same nationality as students remained106

From Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos references to Ilrsquominskii before the revolution of 1905 it ispossible to see that he refrained from attacking Ilrsquominskii and even tried to use someof Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas to support his own arguments In the liberal atmosphere of theyears following the revolution of 1905 he could speak more openly In 1908 hewrote that it was necessary to be cautious before 1905 because of the opposition ofIlrsquominskii and his followers ldquowho did not accept the Tatar Bashkir Kirgiz and Sartchildren to the same schools and tried to separate themrdquo But the conditions hadchanged by 1908 Now Gasp otilde ral otilde could even criticize the regulations of the Ministryof Education According to him the ministry had made a mistake by defining nativelanguage as the language spoken in the childrsquos house Accepting this position wouldrequire instruction in the languages of each city or region The native language of theRussian children was the Russian language not the languages of Volgograd KurskSaratovsk and Yaroslavl Thus Gasp otilde ral otilde concluded ldquoOur native language is theliterary lsquoTuumlrkrsquo languagerdquo107

Post-1905 and the Wider Society

The openness in Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos statements was not the only thing that changed after therevolution of 1905 The Russian empire in its entirety went through a period ofreform Several journals and newspapers appeared among the Muslims Gasp otilde ral otildeestimated that the total number of subscribers to these periodicals was between60000 and 70000 in 1908108 The Muslims had generally not joined the strikes andinsurgencies that had paralyzed the empire during 1905 but they had well sensedthe approaching administrative changes and through a number of rather peacefulgatherings they had tried to bring about a common representative body for theMuslims of the empire In August 1906 between the first and second DumasMuslim representatives from all over the empire met in a congress in NizhniiNovgorod This was the third Muslim congress since March 1905 and it was the bestorganized one The Muslim representatives agreed on a 33-point resolution onschooling The resolution stated inter alia that the education in Muslim schoolsshould be in the native language with the Arabic script Special importance should begiven to the study of ldquoliterary Turkish languagerdquo in the Muslim secondary schoolsand wherever possible in the elementary schools The study of the Russian languagewas not necessary in the elementary schools but it could enter the curriculum as asubject of study in the secondary schools Education of all Muslims should bestandardized as much as possible Muslim students should have the same rights asRussian students In the Muslim teachersrsquo schools with preparatory Russian classesthe study of the ldquoliterary national languagerdquo should improve so that the Muslimteachers could teach in their own language Elementary education should beobligatory for all Muslim children and the Muslim teachers should meet in acongress to prepare a standard program of education and materials for use in the

277

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Muslim schools109 Muslims of Russia would hold several other meetings in thefollowing years and reaffirm the decisions of this resolution110

The resolution was a victory for Gasp otilde ral otilde but the congress also showed tensionsthat he had not foreseen 25 years before in ldquoRussian Islamrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde had alwaysconcentrated his work on social and cultural issues In the years of the revolution hehad expressed this concentration as follows ldquoSome thoughts are forbidden to us Letus leave these to the generations that will come later Let us form a spiritual unity letus unite the languages [but] let others think of political unityrdquo111 Nevertheless themembers of the new generation who to a large extent were graduates of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosschools did not want to leave political action to future generations The Muslimcongress approved the formation of a Muslim political party despite Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosinitial opposition Later Gasp otilde ral otilde consented to this formation112 but the lack ofpopular support after the initial political excitement of the revolution showed thatMuslims of Russia were not ready to support a political party yet113 Moreover thepolitical ideals of the new generation were not always compatible with the unity ofthe Turkic and Muslim nation that Gasp otilde ral otilde had in mind

In 1911 two articles appeared in the biweekly supplement of an Orenburg-basednewspaper ldquoWe are Tatarsrdquo by lsquoAlimcan Imiddotbrahimov from Kazan114 and ldquoWe areTurksrdquo by an author who wrote under the pseudonym TuumlrkogAElig lu which means ldquoson ofa Turkrdquo115 The titles well summarized the contents of the articles Imiddotbrahimov wroteldquoWe are Tatars our language is the Tatar language our literature is the Tatarliterature all our affairs are Tatar affairs our civilization will be the Tatar civiliza-tionrdquo While saying ldquowerdquo Imiddotbrahimov was referring to the people who are calledldquoKazan Tatarsrdquo today TuumlrkogAElig lu did not l ike Imiddotbrahimovrsquos statements It wasnecessary to put an end to these ldquowhims of Tatarismrdquo according to him After thespread of that ldquoso-called Tatar literaturerdquo now a ldquoso-called Kazakh literaturerdquo hadbegun to appear This was all dividing the common ldquoTuumlrkrdquo people116 The Ministry ofEducation was trying to impose the use of local dialects in inorodets schools This ofcourse was harmful to the Turks of the Russian empire117 Division weakened theTurks of Russia It was necessary to end all those wrong tendencies and begin towork for the creation of a ldquoTuumlrkicircrdquo literature118 Until the very end of the imperialregime a heated discussion continued between the Kazakh Volga Tatar CrimeanTatar Bashkir and other ethno-territorial nationalists and pan-Turkists in the Muslimpress Language was the key issue in these discussions119

The Muslim intellectuals who entered such discussions always expressed a certainrespect for and gratefulness to Gasp otilde ral otilde the ldquoold teacherrdquo or the ldquofatherrdquo regardlessof whether they agreed with him or not120 The very fact that the Muslims werepublicly discussing social and political issues was the proof of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos success inreforming the Muslim society But the old teacher was in an ambivalent situation Hewas happy for the appearance of a flourishing press but he was upset because of themistakes made about language With all due respect to the common people he wrotein 1912 the literary and scientific publications should not be published in the

278

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

language spoken by a Kazakh shepherd The several Turkic tribes could not becomea nation if they insisted on separating their languages121

While Gasp otilde ral otilde found himself in this ambivalent situation followers of Ilrsquominskiialso had a number of things to worry about Following the edict of religioustoleration on 17 April 1905 approximately 49000 inorodtsy left Orthodoxy forIslam in 5 years122 Ilrsquominskiirsquos biographer Petr V Znamenskii wrote in a work aboutthe Kazan Tatars that the mission among the Muslims was completely paralyzed123 In1910 a missionary congress gathered in Kazan124 The atmosphere of the congresswas quite gloomy It did not yield a substantive result other than the publication of ajournal to observe and study the Muslim world Mir Islama Writers of the journalwere quick to notice the ideological currents among the Muslims of the empire In1913 two articles discussed pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia According tothese articles pan-Islamism was losing its influence in the Ottoman Empire andamong the Muslims of Russia On the other hand pan-Turkism and territorialnationalisms were gaining strength125 Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers had definitely failed toprevent the development of social and political consciousness among the Muslims ofRussia Local nationalists were opposing a political Turkic unity but they were by nomeans closer to the Russians On the other hand the mission of consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy with the Ilrsquominskii system was not workingsmoothly either

When Ilrsquominskii had first presented his system to Russian society in the 1860sclaiming that the native language is most effective in instilling Christianity and thatthe path to Russification would be open to the inorodtsy once they were sufficientlyChristianized the opposition had contended that the proper way of national assimila-tion was through language and strengthening the native languages would result inthe alienation of the inorodtsy126 Thanks to the support of Tolstoi and Pobe-donostsev the Ilrsquominskii system had gained official recognition in those days but thepolitical composition of the empire had changed significantly by the early twentiethcentury In 1897 an article appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Educationabout a new language teaching technique the natural method ldquoThe main channel forthe inorodtsy to approach the Russiansrdquo was the Russian language according to theauthor and with the natural method it was possible to teach Russian to the inorodtsywithout using their native languages In this method the teacher was supposed toteach first by miming and with gestures and then by building on the words that thestudents had already learned127 Soon after the natural method developed as analternative to Ilrsquominskiirsquos translative method It also found supporters in the Russianbureaucracy and despite the legal recognition of the Ilrsquominskii system with a numberof regulations local authorities decided which method to use in practice As theimperial bureaucracy became increasingly secularized and ethno-nationalist towardthe end of the imperial regime followers of Ilrsquominskii lost their control in theeducation of the non-Muslim inorodtsy128 but their ideas about the Muslims were notthat incompatible with the ideas of the new ruling elite The Ilrsquominskii group had

279

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

should be fully in the vernacular Russian should enter the curriculum as a subject ofstudy in the second year and only in the third year could the language of instructionbecome Russian With regard to the Muslims the commission stated that theIlrsquominskii system had full respect for the studentsrsquo beliefs Therefore it allowedreligious education in the Muslim schools but taking into consideration that thiswould not bring the Muslims close to the Russian people basic subjects such asnatural and social sciences should also be in the curriculum It was necessary toprepare books for the Muslims in their local languages with Cyrillic scripts so thatthe common alphabet would serve as a path to Russian books the Russian languageand the Russian outlook on the world

With regard to the mektebs and medreses the commission first recommended theauthorities not to intervene in the internal affairs of the Muslims but then it listed anumber of requirements for the Muslim schools The mullahs should know Russianand be of the same nationality as the students The language of instruction shouldbe the native language spoken in the childrsquos house and not ldquoartificial Tatarrdquo Theeducation should not encourage opposition against the state The schools should openwith the permission of the Ministry of Education The mullahs should submitstatistical data about the students each year The curriculum of mektebs shouldinclude Russian and basic subjects like mathematics The purpose of teachingRussian should be bringing the Muslims closer to Russian education and instillingthe feeling of ldquopatriotic solidarityrdquo in their hearts103

Since usucircl-i cedid was only recently and gradually making its way into CentralAsia most of the cedid teachers in this region were Tatars from European RussiaAside from other restrictions it was apparent that the condition of ldquosame nationalityrdquowas intended to limit Tatar influence Non-interference was not working anymorebecause the Muslim schools had gone through an internal reform and had begun toimprove the social and political consciousness of the Muslims After the BudilovichCommission the followers of Ilrsquominskii would try to limit the influence of theMuslim reformers ldquousing administrative regulations inspections and censorship toensure compliancerdquo as Ostroumov had suggested to the Governor-General ofTurkistan in 1892104 An additional measure was to take advantage of the conflictbetween the traditionalist opposition that had begun to develop among the Muslimclergy against Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos reforms and support the traditionalists against thereformers105 These may seem to be a diversion from the non-interference policyIlrsquominskii had adopted in the 1860s but what happened is rather an adaptation of theold system to the new conditions because the purpose of limiting social and politicalconsciousness of the Muslims remained unchanged The Budilovich Commissionrsquossuggestions were approved as regulation in 1906 Because of the opposition from theMuslims the Ministry of Education had to drop the provisions regarding the use ofCyrillic script in school materials ldquoRussian classes in the Muslim confessionalschools the requirement that mullahs know Russian and ministry inspection ofconfessional schoolsrdquo However the requirement that the mullahs should be of the

276

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

same nationality as students remained106

From Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos references to Ilrsquominskii before the revolution of 1905 it ispossible to see that he refrained from attacking Ilrsquominskii and even tried to use someof Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas to support his own arguments In the liberal atmosphere of theyears following the revolution of 1905 he could speak more openly In 1908 hewrote that it was necessary to be cautious before 1905 because of the opposition ofIlrsquominskii and his followers ldquowho did not accept the Tatar Bashkir Kirgiz and Sartchildren to the same schools and tried to separate themrdquo But the conditions hadchanged by 1908 Now Gasp otilde ral otilde could even criticize the regulations of the Ministryof Education According to him the ministry had made a mistake by defining nativelanguage as the language spoken in the childrsquos house Accepting this position wouldrequire instruction in the languages of each city or region The native language of theRussian children was the Russian language not the languages of Volgograd KurskSaratovsk and Yaroslavl Thus Gasp otilde ral otilde concluded ldquoOur native language is theliterary lsquoTuumlrkrsquo languagerdquo107

Post-1905 and the Wider Society

The openness in Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos statements was not the only thing that changed after therevolution of 1905 The Russian empire in its entirety went through a period ofreform Several journals and newspapers appeared among the Muslims Gasp otilde ral otildeestimated that the total number of subscribers to these periodicals was between60000 and 70000 in 1908108 The Muslims had generally not joined the strikes andinsurgencies that had paralyzed the empire during 1905 but they had well sensedthe approaching administrative changes and through a number of rather peacefulgatherings they had tried to bring about a common representative body for theMuslims of the empire In August 1906 between the first and second DumasMuslim representatives from all over the empire met in a congress in NizhniiNovgorod This was the third Muslim congress since March 1905 and it was the bestorganized one The Muslim representatives agreed on a 33-point resolution onschooling The resolution stated inter alia that the education in Muslim schoolsshould be in the native language with the Arabic script Special importance should begiven to the study of ldquoliterary Turkish languagerdquo in the Muslim secondary schoolsand wherever possible in the elementary schools The study of the Russian languagewas not necessary in the elementary schools but it could enter the curriculum as asubject of study in the secondary schools Education of all Muslims should bestandardized as much as possible Muslim students should have the same rights asRussian students In the Muslim teachersrsquo schools with preparatory Russian classesthe study of the ldquoliterary national languagerdquo should improve so that the Muslimteachers could teach in their own language Elementary education should beobligatory for all Muslim children and the Muslim teachers should meet in acongress to prepare a standard program of education and materials for use in the

277

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Muslim schools109 Muslims of Russia would hold several other meetings in thefollowing years and reaffirm the decisions of this resolution110

The resolution was a victory for Gasp otilde ral otilde but the congress also showed tensionsthat he had not foreseen 25 years before in ldquoRussian Islamrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde had alwaysconcentrated his work on social and cultural issues In the years of the revolution hehad expressed this concentration as follows ldquoSome thoughts are forbidden to us Letus leave these to the generations that will come later Let us form a spiritual unity letus unite the languages [but] let others think of political unityrdquo111 Nevertheless themembers of the new generation who to a large extent were graduates of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosschools did not want to leave political action to future generations The Muslimcongress approved the formation of a Muslim political party despite Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosinitial opposition Later Gasp otilde ral otilde consented to this formation112 but the lack ofpopular support after the initial political excitement of the revolution showed thatMuslims of Russia were not ready to support a political party yet113 Moreover thepolitical ideals of the new generation were not always compatible with the unity ofthe Turkic and Muslim nation that Gasp otilde ral otilde had in mind

In 1911 two articles appeared in the biweekly supplement of an Orenburg-basednewspaper ldquoWe are Tatarsrdquo by lsquoAlimcan Imiddotbrahimov from Kazan114 and ldquoWe areTurksrdquo by an author who wrote under the pseudonym TuumlrkogAElig lu which means ldquoson ofa Turkrdquo115 The titles well summarized the contents of the articles Imiddotbrahimov wroteldquoWe are Tatars our language is the Tatar language our literature is the Tatarliterature all our affairs are Tatar affairs our civilization will be the Tatar civiliza-tionrdquo While saying ldquowerdquo Imiddotbrahimov was referring to the people who are calledldquoKazan Tatarsrdquo today TuumlrkogAElig lu did not l ike Imiddotbrahimovrsquos statements It wasnecessary to put an end to these ldquowhims of Tatarismrdquo according to him After thespread of that ldquoso-called Tatar literaturerdquo now a ldquoso-called Kazakh literaturerdquo hadbegun to appear This was all dividing the common ldquoTuumlrkrdquo people116 The Ministry ofEducation was trying to impose the use of local dialects in inorodets schools This ofcourse was harmful to the Turks of the Russian empire117 Division weakened theTurks of Russia It was necessary to end all those wrong tendencies and begin towork for the creation of a ldquoTuumlrkicircrdquo literature118 Until the very end of the imperialregime a heated discussion continued between the Kazakh Volga Tatar CrimeanTatar Bashkir and other ethno-territorial nationalists and pan-Turkists in the Muslimpress Language was the key issue in these discussions119

The Muslim intellectuals who entered such discussions always expressed a certainrespect for and gratefulness to Gasp otilde ral otilde the ldquoold teacherrdquo or the ldquofatherrdquo regardlessof whether they agreed with him or not120 The very fact that the Muslims werepublicly discussing social and political issues was the proof of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos success inreforming the Muslim society But the old teacher was in an ambivalent situation Hewas happy for the appearance of a flourishing press but he was upset because of themistakes made about language With all due respect to the common people he wrotein 1912 the literary and scientific publications should not be published in the

278

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

language spoken by a Kazakh shepherd The several Turkic tribes could not becomea nation if they insisted on separating their languages121

While Gasp otilde ral otilde found himself in this ambivalent situation followers of Ilrsquominskiialso had a number of things to worry about Following the edict of religioustoleration on 17 April 1905 approximately 49000 inorodtsy left Orthodoxy forIslam in 5 years122 Ilrsquominskiirsquos biographer Petr V Znamenskii wrote in a work aboutthe Kazan Tatars that the mission among the Muslims was completely paralyzed123 In1910 a missionary congress gathered in Kazan124 The atmosphere of the congresswas quite gloomy It did not yield a substantive result other than the publication of ajournal to observe and study the Muslim world Mir Islama Writers of the journalwere quick to notice the ideological currents among the Muslims of the empire In1913 two articles discussed pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia According tothese articles pan-Islamism was losing its influence in the Ottoman Empire andamong the Muslims of Russia On the other hand pan-Turkism and territorialnationalisms were gaining strength125 Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers had definitely failed toprevent the development of social and political consciousness among the Muslims ofRussia Local nationalists were opposing a political Turkic unity but they were by nomeans closer to the Russians On the other hand the mission of consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy with the Ilrsquominskii system was not workingsmoothly either

When Ilrsquominskii had first presented his system to Russian society in the 1860sclaiming that the native language is most effective in instilling Christianity and thatthe path to Russification would be open to the inorodtsy once they were sufficientlyChristianized the opposition had contended that the proper way of national assimila-tion was through language and strengthening the native languages would result inthe alienation of the inorodtsy126 Thanks to the support of Tolstoi and Pobe-donostsev the Ilrsquominskii system had gained official recognition in those days but thepolitical composition of the empire had changed significantly by the early twentiethcentury In 1897 an article appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Educationabout a new language teaching technique the natural method ldquoThe main channel forthe inorodtsy to approach the Russiansrdquo was the Russian language according to theauthor and with the natural method it was possible to teach Russian to the inorodtsywithout using their native languages In this method the teacher was supposed toteach first by miming and with gestures and then by building on the words that thestudents had already learned127 Soon after the natural method developed as analternative to Ilrsquominskiirsquos translative method It also found supporters in the Russianbureaucracy and despite the legal recognition of the Ilrsquominskii system with a numberof regulations local authorities decided which method to use in practice As theimperial bureaucracy became increasingly secularized and ethno-nationalist towardthe end of the imperial regime followers of Ilrsquominskii lost their control in theeducation of the non-Muslim inorodtsy128 but their ideas about the Muslims were notthat incompatible with the ideas of the new ruling elite The Ilrsquominskii group had

279

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

same nationality as students remained106

From Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos references to Ilrsquominskii before the revolution of 1905 it ispossible to see that he refrained from attacking Ilrsquominskii and even tried to use someof Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas to support his own arguments In the liberal atmosphere of theyears following the revolution of 1905 he could speak more openly In 1908 hewrote that it was necessary to be cautious before 1905 because of the opposition ofIlrsquominskii and his followers ldquowho did not accept the Tatar Bashkir Kirgiz and Sartchildren to the same schools and tried to separate themrdquo But the conditions hadchanged by 1908 Now Gasp otilde ral otilde could even criticize the regulations of the Ministryof Education According to him the ministry had made a mistake by defining nativelanguage as the language spoken in the childrsquos house Accepting this position wouldrequire instruction in the languages of each city or region The native language of theRussian children was the Russian language not the languages of Volgograd KurskSaratovsk and Yaroslavl Thus Gasp otilde ral otilde concluded ldquoOur native language is theliterary lsquoTuumlrkrsquo languagerdquo107

Post-1905 and the Wider Society

The openness in Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos statements was not the only thing that changed after therevolution of 1905 The Russian empire in its entirety went through a period ofreform Several journals and newspapers appeared among the Muslims Gasp otilde ral otildeestimated that the total number of subscribers to these periodicals was between60000 and 70000 in 1908108 The Muslims had generally not joined the strikes andinsurgencies that had paralyzed the empire during 1905 but they had well sensedthe approaching administrative changes and through a number of rather peacefulgatherings they had tried to bring about a common representative body for theMuslims of the empire In August 1906 between the first and second DumasMuslim representatives from all over the empire met in a congress in NizhniiNovgorod This was the third Muslim congress since March 1905 and it was the bestorganized one The Muslim representatives agreed on a 33-point resolution onschooling The resolution stated inter alia that the education in Muslim schoolsshould be in the native language with the Arabic script Special importance should begiven to the study of ldquoliterary Turkish languagerdquo in the Muslim secondary schoolsand wherever possible in the elementary schools The study of the Russian languagewas not necessary in the elementary schools but it could enter the curriculum as asubject of study in the secondary schools Education of all Muslims should bestandardized as much as possible Muslim students should have the same rights asRussian students In the Muslim teachersrsquo schools with preparatory Russian classesthe study of the ldquoliterary national languagerdquo should improve so that the Muslimteachers could teach in their own language Elementary education should beobligatory for all Muslim children and the Muslim teachers should meet in acongress to prepare a standard program of education and materials for use in the

277

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Muslim schools109 Muslims of Russia would hold several other meetings in thefollowing years and reaffirm the decisions of this resolution110

The resolution was a victory for Gasp otilde ral otilde but the congress also showed tensionsthat he had not foreseen 25 years before in ldquoRussian Islamrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde had alwaysconcentrated his work on social and cultural issues In the years of the revolution hehad expressed this concentration as follows ldquoSome thoughts are forbidden to us Letus leave these to the generations that will come later Let us form a spiritual unity letus unite the languages [but] let others think of political unityrdquo111 Nevertheless themembers of the new generation who to a large extent were graduates of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosschools did not want to leave political action to future generations The Muslimcongress approved the formation of a Muslim political party despite Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosinitial opposition Later Gasp otilde ral otilde consented to this formation112 but the lack ofpopular support after the initial political excitement of the revolution showed thatMuslims of Russia were not ready to support a political party yet113 Moreover thepolitical ideals of the new generation were not always compatible with the unity ofthe Turkic and Muslim nation that Gasp otilde ral otilde had in mind

In 1911 two articles appeared in the biweekly supplement of an Orenburg-basednewspaper ldquoWe are Tatarsrdquo by lsquoAlimcan Imiddotbrahimov from Kazan114 and ldquoWe areTurksrdquo by an author who wrote under the pseudonym TuumlrkogAElig lu which means ldquoson ofa Turkrdquo115 The titles well summarized the contents of the articles Imiddotbrahimov wroteldquoWe are Tatars our language is the Tatar language our literature is the Tatarliterature all our affairs are Tatar affairs our civilization will be the Tatar civiliza-tionrdquo While saying ldquowerdquo Imiddotbrahimov was referring to the people who are calledldquoKazan Tatarsrdquo today TuumlrkogAElig lu did not l ike Imiddotbrahimovrsquos statements It wasnecessary to put an end to these ldquowhims of Tatarismrdquo according to him After thespread of that ldquoso-called Tatar literaturerdquo now a ldquoso-called Kazakh literaturerdquo hadbegun to appear This was all dividing the common ldquoTuumlrkrdquo people116 The Ministry ofEducation was trying to impose the use of local dialects in inorodets schools This ofcourse was harmful to the Turks of the Russian empire117 Division weakened theTurks of Russia It was necessary to end all those wrong tendencies and begin towork for the creation of a ldquoTuumlrkicircrdquo literature118 Until the very end of the imperialregime a heated discussion continued between the Kazakh Volga Tatar CrimeanTatar Bashkir and other ethno-territorial nationalists and pan-Turkists in the Muslimpress Language was the key issue in these discussions119

The Muslim intellectuals who entered such discussions always expressed a certainrespect for and gratefulness to Gasp otilde ral otilde the ldquoold teacherrdquo or the ldquofatherrdquo regardlessof whether they agreed with him or not120 The very fact that the Muslims werepublicly discussing social and political issues was the proof of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos success inreforming the Muslim society But the old teacher was in an ambivalent situation Hewas happy for the appearance of a flourishing press but he was upset because of themistakes made about language With all due respect to the common people he wrotein 1912 the literary and scientific publications should not be published in the

278

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

language spoken by a Kazakh shepherd The several Turkic tribes could not becomea nation if they insisted on separating their languages121

While Gasp otilde ral otilde found himself in this ambivalent situation followers of Ilrsquominskiialso had a number of things to worry about Following the edict of religioustoleration on 17 April 1905 approximately 49000 inorodtsy left Orthodoxy forIslam in 5 years122 Ilrsquominskiirsquos biographer Petr V Znamenskii wrote in a work aboutthe Kazan Tatars that the mission among the Muslims was completely paralyzed123 In1910 a missionary congress gathered in Kazan124 The atmosphere of the congresswas quite gloomy It did not yield a substantive result other than the publication of ajournal to observe and study the Muslim world Mir Islama Writers of the journalwere quick to notice the ideological currents among the Muslims of the empire In1913 two articles discussed pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia According tothese articles pan-Islamism was losing its influence in the Ottoman Empire andamong the Muslims of Russia On the other hand pan-Turkism and territorialnationalisms were gaining strength125 Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers had definitely failed toprevent the development of social and political consciousness among the Muslims ofRussia Local nationalists were opposing a political Turkic unity but they were by nomeans closer to the Russians On the other hand the mission of consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy with the Ilrsquominskii system was not workingsmoothly either

When Ilrsquominskii had first presented his system to Russian society in the 1860sclaiming that the native language is most effective in instilling Christianity and thatthe path to Russification would be open to the inorodtsy once they were sufficientlyChristianized the opposition had contended that the proper way of national assimila-tion was through language and strengthening the native languages would result inthe alienation of the inorodtsy126 Thanks to the support of Tolstoi and Pobe-donostsev the Ilrsquominskii system had gained official recognition in those days but thepolitical composition of the empire had changed significantly by the early twentiethcentury In 1897 an article appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Educationabout a new language teaching technique the natural method ldquoThe main channel forthe inorodtsy to approach the Russiansrdquo was the Russian language according to theauthor and with the natural method it was possible to teach Russian to the inorodtsywithout using their native languages In this method the teacher was supposed toteach first by miming and with gestures and then by building on the words that thestudents had already learned127 Soon after the natural method developed as analternative to Ilrsquominskiirsquos translative method It also found supporters in the Russianbureaucracy and despite the legal recognition of the Ilrsquominskii system with a numberof regulations local authorities decided which method to use in practice As theimperial bureaucracy became increasingly secularized and ethno-nationalist towardthe end of the imperial regime followers of Ilrsquominskii lost their control in theeducation of the non-Muslim inorodtsy128 but their ideas about the Muslims were notthat incompatible with the ideas of the new ruling elite The Ilrsquominskii group had

279

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

Muslim schools109 Muslims of Russia would hold several other meetings in thefollowing years and reaffirm the decisions of this resolution110

The resolution was a victory for Gasp otilde ral otilde but the congress also showed tensionsthat he had not foreseen 25 years before in ldquoRussian Islamrdquo Gasp otilde ral otilde had alwaysconcentrated his work on social and cultural issues In the years of the revolution hehad expressed this concentration as follows ldquoSome thoughts are forbidden to us Letus leave these to the generations that will come later Let us form a spiritual unity letus unite the languages [but] let others think of political unityrdquo111 Nevertheless themembers of the new generation who to a large extent were graduates of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosschools did not want to leave political action to future generations The Muslimcongress approved the formation of a Muslim political party despite Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquosinitial opposition Later Gasp otilde ral otilde consented to this formation112 but the lack ofpopular support after the initial political excitement of the revolution showed thatMuslims of Russia were not ready to support a political party yet113 Moreover thepolitical ideals of the new generation were not always compatible with the unity ofthe Turkic and Muslim nation that Gasp otilde ral otilde had in mind

In 1911 two articles appeared in the biweekly supplement of an Orenburg-basednewspaper ldquoWe are Tatarsrdquo by lsquoAlimcan Imiddotbrahimov from Kazan114 and ldquoWe areTurksrdquo by an author who wrote under the pseudonym TuumlrkogAElig lu which means ldquoson ofa Turkrdquo115 The titles well summarized the contents of the articles Imiddotbrahimov wroteldquoWe are Tatars our language is the Tatar language our literature is the Tatarliterature all our affairs are Tatar affairs our civilization will be the Tatar civiliza-tionrdquo While saying ldquowerdquo Imiddotbrahimov was referring to the people who are calledldquoKazan Tatarsrdquo today TuumlrkogAElig lu did not l ike Imiddotbrahimovrsquos statements It wasnecessary to put an end to these ldquowhims of Tatarismrdquo according to him After thespread of that ldquoso-called Tatar literaturerdquo now a ldquoso-called Kazakh literaturerdquo hadbegun to appear This was all dividing the common ldquoTuumlrkrdquo people116 The Ministry ofEducation was trying to impose the use of local dialects in inorodets schools This ofcourse was harmful to the Turks of the Russian empire117 Division weakened theTurks of Russia It was necessary to end all those wrong tendencies and begin towork for the creation of a ldquoTuumlrkicircrdquo literature118 Until the very end of the imperialregime a heated discussion continued between the Kazakh Volga Tatar CrimeanTatar Bashkir and other ethno-territorial nationalists and pan-Turkists in the Muslimpress Language was the key issue in these discussions119

The Muslim intellectuals who entered such discussions always expressed a certainrespect for and gratefulness to Gasp otilde ral otilde the ldquoold teacherrdquo or the ldquofatherrdquo regardlessof whether they agreed with him or not120 The very fact that the Muslims werepublicly discussing social and political issues was the proof of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos success inreforming the Muslim society But the old teacher was in an ambivalent situation Hewas happy for the appearance of a flourishing press but he was upset because of themistakes made about language With all due respect to the common people he wrotein 1912 the literary and scientific publications should not be published in the

278

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

language spoken by a Kazakh shepherd The several Turkic tribes could not becomea nation if they insisted on separating their languages121

While Gasp otilde ral otilde found himself in this ambivalent situation followers of Ilrsquominskiialso had a number of things to worry about Following the edict of religioustoleration on 17 April 1905 approximately 49000 inorodtsy left Orthodoxy forIslam in 5 years122 Ilrsquominskiirsquos biographer Petr V Znamenskii wrote in a work aboutthe Kazan Tatars that the mission among the Muslims was completely paralyzed123 In1910 a missionary congress gathered in Kazan124 The atmosphere of the congresswas quite gloomy It did not yield a substantive result other than the publication of ajournal to observe and study the Muslim world Mir Islama Writers of the journalwere quick to notice the ideological currents among the Muslims of the empire In1913 two articles discussed pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia According tothese articles pan-Islamism was losing its influence in the Ottoman Empire andamong the Muslims of Russia On the other hand pan-Turkism and territorialnationalisms were gaining strength125 Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers had definitely failed toprevent the development of social and political consciousness among the Muslims ofRussia Local nationalists were opposing a political Turkic unity but they were by nomeans closer to the Russians On the other hand the mission of consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy with the Ilrsquominskii system was not workingsmoothly either

When Ilrsquominskii had first presented his system to Russian society in the 1860sclaiming that the native language is most effective in instilling Christianity and thatthe path to Russification would be open to the inorodtsy once they were sufficientlyChristianized the opposition had contended that the proper way of national assimila-tion was through language and strengthening the native languages would result inthe alienation of the inorodtsy126 Thanks to the support of Tolstoi and Pobe-donostsev the Ilrsquominskii system had gained official recognition in those days but thepolitical composition of the empire had changed significantly by the early twentiethcentury In 1897 an article appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Educationabout a new language teaching technique the natural method ldquoThe main channel forthe inorodtsy to approach the Russiansrdquo was the Russian language according to theauthor and with the natural method it was possible to teach Russian to the inorodtsywithout using their native languages In this method the teacher was supposed toteach first by miming and with gestures and then by building on the words that thestudents had already learned127 Soon after the natural method developed as analternative to Ilrsquominskiirsquos translative method It also found supporters in the Russianbureaucracy and despite the legal recognition of the Ilrsquominskii system with a numberof regulations local authorities decided which method to use in practice As theimperial bureaucracy became increasingly secularized and ethno-nationalist towardthe end of the imperial regime followers of Ilrsquominskii lost their control in theeducation of the non-Muslim inorodtsy128 but their ideas about the Muslims were notthat incompatible with the ideas of the new ruling elite The Ilrsquominskii group had

279

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

language spoken by a Kazakh shepherd The several Turkic tribes could not becomea nation if they insisted on separating their languages121

While Gasp otilde ral otilde found himself in this ambivalent situation followers of Ilrsquominskiialso had a number of things to worry about Following the edict of religioustoleration on 17 April 1905 approximately 49000 inorodtsy left Orthodoxy forIslam in 5 years122 Ilrsquominskiirsquos biographer Petr V Znamenskii wrote in a work aboutthe Kazan Tatars that the mission among the Muslims was completely paralyzed123 In1910 a missionary congress gathered in Kazan124 The atmosphere of the congresswas quite gloomy It did not yield a substantive result other than the publication of ajournal to observe and study the Muslim world Mir Islama Writers of the journalwere quick to notice the ideological currents among the Muslims of the empire In1913 two articles discussed pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia According tothese articles pan-Islamism was losing its influence in the Ottoman Empire andamong the Muslims of Russia On the other hand pan-Turkism and territorialnationalisms were gaining strength125 Ilrsquominskiirsquos followers had definitely failed toprevent the development of social and political consciousness among the Muslims ofRussia Local nationalists were opposing a political Turkic unity but they were by nomeans closer to the Russians On the other hand the mission of consolidatingOrthodoxy among the baptized inorodtsy with the Ilrsquominskii system was not workingsmoothly either

When Ilrsquominskii had first presented his system to Russian society in the 1860sclaiming that the native language is most effective in instilling Christianity and thatthe path to Russification would be open to the inorodtsy once they were sufficientlyChristianized the opposition had contended that the proper way of national assimila-tion was through language and strengthening the native languages would result inthe alienation of the inorodtsy126 Thanks to the support of Tolstoi and Pobe-donostsev the Ilrsquominskii system had gained official recognition in those days but thepolitical composition of the empire had changed significantly by the early twentiethcentury In 1897 an article appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Educationabout a new language teaching technique the natural method ldquoThe main channel forthe inorodtsy to approach the Russiansrdquo was the Russian language according to theauthor and with the natural method it was possible to teach Russian to the inorodtsywithout using their native languages In this method the teacher was supposed toteach first by miming and with gestures and then by building on the words that thestudents had already learned127 Soon after the natural method developed as analternative to Ilrsquominskiirsquos translative method It also found supporters in the Russianbureaucracy and despite the legal recognition of the Ilrsquominskii system with a numberof regulations local authorities decided which method to use in practice As theimperial bureaucracy became increasingly secularized and ethno-nationalist towardthe end of the imperial regime followers of Ilrsquominskii lost their control in theeducation of the non-Muslim inorodtsy128 but their ideas about the Muslims were notthat incompatible with the ideas of the new ruling elite The Ilrsquominskii group had

279

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

already been stressing the importance of the Russian language for the assimilation ofthe Muslims

In 1908 a ldquospecial commission to work out the measures to counter Tatar-Musliminfluence in the Volga basinrdquo gave a report to Stolypin Apparently members of thecommission were followers of Ilrsquominskii Following a summary of the Muslimreform movement in Russia the commission related how the Tatars had begun topropagate pan-Turkism openly in Russia and to demand autonomy for Muslimschools exclusion of the Russian language from Muslim schools and education inthe Tatar language ldquoTatarrdquo denoting the language of Gasp otilde ral otilde The reformedMuslim schools were legally accepted as confessional schools but in practice theywere not religious at all According to the commission the government shouldrestrict the reformed schools by drawing a clear line between the purely confessionaland purely cultural-educational schools On the other hand it should also support theactivities of the Brotherhood of St Gurii129

Policies of the Russian authorities toward the Muslims of the empire during theyears of reaction following the 1905 revolution show that they had received themessage of this report The archives of the Russian secret police contained manyreports about Muslim teachers in these years130 The most prominent Muslim politicalleaders had to leave the country after Stolypin put an end to the atmosphere offreedom that followed the revolution of 1905131 A strong assault on the cedid schoolsbegan in Central A sia in 1912132 A new regulation further emphasized theimportance of Russian language in the non-Russian schools in 1913133 When Russiaand the Ottoman Empire declared war on each other in 1914 the official suspicionsabout the Muslims further increased Despite all these restrictions however both theMuslim affairs and the Russian society in general had passed out of the control ofthe government by the end of World War I An article by Bobrovnikov in 1917constituted the final remark of the followers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims beforethe Bolshevik Revolution Relying on ample statistical data Bobrovnikov contendedthat the Muslims had already attained a high cultural level that the policy of non-interference would not work any more and Russification was not possible eitherBobrovnikovrsquos solutions echoed the suggestions of the Budilovich Commission andcalled for more active and conscious government involvement in the education of theMuslims134

Legacies

This intricate story shows that the social cultural and political composition of theMuslims of the Russian empire fundamentally changed toward the end of theimperial regime The works of two men Gasp otilde ral otilde and Ilrsquominskii were instrumentalin this change Gasp otilde ral otilde had wanted the Muslims of the empire to modernize withoutlosing their Muslim identities to contact the outside world beyond their localcommunitiesmdasheither Muslim or Russianmdashto unite culturally and later to translate

280

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

this union into political action By the time he died the Muslims of the empire hadbegun to modernize in the way he wanted isolation had ended to a great extent and aMuslim political movement had appeared in the Russian empire The Muslims of theempire however were divided about the problems of cultural and political unityIlrsquominskii on the other hand wanted to separate the Muslims of the empire inaccordance wi th the ir e thno-l inguisti c d iffe rences and assumed leve ls ofIslamicization to accustom those Muslims whom he thought to be less Islamicized tothe Russian culture and to keep those Muslims whom he considered to be moreIslamicized weak and isolated He died in 1891 but his followers continued hiswork They could not stop Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos modernization project they could not keep theMuslims of the empire weak and isolated they could propagate the Russian cultureonly in a few areas and the issue of separation v unity remained unresolved until theBolshevik Revolution

The Soviet regime radically changed the lives of the Muslims of the formerRussian empire but no matter how great the change was their existence stilldisplayed some continuities from the past Isabelle T Kreindler has emphasized therelationship between Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies135

Focusing her work on the baptized inorodtsy she contends that the works ofIlrsquominskii and his followers about the creation of literary languages from vernacularsprovided the cultural background for the national consciousness of the inorodtsy andthis is parallel to the ldquoindigenization policyrdquo of the early Soviet period According toKreindler indigenization represents the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas vis-agrave-vis theRussian ethno-nationalists I agree with Kreindler about the continuity betweenIlrsquominskiirsquos ideas and the Soviet nationality policies but I have a fundamentallydifferent approach to the characteristics of this continuity

According to Ilrsquominskii and his followers the reforms that were to be enacted inthe lives of the inorodtsy should have been controlled by the Russians and not by theinorodtsy themselves This condition was particularly valid for the Muslims of theempire whom Ilrsquominskii and his followers perceived as a serious threat136 ThisRusso-centrality and the exclusion of the wills of the nationalities from the policy-making process I believe explains the real continuity from Ilrsquominskii to the Sovietregime Kreindler defines nation entirely in cultural terms while one of the foundersof the modern theory of nationalism Ernest Gellner singles out ldquowill and culturerdquo asthe two basic if not sufficient ingredients of a nation137 Soviet nationalities lackedthe willmdashof the people who constituted these nationalitiesmdashto bring out nationsThe Bolsheviks had either ousted or ldquoliquidatedrdquo the people who would otherwiserepresent this will This is why the esteemed Kazan Tatar historian M A Usmanovconsiders the Muslim awakening in the Russian empire before the BolshevikRevolution the triumph of Gasp otilde ral otilde and the Soviet period his tragedy138

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the TurkicMuslim republics were themost reluctant ones to leave the Russian core In this respect the Soviet nationalitypolicies that numbed the wills of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union for

281

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

self-rule represent the triumph of Ilrsquominskiirsquos program for the Muslims of theRussian empire This however is not the end of the story Shortly after the collapseof the Soviet Union discussions of the Muslim press at the end of the imperialregime reappeared in the Turkic world139 The year 2001 was commemorated asthe 150th anniversary of Gasp otilde ral otilde rsquos birth140 As a part of the commemorations ascientific conference took place in Moscow in November 2001 In addition tohistorians and political scientists a number of MuslimTurkic minority leaders fromthe Russian Federation also participated in this conference and placing Ilrsquominskii toa proper place in the history of the TurkicMuslim peoples of the former SovietUnion appeared as one of the most burning and emotional issues of the meeting141

These developments show that the Gasp otilde ral otilde ndashIlrsquominskii controversy is still going onand we have yet to wait for the real conclusion of this story

NOTES

1 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogo obrazovatelrsquonogo dvizheniia v Rossii vXIX i XX stoletiiakhrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 5 1913 pp 316ndash326 ldquoIsmail BeiGasprinskiirdquo is the English transliteration of the Russianized form of Gasp otilde ralotilde rsquos name

2 There is a vast literature about the lives works and influences of both Gasp otilde ralotilde andIlrsquominskii The best works in English include the following On Gasp otilde ralotilde Edward JLazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia 1878ndash1914 (SeattleUniversity of Washington unpublished PhD dissertation 1973) There is a concise andgood discussion in Hakan K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity among theCrimean Tatars 1905ndash1916 (Leiden NY E J Brill 1996) On Ilrsquominskii Isabelle TeitzKreindler Educational Policies toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia AStudy of Ilrsquominskiirsquos System (New York Columbia University unpublished PhD disser-tation 1969) Unless indicated otherwise I will use Kreindlerrsquos work for the biographicalinformation on Ilrsquominskii Wayne Dowler Classroom and Empire The Politics ofSchooling Russiarsquos Eastern Nationalities 1860ndash1917 (Montreal McGill-QueenrsquosUniversity Press 2001) provides an account of Ilrsquominskii from an educational point ofview Robert Geraci Window on the East Ethnography Orthodoxy and RussianNationality in Kazan 1870ndash1914 (Ithaca Cornell University Press 2001) discussesIlrsquominskii at length in relation to his missionary work

3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos main activity which is generally known as the ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo wasamong the baptized non-Russians of the empire rather than the Muslims but the boundarybetween the baptized non-Russian and Muslim domains in the East of the empire wasrather vague and Ilrsquominskii also developed a system for the Muslims of the empire

4 ldquoInorodtsyrdquo is the Russian plural for the word inorodets ldquoInorodetsrdquo literally ldquothat of theother kindrdquo was used to denote non-Russians in general and more commonly the non-Russian peoples of eastern Russia in particular

5 This is not a full list of the languages Ilrsquominskii knew It is only a list of the languages inwhich he conducted translation works and linguistic studies

6 James J Stamoolis Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll NY OrbisBooks 1986) p 28

7 For the missionary activities of Makarius and Veniaminov see Eugene Smirnoff A ShortAccount of the Historical Development and Present Position of Russian OrthodoxMissions (London 1903) pp 16ndash23

282

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

8 For the relationship between Makarius and Ilrsquominskii see Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenie na tatarskom iazykerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskiiizbrannye mesta iz pedagogicheskikh sochinenii nekotorye svedeniia o ego geiatelrsquonosti io poslednykh dniakh ego zhizni (Kazanrsquo Tipografiia imperatorskogo universiteta 1892)pp 22ndash29 In 1870 Veniaminov founded the Orthodox Missionary Society in MoscowSee C R Hale ldquoThe Orthodox Missionary Society of Russiardquo American Church ReviewVol 30 1878 pp 344ndash360 This society supported Ilrsquominskiirsquos work from then on Forexamples of how Ilrsquominskii followed the Russian Orthodox missions and for the personalrelationship between Ilrsquominskii and Veniaminov see Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma N IIlrsquominskogo k Ober-prokuroru Sviateishego Sinoda Konstantinu Petrovichu Pobe-donostsevu (Kazanrsquo Tipo-litografiia imperatorskogo universitete 1895) pp 116ndash126180ndash187

9 See Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay ldquoLes missions orthodoxes en pays musucirclmans demoyenne-et basse-Volga 1552ndash1865rdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovieacutetique Vol 8No 3 1967 pp 387ndash391 and Michael Khodarkovsky ldquolsquoNot by Word AlonersquoMissionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russiardquo ComparativeStudies in Society and History Vol 38 No 2 1996 pp 283ndash287

10 Agnes Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populaire chez les Tatars chretiens orthodoxes au XIXesieclerdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 No 4 1996 p 411

11 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevode pravoslavnykh kristianskikh knig na tatarskii iazyk prikhristiano-tatarskoi shkole v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(November 1870) Chapter 152 pp 2ndash3 Ilrsquominskiirsquos student Nikolai Ostroumov has asimilar argument in Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoZametka ob otnoshenii Mokhammedanstva kobrazovaniiu kreshchenykh Tatarrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(June 1872) ch 161 otd 4 pp 94ndash95

12 Ilrsquominskii and his followers developed a similar attitude to Buddhism later but thisremained a secondary issue for Ilrsquominskii

13 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 2ndash314 Hakan K otilde r otilde mlotilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik ve Millicirc Hareketler 1905ndash1916 (Ankara

Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1996) p 38 This book is the Turkish edition of K otilde r otilde ml otilde National Movements and National Identity

15 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 4ndash1116 See Alan W Fisher ldquoEnlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine IIrdquo Slavic

Review Vol 27 No 4 1968 pp 542ndash55317 On the Russian colonization and emigrations see Alan W Fisher The Crimean Tatars

(Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press 1987) pp 78 88 92ndash93 and K otilde r otilde ml otilde KotilderotildemTatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 11ndash17

18 A Bezchinskii Putevoditelrsquo po Krymu (Moskva Tipo-lit T-va I N Kushnerev 1903)p 74 Prince Menshikov had in fact ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars to CentralRussia in 1854 but this proved to be practically impossible under the war conditionsK otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 15

19 Ibid p 1520 A series of petitions to the Russian authorities in the 1880s from the Muslims of the

Kazan region asking for the annulment of the laws that attempted to introduce Russianclasses to the Muslim schools and required the mullahs to learn Russian is a goodexample of this fear and of the unwillingness of the Muslims of the Russian empire to getin contact with the outer Russian world See Natsionalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana(The National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan) (NART) f 1 op 3 d 5881 58825883 7797 7798

283

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

21 In 1913 Gasp otilde ralotilde wrote ldquoI would not let even one Turk move from his place in Russia ifI had the power to do so because one emigrating Turk is influencing ten others heis leaving them in ambivalence and he himself cannot find salvation in emigration ahomeland is being ruined but another one is not being founded nobody gains anythingeverybody loses somethingrdquo Imiddotsmail Gaspirinski ldquoMuhacircceret-i Muazzamardquo Tuumlrk YurduVol 2 1328 (1913) p 707 Quoted in Abdullah Saydam K otilderotildem ve Kafkas Goumlccedilleri(1856ndash1876) (Ankara Tuumlrk Tarih Kurumu Bas otilde mevi 1997) p 69 See also ImiddotsmailGasprinskii Russkoe Musulrsquomanstvo (1881 reprint Oxford Society for Central AsianStudies 1985) pp 28ndash29

22 There were two types of traditional Muslim schools mektebs elementary schools andmedreses higher schools that had an exclusively religious character in nineteenth-centuryRussia until the reform movement that came toward the end of the nineteenth century Onthe function of traditional education in the traditional Muslim societies in Russia seeAdeeb Khalid The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform Jadidism in Central Asia(Berkeley CA University of California Press 1998) pp 19ndash44 Although Khalidrsquos workis confined to Central Asia the situation in other parts of Russia was not much different

23 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii p xx School reforms of S ihabeddin Mercanicirc andAbduumllqayyum Nas otilde ricirc are two outstanding examples of these attempts

24 Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevoderdquo p 3 For a case study about the impact of these everydayrelations see Kefeli-Clay ldquoLrsquoIslam populairerdquo

25 Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma p 426 ldquoImiddotsmail Bey Gaspirinskiy ile Muumllacircqatrdquo Tasvir-i Efkacircr 27 June 190827 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO primenenii Russkogo alfavita k inorodcheskim iazykamrdquo in

Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskii pp 5ndash6 Beginning from the late eighteenth century theHoly Synod had engaged in the translation of Christian texts into the languages of theinorodtsy In 1883 Ilrsquominskii analyzed these translations in a long treatise He contendedthat these translations were unsuccessful because they had not paid attention to thelexical semantic and syntactic rules of the vernaculars Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Opytyperelozheniia khristianskikh verouchitelrsquonykh knig na Tatarskii i drugie inorodcheskieiazyki v nachale tekushchogo stoleiia (Kazanrsquo Tipgrafiia Imperatorskogo Universiteta1883)

28 Ilrsquominskii ldquoO perevoderdquo p 1429 Sophia Chicherina O iazyke prepodavanyia v shkolakh dlia vostochnykh inorodtsev (S-

Petersburg Tipografiia V Ia Milrsquoshteina 1910) p 7 and I Iznoskov ldquoPamiati NikolaiaIvanovicha Ilrsquominskogordquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskii p 95 Also see IlrsquominskiildquoPravoslavnoe bogosluzhenierdquo and Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoO tserkovnom bogosluzheniina inorodcheskikh iazykakhrdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskii pp 30ndash40

30 Dowler Classroom and Empire p 6331 ldquoK voprosu ob ustroistve uchilishch dlia inorodcheskikh detei Kazanskogo uchebnogo

okrugardquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia (April 1867) ch 134pp 75ndash96 and Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoShkola dlia pervonachalrsquonogo obucheniia deteikreshchenykh Tatar v Kazanirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia (June1867) ch 134 pp 293ndash328

32 M Neverov uses the term ldquoIlrsquominskii systemrdquo M Neverov ldquoK voprosu ob obrazvaniiinorodtsevrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia (December 1869)ch 146 p 127

33 For the details of the Ilrsquominskii system see Kreindler Educational Policies pp 132ndash15034 Ibid p 84 Dowler Classroom and Empire pp 79ndash80 177ndash18735 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii ldquoOb obrazovanii inorodtsevrdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskii

284

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

pp 18ndash1936 Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma p 223 During the imperial period ldquoTatarrdquo basically denoted any

Muslim living in the Russian empire but it was more specifically used for the LithuanianTatars Crimean Tatars Kazan Tatars and the Caucasian Muslims Russians called todayrsquosKazakhs the ldquoKyrgyzrdquo and todayrsquos Kirgiz ldquoKara-Kyrgyzrdquo The most general term for theMuslims of sedentary Central Asia was ldquoSartrdquo One should be careful about thisterminology In particular the word ldquoTatarrdquo could have different meanings in differentcontexts It could mean all the Muslims of the Russian empire in Gaspotilde ralotilde rsquos usage whileit could mean the sedentary Muslims of European Russia in distinction from the nomadicTurkic tribes to their east in a text by Ilrsquominskii

37 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Vospominaniia ob I A Altynsarine (Kazanrsquo Tipo-Litografiia V MKliuchnikova 1891) p 4 Also see Isabelle Teitz Kreindler ldquoIbrahim Altynsarin NikolaiIlrsquominskii and the Kazakhh National Awakeningrdquo Central Asian Survey Vol 2 No 31983 pp 99ndash116 I should note that this article suffers from Kreindlerrsquos lack of know-ledge about the Muslim reform movement that Gaspotilde ralotilde had initiated

38 Quoted in A Alektorov ldquoIz istorii razvitiia obrazovaniia sredi Kirgizov Akmolinskoi iSemipalatinskoi Oblasteirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia (December1905) ch 342 pp 167ndash170 In his letter to the Minister of Education dated 17 March1888 Ilrsquominskii had also praised Alt otilde nsarinrsquos schools for their success in bringing theKazakh and Russian students close to each other NART f 968 op 1 d 53

39 Alektorov ldquoIz istorii razvitiiardquo p 187 Jan Aacutemos Komensky was the first known personto systematize and popularize the translative method He arranged his books in columnswith the same text in different languages Thus the student would learn by comparing theforeign language with his native language ldquoComenius John Amosrdquo EncyclopaeligdiaBritannica Online lthttpwwwebcom180boltopiceu=25332ampsctn=1gt (accessed 6April 2001) Ilrsquominskii knew respected and quoted Komensky Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoBesedy o narodnoi shkolerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskii pp 76ndash77

40 Kreindler Educational Policies pp 57ndash5841 Ilrsquominskii Vospominaniia p 19242 Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma pp 247ndash248 321ndash32243 Fisher Enlightened Despotism44 NART f 968 op 1 d 645 Ilrsquominskii ldquoO primeneniirdquo p 946 Kreindler Educational Policies p 5847 Ingeborg Baldauf Schriftreform und Schriftwechsel bei den Muslimischen Russlandmdashund

Sowjettuumlrken (1850ndash1937) ein Symptom Ideengeschichtliher und KulturpolitischerEntwicklungen (Budapest Akadeacutemiai Kiadoacute 1993) p 688

48 Ahmet Zeki V Togan Buguumlnki Tuumlrkili (Tuumlrkistan) ve yakotilden tarihi (Imiddotstanbul ImiddotbrahimHoroz ve Guumlven Bas otilde mevleri 1942ndash1947) pp 490ndash491 and Kreindler ldquoIbrahimAltynsarinrdquo p 109

49 Quoted in Alektorov ldquoIz istorii razvitiiardquo p 16850 See Ilrsquominskiirsquos report to the General Governor of Turkistan in 1876 NART f 93 op 1

d 9351 Ibid52 Togan Buguumlnki Tuumlrkili p 50153 Dowler Classroom and Empire pp 143ndash145 and Kreindler Educational Policies

p 17254 Ibid p 17355 Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma pp 338ndash339 Unfortunately Smirnovrsquos letters to Ilrsquominskii (NART f

285

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

pp 18ndash1936 Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma p 223 During the imperial period ldquoTatarrdquo basically denoted any

Muslim living in the Russian empire but it was more specifically used for the LithuanianTatars Crimean Tatars Kazan Tatars and the Caucasian Muslims Russians called todayrsquosKazakhs the ldquoKyrgyzrdquo and todayrsquos Kirgiz ldquoKara-Kyrgyzrdquo The most general term for theMuslims of sedentary Central Asia was ldquoSartrdquo One should be careful about thisterminology In particular the word ldquoTatarrdquo could have different meanings in differentcontexts It could mean all the Muslims of the Russian empire in Gaspotilde ralotilde rsquos usage whileit could mean the sedentary Muslims of European Russia in distinction from the nomadicTurkic tribes to their east in a text by Ilrsquominskii

37 Nikolai I Ilrsquominskii Vospominaniia ob I A Altynsarine (Kazanrsquo Tipo-Litografiia V MKliuchnikova 1891) p 4 Also see Isabelle Teitz Kreindler ldquoIbrahim Altynsarin NikolaiIlrsquominskii and the Kazakhh National Awakeningrdquo Central Asian Survey Vol 2 No 31983 pp 99ndash116 I should note that this article suffers from Kreindlerrsquos lack of know-ledge about the Muslim reform movement that Gaspotilde ralotilde had initiated

38 Quoted in A Alektorov ldquoIz istorii razvitiia obrazovaniia sredi Kirgizov Akmolinskoi iSemipalatinskoi Oblasteirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia (December1905) ch 342 pp 167ndash170 In his letter to the Minister of Education dated 17 March1888 Ilrsquominskii had also praised Alt otilde nsarinrsquos schools for their success in bringing theKazakh and Russian students close to each other NART f 968 op 1 d 53

39 Alektorov ldquoIz istorii razvitiiardquo p 187 Jan Aacutemos Komensky was the first known personto systematize and popularize the translative method He arranged his books in columnswith the same text in different languages Thus the student would learn by comparing theforeign language with his native language ldquoComenius John Amosrdquo EncyclopaeligdiaBritannica Online lthttpwwwebcom180boltopiceu=25332ampsctn=1gt (accessed 6April 2001) Ilrsquominskii knew respected and quoted Komensky Nikolai I IlrsquominskiildquoBesedy o narodnoi shkolerdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich Ilrsquominskii pp 76ndash77

40 Kreindler Educational Policies pp 57ndash5841 Ilrsquominskii Vospominaniia p 19242 Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma pp 247ndash248 321ndash32243 Fisher Enlightened Despotism44 NART f 968 op 1 d 645 Ilrsquominskii ldquoO primeneniirdquo p 946 Kreindler Educational Policies p 5847 Ingeborg Baldauf Schriftreform und Schriftwechsel bei den Muslimischen Russlandmdashund

Sowjettuumlrken (1850ndash1937) ein Symptom Ideengeschichtliher und KulturpolitischerEntwicklungen (Budapest Akadeacutemiai Kiadoacute 1993) p 688

48 Ahmet Zeki V Togan Buguumlnki Tuumlrkili (Tuumlrkistan) ve yakotilden tarihi (Imiddotstanbul ImiddotbrahimHoroz ve Guumlven Bas otilde mevleri 1942ndash1947) pp 490ndash491 and Kreindler ldquoIbrahimAltynsarinrdquo p 109

49 Quoted in Alektorov ldquoIz istorii razvitiiardquo p 16850 See Ilrsquominskiirsquos report to the General Governor of Turkistan in 1876 NART f 93 op 1

d 9351 Ibid52 Togan Buguumlnki Tuumlrkili p 50153 Dowler Classroom and Empire pp 143ndash145 and Kreindler Educational Policies

p 17254 Ibid p 17355 Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma pp 338ndash339 Unfortunately Smirnovrsquos letters to Ilrsquominskii (NART f

285

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

968 op 1 d 145) are lost56 Vasilii Smirnov ldquoPo voprosu o shkolrsquonom obrazovanii inorodtsev musulrsquomanrdquo Zhurnal

Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia (June 1882) ch 222 otd 3 pp 1ndash24 StephenBlank cites this article as an example of the opposition against Ilrsquominskiirsquos ideas but Icannot see the point in Blankrsquos argument Stephen J Blank ldquoNational Education Churchand State in Tsarist Nationality Policy The Ilrsquominskii Systemrdquo CanadianndashAmericanSlavic Studies Vol 17 No 4 1983 p 476 Smirnov was apparently not in the camp thatopposed Ilrsquominskii His opposition in this article was to a Caucasian school inspectorSemenov and indirectly to Radlov whose medrese reform plans Semenov wanted tocopy in the Caucasus Vasilii Radlov and Smirnov had also engaged in a quarrel earlier in1877 See V Smirnov ldquoNeskolrsquoko slov ob uchebnikakh russkogo iazyka dlia tatarskikhnarodnykh shkolrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia (January 1877)ch 189 otd 4 pp 1ndash25 V Radlov ldquoEshche neskolrsquoko slov ob uchebnikakh russkogoiazyka dlia tatarskikh shkolrdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia(December 1877) ch 194 otd 4 pp 98ndash119 V Smirnov ldquoVozrazhenie g Radlovu (popvody ego statrsquoi o rukovodstvakh russkogo iazyka)rdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva NarodnogoProsveshcheniia (February 1878) ch 195 otd 4 pp 147ndash156 I did not come across adocument about an open quarrel between Ilrsquominskii and Radlov but apparently they haddisagreements on many issues In a letter to the Minister of Education in 1888 Ilrsquominskiiwrote that the Russian-native schools could not fulfill their purpose NART f 968 op 1d 53 Radlov was the inspector of these schools in the Kazan region Also see NART f93 op 1 d 93 p 60

57 Dowler Classroom and Empire pp 45ndash4658 Ilrsquominskii Vospominaniia p 19259 Chicherina O iazyke prepodavanyia p 860 See Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma pp 174ndash176 218ndash219 247ndash248 321ndash322 410ndash411 See also

NART f 968 op 1 d 5361 These articles were later published as a book and reprinted in 1985 Gasprinskii Russkoe

Musulrsquomanstvo pp 63 67ndash6862 Ibid p 2663 K otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 46 After 1905 he would more frequently use

ldquoTurkrdquo64 Imiddotsmail Bey Gaspirinskiy Tunguccedil 1881 Quoted in Togan Buguumlnki Tuumlrkili p 55565 Gasprinskii Russkoe Musulrsquomanstvo pp 27ndash3166 Ibid pp 42ndash43 46 50 6167 Ibid p 5968 Ibid pp 72ndash7369 Ibid pp 64ndash6570 See K otilde r otilde ml otilde K otilder otildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 40 Dilara M Usmanova ldquoDie

Tatarische Presse 1905ndash1918 Quellen Entwicklungsetappen und Quantitative Analyserdquoin Michael Kemper Anke von Kuumlgelgen and Dmitriy Yermakov eds Muslim Culture inRussian and Central Asia from the 18th to the Early 20th Centuries (Berlin KlausSchwarz Verlag 1996) pp 239ndash278 Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay La presse et le mouvement national chez les musulmans de Russie avant1920 (Paris Mouton 1964) Turkistan Vilayetirsquonin Gazeti was published in Tashkent for47 years between 1870 and 1917 but it was an official publication edited by Ostroumov

71 Ilrsquominskii ldquoO primeneniirdquo p 672 K otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik pp 48ndash4973 Ibid p 40

286

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

74 Togan Buguumlnki Tuumlrkili p 55675 Nikolai Ostroumov ldquoMusulrsquomanskie maktaby i russko-tuzemnye shkoly v Turkestans-

kom kraerdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia (February 1906) newseries ch 1 p 137

76 Khalid The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform p 2477 Ostroumov ldquoMusulrsquomanskie maktabyrdquo pp 130ndash13478 N S Lykoshin Polzhizni v Turkestane (Petrograd 1916) pp 223ndash22479 For a critique of medrese education from inside see Abduumlrresid Imiddotbrahimof Tercuumlme-i

Halim (Kazan 1905)80 K otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 5381 This term was used in the Ottoman empire before Gasp otilde ralotilde introduced it in Russia82 Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii pp 185ndash189 Lazzerini also gives a sample

curriculum and classroom plan83 K otilde r otilde ml otilde Kotilderotildem Tatarlarotildenda Millicirc Kimlik p 5484 Smiddot ihabuumlddin Mercanicircrsquos attempt in Kazan is probably the first one85 Imiddotsmail Bey Gaspirinskiy ile Muumllacircqat Since the usucircl-i cedid schools were not always

officially sanctioned and the Russian empire was not sufficiently successful to keeptrack of statistical numbers the exact number of cedid schools are not known Estimatesare around 5000ndash6000 What we can certainly say is that there were enough schools toinfluence the entire Muslim society in the Russian empire

86 For examples of this usage see Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma pp 396ndash397 and Ilrsquominskii ldquoOperevoderdquo pp 2ndash4

87 Ilrsquominskii Pisrsquoma88 Ibid p 5389 Ibid pp 62ndash6390 Ibid p 32191 Ibid p 32292 Konstantin Pobedonostsev ldquoIz vospominanii o N I Ilrsquominskomrdquo in Nikolai Ivanovich

Ilrsquominskii p 11193 Sophia Bobrovnikoff ldquoMoslems in Russiardquo The Moslem World Vol 1 1911 p 994 Gasprinskii Russkoe Musulrsquomanstvo p 6595 On the regulations of 1870 see Dowler Classroom and Empire pp 62ndash84 96 Khalid The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform pp 178ndash17997 Quoted in Ibid p 18098 Ibid pp 179ndash18099 For the details of this trip see Edward J Lazzerini ldquoFrom Bahchisarai to Bukhara in

1893 Ismail Bey Gasprinskiirsquos Journey to Central Asiardquo Central Asian Survey Vol 3No 4 1984 pp 77ndash88

100 For more on this commission see Dowler Classroom and Empire pp 174ndash187101 Quoted in Ostroumov ldquoK istorii musulrsquomanskogordquo pp 322ndash326 Alt otilde nsarinrsquos system

which used the Kazakh vernacular as the medium of instruction had a limited usage by1905 Russo-native schools generally used Russian as the language of instruction

102 Dowler Classroom and Empire p 178103 N Miropiev ldquoRussko inorodcheskie shkoly sistemy N I Ilrsquominskogordquo Zhurnal

Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia (February 1908) new series ch 13pp 183ndash210

104 See endnote 92 Quoted in Khalid The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform p 180105 For the government support to the traditionalists against the reformers see R D Crews

Allies in Godrsquos Command Muslim Communities and the State in Imperial Russia

287

M OumlZGUumlR TUNA

(Princeton Princeton University unpublished PhD Dissertation 1999)106 Dowler Classroom and Empire p 187107 Imiddotsmail Bey Gasp otilde ralotilde ldquoCan Yaki Dil Meselesirdquo Tercuumlman 25 January 1905108 Imiddotsmail Bey Gaspirinskiy ile Muumllacircqat109 Arshalius Arsharuni and Khac otilde Gabidullin Ocherki panislamizma i pantiurkizma v

Rossii (Moscow Bezbozhnik 1931) pp 115ndash116 The expression ldquoliteraturnyi rodnoiiazykrdquo in this Russian text is misleading It is the translation of ldquoedebicirc millicirc dilrdquo inTurkish which Gasp otilde ral otilde used to denote the common language he promoted for theentire Turkic world Although ldquoliterary native languagerdquo is the literal translation ofldquoliteraturnyi rodnoi iazykrdquo the correct expression should be ldquoliterary national languagerdquofor this better gives the meaning of ldquoedebicirc millicirc dilrdquo

110 For examples see ldquoMalsquoarif Kamisiyas otilde rdquo Yulduz 14 September 1907 No 168 ldquoQafqazMuumlsluumlman Mulsquoallimler Meclisinintilde ProgAElig ram otilde rdquo Beyan-uumll Haq 23 September 1906ldquoMulsquoallimler Cemlsquoiyyetinintilde Vazicircfelerirdquo Beyan-uumll Haq 15 August 1906 MekacircrceC otilde yunotilde nda Mursquoallim ve Sakirdlerrdquo Beyan-uumll Haq 24 September 1906

111 Altan Deliorman ldquoImiddotsmail Gasp otilde ralotilde ve Tercuumlman Gazetesirdquo Tuumlrk Kuumlltuumlruuml Vol 6 No69 1968 p 655 Quoted in Lazzerini Ismail Bey Gasprinskii p 51

112 Serge A Zenkovsky Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia (Cambridge MA HarvardUniversity Press 1960) pp 45ndash51

113 ldquoVopros o musulrsquomanskoi fraktsii Gosudarstvennoi Dumyrdquo Mir Islama Vol 2 No 21913 pp 101ndash109

114 lsquoAlimcan Imiddotbrahimof ldquoBiz Tatarmizrdquo Sucircracirc 15 April 1911 pp 236ndash238115 TuumlrkogAElig lu ldquoBiz Tuumlrkmizrdquo Sucircracirc 15 April 1911 pp 238ndash241 TuumlrkogAElig lu would write three

more articles under this title in 1912 Sucircracirc 1 January 1912 pp 19ndash21 Sucircracirc 15 January1912 pp 55ndash56 and Sucircracirc 1 February 1912 pp 79ndash80

116 TuumlrkogAElig lu ldquoBiz Tuumlrkmizrdquo 1 February 1912117 TuumlrkogAElig lu ldquoBiz Tuumlrkmizrdquo 15 January 1912118 TuumlrkogAElig lu ldquoBiz Tuumlrkmizrdquo 1 February 1912119 For examples see ldquoT il ve Imiddotmlacirc Meselesirdquo S ucircracirc 1 February 1911 pp 79ndash82

Feyzurrahman Cihandarof ldquoQazaq Mekteblerine Dairrdquo S ucircracirc 15 February 1911pp 92ndash93 and Ahmed ldquoHer Kimnintilde Ana Tili Oumlzine Q otilde ymetlirdquo Sucircracirc 15 April 1911pp 232ndash233 Although the period between 1905 and 1917 is the time when the Muslimsof Russia most vocally discussed nationalism territorial or extraterritorial theprecedents of their ideas were present earlier in the mid-nineteenth century in the worksof people like Ccedilokan Velixanov S ihabuumlddin Mercanicirc and as I try to explain in thisarticle Imiddotsmail Bey Gasp otilde ralotilde

120 See ldquolsquoTercuumlmanrsquo Babam otilde za Bir Imiddotki Soumlzrdquo Beyan-uumll Haq 29 May 1906 ldquoImiddotttifaq ve IslahrdquoBeyan-uumll Haq 20 September 1906 and Cemaleddin Velidof ldquoYine Til MeselesirdquoYulduz 1912 No 786

121 Reprinted from Tercuumlman in [Imiddotsmail Bey Gasp otilde ral otilde ] ldquoLisan Gerek Lisanrdquo Sucircracirc 1January 1912 pp 18ndash19

122 Robert Geraci ldquoRussian Orientalism at an Impasse Tsarist Education Policy and the1910 Conference on Islamrdquo in Daniel R Brower and Edward J Lazzerini eds RussiarsquosOrient Imperial Borderlands and Peoples 1700ndash1917 (Indiana Indiana UniversityPress 1997) p 140

123 Petr Znamenskii Kazanskie Tatary (Kazan 1910) p 35124 For the details of this congress see Geraci ldquoRussian Orientalism at an Impasserdquo and

Frank T McCarthy ldquoThe Kazan Missionary Congressrdquo Cahiers du monde russe etsovietique Vol 14 1973 pp 308ndash332

288

GASPIRALI V ILrsquoMINSKII

125 ldquoK voprosu o panislamizmerdquo Mir Islama No 2 1913 pp 1ndash12 and ldquoPantiurkizm vRossiirdquo Mir Islama pp 13ndash30

126 Kreindler Educational Policies p 80127 I Shatalov ldquoRusskii iazyk v inorodcheskoi shkolerdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo

Prosveshcheniia (November 1870) ch 310 pp 1ndash21128 About this change see Wayne Dowler ldquoThe Politics of Language in Non-Russian

Elementary Schools in the Eastern Empire 1865ndash1914rdquo The Russian Review Vol 54No 3 1995 pp 516ndash538

129 ldquoZhurnal osobogo soveshchaniia po vyrabotke mer dlia protivodeistviia tatarsko-musulrsquomanskomu vliianiiu v Privolzhskom kraerdquo Quoted in A Arsharuni ldquoIz istoriinatsionalrsquonoi politiki tsarizmardquo Krasnyi arkhiv Vol 4 No 35 pp 107ndash127

130 Sherali Turdiev ldquoLa sucircretteacute Russe les maicirctres drsquoeacutecole Tatars et le mouvement djadid auTurkestanrdquo Cahiers du Monde Russe Vol 37 Nos 1ndash2 pp 211ndash215

131 Two examples are Abduumlrresid Imiddotbrahim who had organized the Muslim congresses afterthe revolution of 1905 and Yusuf Akccedilura who had acted as the spokesman of theMuslim faction in the Duma

132 Khalid The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform p 182133 Dowler Classroom and Empire pp 225ndash227 This was a blow to the Ilrsquominskii system

as applied to the baptized inorodtsy too but it was in harmony with the ideas of thefollowers of Ilrsquominskii about the Muslims of the empire

134 Nikolai Bobrovnikov ldquoSovremennoe polozhenie uchebnogo dela u inorodcheskikhplemen vostochnoi Rossiirdquo Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia (May1917) new series ch 135 pp 51ndash84

135 Kreindler Educational Policies pp 211ndash213 Isabelle Teitz Kreindler ldquoA NeglectedSource of Leninrsquos Nationality Policyrdquo Slavic Review Vol 36 No 1 pp 86ndash100 In thisarticle Kreindler traces Ilrsquominskiirsquos influence on Leninrsquos ideas to the personal relation-ship between a loyal disciple of Ilrsquominskii I Ia Iakovlev and Leninrsquos father Archivaldocuments reveal that Leninrsquos father and mother had personally communicated withIlrsquominskii too In a letter dated 28 September 1889 Leninrsquos mother asks for Ilrsquominskiirsquoshelp for Leninrsquos readmission to the Kazan State University NART f 968 op 1 d 157

136 See NART f 968 op 1 d 43137 Ernest Gellner Nations and Nationalism (Oxford Basil Blackwell Publisher 1983)

p 53138 Mirkas otilde m A Usmanov ldquoO triumphe i tragedii idei Gasprinskogordquo in Ismail Bei

GasprinskiimdashRossiia i vostok (Kazanrsquo Tatarskoe knizhnoe izdatelrsquostvo 1993) pp 3ndash15139 Being a Turk and having an academic interest in the affairs of the Turkic world I

personally witnessed and continue to witness the appearance of these ideas and it isimpossible to cite all of them For a few concrete examples read through the followingWeb pages SOTA Turkic Web Pages lthttpwwwturkiyenetsotasotahtmlgt and ErkDemocratic Party of Uzbekistan lthttpwwwuzbekistanerkorggt

140 See lthttpwwwismailgaspiraliorggt (a Web page designed for the 150th anniversary ofGasp otilde ralotilde rsquos birth)

141 For a collection of the summaries of the works presented in this conference see SvetlanaM Chervonnaia Ismail Gasprinskiimdashprosvetitelrsquonaraodov Vostoka k 150-letiiu co dniarozhdeniia Materialy Mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii (Moscow NII teorii iistorii izobrazitelrsquonykh iskusstv Rossiiskoi Akademii khudozhestv 2001)

289