Russification and Educational Policies in the Middle Volga Region (1860-1914)
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Cadmus, EUI Research Repository Russification and Educational Policies in the Middle Volga Region (1860-1914) Oxana Zemtsova Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of History and Civilization of the European University Institute Florence, January 2014 European University Institute Department of History and Civilization Russification and Educational Policies in the Middle Volga Region (1860-1914) Oxana Zemtsova Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of History and Civilization of the European University Institute Examining Board Professor Stephen Anthony Smith, University of Oxford /EUI (Supervisor) Professor Alexander Etkind, EUI Professor Alexei Miller, CEU Budapest Professor Boris Kolonitskii, European University in St. Petersburg © Oxana Zemtsova,2014 No part of this thesis may be copied, reproduced or transmitted without prior permission of the author ii ABSTRACT The dissertation investigates the Russification policy of the late-imperial Russian state, as it related to educational policy in the Middle Volga region. It seeks to understand how the tsarist authorities sought to define „Russianness‟ and how they sought to craft relations with „pagan‟ minorities and Muslims in a region where the Slavic-Orthodox, the Turkic-Islamic and the Finno- „pagan‟ worlds interacted. It asks how far the educational projects of the Orthodox missions and the secular authorities brought about „Russification‟. The analysis of the changes in imperial policy in the period between the 1860s to 1914 allows for the conclusion that the methods, instruments and aims of Russification policy continually changed and that policy was applied quite differently vis-à-vis the Muslim and pagan, or in most cases only superficially Orthodox , population of the region. When dealing with the educational project for the non-Muslim population in the region, also known as the project of N.Il‟minskii, the dissertation aims to understand how the russifying and missionary components related to each other. Furthermore, it studies the alternative educational projects aiming at Russification of the non-Russian population of the region that the Il‟minskii system had to compete with. A considerable amount of the dissertation is devoted the discussion of the Muslim reform movement and emergence of Jadidism. By analyzing and comparing the curricula of old-method madrasahs and the new-methods ones, the dissertation demonstrates the evolution that the Middle Volga Muslims underwent under the influence of both inner reforms and the actions of the authorities. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing this PhD thesis has been quite an adventure. It is my great pleasure to acknowledge people who have given me guidance, help and encouragement along the way. It is difficult to overstate my sincere gratitude to Steve Smith who has been an encouraging and motivating supervisor and at the same time my most critical reader. I would like to thank my external supervisor Alexei Miller for the insightful comments he has been giving me since the times when I was his MA student. I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the rest of my thesis committee, Alexander Etkind and Boris Kolonitskii, for their critical and encouraging comments. My special words of thanks go to Philip Jakes for the language correction of my thesis and to Nicola Owtram and Nicki Hargreaves for having read and corrected parts of it. I am indebted to Nadia Al-Bagdadi, Guiseppe Marcocci, Alberto Masoero and Paul Werth for their invaluable feedback and support at various stages of my research. I am grateful to the director of the National Archives of the Republic of Tatarstan Gorokhova Liudmila Vasil‟evna and to the director of its reading hall Khasanshina Lialia Zaudatovna for facilitating my work in the archives. I am grateful to my many colleagues at the EUI for providing a stimulating and fun environment in which to learn and grow. I am especially grateful to Anna Bara, Uladzislau Belavusau, Daria Bocharnikova, Julia Busko, Thomas Cauvin, Tatiana Evas, Anastasia Felcher, Kasia Gracz, Vasilii Kucherenko, Claudiu Oancea, Alina Ostling, Alexandra Pfeiff. A special mention of thanks to my friends Natalia Khismatullina, Galyna Lipelis, Valentina Livi, Natalia Popenova, Olga Repina and Irina Sidorenko. Finally, I would like to thank the Grigoriev family in Russia and the Masi and Saporito family in Italy for their support. I am enormously grateful for the two most important men in my life for their love and understanding. Antonio Masi and Platon Zemtsov, my thesis is dedicated to both of you. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE. MIDDLE VOLGA NON-RUSSIANS AND MISSIONARY ACTIVITIES IN THE AREA BEFORE 1860S. ................................................................................................ 27 1.1. The Region and Its Population .................................................................................................... 27 1.2. The Russians Go In ....................................................................................................................... 37 1.3. Missionary Difficulties ................................................................................................................. 47 1.4. The Great Apostasy ..................................................................................................................... 57 CHAPTER TWO. THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RUSSIFICATION POLICY AMONG THE NON-MUSLIMS OF THE REGION BEFORE 1905. .................................... 69 2.1. Regulations on Non-Russian Schooling ....................................................................................... 73 2.2. N.I. Il’minskii and His Opponents ................................................................................................ 81 2.3. The Implementation of the Method ........................................................................................... 95 CHAPTER THREE. CIVILIZING THE OTHER? EDUCATIONAL PROJECTS FOR MUSLIM TATARS .................................................................................................................... 111 3.1. V. Radlov’s Project for Russian–Tatar Schools .......................................................................... 113 3.2. The Jadid Movement and the Reform of the Madrasah ........................................................... 133 CHAPTER FOUR. NEW CHALLENGES FOR OLD STRATEGIES ................................ 155 4.1. Missionary Education System Revised ...................................................................................... 157 4.2. School as a Reaffirmed Pillar of the Mission ............................................................................. 169 CHAPTER FIVE. RUSSIFICATION VS.PAN-TURKISM: THE MUSLIM SCHOOL AFTER 1905 ............................................................................................................................... 179 5.1. Discussion on the Muslim ‘National’ School ............................................................................. 181 5.2. Reforms in the Madrasah after 1905 ........................................................................................ 189 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 201 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................... 209 v INTRODUCTION The dissertation investigates the Russification policy of the late-imperial Russian state, as it related to educational policy in the Middle Volga region. It seeks to understand how the tsarist authorities attempted to define „Russianness‟ and how they sought to craft relations with „pagan‟ minorities and Muslims in a region where the Slavic-Orthodox, the Turkic- Islamic and the Finno-„pagan‟ worlds interacted. It asks how far the educational projects of the Orthodox missions and the secular authorities brought about „Russification‟. I use the term „Russification‟ to describe the policy of introduction of the Russian language in the classroom, press, church (in the case of non-Muslims) and other fields of the public sphere. I analyze the reforms in the sphere of education in order to see whether Russification can be regarded as a form of cultural assimilation, which led to communities giving up their culture and language in favor of the Russian one, or to acculturation, i.e. the acceptance of the Russian language and culture along with the native ones. Russification, assimilation, acculturation During the Soviet era the Russian empire was presented as a „prison-house of peoples‟ – a term that Lenin had used – and the general assumption was that repression alone held the empire together. Russification policies and missionary education were thus presented in an entirely negative light. 1 N. Ablov described Nikolai Il‟minskii, the ideologist of missionary education among the Middle Volga Orthodox and pagan non-Russians, as a reactionary. 2 Il‟minskii‟s contribution to the process of education received a negative assessment precisely 1V. G. Chernukha, Vnutrenniaia politika tsarizma s serediny 80kh godov 19 do nachala 20 veka [Inner Policy of the Tsarism from the Middle of 1880s-Beginning of the Twentieth