Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 3-24-2015 Russia's Islam: Discourse on Identity, Politics, and Security Simona E. Merati Florida International University, [email protected] DOI: 10.25148/etd.FI15032151 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Part of the International Relations Commons, and the Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies Commons Recommended Citation Merati, Simona E., "Russia's Islam: Discourse on Identity, Politics, and Security" (2015). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1840. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/1840 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida RUSSIA’S ISLAM: DISCOURSE ON IDENTITY, POLITICS, AND SECURITY A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS by Simona Emanuela Merati 2015 To: Dean Michael R. Heithaus College of Arts and Sciences This dissertation, written by Simona Emanuela Merati, and entitled Russia’s Islam: Discourse on Identity, Politics, and Security, having being approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment. We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved. _______________________________________ Thomas Breslin _______________________________________ Ronald Cox _______________________________________ Peter Craumer _______________________________________ Mohiaddin Mesbahi, Major Professor Date of Defense: March 24, 2015. The Dissertation of Simona Emanuela Merati is approved. _______________________________________ Dean Michael R. Heithaus College of Arts and Sciences _______________________________________ Dean Lakshmi N. Reddi University Graduate School Florida International University, 2015 ii © Copyright 2015 by Simona Emanuela Merati All rights reserved. iii DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation to my husband Nino Treusch, who suggested that I enroll the Master program at FIU in the first place, and to my daughter, Anna. Without their constant support, patience, and love – in all these years and across two continents – I would have not been able to succeed in this endeavor. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank all the members of my committee for their support throughout the preparation of this dissertation. They have been generous with their advice whenever the difficulties of managing sources, structuring my arguments, or writing a long academic text have challenged me. In particular, I am grateful to Dr. Thomas Breslin for his accurate review of my work, and in general for his mentorship during my time at FIU. A special thank goes to the administrative staff in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Florida International University. They have helped me with paperwork and deadlines, especially when I was abroad, with great professionalism, dedication, and courtesy. Finally, I am deeply grateful to Dr. Mohiaddin Mesbahi, who has encouraged me to pursue a challenging, but rewarding topic. Since I took my first course at FIU with him, he has been a constant source of inspiration, intellectual exchange, and compassionate encouragement. I am honored that he has chosen to be my mentor and supervise my work. This dissertation would have not been possible without him. v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION RUSSIA’S ISLAM: DISCOURSE ON IDENTITY, POLITICS, AND SECURITY by Simona Emanuela Merati Florida International University, 2015 Miami, Florida Professor Mohiaddin Mesbahi, Major Professor Despite the long history of Muslims in Russia, most scholarly and political literatures on Russia’s Islam still narrowly interpret Muslim-Slavs relations in an ethnic-religious oppositional framework. In my work, I examine Russia’s discourse on Islam to argue that, in fact, the role of Islam in post-Soviet Russia is complex. Drawing from direct sources from academic, state, journalistic, and underground circles, often neglected by Western commentators, I identify ideational patterns in conceptualizations of Islam and reconstruct relational networks among authors. To explain complex intertextual relations within specific contexts, I utilize an analytically eclectic method that appropriately combines theories from different paradigms and/or disciplines. Thanks to my multi-dimensional approach, I show that, contrary to traditional views, Russia’s Muslims participate in processes of post-Soviet Russia’s identity formation. Starting from textual contents, avoiding pre-formed analytical frames, I argue that many Muslims in Russia perceive themselves as part of Russian civilization – even when they challenge the status-quo. vi Building on my initial findings, I state that a key element in Russia’s conceptualization of Islam is the definition, elaborated in the 1990s, of traditional Islam as part of Russian civilizational history, as opposed to extremist Islam as extraneous, hostile phenomenon. The differentiation creates an unprecedently safe, if confined, space for Islamic propositions, of which Muslims are taking advantage. Embedded in debates on Russian civilization, conceptualizations of Islam, then, influence Russia’s (geo)political self-perceptions and, consequently, its domestic and international policies. In particular, Russian so-far neglected Islamic doctrine supports views of Islamic terrorism as a political and not religious phenomenon. Hence, Russia interprets both terrorism and counterterrorism within its own historical tradition, causing its strategy to be at odds with Western views. Less apparently, these divergences affect Russian-U.S. broader relations. Finally, in revealing the civilizational value of Russia’s Islam, I expose intellectual relations among influential subjects who share the aim to devise a new civilizational model that should combine Slavic and non-Slavic, Orthodox and Islamic, Western, and Asian components. In this old Russian dilemma, the novelty is Muslims’ participation. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................1 Muslims in Russia, Muslims of Russia ................................................................... 1 Russian Orientalism ................................................................................................ 5 Soviet Orientalism ................................................................................................ 10 Muslims in post-Soviet Russia ............................................................................. 11 Purpose of study .................................................................................................... 13 Literature Review ................................................................................................. 14 Theories and Methods ........................................................................................... 23 Significance of Study ............................................................................................ 29 II. THE IDENTITY OF RUSSIA’S MUSLIMS ............................................................31 Geography of identity ........................................................................................... 32 The Religious Renaissance ................................................................................... 33 The Russian idea as identity foundation ............................................................... 35 Religious components in contemporary conceptualizations of Russia’s identity . 40 Neo-Eurasianism ................................................................................................... 43 Russia’s Muslims and nationalism ....................................................................... 49 III. RUSSIA’S MUSLIM COMMUNITIES ....................................................................57 The special character of Islam in the Caucasus .................................................... 57 Muslims in an Orthodox world ............................................................................. 61 Islam vs. Muslims in the popular view ................................................................. 67 Russia to the Russians ........................................................................................... 70 An Islamic Russian idea? The Russkie Musul’mane movement .......................... 74 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 78 IV. RUSSIA’S ISLAMIC RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS AND THE STATE ..............82 The Russian Orthodox Church ............................................................................. 83 Islamic organizations ............................................................................................ 85 Interfaith dialogue: institutional relations ............................................................. 92 The Russian secular state: contemporary interpretation of Catherine’s model .... 97 The functional interpretation of religion and its application in Russia ............... 104 Putin’s new approach to religious policy ............................................................ 109 Conclusion