Confessional Groups in the Republic of Tatarstan: Identity and Features of its Design

Abstract

The relevance of the problem is determined by the need for a comprehensive study of interfaith group viewpoints in multi-ethnic and multi-confessional regions of the Russian Federation. The purpose of this article is to analyse the strategies of designing the identity in the environment of religious groups in the Republic of Tatarstan in 2017 - 2018. The leading approach to the study of this problem is based on the multi-paradigmatic methodology. The article gives a comparative description of ideological attitudes of the three groups studied - Muslims, Orthodox Christians, and atheists. Special attention is paid to the analysis of mechanisms of religious socialization and transmission of religious values. It is concluded that Muslims attach greater importance to the performance of religious rites and practices; they consider a family as the main agent of religious socialization and support the opinion that "people do not choose their religion."

Keywords

• Confessionality
• Tatarstan
• identity
• religious socialization
• rites and rituals
• ethnicity