Kasimov Tatars during the Years of the Cultural Revolution in the USSR: On Materials of Regional Press of the 1920-1930s

Abstract

The authors analyze the cultural component of the social life of the Kasimov Tatars in the interwar period, the essence of which was the implementation of the Cultural Revolution. Along with the industrialization of the country and the collectivization of agriculture in the mid-1920s, it was declared an important part of the three-tier program of socialist construction. The purpose is to establish the peculiarities of the behavioral pattern of the Kasimov Tatars in the period under review. The source base is the materials from periodicals and ego-documents. The study shows the conditions and realities of the “reforging of consciousness,” the struggle against the remnants of the past which boiled down to the attempts to eradicate the religious cults and customs of the Kasimov Tatars. There is revealed the level of development, continuity, and specificity of local transformation in the most important segment of the cultural sphere - education. The authors come to the conclusion that at the sharp turn of history in the 1920s the Kasimov Tatars showed energy and freedom in order to become “equal among equal” peoples, as declared at the official level. Trying to preserve their own identity, they also showed etatism peculiar to them accepting and actively participating in the transformations as part of the implementation of the Cultural Revolution tasks.

Keywords

• kasimov tatars
• tatar culture
• identity
• memory preservation
• ali-bek kadyr
• kasimov
• ryazan region
• soviet cultural policy
• ethnic minorities