Muslims of the Volga-Urals awaiting the end of the world: narratives, actors and texts of the 1920s – 1940s

Abstract

The focus of the article is the apocalyptic narrative about the end of the world and the approach of the Judgment Day in the “holy letters”, which were spread among rural Volga-Ural Muslims in the 1920s – 1940s. The plot is studied on the basis of published and archival sources preserved at the Eastern Department of the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU). The apocalyptic narrative and the phenomenon of the “Muslim holy letters” have been studied in two aspects: 1) from the perspective of understanding the protest potential of the “silent majority” – ordinary believers and Ishans, unofficial religious Sufi leaders; 2) in order to study the rural Muslim community: its fears, expectations, moods, patterns of religious thinking, and the ideological framework which explained social changes. To answer these questions, we have examined the content of the “holy letters”, their distribution channels, and target groups. It is concluded that the apocalyptic narrative served more for spiritual mobilisation and adaptation rather than called for resistance, directly naming the perpetrators and sharply condemning their activities. With significant structural and substantive similarities with the “Orthodox holy letters” the magical texts of the Volga-Ural Muslims were more restrained in relation to the USSR authorities, which is probably due to Muslims’ specific attitude to power. Being typical manifestations of vernacular (“private”, “living”) religiosity, our sources demonstrate the deep rootedness of Islamic values, the religious language of describing reality in the minds of the rural population of the Soviet Union’s Muslim regions in the first half of the 20th century.

Keywords

• islam in the volga-ural region
• holy letters
• apocalypse in islam
• ishan
• ishanism
• the eastern department of the ogpu