Материал: Проблемы социальных и гуманитарных наук. Радугин А.А., Перевозчикова Л.С
Проблемы социальных и гуманитарных наук. Выпуск № 2 (15), 2018
idealized and he was invented as the founding father of Chuvash national schools and national education. The figure of Ivan Yakovlev in the history of Chuvash nationalism and national movement is very controversial. Ivan Yakovlev was not Chuvash nationalist in the classic sense of definition of “nationalist” because it was formally integrated into the education system of Russian Empire that served Russian nationalist discourse.
It is not possible to accept Ivan Yakovlev ideas as Chuvash nationalism because Russian Empire, he lived and was active in, wasn’t a nation-state and developed as archaic empire, where traditional factors of religion and social statuses were more important than the principles and values of forming nationalisms and new nations imagined and invented by them. The activities of Ivan Yakovlev were developed in extremely adverse social and national conditions, and he was forced to be an activist who assisted to the development of education among Chuvash people. Ivan Yakovlev in this context was not a classic Chuvash nationalist and because his educational activities had servile character. Ivan Yakovlev actually served the interests of the ruling political elites in their attempts to integrate Chuvash, as one of numerous inorodtsi groups into social structure of Russian Empire. It is very difficult to find the influence of Ivan Yakovlev ideas on Şeşpĕl Mišši or later Chuvash intellectuals of the 1920s and the 1930s.
Their texts, in contrast to writings of Ivan Yakovlev, were based on a radical break with the first Chuvash educator ideas. Political ideas of Ivan Yakovlev were imagined by them as archaic and too conservative for dynamically changing and modernizing Soviet reality. The futility and hopelessness of historic project, Ivan Yakovlev invented and proposed for Chuvash society, was also expressed in the fate of his descendants. None of them took part in development of Chuvash culture and Chuvash national project. Most of Chuvash education system founding father descendants were assimilated into Russian culture. The texts of Chuvash poets since Şeşpĕl Mišši were based on political ideas proposed by Western and Russian communism ideologists and theoreticians. Intellectual heritage of Ivan Yakovlev had nothing common with main vectors of Chuvash intellectual developments and transformations of the 1920s and the 1930s. The poets of the 1920s and the 1930s radically rejected from values that some decades earlier were proposed and cultivated for Chuvash society by Ivan Yakovlev. If Ivan Yakovlev cultivated traditional values of Christianity and monarchial loyalty, Chuvash writers and intellectuals of the 1920s and the 1930s tended to actualize ideas of national Chuvash futurum based nationalism, Bulgarism, values and motives of social justice, class and revolutionary struggle.
Russian impacts on tense perception in Chuvash identity. Until the 19th century the Chuvash were remained on periphery of European nation’s historical imagination, but the Oriental studies development assisted to the rise of interest in the problems of the Chuvash. In the 19th century some Russian authors precede to Chuvash language and folk traditions studies. The first representatives of Chuvash intelligentsia were also involved in linguistic and ethnographic studies. The studies of Chuvash language and culture in the 19th century updated some problems, collective ideas and concepts that in the 20th century will be at the center of debates on Chuvash identity formation.
The concept of ethnic and linguistic continuity between Chuvash as a modern nation and Volga Bulgars as their historical antecedents was not an invention of contemporary Chuvash nationalists who try to overcome contradiction between collective ideas about the past importance and collective visions of future. They perceived the theory of continuity under influence of Russian scholars of Chuvash culture and traditional culture. Nikolai Ashmarin published his later classic book “Bolgary i chuvashi” (“Bulgars and Chuvashes”) for the first time in Kazan in the 1902 [4 P.10]. Nikolai Ashmarin, who was not a professional historian, in fact, formed the core of later historical myths that in the 20th century became the basis for Chuvash national historiography. The same myths in the 21st century are actively used by Chuvash nationalists of Bulgarist orientation for development of the idea about continuity between the Volga Bulgars and modern Chuvash
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nation. Nikolai Ashmarin, on the one hand, tried to locate and also map historical territories, to delineate the boundaries of Volga Bulgaria.
As for Volga Bulgaria it was imagined as the developed country with the populated cities and towns with unique cultural and political traditions. It is not surprising that these ideas were very popular among Chuvash nationalists in the 20th century who were in the process and permanent intellectual situation of anxious search for their historical predecessors. Chuvash nationalist needed predecessors as indispensable element for political self-determination legitimization of Chuvash nation. On the other hand, in his extremely active studies of Chuvash history, Nikolai Ashmarin actively cited the writings of Arab and Byzantine authors, that later became one of traditions in Chuvash academic historiography of the 20th century. This maneuver, as modern Chuvash nationalists presume, allows them to put nation they belong to, among the great historical nations.
Comparing historical vocabularies of Hungarian and Chuvash languages Nikolai Ashmarin actualized the developed political and cultural contacts between historical Chuvash ancestors with Hungarians. Nikolai Ashmarin’s efforts in Chuvash language studied also assisted to Chuvash nationalist mythology genesis, and the idea of the glorious past and great historical ancestors was understood among central and system elements of Chuvash nationalist myth in the 20th and 21st centuries. Nikolai Ashmarin’s ideas and concepts in the intellectual situation of 20th century were among actively used in Chuvash intellectuals’ attempts to write Chuvash history in more independent way and style.
This form of history writing actualized the time perspective in Chuvash national and historical imagination, based on collective “past” and “future” ideas and concepts synthesis. Nikolai Ashmarin did a lot not only for academic Chuvash linguistics development, but also for the development of some trends of Chuvash nationalism. The content of Nikolai Ashmarin’s book published in the early 20th century was full of systemic future implications that were later developed in Chuvash identity. The figure and Nikolai Ashmarin achievements are among the wellstudied in the Chuvash historiography, but in the most studies focused on Nikolai Ashmarin he appears predominantly as linguist and historian, and futuristic component in his scholar activities is still unexplored. The academic study of Chuvash culture, initiated by Nikolai Ashmarin, helped Chuvash to turn out from historical oblivion, and their history was also mapped in the European context. Studying Chuvash language and history as Turkic nation Nikolai Ashmarin actually assisted to invention and imagination of Chuvash as a modern nation with its unique future perspective.
Chuvash before Nikolai Ashmarin works publication were among the invisible and silent archaic and rural peoples interested only few enthusiasts engaged in folklore and ethnography studies. The publication of “Çăvaš sămahĕsen kĕneki” [5], the 17 volumes dictionary, allowed Chuvash voice to sound loudly into a coherent and harmonious choir of oppressed non-Russian ethnic groups consisted predominantly of Tatar nationalists. The multi-volume Nikolai Ashmarin dictionary is analyzed traditionally in context of Chuvash language history, but its futuristic dimensions are still ignored. The publication of 17 “Çăvaš sămahĕsen kĕneki” volumes assisted to actualization of linguistic and ethnic paradigm in the Chuvash identity. Fixing various Chuvash words, including archaisms, Nikolai Ashmarin actualized temporal levels of the past, historical components of Chuvash identity, but the fact that they were fixed in vocabulary assisted to its preservation and development of Chuvash historical perspective. Nikolai Ashmarin in this context may be imagined as a historical precursor of contemporary Chuvash ethnic futurism. Nikolai Ashmarin activities legitimized several levels of the future and later emerging modern Chuvash identity.
The most important of these levels were presented and actualized in a form of historical and linguistic continuity in the development of Chuvash nation. It is not surprising that Nikolai Ashmarin figure in modern Chuvash identity become one of the central and system in nationalist imagination and historical memory. Atner Huzangaj in his epilogue to the reprinted edition of
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Nikolai Ashmarin classic work “Bolgary i chuvashi” (“Bulgars and Chuvashes”) in the 2012 [4] actualized futuristic component in scholar legacy of “Çăvaš sămahĕsen kĕneki” author. Atner Huzangaj presume that in the 20th century, after Nikolai Ashmarin’s death, Chuvash intellectuals periodically tried to implement and realize his scholar and social ideas: in the 1958 the Council of Ministers of Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic adopted decision to publish three volumes of Nikolai Ashmarin works; the Conference dedicated to the centennial anniversary of Nikolai Ashmarin birth in the 1970 also actualized the need to re-publish of texts published in the 1910s and the 1930s [6].
Atner Huzangaj also believes that Nikolai Ashmarin’s theoretical legacy is still among the unthought by Chuvash intellectuals who automatically ignore the futuristic ideas in his texts. The efforts of Chuvash nationalists, involved in studies of academic Nikolai Ashmarin heritage, also assist to its mythologization and positive ideologization. Forming Nikolai Ashmarin hagiographic image, Atner Huzangaj declares that “the fate to serve Chuvash language has come to Nikolai Ashmarin when he was 13 years old. His works written half a century ago and his activities in the period when spiritual force of Chuvash language was in revival and development actualized flash power of Chuvash language and also established goals and affects of the people spiritual activities (Chuvash intelligentsia activities in the second half of the 19th century, a period of linguistic and cultural construction in the 1920s and the 1930s) were truly pillars and backgrounds of Chuvash philology. Nikolai Ashmarin lived a short life in the name of the Chuvash language and Chuvash creative thought. We, who are living now, we need to implement his covenants and teachings” [7].
Involuntarily nationalist mentors: Tatar impacts on Chuvash nationalism. The Chuvash in the Russian Empire were among numerous oppressed non-Russian ethnic groups who became the victim of the colonial policy of imperial elites. By the early 20th century theorists of radical and most obscurantist and reactionary trends in Russian nationalism began to dominate among theorists of Russian national ideology. They sought to realize the slogan “Russia for the Russians”. The periodical press of chernaia sotnia political orientation was too active in cultivation and promotion of the idea of assimilation and Russification of non-Russian groups. Russian nationalists believed that only one nation – Russians – can exist and dominate in Russia and all the other ethnic and religious groups were in their imagination primitive aliens doomed to degeneration and assimilation.
Political program and ideology of Russian nationalism in the early 20th century in general were extremely reactionary obscurantist Russian nationalists had the reputation of reactionaries, anti-Semites and pogroms organizers, distributors of religious prejudices, fighters with any progressive ideas. This political orientation of Russian nationalism was not ignored by representatives of oppressed people’s national movements who began their fights against the greatpower Russian chauvinism. The ideas of equality and nation’s right to self-determination, education in national languages, development of national literatures, equality of various religious faiths, and elimination of national and social oppression were popularized by national liberation movements ideologists who were among fighters against obscurantist and reactionary program of Russian nationalism. The national movements in Poland, Latvia, Ukraine and Georgia were at the avantgarde of the struggle against Russian chernaia sotnia nationalism in peripheral regions. Tatar national movement was among the most active national movements of oppressed nations in the inner peripheral regions of Russian Empire.
Tatar struggle for language and religion, right to national self-determination were among political factors that influenced greatly on the intensification of national movements among other oppressed nations in Volga region. The successes and achievements of Tatar nationalists in their struggle for language and religion, the national language education inspired other oppressed national and ethnic groups, including the Mordovians, the Mari, the Udmurts. Tatar influence on Chuvash nationalism is extremely controversial and also debatable. On the one hand, Tatar stimulus from a historical perspective in the context of political dynamics is relatively important for
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development of Chuvash nationalism. On the other hand, intellectual activities of Tatar nationalists in historical and linguistic studies evoked response of Chuvash intellectuals and Chuvash nationalism was stimulated by Tatar nationalists.
The ideologues and theoreticians belonged to two different historical and political generations of Tatar nationalism stimulated response intellectual activities of Chuvash nationalists. Tatar nationalists themselves were not aware that their activities assisted to the rise responsible Chuvash nationalism with partial anti-Tatar orientation. Ğayaz İsxaqıy [8; 9; 10] was the author who simultaneously stimulated the progress of Tatar nationalism and national identity, but also assisted to promotion of anti-Tatar sentiments and trends in nationalisms of other ethnic groups in Volga region. The book of Ğayaz İsxaqıy “Idel-Ural” [11] where he proposed and expressed his ideas about the history of Tatars and their historical and political role in the region stimulated Chuvash intellectuals to their nationalist activity because the Chuvash national and political myths of the 20th and early 21st century were based on radical, actual, and denial rejection of Ğayaz İsxaqıy ideas. What are the ideas of Ğayaz İsxaqıy and why are they unacceptable for Chuvash nationalism as an ideological and political doctrine?
Chuvash and Tatar political myth has common backgrounds, roots, and origins. Volga Bulgaria was simultaneously imagined by Tatar and Chuvash nationalists as a state, historical and political homeland of the Chuvash and the Tatars. Ğayaz İsxaqıy tried to prove and popularize the idea of a direct historical, cultural and political continuity between Volga Bulgaria, Golden Horde and Kazan Khanate as three different forms of Tatar statehood. Ğayaz İsxaqıy believed that the majority of population in Volga Bulgaria were the Turks, and he imagined the Tatars as its direct descendants and historical heirs. Russian factor in Volga region history also was among causes of Tatar-Chuvash national debates and discussions. Sovietized Chuvash historians cultivated political concept and ideological narrative about voluntary inclusion of Chuvash territories in Russian state. Tatar historians were strongly disagreeing with these ideas because Kazan Khanate lost its political independence after Russian conquest in the 1552.
Ğayaz İsxaqıy actively developed a negative image of Russia as a country that destroyed Tatar political tradition of independent and sovereign statehood. Russian policy in areas populated by Tatars, as Ğayaz İsxaqıy stated, had the following anti-Tatar forms and dimensions: Russification, colonization, deportations of Tatar population from historical Tatar native lands, violent and forced Christianization. The Soviet period in Ğayaz İsxaqıy historical concept also was among causes of potential debated between Chuvash and Tatar nationalists. Soviet national policy was imagined and invented by Chuvash historians in relatively positive way and style because Bolsheviks initiated institutionalization of Chuvash autonomy for the first time in the history.
Ğayaz İsxaqıy unlike Chuvash historians analyzed Soviet national policy negatively because he believed that Bolsheviks deliberately created several Turkic republics for weakening and erosion of Turkic unity idea. In Ğayaz İsxaqıy historical concept the history of Volga region was imagined in general in Tatar centered coordinates system and Chuvash were mentioned by him only once. Ğayaz İsxaqıy mentioned Chuvash in the context of a simple listing of national republics, institutionalized by Bolsheviks. In the 19th and the 20th century Tatar nationalism was more active than Chuvash one and it also developed in more rapid political and historical dynamics. Therefore, Chuvash nationally oriented intellectuals academic activity beginning started later when Tatar intellectuals achieved impressible political successes in imagination of Volga Bulgaria as Tatar state and a part of Tatar historical process.
Chuvash nationalists were forced to challenge the ideas of their opponents and they tried to Chuvashize history of the region that some decades earlier was Tatarized by their Tatar opponents. Tatar historians actively develop narratives about exclusive role of Tatars in Volga region historical process. Volga Bulgaria was a central place and the main stumbling stone in different versions of historical memories invented and imagined by Tatar and Chuvash nationalists. The outstanding Tatar historian Mirfatih Zekiyev and Yakov Kuz’min-Yumanadi in 1993 published a book [11.P.3–
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8] where they tried to prove the continuity between the Volga Bulgars and Tatars. Some Chuvash intellectuals are full of doubts in real existence of Yakov Kuz’min-Yumanadi and believe that this is a nickname of the first author, who invented his imagined co-author specifically because he understood that his ideas would be rejected by Chuvash historians. Mirfatih Zekiyev and Yakov Kuz’min-Yumanadi believed that Nikolai Ashmarin theory of Bulgar-Chuvash continuity is not proved because it is false and too controversial and debatable. Tatar historians’ conclusions were the followings: “Volga Bulgars have only a single historical successor. This successor is Kazan Tatars. They have inherited from their ancestors all their former religious, linguistic, anthropological, ethnocultural national characteristics” [12.P. 62 – 63].
Vasilii Dimitriev as one of the leaders of Chuvash historical community reacted sharply to this book and published an article with its harsh criticism. Vasilii Dimitriev wrote that “in Kazan, dozens of books and hundreds of articles on the origin of Tatars are published. Kazan school of ethnogenesis is based and develops its hypotheses on a false basis and backgrounds, assuming that Tatars are related to Volga Bulgarians physically and spiritually, culturally and linguistically, and genetically. Kazan archaeologists attributed later Tatar monuments as Bulgarian, ethnographers and critics imagined late Tatar culture and art as Bulgarian. Kazan linguists argue that the Bulgarian language is the Tatar language ... Mirfatih Zekiyev recently co-authored with some Yakov Kuz’min-Yumanadi published a special book on Nikolai Ashmarin theory. They were not able to refute any of his ideas. They proposed a new version of Chuvash ethnogenesis, but it is quite convincing: Chuvash, as they believe, descended from the Huns, who, in their opinion, were the Mongol” [13.P.183-200].
Tatar studies of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s in Volga Bulgaria history, the language of its inhabitants and its historical, ethnic and political successors and heirs were simultaneously element of academic discourse and part of debates and discussions between Tatar and Chuvash nationalists because the ideas and assumptions, expressed and formulated since 1991, actualized ideas which were central and also had system meaning for Tatar and Chuvash national mythology, historical and political memories. Tatar intellectuals and nationalists unwittingly became teachers who inspired Chuvash nationalists.
References
1.Ivan Yakovlev – çăvaš kulyturipe şutĕşĕn pallă ĕşçenĕ, pedagog-demokrat, şıravşă, Yakovlev, Ivan. Çăvaš halăhne pană halal (Šupaškar: Çăvaš natsi akademiyĕ, 2013).
2.Yuhma Mišši. Šaral (Šupaškar: Çăvaš kĕneke izdatelystvi, 2008)
3.Yakovlev Ivan. Çăvaš halăhne pană halal, in Yakovlev, Ivan. Çăvaš halăhne pană halal. Zaveshchanie chuvashskomu narodu (Šupaškar: Çăvaš kĕneke izdatelystvi, 2013).
4.Ashmarin Nikolai. Bolgary i chuvashi (Kazan’: Tipo-litografiia Imperatorskago Universiteta, 1902).
5.Ashmarin Nikolai. Çăvaš sămahĕsen kĕneki, tom 1 – 17 (Cheboksary: Izdanie Narodnogo Komissariata po Prosveshcheniiu Chuvashskoi Avtonomnoi Sotsialisticheskoi Respubliki, 1928
– 1950).
6.Huzangaj Atner. Ashmarinskii plan vsestoronnego izucheniia chuvashei, in Ashmarin, Nikolai. Bolgary i chuvashi (Cheboksary: Chuvashskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 2012).
7.Huzangaj Atner. Stolp i utverzhdenie chuvashskoi filologii, in http://suvary.rf/ru/content/stolp- i-utverzhdenie-chuvashskoy-filologii
8.Sahapov Minahmet. İsxaqıy i tatarskaia literatura XX veka (Kazan’: OOO “Pik Dom pechati”, 2003).
9.Hakim Rafael’. Dolgii i trudnyi put’ k svobode, in İsxaqıy, Ğayaz. Idel’-Ural (Naberezhnye Chelny: Gazetno-knizhnoe izdatel’stvo “Kamaz”, 1993).
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