TATAR MUSLIM COMMUNITY OF ASTRAKHAN IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

Abstract

The article discusses the main features of the Astrakhan Muslim community in the early twentieth century. During this period, Muslims of Russia entered the period of institutionalization of ethnic and religious identity. Astrakhan Muslim community in the period under review was one of the centers of the Muslim Tatar movement in the Russian Empire. At the same time, due to the historical and geographical features of the settlement of the Astrakhan region, the formation of the urban population of the provincial center, the community had a number of characteristic features that could not but aff ect all aspects of life of the mahalla. The work is based on the analysis of archival and published sources, works of local historians and orientalists. Unconditional numerical and material domination of the Tatar ethnic group became decisive in the development of the regional Muslim community. But at the same time, the factor of its polyethnicity had a great infl uence on various aspects of mahalla’s life. Even the Tatars, who formed the basis of the community, came from diff erent provinces and represented diff erent territorial groups of the Turkic-Tatar world. But as part of the Astrakhan Muslim community successfully managed to overcome the ethno-group interests, the isolation of local corporations. Islam has emerged as an integrating core value. Astrakhan mahalla has become an exceptional example of ethnic tolerance among co-religionists and loyalty to state institutions, on the other. Today, when the fl ow of migrants from the North Caucasus republics (primarily Dagestan and Chechnya) is directed to the Astrakhan region and the number of Muslims in the region increases annually, the experience of a century ago is very much in demand for the formation of a new religious identity here.