Problems of foreign connections in the post-Soviet world Volgaism, as a movement, is not xenophobic or hostile to foreign connections. The cultural richness of the Volga region is not the result of being isolated and preserving some sort of ancient mystical wisdom, but precisely because the Volga region has historically been a central crossroads of Eurasia and a meeting point of a wide variety of religions, cultures, merchandise and ideas. There is no ancient Volga heritage that needs to be preserved because the history of the Volga region is one of constant change. However, one thing that has stayed relatively constant over the course of the history of the Volga region has been its fundamental values of tolerance and neighborliness – necessary values for any wealthy merchant state, since conflict inevitably cuts into profits. Thus, it is crucial to understand that the Volga peoples have not historically appropriated foreign ideas on anyone else’s terms. They have always managed to somehow make them their own while rejecting ideas that would upset the balance and harmony of neighborly Volga relations. Islam, for example, did not arrive in the Volga region at the point of a sword. Instead, it was brought by mystic Sufi missionaries, who were often viewed by orthodox Muslims with suspicion. As Peter Golden writes, “The Islam that came to the [northern] steppe was basically Sunni, but blended, to varying degrees, with local usages that did not fully distinguish it from earlier shamanistic and other practices, such as ancestor worship or the use of dance and chanting to produce ecstatic trances by which shamans entered the spirit world. As with the implantation of any new faith, the implementation of religious orthodoxy took many generations and was often uneven.” By being distant from the centers of Islamic civilization in the south, both the Bolgars and the Tatars were in a space where they could remain aloof from political matters such as military alliances, but, because the lively trade continued, they received the full benefit of intellectual and cultural currents from the Islamic world of the south. The Tatars drew on the Islamic tradition of ijtihad, which allows for individual Muslims to interpret the doctrines of the faith for themselves, and rejected taqlid, a doctrine of unquestioning acceptance of religious dogma. Conservative Muslims who tried to impose their vision of the “straight path” onto other Muslims tended to be marginalized by Tatar society. Living under an Orthodox Christian state, Volga Muslims came to see the Russian Empire as a Dar al-Islam (House of Islam), which could serve as God’s instrument, rather than as a Dar al-Harb (House of War), or an infidel state that needed to be resisted. As can be seen, Islam was accepted on its own terms in the Volga region and never precluded a state of harmonious neighborly relations. In the post-Soviet world, however, puritanical forms of Islam have begun to make inroads into Tatar society. This has been a result of financial and doctrinal dependence on foreign Islamic sources. Moreover, scholarships to study in foreign Islamic institutions have attracted Volga Tatars to places such as Saudi Arabia where they are taught a version of Islam belonging to the Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence, widely considered to be the most inflexible, rather than the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence, the most flexible school which the Volga Tatars have traditionally belonged to. These Tatars, who have been taught to understand Russia as a Dar al-Harb and who see animists as godless polytheists, have been returning to the Volga region to become imams. They see traditional Tatar Islam as a deviation that needs to be rectified. Whereas the 19th century Tatar movement of jadidism was based fundamentally on the reconciliation of Islam with Western notions of progress, the basis of Wahabism was the exact opposite – a rejection of all things Western. Another troubling development in the post-Soviet world has been the promotion of intolerant nationalistic ideas by Estonians among the Volga Finno-Ugric peoples. Instead of appreciating the Volga Finno-Ugric peoples on their own terms, Estonian nationalists have tended to see Mari El and Udmurtia as places resembling Estonia that should follow in Estonia’s footsteps, as an “elder brother” nation, in the path to become “modern” nations and to assert their political sovereignty from Russia. As written in the stated goals of the first Kindred Peoples Program, which, among other things, provides scholarships to Finno-Ugric peoples to study in Estonia (and has attracted mostly Maris): “Via the Finno-Ugrians of the Russian Federation, a positive opinion of Estonia should be molded. This would include sharing truthful information to the kindred peoples on the position of ethnic minorities in Estonia. Organizations and centers of Uralic indigenous peoples should be provided with video materials on Estonia. These should include copies of films made about Finno-Ugrian peoples as well as films on how Estonia gained independence, minorities in Estonia, Estonian economy and other films or television programs. Representatives of Estonia should be sent to various festivals and celebrations . . . both into the Russian Federation and to the Livonians and the Saami elsewhere . . . A book on Estonia in outline should be compiled as a part of the program and translated into the Russian, Karelian, Vepsian, Erzya, Moksha, Mari, Udmurt and Komi languages . . . in order to strengthen the self-consciousness of Uralic indigenous peoples.” A particularly atrocious example of the imposition of Estonian nationalism onto the Volga region was the Mari Song Festival, modeled after the Estonian Song Festival, in 2008. While Estonian and Maris mutually inspiring each other is not inherently a bad thing, the version of nationalism being pushed by Estonians has tended to be based on ideas of “awakening” to a common Finno-Ugric heritage (implying that they have been asleep in the intermediate period between antiquity and today), and a rejection of shared history and close bonds that Maris and Udmurts have to the Volga Muslims. The writings of Dr. Rein Taagepera, a prominent ideologist of Finno-Ugric nationalism, betray deep anti-Islamic biases. The Kremlin has reacted negatively to these developments, using the fear of “Baltic-type extremism” as an excuse to impose extremely repressive political measures in the Volga Finno-Ugric republics (particularly in Mari El). While connections abroad have undoubtedly had positive consequences in helping the Volga peoples to overcome their sense of isolation, the entry of intolerant foreign ideas into the Volga region has been an unfortunate cost of the connections of Volga peoples to foreign states. It seems that the years of Soviet totalitarianism caused Volga peoples to forget their common history, rendering them especially vulnerable in the post-Soviet period to ideas that upset the harmony of ethnic relations in the Volga region – ideas which would have historically been shunned and rejected. While some people have been wary of Volgaism, due to concerns that Moscow would surely resist constructive Volga cooperation, a compelling case can be made that the strengthening of a common Volga identity (not by constructing something new, but by uncovering common Volga history and values) would actually bolster their resistance to intolerant foreign ideas and would therefore actually be in Moscow’s interest to encourage.
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 21:52:33 +0000
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