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Abstract
This article explores the recent fate of the Russian experiment in national–cultural, non-territorial autonomy (NCA) through the prism of the experience of the Tatars. The Tatars are the most numerous minority in Russia and have achieved, peacefully, a very high degree of autonomy, in contrast to the Chechens. I seek to answer two questions. First, why did the NCA form at first appear so attractive to the Tatar elite? Second, why has it almost lost all significance to them and to others in Russia? It should be noted that this experiment is still presented by Russia as the centrepiece of its ‘nationalities policy’. Following some reflections on the importance of theory, I set out the latest Russian government depiction of the NCA experiment, as well as its critique by leading scholar Aleksandr Ossipov and the Russian Constitutional Court. I follow with an account of the history and influence of the Tatars in Russia. Fourth, I turn to the relationship of the Tatars with the theory and practice of NCA since 1917. Fifth, I analyse the Tatar response to the federal law ‘On National–Cultural Autonomy’ of 1996 and its amendment in 2004. Finally, I reflect on Ossipov's epitaph for the Russian NCA experiment.
Notes
1. Report of the Russian Federation on the progress of the second cycle of monitoring in accordance with Article 25 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, ACFC/SR/II(2005)003, at http://www.coe.int/t/e/human_rights/minorities/2._framework_convention_%28monitoring%29/2._monitoring_mechanism/3._state_reports_and_unmik_kosovo_report/2._second_cycle/2nd_SR_Russian_Federation.asp#TopOfPage
2. Kazan is situated on the river Volga, only an overnight train ride to the east of Moscow.
3. It should be noted that although the Russian language has a separate word for ‘ethnic’ (‘etnicheskii’), the word ‘natsionalnii’, ‘national’, is used in the same context and with the same meaning as the English word ‘ethnic’.
4. A table of the national (ethnic) populations of Russia is shown in .
6. He is director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at the Russian Academy of Sciences and was in the early 1990s himself Minister for Nationalities.
7. No. 74-ФЗ of 17 June 1996, as amended on 29 June 2004.
8. No. 58-FZ of 29 June 2004.
9. These were (1) the Russian Germans, (2) the Russian Koreans, (3) the Russian Ukrainians, (4) the Tatars of the Russian Federation, (5) the Russian Belarusians, (6) the Jewish community of Russia, (7) the Russian Azerbaijani, (8) the Russian Roma, (9) the Russian Kurds, (10) the Russian Armenians, (11) the Russian Chuvashes, (12) the Russian Karachais, (13) the Polish Congress in Russia, (14) the Lezgin NCA, (15) the Russian Serbs and (16) the Russian Lithuanians. Moreover, there are 173 regional and 315 local NCAs in the regions of the Russian Federation.
10. Published in the Rossiskaya Gazeta (Russian Gazette) on 16 March 2004, at http://www.rg.ru/2004/03/16/ks-dok.html
11. The Karachaev are an ethnic minority in the North Caucasus.
12. Hanafi is one of the four schools of thought (Madhabs) or jurisprudence (Fiqh) within Sunni Islam. Founded by Abu Hanifa, An-Númān ibn Thābit (699–765), it is considered to be the school most open to modern ideas.
15. http://president.tatar.ru/pub/view/2081 and an interview with Shaimiev on 2 April 2007, at http://www.intertat.ru/?st=1&pg=8&b1=1&md=3&iddoc=2819
17. Law No. 15-ZRT.
19. Kommersant Vlast (Kommersant Power, a political weekly) 24 November 2004, at http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?id=526608
22. www.narodru.ru
24. This is a question that I have raised at each of the seminars organized by the Council of Europe on the FCNM, which I have attended as an expert. The answers to my question exactly replicate Ossipov's findings (Ossipov, Citation2004).