Once the Tatars and Bashkirs lived together and built a great empire. They speak similar languages, but now these relationships sometimes cease to be fraternal. The people who have historically dominated the region for centuries are convinced that the language of the people, also living for centuries in the neighborhood, is just a dialect of a great and ancient language. Moreover, even the existence of an independent neighbor is in question: "We, they say, are one people." Indeed, in the region where the Bashkirs and Tatars live, the differences in everyday life are most often zero.
Reasons for the contradictions
Neighbor disagrees. "You live on your own, and we will manage too." The neighbors are confident in their identity, love their language, build their own state. Such claims of independence to the dominant people seem to be a whim. They are sure that the neighboring country is an artificial entity. First of all, this message is put forward that ethnic Tatars predominate in a significant part of Bashkorstan, and Bashkirs, moreover, very often speak Tatar. The natural desire of the population prevailing in the territory is to make their language official and to ensure that all residents use it. It is necessary to prove that the Bashkirs are the masters of this land, and the Tatars should recognize the differences in mentality.
However, this does not work out. Tatars and Bashkirs are one nation, they are confident in Tatarstan and numerous Tatar settlements of Bashkortostan. Bashkirs are accused of artificial assimilation and imposition of language. This, together with the requirement that the Tatar language become the second state language in Tatarstan.
So, historical dominance approaching chauvinism is against obsessive nation-building. Who is more right? Bashkirs and Tatars - differences or identity?
How to freeze ethnic conflicts
It is unlikely that anyone in Russia has heard of such a conflict, but this is not at all because these contradictions are insignificant. Most likely, they are much stronger than Russian-Ukrainian. And they don’t know about them at all because the Russians don’t care what the Chuvash, Tatars and Bashkirs live. And also Adyghe, Shors, Nenets and Dolgans. And, of course, the Yakuts.
Both Tatars and Bashkirs are as close to the Russian people as all the other 194 nationalities of the former USSR. This is not counting small nations, which are also a huge list. Here is a picture of the Bashkirs and Tatars. The differences are transmitted only in costumes. One family!
It is difficult to settle without a revival of the culture of dialogue with the almost complete degeneration of national elites: the Bashkirs and Tatars are enmity. Although the conflicts here have not gone as far as, say, in the Caucasus, where the former Polovtsy (Kumyks) never lived in peace with mountain peoples. This element can no longer be suppressed except by the use of force methods. Tatars and Bashkirs have not lost everything yet.
National difficulties
Let's take a closer look at ethnic composition. The latest census showed 29% of Bashkirs in Bashkortostan. Tatars accounted for 25%. Under Soviet rule, censuses showed an approximately equal number of both. Now the Tatars accuse Bashkortostan of postscript and assimilation, and the Bashkirs prove that the "otatar" Bashkirs returned to their identity. Nevertheless, most of all Russians in Bashkortostan are 36%, and no one asks what they think about this.
Russians live mainly in cities, and in the countryside Bashkirs and Tatars prevail, the differences of which are not very noticeable to the Russian eye. The Russians do not have such deep-rooted contradictions with any other peoples, even those that the Bashkirs and Tatars raised. The difference in the nature of the relationship is so great that a conflict between local Turks and local Russians is much less likely.
From the history of the creation of the state
Historically, Russia has evolved from territories where various nationalities live, like a patchwork quilt. And after the revolution, naturally, the question arose of self-determination of all these peoples. In the first years of the power of the Soviets, the border of Bashkiria also formed, including such a large number of Tatars on its territory. Tataria offered its projects, and the Social Revolutionaries of Idel-Ural and the Bolsheviks of the Tatar-Bashkir Soviet Republic showed amazing unanimity here. A single state and a single people were assumed.
However, the Bashkirs, who were in the Russian Empire a military estate, like the Cossacks, formed an army and seized power in the Urals. Soviet Russia accepted them after signing the treaty. It meant that Maly Bashkurdistan, where ethnic Bashkirs lived, would exist under the rule of Bashkirs. The terms of the contract, of course, were violated from time to time, the Bashkirs rebelled, but ended up in 1922, almost the entire Ufa province was already part of the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. After this, some changes in borders still took place: Bashkortostan lost the remote areas inhabited by purely Bashkirs, but everyone reconciled.
Today, the borders of Bashkortostan are part of the national identity of the Bashkirs, and they do not intend to give up. That is why the Bashkirs and Tatars, the difference between which the Russians, for example, are not very visible, are trying to dissolve each other. While the number of Tatars in Bashkiria is comparable with the number of Bashkirs, the Bashkir territorial entity itself is under constant threat. Of course, the Tatars living in Bashkiria are resisting with all their might and want a united national state.
Nonaggression pact
The ethnic conflict between the Tatars and the Bashkirs of Russia managed to freeze. But he is not killed, and there is a risk that someday he will break free. If the republics were sovereign, then it is unlikely that the conflict would have remained alone for a long time, but, in any case, you can try. A nationalist state is always bad: here you can recall Ossetians and Abkhazians, frightened by the nationalist projects of Georgia, Gagauz among Moldovans, Serbs among Croats. Similarly, the Tatars do not want to join the culture of the Bashkirs, leaving their claims to their own.
Until the blood is shed, and the claims have already been voiced, a peaceful dialogue and full resolution of the contradictions can be expected. The difference between the Tatars and the Bashkirs in their views can be overcome.
So what are the claims of the parties? Bashkirs want the inviolability of borders and the concept of the Bashkir state. Tatars do not want to lose leadership in the region. Bashkortostan Tatars want their own identity and their own language. And we must not forget that in Tatarstan there is a large number of nationalists who want Big Tatarstan alone.
Reconciliation of interests
Bashkirs want Bashkirism on their territory — let them receive it along with the inviolability of borders. Tatars do not want assimilation - let them receive guarantees that they will not be imposed with the Bashkir identity and the Bashkir language. Tatarstan wants to be a leader in the region - must be content with equal rights.
All peoples of Bashkortostan should have the right to receive education in their native language (with the mandatory study of Bashkir as a separate subject). The Tatar language can be used in the authorities of Bashkortostan, but it will not become an official language on a par with the Bashkir.
Bashkortostan may introduce national quotas so that the role of the Bashkirs becomes leading, but there is also a representation of other peoples, and must also refuse to assimilate the Tatars and manipulate population censuses. Tatarstan will refuse from territorial claims and from granting dual citizenship. Bashkortostan renounces its claims to national-territorial autonomy. But there is still no hope that such a dialogue will take place soon.
Justice lives in hell, and only love in paradise
Such a plan will surely seem unfair to both sides. However, what is the alternative, what will it please? The difference between the Tatars and the Bashkirs in this case does not exist, and it will be bad for everyone. On the one hand, Tatars must understand that peace is the key to their claim to leadership. Tatars living in Bashkortostan will serve as a link between the republics.
And if a war, even a victorious one, happens, Tatarstan gets its worst enemy near the borders, plus there is no international legitimacy, but there will be a lot of suspicion from neighboring republics. Peacefully, the Bashkirs will not abandon the borders of the republic and the role of their people in this territory.
Bashkirs also need to realize a lot. Preserving the borders and status of the titular nation is possible only in case of agreement with the peoples living in the republic. There is an option: under the national dictatorship, ethnic cleansing. This does not bode well for Bashkorstan - neither in its international status, nor in relations with its closest neighbors.
Now about the Russians, of which most
What to do in this situation, a Russian living in the territories of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan? Now the Russian language has a disproportionate advantage in both republics, despite all their nationalism. There is a total predominance of the Russian language in business, in all mass media and in book publishing, and state administration is almost entirely conducted in Russian, even where the number of Russian people is small.
It is easy to go up the career ladder in Bashkortostan without knowing either Tatar or Bashkir. But it’s even funny to talk about it if a person does not know Russian. It is impossible to compare the teaching of Bashkir and Tatar to Russian children with the teaching of Russian to Tatars and Bashkirs. Everyone speaks the Russian language without exception and to the fullest extent, which cannot be said about Russian language proficiency in the republics.
Russian doesn’t care whether “Bashkirization” will occur or “Tatarization” - in any case, over the next few decades, at least the share of the Russian language will be much higher than the share of any national language. It so happened, despite all claims to equality and justice. And political representation can be distributed by agreement, just as ordinary Bashkirs and Tatars want it. The differences between them are insignificant in such important areas as religion: in addition to the atheism and Orthodoxy that are present in both republics, the majority profess Sunni Islam.
Good progress
Hope for improving Bashkir-Tatar relations appeared after the departure of President M. Rakhimov. Presidents of the republics exchanged visits. In Ufa, the Tatar television channel TNV began working as a correspondent office.
Cultural and economic cooperation of these republics has increased. Although the unresolved problems have not gone anywhere and numerous contradictions remain in the relations between the two countries. In fact, it is strange that among the elites of peoples who are closest in language and culture that is equally established, a joint approach to the problems of nation-building is not obtained.
Where does this different vision of ethno-political space come from? The year 1917 with its erroneous, maybe, decisions is incredibly far from the present moment, but, nevertheless, the conflicts hidden there still affect the mentality of two fraternal peoples.
Reasons for the contradictions
If you dig around, you can distinguish from the canvas of events a century ago five main factors for this development of events. The first is subjective, the rest are quite objective.
1. The hostility and complete lack of understanding between leaders Zaki Validi and Gayaz Ishaqi.
Zaki Validi was the leader of the Bashkir liberation movement from 1917 to 1920. Orientalist, historian, Ph.D., professor and honorary member of the University of Manchester in the future. In the meantime, just a leader.
Gayaz Iskhaki is the leader of the Tatar national movement, publisher and writer, publicist and politician. Zealous Muslim - predominated in the preparation, and then in holding the first congress of Muslims in pre-revolutionary Moscow. The smartest, most educated people, why didn’t they agree?
2. The land question was considered differently among the Tatars and Bashkirs.
For 365 years since the colonization, the Tatars gradually lost all the lands captured during the Mongol-Tatar yoke, since the location of these territories was strategic: rivers, roads, and trade routes. The first time - after 1552, then - at the beginning of the 18th century, feudal lords were abolished in Tataria by royal order, and the lands were transferred to Russian settlers and the treasury. Since then, landlessness has become a real disaster for the Tatars.
A different situation developed in the territories of the Bashkirs, who had the patrimonial right in the tsarist empire and constantly subsequently fought for it. During the famine that happened under tsarism periodically - once every 3-5 years, and also during the Stolypin reform , settlers arrived in Bashkiria from both Russia and the surrounding lands. A multinational peasantry was formed. The land issue has always been very acute in Bashkiria, and after 1917 it became a factor in the formation of the national movement.
3. The purely geographical location of the Tatar and Bashkir lands.
The lands of the Tatars were in the very depths of the Empire; they had no borders with any outlying region capable of uniting efforts in the struggle for common interests. Bashkiria almost bordered on Kazakhstan - fifty kilometers of Russian land separated these republics from each other. The likelihood of a union was very high.
4. Some differences in the system of resettlement of the Bashkirs and Tatars in the Russian Empire.
Dispersed resettlement of the Tatars before the revolution, even on their lands not constituting an overwhelming majority, against the Bashkirs, who constitute the vast majority on their lands.
5. Different cultural and educational levels of the Bashkirs and Tatars.
With dispersed resettlement of the Tatars, their main weapon was intelligence, high moral qualities and organization. The power of the Bashkirs was not madrassas and intelligence. They owned land, were paramilitary and ready at any time to defend their independence.
Despite all these points, Bashkirs and Tatars can be quite friendly. The photos in the article demonstrate many moments of truly fraternal and good neighborly relations.