Problem of the national-religious identity of Tatars in the works of Rizaetdin Fakhretdin within the context of socio-philosophical thought (late 19th–early 20th centuries)

Abstract

The article examines the role of the eminent Tatar thinker Rizaetdin Fakhretdin (1859–1936) in shaping the national-confessional identity of the Tatars at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Fakhretdin emerged as a chief systematizer of the modernization project during a period of profound sociocultural transformation marked by the crisis of traditional society, the rise of nationalism, an internal schism between Kadimism and Jadidism and rigid Russification policies.Based on an analysis of his journalism, the large-scale reform project for the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly (1905) and materials from the journal “Shura”, the research demonstrates that Fakhretdin's activity constituted a coherent strategy. It synthesized the restoration of historical memory through his work “Asar”, the development of institutional mechanisms for ethno-confessional autonomy, a comprehensive educational reform and the formation of public discourse. The article emphasizes the specific identity consolidation strategies: defending the ethnicon “Tatars” in polemics with Pan-Turkists; protecting the Arabic script as a cultural code; implementing a three-tiered educational system and a “triumvirate” model within the mahalla community.The article emphasizes the significance of everyday practices as an integral part of the modernization project and concludes that Fakhreddin's intellectual legacy laid the foundation that enabled the Tatar people to preserve their cultural, theological and doctrinal vectors of modernization in the 20th century.