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Idel-Ural State

Coordinates: 55°47′47″N 49°06′32″E / 55.79639°N 49.10889°E / 55.79639; 49.10889
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Idel-Ural State
ادیل-اورال
Идел-Урал
1–28 March 1918
Flag of Idel-Ural
Flag
Claimed borders of Idel-Ural
Claimed borders of Idel-Ural
CapitalUfa
Common languagesTatar, Russian
GovernmentRepublic[1]
President 
• 1918
Sadrí Maqsudí Arsal[2]
Historical eraRussian Civil War
• Proclamation
1 March 1918
• Government in-exile
1918
• Defeat by Red Army
28 March 1918
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Russian Republic
Kazan Soviet Workers' and Peasants' Republic
Russian SFSR
Tatar ASSR
Bashkir ASSR
Chuvash ASSR

The Idel-Ural State (Tatar: Идел-Урал өлкәсе,[citation needed] İdel-Ural ölkäse, ادیل-اورال اولكسی, also İdel-Ural berlege İdel-Ural ştatı), also known as the Volga-Ural State or Idel-Ural Republic,[3] was an short-lasting autonomy of Tatar peoples that claimed to unite Tatars, Bashkirs, and the Chuvash in the turmoil of the Russian Civil War. The republic was proclaimed on 1 March 1918, by a Congress of Muslims from Russia's interior and Siberia, but defeated by Bolsheviks the same month.[4] Idel-Ural means "Volga-Ural" in the Tatar language.

History

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Proclamation of Idel-Ural Republic
Şämğulof's House in Ufa, where the sessions of the National Parliament (Millät Mäclese) took place.[5]

During the Russian Revolution, various regional political leaders convened in June 1917 in Kazan. The group declared the autonomy of "Muslim Turk-Tatars of Inner Russia and Siberia". Later on, in Ufa, a parliament named the Millät Mäclese (National Council) was created, in which a draft for the creation of the state would be pushed through and accepted on 29 November 1917 following the Second All-Russia Muslim Congress. However, the Idel-Ural State was met with opposition from Zeki Velidi Togan, a Bashkir revolutionary, who declared the autonomy of Bashkiria, as well as from the Bolsheviks, who had initially supported the creation of Idel-Ural but two months after denounced it as bourgeois nationalism[6][7]: 105  and declared the creation of the Tatar-Bashkir Soviet Republic [ru], with around the same borders as Idel-Ural. This struggle between three different movements weakened the Idel-Ural State.[8]

Members of the Tatar-Bashkir Committee of Idel-Ural based outside of Russia such as Ayaz İshaki participated in an anti-Bolshevik propaganda war. Some also joined the Prometey group, a circle of anti-Soviet Muslim intellectuals based in Warsaw.[7]: 100  The idea of Idel-Ural by its supporting nationalists included the territory of modern-day Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and most of Orenburg Oblast. The nationalists also wished for expansion towards the Caspian Sea. In January 1918, the Millät Mäclese adopted a constitution written by Galimzian Sharaf, Ilias and Jangir Alkin, Osman Tokumbetov and Y. Muzaffarov.

The Millät Mäclese looked to declare the creation of Idel-Ural on 1 March 1918, a plan which never came to fruition due to Bolshevik arrests of deputies of the Millät Mäclese and their official declaration of the Tatar-Bashkir Soviet Socialist Republic.[7]: 105  After the arrested deputies were freed, they reconvened in the Tatar part of Kazan beyond the Bolaq stream (hence in Soviet historiography it was called "Transbolaq Republic" (Забулачная республика)[9]). The Republic, which in reality included only some sections of Kazan and Ufa, was defeated by the Red Army on 28 March 1918.[9][10][11] Its parliament disbanded in April.[8]

The president of Idel-Ural, Sadrí Maqsudí Arsal, escaped to Finland in 1918. He was well received by the Finnish foreign minister Carl Enckell, who remembered his valiant defence of the national self-determination and constitutional rights of Finland in the Russian Duma.[citation needed] The president-in-exile also met officials from Estonia before continuing in 1919 to Sweden, Germany and France, in a quest for Western support. Idel-Ural was listed among the "Captive Nations" in the Cold War-era public law (1959) of the United States.[12]

Chaghatay-language map depicting Idel-Ural (ایدیل-اورال) neighboring Turkestan (تورکستان), from the November 1931 issue of the Berlin-based Yash Turkistan [uz] magazine

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Рожденный революцией. Татарскому парламенту исполнилось 100 лет". RFE/RL. 30 November 2017.
  2. ^ "Почему не удалось построить Идель-Уральскую республику". RFE/RL. 4 August 2018.
  3. ^ "Почему не удалось построить Идель-Уральскую республику". RFE/RL (in Russian). 4 August 2018. Retrieved 2020-12-25.
  4. ^ "Почему не удалось построить Идель-Уральскую республику". RFE/RL (in Russian). 4 August 2018. Retrieved 2020-12-25.
  5. ^ "Милләт Мәҗлесен ачу тантанасы". Азатлык Радиосы (in Tatar). 9 January 2012. Retrieved 2022-07-25.
  6. ^ IZMAIL I. SHARIFZHANOV (2007). "The parliament of Tatarstan, 1990–2005: vain hopes, or the Russian way towards parliamentary democracy in a regional dimension." Parliaments, Estates and Representation, 27:1, 239–250, DOI: 10.1080/02606755.2"007.9522264
  7. ^ a b c Yemelianova G.M. (2002) "Muslims under Soviet Rule: 1917–91." In: Russia and Islam. Studies in Russian and East European History and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230288102_4
  8. ^ a b Devlet, Nadir. "A struggle for independence in the Russian Federation: the case of the Tatars." In: CEMOTI, n°16, 1993. Istanbul – Oulan Bator: autonomisation, mouvements identitaires et construction du politique. pp. 63–82. Accessed 13 April 2021. https://doi.org/10.3406/cemot.1993.1052
  9. ^ a b "Забулачная республика – взгляд через 85 лет". Казанские истории (in Russian). Retrieved 2020-12-25.
  10. ^ Commissar and Mullah: Soviet-Muslim Policy from 1917 to 1924, Glenn L. Roberts, Universal-Publishers, 2007, p.178
  11. ^ The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations, Olivier Roy, I.B.Tauris, 2000, p.44
  12. ^ Campbell, John Coert (1965). American Policy Toward Communist Eastern Europe: the Choices Ahead. University of Minnesota Press. p. 116. ISBN 0-8166-0345-6.

Further reading

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  • Indus Tagirov [ru]:
    • «Очерки истории Татарстана и татарского народа», Tatar Book Publishers, 1999
    • «История национальной государственности татарского народа и Татарстана», Tatar Book Publishers 2008
  • Alter Litvin [ru], «Казань: время гражданской войны», 1991

55°47′47″N 49°06′32″E / 55.79639°N 49.10889°E / 55.79639; 49.10889