Muslim EuRossocentrism

Abstract

What is the historical relation between the Tatar Muslims and the Russian Empire that they live in? These were the central questions that the Crimean Tatar Ismail Gasprinskii (1851-1914) posed in his 1881 essay ‘Russian Muslimhood’. Gasprinskii later became famous as the pioneer of Muslim educational reform and Tatar journalism in Russia; for many Russian,Soviet and Western authors he was a political ‘pan-Islamist’ oriented towards the Ottoman Empire. However, in his 1881 essay Gasprinskii posed as a Russian patriot. He projected a vision of the future of Russia’s Tatars that would draw them closer to the Russians – yet not by Russification but by a shared Europeanization. Using a language of ‘Orientalism’, Gasprinskii’s aim was to convince Russian administrators that Russia’s Muslims were not a threat to the tsarist empire but an asset.