Tatarstan

The idea that the most urgent emerging political issues must be handled at the transnational level and that local issues will continue to diminish in relative importance, has been raised, arguing that states are losing much of their sovereignty and that ethnic communities therefore are pursuing false dreams in demanding statehood. National sovereignty fails to inspire those whose political values are inclusive and who regard ethnicity as an accident of birth instead of a basis for pride. The countries with similar cases include - Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union as well as the cases of Sri Lanka, Tatarstan and Chechnya.

The Russian Soviet federated socialist republic was a multinational federation, the only such self defined federation among the USSR ‘s 15 union republics. Host to 130 officially recognized ethnic minorities or nationalities, that made up 18.5 percent of its population, the federation consisted of 88 constituent units, 31 of which were ethnically defined autonomous formations. The federation treaty was intended to solve Russia’s federation crisis to be signed by each member of the federation that would institutionalize a coherent and stable division of powers between Moscow and the rest. The federation treaty in three separate version was indeed signed in March 92, but two republics, Tatarstan and Chechnya, refused to initial it. Chechnya, in fact continued to insist that it was a fully independent state. Moreover, Russia’s intensifying economic crisis and the deepening tensions between the president and few political actors in Moscow was weakening the federal centre.

Russia at the end did move toward a system of asymmetrical federalism. On Feb. 94 federal govt signed a bilateral power sharing treaty with the republic of Tatarstan that afford the latter extensive autonomy. This was followed by similar treaties with other ethnic republics and eventually by treaties with many of Russia’s no ethnic regions as well. The republic of Tatarstan is located some 450 miles east of Moscow to the west of the Ural mountains at the confluence of the Volga and Kama rivers and along European Russia’s lines of communication with Siberia and the Russian far east. The landlocked republic is surrounded by other constituent units of the Russian federation. The titular nationality of the republic, the Volga Tatars, are Russia’s largest national minority, numbering 5.5 million in 1989 out of a total population of 147 million (3.8 %). An additional 1.1 million Tatars lived outside the RSFSR in other soviet union republics, bringing the total number of Tatars in the ussr to 6.6 million. There are large concentration in Bashkiria (1.12 million)other areas of the Volga-Urals region, central Asia, and Azerbaijan of Tatars, with 43.3 percent being Russians. In total, Tatarstan’s population of 3.6 million was larger than that of five of the union republics - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkmenistan, and Armenia - while territorially it is larger than the three Baltic states combined. Tatarstan is relatively developed socio-economically. In 89, 73 percent of the population lived in cities, although it was significantly less urbanized than Russia as a whole; 63 versus 86 percent. It is also highly industrialized, with significant defence, petrochemical, and timber/pulp/paper industries. Officials in Kazan frequently note that in the late 1982 the total industrial output of the Balti republics did not match that of Tatarstan. It has the former soviet union’s largest truck manufacturer - massive Kama automobile plant damaz in Naberezhnye Chechnya -as well as a major producer of helicopters, the Kazan helicopter works. Importantly it is also home to significant oil reserves; proven reserves total some 700 to 800 million tons, with production at around 12 million tons per year approx 7 percent of Russia’s annual output in 94. The republic’s oil is, however, of poor quality and more expensive to produce compared to its neighbouring countries. Tatarstan also has significant reserves of natural gas, coal, and other natural resources and it is home to one the largest oil and gas pipeline systems in eastern Europe. The Volga Tatars are a Turkic speaking, Sunni Muslim people of the Hanafi school. Linguistically, they are descendants of Turkic speaking Kypchak tribes who migrated across the Urals in the ninth and tenth centuries and mixed with Finno-Ugric and Slavic peoples already present in the region. Tatar nationalist sentiments survived the harsh history, surfacing most notably in 1936 with the adoption of the Stalin constitution for the USSR. Representatives of the republic pushed forward the request, in view of the size of its population and territory, as well as the distinctiveness and vitality of Tatar culture, Tatarstan’s status be raised to that of a full union republic.

Tatarstan experienced a period of rapid urbanization and industrialization in the wake of World War II thanks in par to the discovery of significant oil reeves in 46. Russian immigration increased a s Russians arrived in search of jobs, particularly in the cities, and assimilation pressures on Tatars intensified accordingly. By the end of 80s, only 12 percent of Tatar children in the republic were being educated in their native language. Russian was the language of government and the workplace, while Tatar was becoming essentially a home language. Very few Russians in the republic bothered to learn Tatar 1.1 percent in 89, although 77 percent of Tatars could speak a Russian. The rate of intermarriage between Tatars and Russians was high. Finally the percentage of Tatars who considered themselves believers in Islam was low and declining - 17.9 percent in 67 and 15.7 in 1980.

Tatars had a strong sense of ethnic distinctiveness rooted in their traditional Islamic beliefs, distinct language, and record of intellectual and cultural achievement. Tatar nationalists could plausibly argue that Tatar language and culture were in crisis, while ethnic entrepreneurs could employ a centuries old history of resistance to Russian domination and colonialism, the Russian disdain for Tatar nationalists could plausibly argue that Tatar language and culture were in crisis, while ethnic entrepreneurs could employ a centuries old history of resistance to Russian domination and colonialism, the Russian disdain for Tatar culture. Tatarstan’s political elite faced the same incentives in the disintegrating soviet union to play the ethnic card to mobilize popular support an d preserve their position. Other factors seemed to militate against radical nationalism in Tatarstan. Its location made it particularly vulnerable to pressure by the Russian government. Russians made up almost as large a percentage of the republic’s population as did Tatars, while there were more Tatars living outside t he republic than inside. Relations between Tatars and Russians had traditionally been good. Yet these same factors did not prevent secession or interethnic violence elsewhere in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Nagorno-Karabakh, like Tatarstan, was an enclave surrounded by the state (Azerbaijan) from which it fought to secede. Strategic vulnerability and a seemingly hopeless military balance did not prevent the Chechens or Abkhazians from declaring independence and waging wars of secession. Abkhazians made up a far smaller percentage of Abkhazia (17.8%) than Tatars did in Tatarstan, as well as a much smaller minority of the total population in Georgia than Tatars were in Russia. High rates of intermarriage and seemingly harmonious relations did not keep the Croats, Serbs, and Muslims from fighting a brutal interethnic war in Bosnia. And a large diaspora did not keep Russia from pressing for independence from the USSR. With the endorsement of the two presidents, negotiations over a bilateral treaty began that stressed the importance of ethnic peace and the republic’s traditions of cultural tolerance. The treaty entailed concessions by both sides. The key passage stated that the Republic of Tatarstan, as a state is united with the Russian Federation on the basis of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the Constitution of the Republic of Tatarstan. This leverage has allowed Tatarstan to carve out a degree of autonomy for itself and by 1995 the republic was essentially self governing.


Separatism; democracy and disintegration, Edited by Metta Spencer, Publisher, Rowman and Littlefield publishers, Inc.( Q568 )

Q 563 national water master plans for developing countries, edited by asit k biswas, water resource management series. OUP