The limits of religious ascription: Baptized tatars and the revision of "apostasy," 1840s-1905

Russian Review

Volumn 59, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 493-511

  Werth, Paul W ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 60950205329     PISSN: 00360341     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/0036-0341.00138     Document Type: Review

References (100)

1. Among the most important general works addressing this issue are Gregory Freeze, "The Soslovie (Estate) Paradigm in Russian Social History," American Historical Review 91 (February 1986): 11-36;
2. and Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter, Social Identity in Imperial Russia (DeKalb, 1997).
3. Consider also the contradiction in the Soviet period between ascription and Marxist class, as analyzed by Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Ascribing Class: The Construction of Social Identity in Soviet Russia," Journal of Modern History 65 (December 1993): 745-70.
4. The complexities connected with liberalism in Russia have been examined in some detail through the prism of sexuality by Laura Engelstein in The Keys to Happiness: Sex and the Search for Modernity in Fin-de-Siècle Russia (Ithaca, 1992);
5. and through the person of Miliukov by Melissa Kirschke Stockdale in Paul Miliukov and the Quest for a Liberal Russia, 1880-1918 (Ithaca, 1996).
6. E. A. Malov, "Statisticheskiia svedeniia o kreshchenykh tatarakh Kazanskoi i nekotorykh drugikh eparkhii, v volzhskom basseine," Uchenye zapiski Kazanskago universiteta, vyp. 3-4 (1866): 311-20, 321-87;
7. and D. M. Iskhakov, Istoricheskaia demografiia tatarskogo naroda, XVIII-nachalo XX vv. (Kazan, 1993), 93-98.
8. In the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth, the state offered direct material goods to new converts, and baptism was accompanied by a three-year exemption from all taxes and a lifetime exemption from military service. On the conversions see Apollon Mozharovskii, Izlozhenie khoda missionerskago dela po prosveshcheniiu kazanskikh inorodtsev s 1552 po 1867 goda, Chteniia v Imperatorskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiskikh pri Moskovskom universitete, vols. 112-13 (Moscow, 1880);
9. Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, "Les missions orthodoxes en pays musulmans de Moyenne- et Basse-Volga, 1552-1865," Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 8 (Juillet-septembre 1967): 369-403;
10. Michael Khodarkovsky "'Not by Word Alone': Missionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russia," Comparative Studies in Society and History 38 (April 1996): 267-97;
11. I. K. Zagidullin, "Khristianizatsiia tatar Srednego Povolzh'ia vo vtoroi polovine XVI-XVII vv.," Uchenye zapiski Tatarskogo gosudarstvennogo gumanitarnnogo instituta 1 (1998): 111-65;
12. and idem (Ildus Zahidullin), "La conversion à l'orthodoxie des tatars de la région Volga-Oural, aux XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles, et ses causes économiques et sociales," in L'Islam de Russie: Conscience communautaire et autonomie politique chez les Tatars de la Volga et de L'Oural depuis le XVIIIe siècle, ed. Stéphane A. Dudoignon, Dämir Is'haqov and Räfyq Möhämmätshin (Paris, 1997), 27-64.
13. There is a tendency in the sources - and therefore in the historiography - to focus overwhelmingly on baptized-Tatar communities that either apostatized or exhibited inclinations in that direction, and thus to ignore numerous communities with stronger attachments to Christianity or to pre-Islamic practices. For more on this issue see Paul W. Werfh, "From 'Pagan' Muslims to 'Baptized' Communists: Religious Conversion and Ethnic Particularity in Russia's Eastern Provinces," forthcoming in Comparative Studies in Society and History.
14. It is not my goal here to address in detail either the specific sources or the dynamics of the apostasy, but see Jean Saussay, "L'apostasie des Tatars Christianisés en 1866," Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 9 (Janvier-mais 1968): 20-40;
15. Agnès Kefeli-Clay, "L'Islam populaire chez les Tatars Chrétiens Orthodoxes au XIXe siècle," Cahiers du Monde russe 37 (Octobre-décembre 1996): 409-28;
16. idem, "Constructing an Islamic Identity: The Case of Elyshevo Village in the Nineteenth Century," in Russia's Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1914, ed. Daniel Brower and Edward Lazzerini (Bloomington, 1997), 271-91;
17. Kefeli-Clay, "Une note sur le rôle des femmes tatares converties au christianisme dans la réislamisation de la Moyenne-Volga, au milieu du XIXe siècle," in L'Islam de Russie, 65-72;
18. and Paul W. Werth, At the Margins of Orthodoxy: Mission, Governance, and Confessional Politics in Russia's Volga-Kama Region, 1825-1917 (forthcoming, Cornell University Press).
19. On the reform of state peasants see N. A. Khalikov, Zemledelie tatar srednego Povolzh'ia i Priural'ia XIX-nachala XX v. (Moscow, 1981), 14-22;
20. and N. M. Druzhinin, Russkaia derevnia na perelome, 1861-1880 gg. (Moscow, 1978), 103-13.
21. and "O kreshchenykh tatarakh," Sovremennyi listok 39 (14 May 1866).
22. "Prichiny otpadeniia kreshchenykh tatar ot khristianstva," Missioner 10 (1874): 105;
23. See also V. Timofeev, "Poezdka v prikhody kreshchenykh tatar po povodu poslednikh otpadenii v magometanstvo," Pravoslavnoe obozrenie (1872): 478.
24. Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii II (PSZ II), vol. 16, no. 14409 (1842), article 25.
25. Each Orthodox husband/father was required to ensure that his wife and children did not accept another faith. See Svod zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii (1832), vol. 14, art. 41;
26. and Ardalion Popov, Sud i nakazaniia za prestupleniia protiv very i nravstvennosti po russkomu pravu (Kazan, 1904), 317.
27. Svod zakonov (1832), vol. 1, chap. 1, arts. 44-45;
28. In 1851 representatives of non-Orthodox Christian religions received the possibility of proselytizing among pagans with the emperor's permission (PSZ II, vol. 26, no. 24820 [1851])
29. For a broad treatment of legislation regarding Muslims specifically see Aidar Nogmanov, "L'évolution de la législation sur les musulmans de Russie, de la conquête de Qazan à la guerre Crimée (1552-1853)," in L'Islam de Russie, 115-30.
30. M. A. Reisner, Gosudarstvo i veruiushchaia lichnost': Sbornik statei (St. Petersburg, 1905), 406-7, 196.
31. See also Nicholas B. Breyfogle, "Heretics and Colonizers: Religious Dissent and Russian Colonization of Transcaucasia, 1830-1880" (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1998), 31-35.
32. Or, as Pavel Miliukov wrote, "Neither the state nor the church had foreseen that it was possible to choose a religion according to one's personal conviction. Faith was regarded as something innate, inseparable from nationality, a second nature, so to speak" (cited in John W. Slocum, "The Boundaries of National Identity: Religion, Language, and Nationality Politics in Late Imperial Russia" [Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1993], 70).
33. For more on this distinction between toleration and freedom of conscience, see Reisner, Gosudarstvo, 390-423;
34. and Peter Waldron, "Religious Toleration in Late Imperial Russia," in Civil Rights in Imperial Russia, ed. Olga Crisp and Linda Edmondson (Oxford, 1989), 103-19.
35. For a complete compilation of active law on religion see Ia. A. Kantorovich, Zakony o vere i veroterpimosti (St. Petersburg, 1899).
36. Indeed, the term novokreshchenye operated even as a social category for converts that replaced the designation "peasant," which itself had significant religious connotations (krest'ianin = "Christian"). See Werth, Subjects for Empire, 189-90.
37. On the inability of conversion to overcome inorodtsy status, and for an insightful consideration of the problem of inorodtsy generally, see John W. Slocum, "Who, and When, Were the Inorodtsy? The Evolution of the Category of 'Aliens' in Imperial Russia," Russian Review 57 (April 1998): 173-90.
38. Gauri Viswanathan, Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief (Princeton, 1998), 115. Viswanathan shows how Hindu converts to Christianity were treated as Hindus by the colonial courts and administration in certain contexts, because it was assumed that their conversion did not obviate indigenous customs, usages, and manners.
39. Ulozhenie o nakazaniiakh ugolovnykh i ispravitel'nykh (St. Petersburg, 1866), art. 185.
40. The law did not clearly indicate what should occur if admonition failed to achieve its goal. See Popov, Sud i nakazaniia, 349.
41. According to V. N. Shiriaev this notion of "seduction" was a unique feature of Russian criminal law. See his Religioznyia prestupleniia: Istoriko-dogmaticheskii ocherk (Iaroslavl', 1909), 377.
42. "Izvlechenie iz otcheta Vysokopreosviashchennago Antoniia, Arkhiepiskopa Kazanskago i Sviiazhskago, o sostoianii Kazanskoi eparkhii za 1872 g.," Izvestiia po Kazanskoi eparkhii 16 (1873): 512.
43. Ia. B. [E. A. Malov], "Russko-gosudarstvennyi vzgliad na otpadanie inorodtsev-khristian v mukhammedanstvo," Tserkovnyi vestnik 23 (1876): 10.
44. In at least one instance this dearth of legal provisions impelled an observer to argue for the application of laws originally intended for the most "fanatical" schismatics and heretics to Tatar apostates. See E. N. Voronets, "K voprosu o svobode very i o sovremennykh, vnutri Rossii otpadeniiakh ot khristianstva v magometanstvo," Pravoslavnyi sobesednik 1 (1877): 226-58.
45. See also E. A. Malov, "Prikhody starokreshchenykh i novokreshchenykh tatar v Kazanskoi eparkhii," Pravoslavnoe obozrenie 17 (1865): 449-94;
46. On the debates concerning the merits of administrative and judicial means of action see Werth, At the Margins, 160-65.
47. For a general discussion on the tensions between administrative measures and judicial procedure in Russia see Engelstein, Keys to Happiness, esp. 19-28.
48. PSZ II, vol. 9, no. 7440 (1834);
49. Sobranie postanovlenii po chasti raskola (Sobranie), vol. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1858), 179-80;
50. Obzor meropriiatii Ministerstva vnutrennykh del po raskolu s 1802 po 1881 god (St. Petersburg, 1903), 77.
51. Beginning in 1838 these verdicts were also to be approved by the emperor himself (PSZ II, vol. 13, no. 10872 [1838]).
52. On the creation of this committee toward the end of Alexander I's reign see Breyfogle, "Heretics and Colonizers," 57-58.
53. See also Izvlecheniia iz rasporiazhenii po delam o raskol'nikakh pri Imperatorakh Nikolae I i Aleksandre II (Leipzig, 1882), 5-7.
54. On the transfer of Tatar apostasy to the committee see Sobranie 2:682
55. In any event, by the end of 1876 the Consistory had instructed local clergy to keep track only of the numbers of children born of apostates, instead of more complete church records. See "Kak pisat' v dukhovnykh vedomostiakh detei otpavshikh," Izvestiia po Kazanskoi eparkhii 24 (1876): 727-28.
56. and Timofeev, "Poezdka."
57. These missionary efforts centered above all on the semiofficial Brotherhood of St. Gurii, which was established in 1867 and included many of the region's most prominent religious figures and educational specialists. See M. A. Mashanov, Obzor deiatel'nosti "Bratstva Sv. Guriia" za 25 let (Kazan, 1892);
58. Isabelle Teitz Kreindler, "Educational Policies Toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia: A Study of Il'minskii's System" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1969);
59. and Robert Paul Geraci, "Window on the East: Ethnography, Orthodoxy, and Russian Nationality in Kazan, 1870-1914" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1995).
60. See, for example, the account by Gr. L'vov, "Religioznoe sostoianie otpadshikh tatar v der. Iangil'dinoi, Cheboksarskago uezda," Izvestiia po Kazanskoi eparkhii 21 (1896): 406-11.
61. Russian law required that each Muslim parish consist of at least two hundred male revision souls, and also that each new mosque be determined "necessary" and not constitute a source of "seduction" for nearby Christians (Svod zakonov [1857], vol. 12, arts. 260-61).
62. Missionaries claimed that these laws were being violated, and that some mosques had been constructed to serve far fewer than the established two hundred souls. See in particular E. A. Malov, "O tatarskikh mechetiakh." Pravoslavnyi sobesednik 3 (1867): 285-320;
63. See also idem, "Ocherk religioznago sostoianiia kreshchenykh tatar, podvergshikhsia vlianiiu magometanstva: Missionerskii dnevnik," Pravoslavnyi sobesednik 3 (1871): 250, 398;
64. "Zapiska N. I. Il'minskago po voprosu ob otpadeniiakh kreshchenykh tatar Kazanskoi gubernii v 1881 g.," Pravoslavnyi sobesednik 2 (1895): 274;
65. "Perechen' ogranichitel'nykh postanovlenii po dukhovnym delam inoslavnykh i inovernykh ispovedanii," RGIA, Pechatnye zapiski, folder 2349, p. 20
66. Waldron, "Religious Toleration," 110;
67. idem, "Religious Reform after 1905: Old Believers and the Orthodox Church," Oxford Slavonic Papers, New Series 20 (1987): 114;
68. Laura Engelstein, "From Heresy to Harm: Self-Castrators in the Civic Discourse of Late Tsarist Russia," in Empire and Society: New Approaches to Russian History, ed. Terayuki Hara and Kimitaka Matsuzato (Sapporo, 1997), 16.
69. On the 1883 regulation see Waldron, "Religious Reform," 114-15, who notes that the state's concessions to Old Belief were motivated principally by the reluctance to antagonize a group that it now recognized as a highly conservative force, deeply attached to Russia.
70. See also K. K. Arsen'ev, Svoboda sovesti i veroterpimost' (St. Petersburg, 1905), 61-85.
71. On "pagan" conversion to Islam, which had never actually been prohibited by law, see Paul W. Werth, "Tsarist Categories, Orthodox Intervention, and Islamic Conversion in a Pagan Udmurt Village, 1870s-1890s," in Muslim Culture in Russia and Central Asia from the 18th to the Early 20th Centuries, vol. 2, Inter-Regional and Inter-Ethnic Relations, ed. Anke von Kügelgen, Michael Kemper, and Allen J. Frank (Berlin, 1998), 385-415.
72. See "Zapiska," 262.
73. Malov, "Prikhody," 451.
74. N. I. Il'minskii similarly wrote in 1883 that since measures for Christian education were still weakly developed, apostates "must be restrained and held [within the church] at all costs" (cited in Kreindler, "Educational Policies," 103).
75. Cited in Malov, "Prikhody," 509.
76. "Dokladnaia zapiska upolnomochennykh ot Kazanskago musul'manskago obshchestva, Predsedateliu Komiteta Ministrov," RGIA, Pechatnye zapiski, folder 2349, p. 7.
77. For more details on the political activities of Muslims during and after 1905 see S. M. Iskhakov, "Revoliutsiia 1905-1907 gg. i rossiiskie musul'mane," in 1905 god: Nachalo revoliutsionnykh potriasenii v Rossii XX veka (Moscow, 1996), 192-210;
78. Azade-Ayse Rorlich, The Volga Tatars: A Profile in National Resilience (Stanford, 1986), 104-22;
79. and Diliara Usmanova, Musul'manskaia fraktsiia i problemy "svobody sovesti" v Gosudarstvennoi Dume Rossii (1906-1917) (Kazan, 1999).
80. PSZ III, vol. 23, no. 22581 (26 February 1903);
81. On the elimination of the Uniate church see M. Koialovich, Istoriia vozsoedineniia zapadnorusskikh uniatov starykh vremen (St. Petersburg, 1873);
82. and Theodore R. Weeks, "The 'End' of the Uniate Church in Russia: The Vozsoedinenie of 1875," Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 44:1 (1996): 28-39.
83. "Zapiska ob otpavshkikh iz pravoslaviia v inoverie," RGIA, Pechatnye zapiski, folder 2349 (citations from pp. 8, 11, 12, 72, 9).
84. This is not to say that state officials had no apprehensions about Islam. But a more thoroughgoing Islamophobia on the part of the secular government appears to have been a development principally of the post-1905 period, when a combination of Muslim deputies' oppositional stance in the Duma, a more dynamic Islamic reform movement, and the Young Turk Revolution in the Ottoman Empire inclined government officials to view Muslims, especially in the Volga region, in more dangerous political terms. The most thorough treatment of this process is Elena Vorob'eva, "Musul'manskii vopros v imperskoi politike Rossiiskogo samoderzhaviia: vtoraia polovina XIX veka-1917 g." (Cand. diss., European University, St. Petersburg, 1999);
85. idem, "Musul'manskii vopros v Rossii: Istoriia problemy," paper delivered at the conference "Imperiia i region: Rossiiskii variant" (Omsk, July 1999).
86. See also Robert Geraci, "Russian Orientalism at an Impasse: Tsarist Education Policy and the 1910 Conference on Islam," in Russia's Orient, 138-61;
87. and Serge Zenkovsky, Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia, 1905-1920 (Cambridge, MA, 1960).
88. The deliberations of the Committee of Ministers on these questions in the winter of 1905 are reproduced in N. P. Solov'ev, Polnyi krug dukhovnykh zakonov (Moscow, 1907) (citation is from p. 12). The committee here was referring to former Uniates and Latvian converts as well as to Tatar apostates.
89. "Postupivshee k Ministru Zemledeliia i Gosudarstvennykh Imushchestv zaiavlenie magometan," RGIA, Pechatnye zapiski, folder 2349, p. 4.
90. Solov'ev, Polnyi krug, 13.
91. Because the Russian government had done away entirely with the Uniate church, former Uniates only had the option to become Catholics. See Theodore R. Weeks, Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia: Nationalism and Russification on the Western Frontier, 1863-1914 (DeKalb, 1996), 175-76.
92. PSZ III, no. 26126 (17 April 1905), art. 1;
93. Waldron, "Religious Toleration," 111-12;
94. idem, "Religious Reform," 116-19.
95. S. Bagin, O propagande Islama putem pechati (Kazan, 1909), 9.
96. S. Bagin, "Ob otpadenii v magometanstvo kreshchenykh inorodtsev i o prichinakh etogo pechal'nago iavleniia," Pravoslavnyi sobesednik 1 (1910): 125-27. Even some of the villages that Bagin lists as having "new apostates" had in fact earlier been the scenes of apostasy.
97. Waldron, "Religious Toleration," 112;
98. Werth, "Subjects," 208-10.
99. Abby M. Schrader, "Containing the Spectacle of Punishment: The Russian Autocracy and the Abolition of the Knout, 1817-1845," Slavic Review 56 (Winter 1997): 613-44.
100. Usmanova, Musul'manskaia fraktsiia, 81-127;