Avatkov, V.A., Badranov, A.Sh. The pan-Turkist aspect within the discourse of the modern Tatar national movement.

Abstract: The object of studies in this article includes national movements in the territory of the Russian Federation, and, more specifically, the Tatar national movement, which is one of the most active actors in the domestic political interactions in Russia. The ethnic political and federal development of the Russian Federation passed through the stage of separatist “sovereignty parade”, and as a result of the reform of “strengthening the government vertical” in early 2000, it is now characterized with the lower activity an role of national movements in the political discourse of national and territorial subjects of the Russian Federation. At the current stage in some regions national movement of the native peoples of these territories are out of the political arena due to degradation and discrediting of their ideas. In other regions these movements were transformed into other institutional forms, or their ideas gained new understanding among the national elites. The Republic of Tatarstan is quite interesting object to study from the standpoint of the ethnic and political development of the peoples of Russia. The main method of studies therefore is a systemic approach, allowing to include separate processes into the general global trends. The pan-Turkist ideology shows flexible mechanisms and forms of influence on the Tatar community. However, this ideology needs to address the basic postulates of the time of its genesis in some way. That is why the scientific and expert community of Russia should provide due evaluation to the “Idel-Urals” project as a radical theory provoking separatism in the Urals and Volga Region republics. Generally, the pan-Turkism is a complicated ideology, including various theoretical concepts and ideologems, which claims a rather large theory and a large number of ethnic groups. When this ideology is analyzed from the critical standpoint it becomes obvious that the pan-Turkist project is pragmatically used by Turkey. However, some politicians and public figures tend to evaluate implementation of pan-Turkist ideas as a revival of true national identity (for example, in the Bashkir and the Tatar national movements). However, the pan-Turkist ideology provides for a final goal of assimilation of all of the Turkic peoples into one super-ethnos based upon the Turkish nation, rather than providing only for cultural and political unity. In turn, it means that the Turkic peoples shall be destroyed as separate ethnic groups. At the age of globalization, when we face the choice among the paths for the development, we may not ignore geopolitical realities and threats. The ongoing global processes, fall of regimes under other regimes, victories of one ideology over another show the reform of the global structure and order. The national intellectuals of different peoples should be very careful when choosing concepts for the modernization of their ethnic groups, otherwise, there may be a situation when having “found their path for development” based on a certain ideological construction the entire peoples may become just mechanisms and instruments for the achievement of geopolitical goals of foreign states.

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