Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia

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This book is the first comprehensive political and cultural history of the major Turkic groups in Russia, which together exceed twenty million in population and form the second largest linguistic unit in the Soviet Union. Professor Zenkovsky traces their history from its beginnings up to the 1920s, emphasizing the transitory period in the early twentieth century when clear political ideas began to dislodge traditional Islamic patterns of thought and social behavior. The author studies the inception of the nationalist ideas among these Moslem peoples which accompanied the disintegration of their original cultural unity. He describes the separate developments of the various Turkic groups, the rise of Tatar political and cultural influence among them and the subsequent growth of Kazakh, Uzbek, Azerbaijani, and Bashkir nationalism. The effects of the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 and the ensuing Civil War on the national orientation of these peoples are examined in the light of religious, cultural, and political developments. This investigation incorporates much previously unused source material, such as the Proceedings of the Moslem Congresses of 1906 and 1917, digests of the Turkic press in Russia, and certain Turkic emigre periodicals.