Muslims of Atbasar on the Pages of the Tatar Press: Challenges of Modernity and Regional Context

Abstract

The article examines the development of Atbasar, a small town in the northern part of the Kazakh Steppe, in the early twentieth century, as discussed in the Tatar press. In 1906, Atbasar attracted the attention of the two influential Tatar newspapers, “Vakyt” and “Ul’fat,” who approached the towns’ problems in very different ways. They debated over the ways the local problems could be combined with the challenges of the current imperial reforms; the reforms of Muslim education; the process of Tatar/Turkic national consolidation, etc. The analysis of the language of publications and of the additional archival sources show that such debates were motivated by the particular interests of certain involved groups (reformers, newspapers editors, merchants) rather than the desire for detailed and comprehensive analysis of the situation of a particular region. The conclusion is that the analyzed debates were, in most cases, a competition of certain linguistic strategies, rather than a real discussion of efficient reforms.