A Path two Decades long: how the First Collective Monograph of the Institute of Language, Literature and History on the “History of the Tatar ASSR” was created

Abstract

Research objectives: To contribute to the analysis of the conditions and factors, as well as the results of the activities of Tatar humanitarian specialists in the 1930s–1950s. The article deals with the actual aspects of studying the history of historical science in one of the major regions of Russia – the Republic of Tatarstan – during the Soviet period. It highlights the process of statization of the activities of historians and the dramatic conflicts associated with their subordination to the official Marxist-Leninist concept of periodization of human history. In connection with the restoration of historical science in the beginning of the 1930s, there arose a need to expand the network of research institutes designed to study the regional history and culture. In the Tatar ASSR, such a task was entrusted to the Institute of Language, Literature, and History (IYALI), established in 1939, and mainly to its history sector formed in 1941. Research materials: The article is based on the analysis of a vast array of unpublished sources, which made it possible to reveal the role of not only the August (1944) Decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union but also other directives and guidelines issued by the Soviet government over two decades (1940–1950s). Results and novelty of the research: The article describes in detail the process of the development of the two-volume “History of the Tatar ASSR”, whose writing was entrusted to the staff of the Institute of Language, Literature, and History (IYALI). The study showed that the content of the book changed many times and adjusted to the directives of the highest political and ideological authorities, which abounded in the period of late Stalinism. The August (1944) Decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had the greatest influence on the scientific activities of Kazan historians. It became the main guide to the action of the Republic authorities, called upon to strictly monitor the moods and actions of the Tatar intelligentsia and instilling in them a sense of fear of being accused of nationalist survivals. A series of resolutions of the Tatar Regional Committee of the Communist Party, inspired from above by campaigns to expose the political myopia of Tatar historians, forced the authors of the manuscript “History of the Tatar ASSR” to return to the text again and again, to rewrite sections on the history of independent Tatar states in the past, their folklore and literary heritage, Jadidism, etc. It took two decades before rea­ders saw a textbook on the history of the Tatar people.