DOI: 10.24308/iass-2014-118

Italy

sentenza77@libero.it

Abstract

The remodelling of the urban space (first of all of capital cities) has been one of the common trends that has characterized all the new states that have emerged after the disintegration of the USSR. Urban planning and architecture have gone hand in hand with state nationalism, materializing and ‘naturalizing’ the ‘(re)birth’ of the nation and legitimizing the new regimes. The city of Kazan’ is in this sense almost a paradigmatic example: a close reading of the remodelling of its urban landscape provides a rich insight in the political agenda and in the way the leadership of the Republic of Tatarstan sees the country and the city and wants it to be seen by others. In this urban remodeling Tatarstan’s former president Shaimiev, Kazan’s former mayor Iskhakov and their ideologue Khakimov followed a multi-vectorial course that reflected the multifaceted image they wanted to construct for Tatarstan’s society and for the city as its symbol. This image can be seen as a myth in which different narratives intertwine: the narrative of Kazan’ as a European capital; that of Kazan’ as a Tatar city; that of Kazan’ as the place where East and West meet and coexist in peaceful harmony. To be sure, the construction of this multiple urban identity was not just a top-down process, but the outcome of a political and social situa­tion in which the Tatarstani leadership had to reach a compromise with very different interests.

1. Reshaping the post-Soviet urban landscape

The remodelling of urban space has been one of the common trends that has characterized all the new states that have emerged after the disintegration of the USSR. This is hardly surprising: as argued by Jurij Lotman, architectural space is always a semiotic space: it shapes the world, but at the same time it is itself the result of a modelling activity which reproduces the worldview of its creators (Lotman [1985] 2010: 676–82). In turn, the way architectural space is laid out plays an active role in shaping both individual and collective conscience (Lotman [1985] 2010: 683). Therefore, cities are also “a discourse, a signifying practice that […] in every moment projects behind itself a text”; yet that text remains always “unaccomplished”, for it is also the site of conflicts which inevitably leave their traces on it (Volli 2005: 6, my translation); hence the need by power to organize the urban landscape and re-shape it in such a way as to allow certain interpretations of it and prevent others, effectively contributing in shaping what Gramsci termed the “common sense”, namely “the most widespread conception of life and morale” (Gramsci 2013 [1975]: 76). As a consequence, the territory must be read “first of all as an ideological text” (Volli 2005: 16, my translation). In post-Soviet countries urban planning and new architectural enterprises often have gone hand in hand with nationalism, being a tangible way of both naturalizing the (re)birth of the nation and legitimizing the incumbents. Indeed, Eric Hobsbawm explained his concept of “invention of traditions” – i.e. “a set of practices… which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past” and that, where possible, “attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past” – providing as an example the rebuilding in Gothic style of the House of Parliament in London (Hobsbawm 1983: 1).

2. The case of Kazan’ and Tatarstan

The city of Kazan’ is in this sense almost a paradigmatic example. A close reading of the remodelling of its urban landscape provides, as Katherine Graney has rightly stated, a clear insight in the political agenda and in the way the leadership of the Republic of Tatarstan saw the country and the city and wanted it to be seen by others (Graney 2007: 17). In this field Tatarstan’s former president Mintimer Šaimiev, Kazan’s former mayor Kamil’ Ischakov and their ideologue Rafael Khakimov followed a particular course that reflected the multifaceted image they wanted to construct for Tatarstan and for the city as its symbol. This multifaceted image can be seen as a myth in Roland Barthes’s sense – i.e. the naturalization of something which is culturally constructed (Barthes 1970 [1957]) – and a myth intertwining different narratives: the narrative of Kazan’ as a European capital; that of Kazan’ as a Tatar city; that of Kazan’ as the place where East and West meet and coexist in peaceful harmony (Graney 2007: 20). To be sure, this multiple identity was not just the result of mere abstract elaboration, but the outcome of a political and social situation in which the republican leadership had to reach a compromise with very different interests in order to keep the situation under control and stay in power.

The nationalist and religious revival that swept across the USSR at the time of Gorbačëv’s perestrojka, when underground political currents were given a relative freedom of expression, involved Tatarstan as well (Faller 2002: 82). In 1990 grandiose celebrations in Kazan’ commemorated the 1100^th year since the conversion to Islam of ancient Volga Bulgars. Since in the previous decades the Soviet policy of nationalities had secularized Islam, transforming it into just a component of the national heritage of some of its peoples, adherence to Islam more often than not did not imply any strict observance of its precepts (Khalid 2004): therefore, this religious revival was to be seen as part of the national revival, with ethnic and religious identities often overlapping (Malašenko 2009: 243). In February 1989 Tatar nationalists founded an autonomous organization, the Tatar Public Centre, whose aims ranged from political issues (the upgrading of Tatarstan from Autonomous Republic to Union Republic) to cultural and economic ones (the promotion of Tatar culture and cultural autonomy for Tatar diaspora and a revision of Tatarstan’s contribution to the all-Union budget). A more ethnically-oriented wing of Tatar nationalism gathered one year later around the Ittifaq party (Khakimov 2004–05: 47; Amirkhanov 1998: 38). Riding this nationalist wave, in August 1990 Šajmiev, by then chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Tatarstan and First Party Secretary, prompted the latter body to unilaterally approve a Declaration of Sovereignty; later on, in March 1991, he urged the population (together with the other nationalists) to boycott the referendum on the establishment of a presidency for the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic; two months later he even declared that Tatarstan would sign the new Union Treaty only as a full republic, and not as one of the entities of Russia. On 28 May the Supreme Soviet of Tatarstan declared that the republic would elect its own president and not participate in the All-Russian presidential elections. Appropriating nationalist slogans and platforms, Šajmiev in June 1991 was elected president of the self-appointed sovereign Republic of Tatarstan (he was the only candidate). After the August 1991 coup, Šajmiev announced that Tatarstan would ask for admission in the newly-born Commonwealth of Independent States as a full member, and not as a subject of the Russian Federation. This rapid state-building process reached a turning point in February 1992, when Tatarstan’s Parliament decided to hold a referendum on the status of the republic, provoking a wave of threats from the Russian State Duma, while the Constitutional Court declared its illegality and El’cin made an emotional appeal to Tatarstani citizens against voting in favour of sovereignty. The pressure from Moscow went so far as to hold military manoeuvres in the neighbouring regions. Despite that, the result was a 61.4% majority in favour of independence, with Kazan’s population split into two camps (in the capital, 51.2% had voted against). In autumn, a Constitution was passed by the Tatarstani Parliament, which refused to ratify the All-Russia Constitution and boycotted the referendum on it.

By then Šajmiev seemed to have managed to outmanoeuvre the most radical nationalists and his challenge to the federal centre earned him a significant popularity. Moreover, his cautious policy on privatizations spared Tatarstan the most odious economic consequences brought about by the transition, guaranteeing the republic a stability which earned him the acceptance, if not the support, of at least part of the Russian minority (about half of the population). The turning point in this political course was the signing, on February 15, 1994 of a treaty with the Russian Federation: whereas today, in retrospect, that treaty is seen as a remarkable success, as it guaranteed Tatarstan a high extent of autonomy (Graney 2001: 34–35), at the epoch Tatar nationalists accused Šajmiev of treason, for the republic renounced sovereignty (Beissinger 2002: 264–265).

After 1994 Šajmiev and his political associates had thus secured their position vis-à-vis the federal centre, but risked losing their own constituency. As a consequence, in the following years they tried to reaffirm their nationalist credentials in order to regain legitimacy, multiplying the initiatives aimed at institutionalizing and appropriating Tatar nationalism. Part of this course consisted also in a stronger support for the Islamic revival, as a response to Moscow’s active support of the Russian Orthodox Church: the outcome of this course of action was an extraordinary increase in the number of mosques in the republic (Bennigsen Broxup 1996: 89–90). At the same time, though, Šajmiev had to keep the balance between the necessity of cultural reassertion and that of avoiding alienating Tatarstan’s ethnic Russian population, while at the same time pursuing an internationalizing agenda that aimed at modernizing Kazan’ and transforming it into a European capital. Keeping together these contradictory drives was difficult, but the Šajmiev leadership managed to do it. Part of this policy was a whole series of showcase architectural enterprises aimed at enhancing the role of Kazan’ as a capital (the construction of lavish shopping centres, the development of an underground railway network, the restoration of part of its architectural heritage, the erection of new public buildings), at the same time Europeanizing and Tatarizing its urban landscape (Graney 2007: 18).

3. The Tatarization of Kazan’

3.1. The Kul Sharif Mosque

The most evident architectural example of what Faller (2002) has aptly called “the repossession of Kazan” is definitely the ‘reconstruction’ of the Kul-Šarif Mosque: the latter is indeed so imposing that it dominates Kazan’s skyline and the Kremlin complex, and its location allows it to remind the Tatarness of the city to commuters and visitors alike. The mosque has also become one of Kazan’s major tourist attractions, and one of its most recognizable symbols. This reconstruction is a paradigmatic example of “invention of tradition”. As the capital of the homonymous khanate, Kazan’ had been until 1552 also the seat of various mosques, the biggest of which was probably located in the area of the current Kremlin before being destroyed following the conquest of the city by Ivan IV. In the early 1990s popular demand arose for a reconstruction of Kazan’s great mosque as a way to reaffirm a Tatar national identity (Faller 2002: 85). Šajmiev espoused the idea and issued an ad hoc decree in November 1995. The construction of the new mosque was presented as a “rebuilding” (Batyr 2005), and the choice of locating it in the Kremlin was a modern response to the Russification of the city’s architecture implemented by the Russian tsars in the XVII and XVIII centuries. Furthermore, naming such an architectural enterprise after Kul-Šarif was by itself a decision with strong nationalist and religious overtones, for he had been not only an important figure of the Tatar clergy of the XVI century, but also one of the chieftains in charge of Kazan’s defence in 1552[1]. By honouring as a national and religious hero someone who had fought against the Russians Šajmiev was making a bold political statement, challenging the legitimacy of Russia’s presence in Tatarstan. The political significance of the mosque is highlighted by its architectural solutions: it does not follow the traditional Tatar style (e.g. the Mardžani Mosque) but a neo-Ottoman model (Chalit 2012), suggesting a return to a past prior to the Russian conquest. This past is presented as a glorious one: blending the signs of Islam (minarets, crescents, etc.) with the fundamental structure of Byzantine religious architecture, Ottoman mosques represented indeed “the most sustained attempt in all of Islamic architecture to reconcile the divergent aims of royal and religious iconography” (Hillenbrand 2000: 165). It is worth noticing that the presence of more than one minaret is by itself a symbol of power, because only sultans were allowed to erect more than one minaret (Hillenbrand 2000: 161–165). Adding signs of an alleged Bulgar and Tatar tradition (the lancet arches, the tulip-shaped windows and decorations, the form of the dome), references to the previous building (the eight minarets) and hints to Central Asian architecture hinting at the kinship with other Turkic peoples (the iwan-shape entrance), the mosque Tatarized the Ottoman model, transforming it into a symbol of the return to the past greatness.

Tatar nationalist reassertion, though, was only one side of the coin: it is worth noticing that in those same years (1995–2005), and by the same presidential decree, also the Annunciation Cathedral of Kazan’s Kremlin underwent restoration works (although the original bell tower, which would have dominated Kazan’s skyline, was never rebuilt): the latter decision was strongly opposed by radical Tatar nationalists, who maintained that the Cathedral itself had to be rebuilt as a mosque[2]. The reaffirmation of Tatar identity, in Šajmiev’s nation-building, was always balanced by equivalent concessions to the Russian constituency which were part and parcel of the “Tatarstan model”, in which ethnic self-affirmation was articulated within the framework of a civic nationalism underlining the multiethnic and multiconfessional character of the republic and claiming at the same time the cultural heritage of all its ethnic and religious components (Khakimov 2004–2005; Davis, Hammond, and Nizamova 2000): as Šajmiev himself said to the State Council in February 1996, “we are building a polyethnic, polycultural community, where the priority is citizenship, and not ethnic membership” (quoted in Khakimov 2004–2005: 46). If one looks at the mosque in the architectural context of the whole Kremlin, one cannot help noticing how its volume gives balance to the entire complex, allowing the citadel to become the architectural embodiment of Šajmiev’s national vision for modern Tatarstan, based on the balance between the two main cultures and religions of the country[3].

This idea of peaceful coexistence does not fully correspond to historical truth, though, for the conquest of Kazan’ in 1552 had meant not only the end of the khanate, but also the beginning of “a systematic policy of colonization” by Muscovy (Bennigsen Broxup 1996: 76), with Tatars expelled from the urban centre and the Muslim land aristocracy dispossessed, the destruction of mosques and forced conversions and deportations that ended up only under Catherine II’s rule. Šajmiev’s interpretation was propagated also by the official publication devoted to the city’s jubilee of 2005, which describes Kazan’ as “the cradle of Tatar culture, the place where East and West meet, the heart of Eurasia […] a melting pot” (VV.AA. 2005). There is however a certain ambivalence in this, for, as Rashad Amirkhanov put it, “Tatarstan is a multiethnic republic, but it is also […] the homeland of the Tatar nation” (Amirkhanov 1998: 46): Šajmiev’s civic nationalism does not renege an ethnic core which sees as its task that of developing “Tatar nations’ renaissance” (Amirkhanov 1998: 46) not only for its own citizens, but also for the Tatar diaspora (Graney 2001: 34–35), which explains the drive to establish Kazan’ also as the capital for all Tatars (Faller 2002: 85). The emphasis on tolerance, however, was also an indirect way to distance the official Tatar version of Islam, advertised as “Euroislam” (Khakimov 2004), from more radical ones. Although both Šajmiev and Tatar civil society have always been extremely critical of the federal policy in Chechnya, they have also been very careful in making clear that, in the word of Indus Tagirov, then head of the Executive Committee of the World Congress of Tatars, they “well understand the experience of Chechnya and […] do not want to follow that way” (quoted in Davis, Hammond, and Nizamova 2000). From the religious point of view, the mosque gave Kazan’ the possibility to propose itself as the main religious centre for all Muslims from Russia, another ambition actively pursued by Šajmiev, who sponsored the First Unifying Congress of Muslims in Kazan’ and favoured the establishment in the city of the sole Islamic University in the Russian Federation. Last but not least, it proved a way for Šajmiev to leave his own architectural mark on the city: at the official beginning of the construction works on 21 February, 1996, Šajmiev himself laid the first stone of the mosque and had his Presidential Decree carved in the memorial site next to it. The mosque was officially opened on June 24, 2005, during the celebrations of Kazan’s Millennium Jubilee.

3.2. The Millennium Jubilee

Promoted by the republican élite to celebrate the alleged 1000^th year from the foundation of Kazan’, the Millennium Jubilee was another example of historical invention aimed at celebrating lavishly the Tatar cultural heritage[4], duly responding to Moscow’s 850-Years Jubilee by asserting the more ancient pedigree of Tatarstan’s capital. The Millennium Jubilee, besides a whole series of cultural and political events aimed at positioning Tatarstan as a bridge between the East and the West and Kazan’ itself as one of the capitals of the Muslim world, was also the occasion for a second huge architectural restructuring of the city: its most notable results were the opening of an underground, the construction of the Millennium Bridge and numberless restoration works of public spaces and buildings. Last but not least, it crowned Šajmiev as the national leader (Graney 2007: 25). However, the political background of it was quite different from that of the early 1990s. The coming to power of Vladimir Putin and the subsequent effort to re-establish the “power vertical” in the country had stopped the process of loosing of the federal ties and started a reverse process of re-centralization (Graney 2001: 36–37; Ponarin 2008: 269). In June 2000 the Federal Constitutional Court had declared illegal and unconstitutional Tatarstan’s claim of being sovereign; however, dismantling Tatarstan’s large autonomy was no easy task, for the republican government had gained control of many state spheres (Graney 2001: 33); the Šajmiev leadership, which in the course of the 1990s had managed to neutralize its internal opposition, tried to defend its prerogatives (Ponarin 2008: 268–272; Graney 2001: 38–39). As a result, the loss in sovereignty was ‘paid for’ by generous federal contributions to huge cultural events such as the 2005 Millennium Jubilee and the 2013 World University Games, besides some relatively smaller events (Graney 2007: 24). All this inflow of money gave the republican leadership the possibility to invest in large construction and reconstruction schemes that boosted the second wave of the reshaping of Kazan’s urban landscape; in this case the Tatarization drive was even more evident, which can be explained by Šaimiev’s need to make up for the loss in actual statehood vis-à-vis the federal centre with a multiplication of the paraphernalia of statehood.

3.3. The policy of memory: monuments and toponomastic

Beyond the Kul-Šarif case and the restoration of old mosques, the Tatarizing course in the reshaping of the city has taken different forms. The most obvious one has been the dissemination of monuments and memorials specifically related to Tatar history and culture. Тhе first wave of the erection of such monuments took place in the 1990s. After the transformation of the Kazan’ section of the Central Lenin Museum into a National Cultural Centre in 1992, the new Sultan-Galiev Square was embellished in 1996 with a 40-metre column topped by a statue of Horriyat (‘freedom’), a mythical bird-like woman from Tatar mythology[5]. In 1995 a small pantheon in memory of the Tatar heroes of World War II was established in the area behind the monument to Musa Džalil in 1^st May Square, while in 1999, next to the Painters’ Union House, a statue was erected to the Tatar artist Baki Urmanče. To be sure, all these monuments were partly ‘balanced’ by the statue of Šaljapin in Bauman Street and some other memorials related to World War II lacking any ‘ethnic’ characterization. But it was with the second wave, in the 2000s, that the establishment of new monuments reached a peak. The bust to Lev Gumilëv (2005) is probably the most significant one from the ideological point of view, for he was not only a Eurasianist intellectual who had a great role in re-evaluating the Tatar heritage in Russian culture, but was of mixed Russian and Tatar origin as well, thus embodying the bicultural model promoted by Šajmiev and Khakimov. Further highlighting this double heritage, the bust stands at the crossroads between Tukaj Square and Peterburgskaja Street and looks towards the pedestrian Bauman Street, as if overlooking it. Another significant example of this dual character is the monument to the constructors of the Kazan’ Kremlin, which represents two male figures distinctly identifiable as a Muslim (Tatar) and a Russian, the former standing and supportively laying his hand on the shoulder of the latter, who is sitting and showing the project of the Spasskaja Tower. This position allegedly represents the temporal sequence of the two cultural layers of the complex and the reciprocal understanding between Russians and Tatars (Zabirov, Daiševa 2007). However, the fact that one is standing and the other one is sitting is ambivalent as to which of the two is in a position of pre-eminence. The Millennium Park, opened for the 2005 Jubilee, is all punctuated with references to Tatar mythology’s drake Zilant, which is Kazan’s symbol; it is also home to a statue to Kul Gali, one of the greatest Bulgar poets of the XII-XIII centuries, who perished during the Mongol invasion (thus presenting the Tatars as victims of the Mongol invasion as much as the Russians). A monument to the Tatar composer Salich Sajdašev was erected in front of the Pedagogical University of Humanities in 2005; as a counterpart to the imperial memorial to the fallen for the conquest of Kazan’ in 1552, two memorials were erected for the defenders of the Kazan’ Khanate in the Tatar cemetery and in a corner of Gor’kij Park. In this second wave of Tatarization of the urban landscape, the ‘tribute’ due to the Russian heritage was not neglected, either: in 2003 the monument to Gavriil Deržavin was restored and in 2004 a statue to the physicist E. Zavojskij was set up next to Kazan’ University’s Faculty of Physics.

Another, simpler form of this process of Tatarization has been the change of the city’s toponomastic. One of the central squares, Junusovskaja Square (formerly Kujbyšev Square), was renamed after the national poet Gabdulla Tukaj in 1997; a new square built in the 1980s was named after Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev, the Tatar nationalist Communist repressed in the 1930s; Revolution Square was renamed after the writer and scholar Naki Isanbet; Sacco and Vanzetti Street was renamed after the composer and pianist Rustem Jachin, author of the national anthem of Tatarstan, and so on. Concessions were made also to a Russification of Soviet toponomastic: for example, Sverdlov Street was renamed Peterburgskaja. A look at the changes in the city’s toponomastic since 2005 allows us to identify a general pattern[6]: out of 38 streets (most of them bearing a Soviet name), 20 have been Tatarized, while the rest bear names which are related to Russian culture or personalities, or in more rare cases ‘neutral’ ones. Again, pre-eminence to the assertion of Tatarness, but without neglecting the Russian element.

Still another aspect of this Tatarization, probably the most visible one, was the self-Orientalization of public and private architecture, where motifs and solutions taken from allegedly Oriental architectural styles and Tatar language writings and signs have the function of othering the urban landscape, so that city-dwellers and visitors can perceive Kazan’s difference from the other cities of Russia. This trend has had as its counterpart the destruction of a significant part of the old buildings in Kazan’s centre, many of which were Russian in style (Hughes 2008: 113). The most evident outcome is the new concert-hall named after Salich Sajdašev, with its windows in the shape of pointed arches that remind Persian and Central Asian architecture. The underground proved another site for the assertion of the Tatar cultural heritage: the most central station was entitled to Gabdulla Tukaj, and its interiors decorated with Oriental-style mosaics of pictures related to his fairy-tales. This process of architectural self-Orientalization, though, has also taken place in the field of private architecture, wherein it is more difficult to assess the extent to which this is the result of a top-down policy: it is quite likely, though, that architects and clients are simply following the general trend.

4. Conclusion

On the whole, in the light of Hobsbawm’s concept of invention of traditions, the whole process of Tatarization of Kazan’s urban landscape provide a typical example of the first two types of invented traditions, namely those whose purpose is “establishing or legitimizing institutions” (in this case, the Republic of Tatarstan as the historical heir of the Kazan Khanate and of the Bulgar Tatars, see Graney 2001: 35) and those whose purpose is the “inculcation of beliefs, value system and conventions of behaviour” (Hobsbawm 1983: 9) (a form of civic Tatar nationalism, which sees Islam as part of its heritage).

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