Dead Souls

According to the results of the census of 2021, the number of the Tatars in Russia has decreased by 600 thousand people. Historian and ethnologist Damir Iskhakov, in an interview with Radio Azatlyk, said, “Tatars are not reduced in number, they were not counted.”

In the light of such news about the census, the question arises of the correctness of the census procedure and the conscientiousness of the intentions of its organizers. Isn’t such a result a desirable response to the task set for Rosstat? Is not the census used as a tool for the assimilation of the Tatar ethnic group?

On this occasion, the author is “tormented by vague doubts” – whether Rosstat employees are not carrying out something similar to the fraud of the retired official Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov from the Dead Souls poem written by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol? He, in order to acquire land in Kherson province under a preferential procedure, made fraudulent transactions for the purchase of deceased serfs. Or maybe the Government of Tatarstan acts in a similar way, just the other way around. It sells the souls of the Tatars to Moscow. The souls of Tatar men and women who have become dead due to their rejection of the Tatar language, Muslim faith, Tatar customs and traditional way of life. Fantasy? And why should Minnikhanov feel pity, here a wonderful way is turned up: to please Kremlin, and not to disturb anyone from the inner-republican public – after all, people wrote themselves that way during the census. And if even not themselves, then no one can prove anything. The process of becoming non-Tatars is really going on, everyone can see it. More and more Tatars are “discharged” from their native ethnic group, it’s more convenient for them.

The public has already come up with an excuse. Mixed marriages are to blame for everything. The Tatar girls are beautiful, and the guys are thrifty! So Russians aspire to enter into marriages with them. But the author believes that it is wrong to blame the matrimonial procedures for everything! Why are there more Russians and fewer Tatars (Bashkorts, Chuvashs, Maris) from mixed marriages? Please answer, why? And the reason is in the dominant position of Russian culture, in the unconscious choice of the layman when creating a mixed family of a more convenient, strong and profitable identity.

The newlyweds, without saying a word, choose the Russian identity, it offers more opportunities. After all, when creating a family, they first of all think about the material component, and here work, an apartment, a car are the basis of well-being. What language is it easier to draw up documents for the purchase of housing at the moment? It is also more difficult to find work, except for unskilled, purely physical labor, without a good knowledge of the Russian language. And will you take an exam for a car driver license in Tatar? I doubt it.

And such examples are countless! And, as the classics of Marxism wrote, being determines consciousness! Even among Muslims!

In the circumstances of running around bureaucratic instances, if the marriage is mixed, the Russian language will be chosen by default to resolve routine issues. And then, mechanically, all family members will switch to Russian – both in everyday conversations in the kitchen, and in communication with children, neighbors. The native language will be remembered only occasionally, when meeting with fellow countrymen from the village or old people in the city.

In addition, the choice of language for a Tatar is closely related to the “Great Russian” model of success imposed on him by the pro-Russian media and Russian-language propaganda. Very often, the factor of “Russianness”, which is more convenient for moving towards material prosperity, for accessing the “necessary” connections with the authorities, becomes desirable, and a good knowledge of the occupier’s language becomes mandatory.

Therefore, it is necessary to fight with the cause, and not with the effect. It is necessary to make the Tatar version of identity more attractive and profitable. And such plans can be realized only in the independent Tatar state (the Tatar state language, teaching in schools and universities in the Tatar, the same Tatar in the army, police, civil service, book publishing, radio and TV in the Tatar, etc.). Even road signs should be in the Tatar. And how can one not recall the anecdote about the different reading by Russians and Ukrainians of the slogan in the Ukrainian language “Be happy!”

Imagine a situation with all the bureaucratic offices mentioned above, but in conditions where documents are accepted only in the Tatar language. The turn with the common language of communication will go in the opposite direction very soon, the result will not be slow to wait. Then the language itself will struggle with the “mortification of souls”, then the representatives of the non-Tatar nationalities will be recorded as the Tatars due to the increased authority of the Tatar language, as well as the convenience and profitability of knowing it.

And most importantly, the foreign propaganda will no longer be able to fool around, telling the Tatars that they are “Russians, and God is with the Russians!”

Of course, such a result is still far away. So far, there is no sign of stopping the Kremlin-led process of assimilation of the Tatars. And, unfortunately, it brings good results to the colonial authorities: the inhabitants of Kazan, Nizhnekamsk and Bugulma willingly go to fight and die for their Moscow masters, fooled by official propaganda and swaddled in the pernicious habit of respectful obedience to their superiors. The process of transformation of the Tatars in “dead souls” has not yet slowed down. We all need to fight this state of affairs, and you can start right now – right at this very moment of reading the article. What should be done for this? You need to force yourself to wake up and stop being deceived by persuasions like “wait for the right situation”, “someday the empire will collapse”, “the Tatars will still exist and will not disappear”, etc. etc. Rosstat thinks differently, it firmly knows that it is necessary to kill the language, and then self-consciousness. The Tatar identity will disappear – the Tatars themselves will disappear. This has already been repeatedly tested by the colonialists, and there was no case that it did not work!