Кeмнeң aрбaсынa утырсaң, шуның җырын җырлaрсың – Whose cart you sit on, the song of that person you will sing

For a full-fledged existence in society, the Tatar language should be present in all spheres of the Tatar society life – from the family to the institute, from folklore festivals to literary translations of new fiction from the languages of the world into the Tatar language, in the state document management, in science, art, starting from kindergarten and at every step. All other palliative forms of existence are simply imitation.

Yes, all other models of existence do not work. 

Either the national language occupies a dominant position, or it is decorative. 

For the life of me, I cannot imagine any other perspective for a decorative language other than a dignified, majestic, pathetic dying. And it is precisely this role – the applied method of communication – in the society of the Republic of Tatarstan for the native language is being strengthened today. Already the young Tatar oppositionists reject the path proposed by the Tatar national democrats, already the followers of Navalny in the Republic of Tatarstan (who, by the way, suffered from repression by the authorities) call Rafis Kashapov a nationalist, already the starting point of democracy becomes the way of life of the Moscow youth parties (only without Putin, cops and the Special military operation) for fashionable Tatar bloggers… And they see the Tatar national interests not in the preservation of the national and cultural identity that have been created by the people over the centuries, but in the fair distribution of material wealth in the republic.

– And the faith of our ancestors!

– Well, let everyone have faith as he likes, but all this is the last century, now few people are interested in all this.

– And the language?

– Ugh, the Tatar language is a village one! It smells like a cowshed and dung! No, no, no, come on, we are going in another direction!

– But the Tatar language, the soul of our nation, will die away with such an attitude!

– Well, we will create conditions for him to die with dignity, and then we will arrange a magnificent funeral!

— Refusal of national identity is a path to a dead end! Hundreds of countries are refusing to communicate with Russia today, economic sanctions have been imposed on it, and yet we are striving to get there?

— Not everything is so unequivocally, and the Tatar language will not save anyone from this. We want to live in the new Russia, our future is there! We should study the Russian language!

Or maybe they are right, the followers of Navalny-democrats and Moscowphiles bloggers? Maybe we should focus on building an economically powerful cosmopolitan Tatarstan as part of a new democratic Russia? Well, then we should abandon the Tatar name and the Tatar mentality altogether. Then it turns out, as in the notorious American proverb, only turned inside out, “If someone does not walk like a duck, does not quack like a duck, and does not look like a duck, then most likely it is not a duck at all!” And Tatarstan without language, culture, history, without its traditions is not Tatarstan at all? Is this already something different?

That is why I have become so confident: either the Tatar is the state language, mandatory for use, so that no one anywhere dares to turn up their nose and talk about “rusticity”, backwardness and uselessness or prepare for its honorable death and send-off into oblivion.

In official Moscow there are no naive simpletons; they understand very well the importance of the language component in ideological indoctrination there. The proof of this is the example of the occupied territories of Ukraine. First of all, the occupiers try to transfer everything into the Russian way: the language of education, schools, textbooks, teachers, the media. They urgently took on the schoolchildren – before the clay of the children’s consciousness hardens, they quickly mold them into “Russians” in every possible way. You cannot fool the Moscow imperials with chaff, they know it for sure: there are no halfway official languages and history and culture! Therefore, learn, memorize, and accept everything Russian! Otherwise, we will bend you into a ram’s horn, put you on your knees, and you will sing the Russian anthem and Vologda ditties to the Russian accordion, spitting out your own teeth.

Maybe it is time to understand this?