In recent years, the Muslim community of Nizhny Novgorod, numbering (according to 2006 data) more than 150 thousand people, has become one of the important centers of cultural and religious activity of the Russian Ummah, i.e., the Muslim community of Russia. There are three mosques in the city: Sobornaya, "Tauba" and on Izhevsk Street, as well as the madrasah "Makhinur" (Persian. Light of the Moon), which coordinates the activities of many religious education institutions, trains mosque imams and teachers of the basics of Islam. The madrasah library has 20 thousand books, including reprint editions of the XIX - XX centuries, in Tatar, Arabic and Persian.

The Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Nizhny Novgorod Region (DUMNO) and the Regional National and Cultural Autonomy of Tatars of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, which manages the activities of the community, established the Nizhny Novgorod Islamic Institute named after Kh. Faizkhanov and the Nizhny Novgorod Center for Muslim Culture in 2005. Kh. Faizkhanov Research Institute (planned as a university) It is already functioning as a research center, organizing conferences and participating in educational projects, including publishing Muslim literature and periodicals. An important, if not decisive, role is played by the Nizhny Novgorod publishing house "Medina", officially registered in 2007, but actually existing since 2004. The diversity and scope of its activities deserve the closest attention of religious scholars, especially Islamic scholars. It has gained a large scale in recent years, which was facilitated, in particular, by the creation of centralized financial structures that aim to eliminate the dependence of Muslim organizations on dubious sources and, in the words of the rector of the Research Institute named after Kh. Mukhetdinova, "from the flow of Ummah money into "private pockets", as often happens with Arab and Turkish money."

In 2006, the Council of Muftis of Russia, the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia, the International Islamic Commission and the Coordination Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus, with the assistance of the Russian Presidential Administration and the Government of the Russian Federation, established the Fund for Support of Islamic Culture, Science and Education. Its grants were used only in 2007 by many Islamic religious research and publishing centers (including Medina), as well as educational institutions in Kazan, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Ufa and the North Caucasus. At the same time, in 2006, the Sh. Marjani Foundation for Support and Development of Scientific and Cultural Programs was established with the participation of Muslim businessmen from Russia and Central Asia. In 2007, the charitable Foundation named after Imam Abu Hanifa (who lived in the seventh century), the founder of one of the four Sunni madhhabs-Hanafism - was formed mainly by business structures in Nizhny Novgorod. This fund, even more than the previous two, focused on financing the activities of the Medina publishing house. Almost all of his publications are marked by this foundation, as well as-

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at least one of the two previously mentioned ones - DUMNO and the Research Institute named after Kh. Faizkhanov.

Medina specializes in publishing literature on Islamic theology, studies of the history and culture of the Turkic peoples of Russia, inter-civilizational and interethnic dialogue, as well as publishing special printed publications in Russian and Tatar. It can be said that the publishing house started its activity in 2000-2004 by publishing the Zhihan and Nur al-Ilm newspapers, as well as the Atfal, Maghrifat, and Ihsan DUMNO bulletins. Since 2004, DUMNO has been publishing a monthly newspaper, Medina al-Islam, which has now become a weekly. Held in Moscow on November 1, 2007. At the Third All-Russian Muslim Forum, D. V. Mukhetdinov, director of the Medina Publishing House and editor-in-chief of the newspaper, promised to turn it into a daily newspaper. Now the newspaper is published on 20 pages, regularly publishing articles about the situation of the Russian Ummah, its difficulties and achievements, the situation in the Muslim regions of Russia and the Muslim republics of the CIS, the life of Muslims abroad, the relationship of Islam with other faiths in Russia, primarily with Orthodoxy, domestic and international problems directly related to Muslims, Muslim holidays, customs, works of art. Almost every issue contains materials on the history of Islam in Russia, stories about prominent Muslim figures, politicians, writers, and artists. Interviews with political and religious figures in Russia, conversations on topics of interest to Muslims, excerpts from sacred texts for Muslims and works of Muslim theologians are regularly published.

Along with the newspaper, the publishing house began to publish other periodicals, in particular the encyclopedia "Islam in Nizhny Novgorod region", the magazine " Minaret "(officially - "Russian journal of Islamic doctrine"), the annual theological and scientific and cultural almanac "Mawlid an-Nabiy" ("Birth of the Prophet"), the annual collection "Ramazanov's Books". readings" (based on the materials of a scientific and theological seminar held in Nizhny Novgorod during the holy month of Ramadan), the literary and philosophical magazine "Chetki" (the idea of which was expressed by Leo Tolstoy, who planned, but did not implement the publication with this name and with the task of bringing different cultures closer together). It also publishes collections of materials from various scientific and practical conferences and forums, often held under the auspices of DUMNO, as well as a quarterly scientific almanac "Islam in the Modern World", co-chaired by the Chairman of DUMNO, Chief Imam-khatib of the Nizhny Novgorod Cathedral Mosque Umar-hazrat Idrissov and the Dean of the Faculty of International Relations of Nizhny Novgorod State University named after N. A. I. Lobachevsky, professor O. A. Kolobov. The almanac regularly covers the most acute problems of interethnic and interfaith relations, topical issues of the development of the Muslim Ummah in Russia and the world Islamic community, as well as their reaction to globalization, the introduction of the latest technologies and other challenges of our time.

As the head of the information department of DUMNO A. Davlyatchina notes, the totality of all the listed publications, which form the basis of the Medina publishing house's products, " represents a completely new phenomenon in the revival of Islam in Russia and has no analogues in the scale of the Muslim Ummah of our country." This becomes especially clear if you look at the book production of "Medina", which has published over 100 books, textbooks and periodicals over the past two years. Some of them were presented at the collective stand "Islamic Book in Russia", which was first presented at the International Book Fair in Moscow (September 2007) and at the Third All-Russian Muslim Forum in Moscow (November 2007).

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I would like to mention first of all " Islam in the Nizhny Novgorod region. Encyclopedia " (Comp. and ed. by D. V. Mukhetdinov. 2007. 210 p), which is the 1st issue of the series "Islam in the Russian Federation". This is part of a large project that is preparing the following issues: "Islam in Moscow and the Moscow region", "Islam in St. Petersburg", "Islam in Kasimov", "Islam in Samara", "Islam in the Central part of Russia". This takes into account the experience of previous editions of the encyclopedic dictionaries "Islam on the territory of the former Russian Empire" (issues 1-4, Moscow, 1998-2003) and "Islam in the European East" (Kazan, 2004). As for the first issue of the series, it contains both articles related to regional forms of Islam in the Nizhny Novgorod region, and more general information about movements, terms and figures of Islam in Russia and abroad, about mosques, madrassas, Muslim press bodies, historical monuments, institutions of Muslim culture, and Islamic scholars and Russian cultural figures who showed an interest in Islam (for example, N. A. Dobrolyubov).

A prominent place among the publications of the Medina publishing house is occupied by the collection " Sufism as a socio-cultural phenomenon in the Russian Ummah. Proceedings of the All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference (Kazan, November 21, 2006) "(Ed. and comp. by I. K. Zagidullin, 2007, 268 p.). The conference was organized by the Russian Islamic University (RIU) and is devoted to the analysis of various aspects of the historical, spiritual and social existence of Sufism. In addition to articles on the dogma of Sufism, Tatar Sufi literature, its poetics and methods of study, the collection publishes research on the philosophical and aesthetic aspects of Sufism, its socio-cultural role and influence among the Tatars and peoples of the North Caucasus. Their authors are teachers and postgraduates from the Universities of Astrakhan, Kazan and Moscow, as well as the editor-in-chief of the Minaret magazine R. B. Batrov (imam-khatib of the Yaroslavl Cathedral mosque).

Some of the collection's materials are published in the Tatar language (mainly devoted to Sufi literature and philological aspects of Sufism). Among the articles in Russian, the works of the Chairman of the Council for Religious Affairs under the Government of Tatarstan R. Nabiev "Sufism and the spiritual space of the Russian Federation" (a brief history of Sufism in Russia), D. Mukhetdinov "Traditions of Sufism in Nizhny Novgorod region" and Prof. Kazan branch of the Russian Academy of Justice A. Khabutdinov "Sufism among Tatars as a social institution". Very interesting and very relevant is the article of the RSUH teacher G. Khizrieva "Vird fraternities in the North-Eastern Caucasus", which is a small (22 s), but solidly based work, based mainly on the author's field research in Ingushetia and Chechnya and handwritten materials from the archives of Dagestan.

Attention is drawn to the article published in the collection by Kazan historians I. Minullin and A. Minvaleev "Sufism in Soviet Tatarstan: towards a problem statement", in which, using previously unknown archival documents and new methods of processing them, it is convincingly proved that the previous ideas about the complete eradication of Sufism in Tatarstan during the years of Soviet power are incorrect. The authors conclude that even in the 1950s and 1970s, despite severe persecution, at least two Sufi communities remained in Tatarstan.

I would like to mention the article by the rector of RIU I. Zagidullin "Institutes of Sufism in Crimea", as well as the article by representatives of Kazan State University B. Yagudin and N. Mambetova "Philosophy of Sufism and Russian practice of the late XX-early XXI centuries", which (as in the work of I. Nafikov) touches upon such a new phenomenon as the movement of supporters of Said Nursi - in fact, the equivalent of the Sufi brotherhood. It emerged in Turkey in the mid-20th century, from there it penetrated the territory of the Russian Federation in the 1990s, now controls a number of madrasas (there are thousands of them in Turkey) and preaches a decisive rejection of all political activities. Today it is a movement, a race-

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Stretching across Europe, Africa and the Middle East, it has millions of supporters.

Very interesting is the monograph by I. K. Zagidullin and O. N. Senyutkina " Nizhny Novgorod Fair Mosque - a center of communication between Russian and foreign Muslims (XIX-early XX centuries) "(2006, 182 p.)- This is a richly documented and illustrated serious work on the history of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair Mosque, which for more than 100 years was the center of interaction and various relations between Muslims in Russia and abroad. A significant part of the work (pp. 119-175) is occupied by maps, diagrams, plans, a list of the first composition (1804) of the Muslim parish of the fair, information about goods and prices for them, about the ethnicity of merchants (1844, late 1850s), receipts and other documents of Muslim participants of the fair, their lists 1885 and 1890, appeals to the authorities in 1912-1915, minutes of commercial agreements, advertisements, petitions, lists of goods at the 1926 fair. As a kind of epigraph, the book is prefixed with the words of Vladimir Putin: "The Muslims of Russia have always been characterized by such qualities as good neighborliness, religious tolerance, peacefulness and care for their neighbors. The followers of traditional Islam have greatly contributed to the strengthening of civil peace, harmony and interreligious cooperation in our country. This is especially important today, when the state and society face serious challenges in countering any manifestations of national and religious extremism" (p. 3).

In the introduction (p. 2-5), the authors describe the significance of fairs in Nizhny Novgorod in the 19th and 20th centuries for the economic, socio - cultural and social life of Russian Muslims and relate to interfaith dialogue in the Volga Federal District today. In the introduction (pp. 6-9), they provide a detailed analysis of the sources they used-mostly little-known or newly introduced documents from local and all-Russian archives, as well as literature that includes works published in Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Orenburg and Saransk from 1833 to 2004.

The main part of the monograph describes the "prototype of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair mosque" - a mosque at the Makaryevskaya Fair, which continued the traditions of earlier fairs that existed near Nizhny Novgorod, starting in 1366, and served as a regular meeting place for Russian, Tatar, Armenian, Bukhara and Khiva, and later also Indian, Persian, Kazakh and Chinese merchants. In 1627, Tsar Mikhail Romanov made the fair controlled by a local monastery founded in the 15th century. Nizhny Novgorod wonderworker Makarii. The abundance of Muslims who visited the fair and stayed there for a long time led to the creation of a prayer house for adherents of Islam at the beginning of the XVII century, and from the end of the XVIII century - and a mosque. During the reign of Alexander I, a second mosque was built here-for Iranian Shiites.

After the fire of 1816, the Makarievsky auction was moved to Nizhny Novgorod in Kunavinskaya Sloboda (now Kanavinsky district), where trade resumed the following year. The Nizhny Novgorod Fair became the main" market place " of the empire, where representatives of 50 peoples of Eurasia met since the 1830s. Moreover, Asian trade (i.e., the import of Asian goods) in Russia was concentrated here by 90% and exceeded European trade by 1.5-3 times, while in Russia as a whole, the volume of Asian trade in the XIX century was less than Western European by 6 - 8 times (p.40). It is not surprising that by the end of the XIX century, up to 200 thousand people (including at least 15 thousand Muslims) from different countries came to the fair, and, as the observer wrote, " Russian Asians... the variety of their types and costumes give the fair a somewhat oriental character " (p. 47, 70). Since the middle of the 19th century, at least 300 Tatar merchants actively participated in it, and the number of Muslims engaged in various jobs besides trade reached 30 thousand people (p. 51, 55). Naturally, a temporary wooden mosque has been operating at the fair since 1817, and a permanent stone mosque since 1822.

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Describing the Nizhny Novgorod Fair in detail as an All-Russian and international trade center, the authors show in detail the place of Muslim merchants in its mechanism, their life during the fair (usually from July 15 to August 15, sometimes until August 25), the structure of their religious life and the role of the fair mosque as the main place of their communication, interaction, and exchange of opinions It is extremely informative, replete with little-known information from the archives, the section about the imams of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair Mosque, who not only performed divine services, but also resolved disputes between merchants, drew up various legal documents at the request of merchants, and performed the duties of Sharia judges. Sometimes the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly (OMDS), the highest governing body of Muslims in Russia, sent akhuns (Persian, akhund - "mentor") from Kazan, Simbirsk and other provinces to Nizhny Novgorod, and they often changed (up to 4 people a year). For a long time, Muslims who lived in the city or came here to earn money were relatively few in number, for this reason they could not form an independent community and, in order to be able to perform their religious duties, "became members of a Muslim fair parish."

Thus, the Nizhny Novgorod fair Mosque objectively served as a link between the Muslims of the Volga region, the center of consolidation of their local community, and especially Muslim entrepreneurs from Moscow and Kasimov to Kazan and Siberia, who since 1847 had been drawing up a public "verdict" with the desire to appoint one or another person to the post of imam of the mosque. Over time, the social activity of the Muslim elite inevitably had to take on a political character, which happened at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. The monograph contains portraits of 33 public and political figures of Russian Muslims of the early 20th century who visited the Nizhny Novgorod Fair Mosque or had some relation to it. Among them are such famous jadids (Muslim liberals-renovationists) as the famous educator, reformer and publicist Ismail bey Gasprinsky( Gaspraly), the future ideologist of pan-Turkism Yusuf Akchurin( Akchura-oglu), the Azerbaijani politician Ali-Mardan Topchibashev, the famous philosopher Musa Jarulla Bigiyev, the outstanding Tatar thinker, historian and theologian Shihabaddin Marjani, undisputed leader of the Volga region Muslims in the early 20th century. Sadri Maksudi, a classic of Tatar literature Gayaz Iskhaki and many others.

Noting the strong politicization of the top of the parish of the fair mosque by 1905, the authors emphasize the importance of public initiatives taken at that time by the leaders of this top, for example, the founding congress of the All-Russian Muslim Party " Ittifaq al-Muslimin "("Union of Muslims"), whose delegates in the summer of 1905, in addition to the famous meeting on the steamer " Gustav Struve "(after refusal to provide them with premises in the city), they also gathered at the fair (where they decided to meet in the future), as M. Bigiev, a participant of this congress, wrote in his book in 1917. In August 1906, the 3rd All-Russian Muslim Congress was held in Nizhny Novgorod, where participants took advantage of the fair's work at that time and gathered in the fairground mosque. In 1907 and 1908, 30 to 40 activists of the Jadid movement also met in Nizhny Novgorod on the days of fairs, but due to the small number of participants in these meetings, they were not recognized by the 4th and 5th congresses, as planned. Nevertheless, since September 1906, the "Muslim Charity Society in the Nizhny Novgorod Fair" has been operating here, established by local entrepreneurs, as well as merchants from Kazan, Kasimov and Petropavlovsk. But it was banned by the tsarist authorities in 1910 under the pretext of its supposedly "religious" nature, despite its success in organizing the education of co-religionists and providing them with material assistance.

In 1911, the "Committee for the construction or repair of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair Mosque"was elected. The dilapidated building became unsuitable for worship. However

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The composition of the Committee was not confirmed for a long time, because 6 of its 16 members were suspected of involvement in "revolutionary propaganda". After many delays and a series of permits, in 1915 the construction of a new mosque in Kunavino was banned "on the occasion of wartime", especially since in March 1915 the mosque "on the mountain" was opened (i.e. in the main, upper, part of the city - on the right bank of the Volga). As for the old parish in the Zarechnaya part, there the functions of the mosque were transferred to the prayer house of the former imam M. F. Kh. Sokolov, transferred in 1931 under the "Tatar detochag" (nursery). All attempts made before (in particular, in 1926) to build a new building of the fair mosque with the help of merchants from Iran, China and Turkey were unsuccessful, largely due to the negative attitude of the new authorities to the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, which was finally closed in 1930 due to its inability to "fit into state planning" (p. 104).

The history of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair Mosque, which has been the center of life of the city's Muslim community for more than 100 years , is part of the history of the Muslim Ummah of Russia, especially since " the fair was a meeting place for trade and financial flows, and the mosque... it served as a point of connecting the spiritual interests of representatives of various components of the Islamic world" (p. 110). The authors of the monograph were able to show quite clearly the multidimensional role of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair Mosque in the formation of the urban community of believers (mahalla), in the development of commercial cooperation between Russia and the East, and in the constant increase in the share of Muslims, especially Tatars, in the international and domestic trade of the Russian Empire since the first quarter of the XIX century. Having become an important spiritual center of the commercial and industrial elite of Russian Muslims in the 19th century, the mosque objectively contributed to the formation of the socio-cultural self-identification of this elite and its awareness of the commonality of its interests during meetings, communication and discussions with both compatriots and Muslims of other countries. It was also important that the mosque operated in the specific conditions of the international fair, where not only was there an acquaintance with foreign co-religionists, but also an "interfaith dialogue of representatives of different civilizations" (p.112). This has accelerated both the politicization of the Russian Ummah and its consolidation on a non-genealogical basis.

Undoubtedly, the largest study published in recent years by Nizhny Novgorod Orientalists was the monograph of Prof. N. A. Dobrolyubov Nizhny Novgorod State Linguistic University, specialist in the history of civilizations, Turkology, Russian history and local lore, DUMNO expert on scientific issues, winner of many prizes, including the N. A. Ostrovsky Prize "For a significant contribution to the national and spiritual development of the Tatars of the Nizhny Novgorod region", Senyutkina, " Turkism as a historical phenomenon (based on the materials of the History of the Russian Empire in 1905-1916) "(2007, 520 p.). She has written more than 100 published works, including monographs on the 1st and 3rd All-Russian Muslim Congresses held in 1905-1906 in Nizhny Novgorod, chapters and sections of collective monographs devoted to the history of Muslims in Nizhny Novgorod region. "Studying the life of Muslim Tatars in the Nizhny Novgorod Volga region," writes Umar - Hazrat Idrissov, chairman of the Duma of the Russian Federation, in the preface to the monograph, "O. N. Senyutkina logically came to the realization of the need to understand the participation of Muslim Tatars in the political life of Russian society in Nizhny Novgorod" (p.4).

O. N. Senyutkina's monograph has absorbed all the experience of her previous studies and at the same time has become a new word in the study of an important period in the history of Russian Islam and the Turkic-speaking population of Russia, the phenomenon of political Turkism itself, its internal and external relations, its significance in the life of Russia and especially its Muslim community. The work is also interesting from a theoretical and methodological point of view, since the author puts forward his own interpretation of Turkism as a polis-

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mantic manifestations of ethnic consciousness, which has socio-cultural, political-ideological, civilizational-historical aspects. O. N. Senyutkina places special emphasis on the diversity of the civilizational approach to the analyzed material, while not excluding other approaches, especially SEI (socio-natural history), as well as synthesizing elements of the concepts of M. Weber, A. Toynbee, N. Ya. Danilevsky and others. The author proceeds from his own (expressed back in 1997 in the book "History of Civilizations") idea of civilization and further extends it to "value orientations of the Muslim part of Russian civilization". It seems that this concept, among others, has a right to exist, especially since the author avoids extremes in his formulations, very carefully polemizing even with those with whom he does not agree, and trying to give an objective description of his predecessors, from B. S. Erasov and V. A. Tishkov to E. S. Kulpin, etc. M. Iskhakova.

The source database of O. N. Senyutkina's work is beyond praise, including legislative texts, materials from various departments (especially the police), documents from the central archives of the Russian Federation, as well as from Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara and Ulyanovsk regions, some of the All-Russian Muslim Congresses and forums, and the early 20th-century press in Russian, Tatar and other Turkic languages, works of Muslim historians, writers, theologians and politicians of Russia of the same time, giving a fairly vivid idea of the views, beliefs, worldview and philosophy of Russian adherents of Islam at the junction of the XIX-XX centuries. Special attention is paid to the very representative journalism of A. Bayazitov, I. Gasprinsky, A. Agayev (Aga-oglu), Yu. Akchurin, G. Gaziz (Gubaidullin), G. Iskhaki, S. Maksudi, F. Tuktarov. An important source is the writings and memoirs of prominent figures of the Turkic world at the beginning of the last century-A. Validov (Z. V. Togan), G. Barudi, M. Kemal (Ataturk), M. Kh.Sultan-Galiyev, R. Fakhretdin and lesser-known ones.

The historiography used by the author is extremely rich, the analysis of which takes up most of the introduction (pp. 52 - 113). O. N. Senyutkina was faced with a difficult task to take into account the specifics of Russian pre-revolutionary, Soviet and post-Soviet literature, with all its features of content and worldview. This task was complicated by the need to give an objective assessment of the works created by Muslim authors before 1917, after the revolution, and after 1991. As the author writes, "it is impossible not to take into account the fact that there are traditions of covering history among followers of certain schools in certain regions" (pp. 52-53). This problem has always existed, but it escalated somewhat unexpectedly after 1991, when the coverage of literally all issues of the past and present existence of the Turkic peoples began to be influenced by parochial, regionalist, particularist and simply nationalistic sentiments characteristic of both Muslims and non-Muslims. In addition, they are covered and interpreted differently by foreign authors.

In general, we can agree with O. N. Senyutkina's assessment. Although it seems to me that the perception of all Russian literature on the history of the Turks, created in the Soviet era, as condemning Turkism, or suppressing it, is somewhat excessive. This fully applies to the main block of this literature. However, what about the works on Turkic history and philology of V. V. Barthold mentioned in the monograph, as well as V. A. Gordlevsky, A. E. Krymsky, D. E. Yeremeyev and other scientists, who, of course, were far from praising Turkism for quite understandable political and ideological reasons, still sought to give an objective picture of the Turkic world and the life of the Turks, paying attention to ethno-cultural and ethno-linguistic phenomena, intercivilizational contacts, processes of Turkization, Islamization and assimilation, during which, in fact, modern Turkic-speaking peoples were formed?

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Of course, these works did not concern the activities of ideologists and leaders of political Turkism in 1917-1991, who were almost all in exile and were considered political opponents of our state, which is confirmed by the recently revealed connections of some of them with the intelligence services of Great Britain, Germany, Poland, France and Japan. 1 O. N. Senyutkina writes about this (p. 108-110), criticizing R. B. Gainetdinov, but does not mention that he is by no means the only supporter of the apology of Turkic emigrants in our literature. The author very seriously and thoroughly (at the same time delicately and balanced) examines such complex issues as the" imperial syndrome "and" nationalization of history "in the works of many modern Turkologists, the correlation of the concepts of "Turkism" and Jadidism, "Turkism" and "Islamism", the regularity of the emergence of the phenomenon of Turkism and the idea of"Kazan centrism", themes of " vaisovism "(the sect of the "Vaisov Regiment of God"), the relationship of Russian Turks with Turkey and the Russian authorities in different conditions and at different times.

Paying tribute to the ideas of Eurasianism and the concepts of ethnogenesis in the spirit of L. N. Gumilyov, O. N. Senyutkina seeks to synthesize the achievements of almost all her predecessors-Turkologists. At the same time, it is one of the first in our literature to draw a correct conclusion about the need to "pay attention to the process of assimilation of Russian and Western values by representatives of the Turkic-speaking community, and recognize that without this assimilation there would be no political Turkism" (p.135). In my opinion, this issue deserves a more in-depth approach, especially since some Russian-Muslim authors raise the question of "Euro-Islam", i.e., the assimilation of Western values by the Turks of Russia, bypassing Russia itself.

At the same time, O. N. Senyutkina's interpretation of Turkism as a phenomenon that was formed and underwent a complex evolution in the framework of the development of Islamic civilization, at the early (VII - XIII centuries) stage of which many Turkic peoples, including the Turks themselves, and the modern Tatars, did not exist, deserves high praise and support. For the Eurasian space, the era of the Golden Horde of the XIII - XIV centuries was the time of formation of the majority of Turkic ethnic groups. With its collapse, the political and socio-cultural division of many of them began. However, it is difficult to agree that their " getting used to... the Russian civilization had a certain political conflict, but not a civilizational one", due to the "Mongolian heritage" that united both sides and the coincidence of value orientations (statehood, collectivism, etc.) (p. 143). I think it would be more correct to speak not about coincidence, but about the mutual influence and interaction of Russian and Islamic civilizations in the XIII-XIV centuries. because with all the abundance of borrowing (or semi-borrowing) of concepts ,terms, institutions, customs, elements of architecture, everyday life, clothing, weapons, military system, political orders and structures (by Russia among the Horde and post-Horde people before the XVI century, and by the Turks in Russia after this turn), both sides still retained their face and civilizational identity. This does not contradict the fact that "without non-Orthodox value orientations, Russian civilization will not be able to develop due to the traditional multi-confessional and multi-ethnic nature of the community" (p.151).

A lot of new information and, accordingly, references to previously unknown sources contain sections on the formation of the prerequisites for specifically Russian Turkism (material, cultural, political), the mood of the Turkic-speaking inhabitants of Russia and the actions of their elite in 1900-1905, the first steps of political Turkism and its role in the 1905 revolution, economic, social and other consequences which also tells you something new. Such data about the life of Russians are also interesting-

1 For more information, see: From the History of Russian Emigration. Letters from A.-Z. Validova and M. Chokaeva (1924-1932) / Comp., preface, note by S. M. Iskhakova. Moscow, 1999.

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the death of 400 mullahs conscripted into the army during the Russo-Japanese war (p.215). For the first time, a list of publishers, editors, and even some leading employees of 13 (out of 34) Tatar national publications published in 1905 - 1907 is given (p. 302). Very accurately recording the disunity and inexperience of the Turkic political elite of that time, divided, in addition to regional differences and personal ambitions, also, relatively speaking, into "liberals", "moderates" and "radicals", the author nevertheless believes, unlike most other historians, that the efforts of the elite at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. they were not fruitless, because thanks to them "the myth of Turkism was born" (p. 310). O. N. Senyutkina explains the process of subsequent separation of political Turkism not only by the repressions of the authorities and the flight of a number of leaders abroad, but also by the fact that "initially quite different social strata, different ethnic groups and representatives of very different economic zones of Russia were drawn into it" (p.319).

The author links the changes in the nature of the Turkists ' activities in 1907-1909, their life in exile and the search for opportunities for a political renaissance in 1909-1911 with the growth of commercial and industrial clans of Turkic oil, textile and cotton millionaires, around which ideologists of nationalism began to group. The actions of the Turkists were significantly influenced by two factors - the economic recovery in Russia and the strengthening of pan-Turkic propaganda by the Young Turks who came to power in the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, the years leading up to the First World War were marked by an increase in the persecution of Turkists by the tsarist authorities, who formed special structures to combat their activity and sent provocateurs to their ranks. Since 1910. Court cases on charges of "espionage" are being initiated, and reports from agents about "pro-Turkish associations" in the Caucasus and the Volga region are multiplying. Under these circumstances, the part of the Turkic elite that remained in Russia focused on cultural activities and support for the Muslim faction in the Fourth State Duma. The surge of the Vaisov sectarian movement in 1905-1910. -only evidence of the crisis experienced in Russia by all Turkists - both Jadids and Kadimists (adherents of the old traditions).

A certain revival of Turkism in Russia took place during the Ottoman Empire's wars in Libya and the Balkans in 1911-1913, which was associated with the sympathy of Turkists for the Young Turks who were failing (up to sending volunteers to help them), with campaigns in the press and attempts to rally on a nationalist basis, and in some places on the basis of Socialist-Revolutionary ideas, Muslim youth who studied at Russian universities. Very interesting information (mainly from archives) about the little-known 4th Congress of Muslims of Russia in St. Petersburg (pp. 453-457). The same applies to the data on the reaction of Turkic-speaking Russians to Russia's entry into the First World War and the 5th Congress of Muslims of Russia in December 1914 (pp. 463-475). The section on Turkism in Russia in 1914-1917 also contains a lot of new data on the activities of the Turkic emigration in Germany and Istanbul (pp. 476-482), on its connection with anti - Russian Turkists, as well as on the division (ideological, political, ethno-cultural) in the ranks of the elite and ordinary adherents of Turkism.

The monograph of O. N. Senyutkina is a fundamental, richly documented and taking into account the latest achievements of scientific literature, a deep and interesting study. Without any doubt, it is a new word in Russian Turkology, in the study of the ideological, political and socio-cultural evolution of the Russian Turks in close and inseparable connection with the Russian civilization, with other ethnic groups and ethnocultures of Russia.

An important publication of the Medina publishing house was also the book by D. Yu. Arapov and G. G. Kosach "Islam and Muslims based on the materials of the Eastern Department of the OGPU. 1926" (Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod, 2007. 130 p). Both authors are well known for their work.-

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their works on Islam in Russia. They collected, prepared for publication and commented on 10 top secret documents of the OGPU describing the tactics of the state security agencies of the USSR in relation to Islam and especially the Muslim clergy. In the preface to the book, D. Mukhetdinov and A. Khabutdinov consider the evolution of relations between the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims (TsDUM), established in September 1920 Internal relations of Russia and Kazakhstan with the Soviet authorities up to the turn of the 1930s, while emphasizing the existence of actual (although gradually destroyed) religious autonomy of Muslims at that time, the influence of Ulema (especially G. Bubi and H. Atlasi) on the system of Muslim education and the significance of the congress of Muslim clergy in Ufa in October-November 1926 The event was attended by 437 delegates and 265 guests (pp. 3-11). In their introductory article (pp. 12-36), immediately following the preface, D. Y. Arapov and G. G. Kosach draw attention to the fact that "Russian Islam and its followers were in a more favorable position" in the 1920s. more than the Russian Orthodox Church, and that the desire to use it as a religion of the" oppressed "East" determined the flexible and cautious policy of the ruling party and the authorities created by it... in relation to the Muslim spiritual circles and ordinary followers of this religion."

Generally agreeing with this assessment, I would like to make two observations: 1) the "cautious policy" practically ended in 1926, replaced by harsh pressure, harassment and restrictions, although the skillful tactics of R. Fakhretdin, who headed the Central Duma in 1921-1936, to some extent prolonged the formal cooperation of Muslim clergy with the authorities of the USSR; 2 The flexibility of this policy was very relative, because it did not prevent Mirsaid Sultan-Galiyev and his associates, who advocated for the national and religious rights of Russian Muslims, for respect for their original culture and real (and not declared) autonomy, from being secretly, and since 1923, quite openly, persecuted within the ruling party itself.

The authors of the book emphasize the leading role of the "Islamic question" in the activities of the OGPU's Eastern Department, formed in June 1922, which had three branches, the first of which was responsible for "back-channel affairs" (from Turkey to Japan), the second-for" all work " in Central Asia, the Volga region, the Urals and the Crimea, and the third-for affairs in the In the Caucasus. Based on the fact that "both the tsarist and Soviet plans for Muslim integration were pure utopias" (which, frankly, can be argued, especially since the struggle for integration continues), the authors dwell in detail on the difficult situation in Muslim regions (Basmachism, corruption, cronyism, reliability of "only a few employees of the OGPU bodies") inside Russia, explaining the "restrained course" towards Muslims, especially in the Volga region and the Urals, by saying that "the Soviet leadership needed Islam" and its adherents to create a "new world" and"socialist civilization". In this connection, the authors cite an unknown 1921 draft by S. Brike-Bestuzhev, head of the Eastern Department of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI), on the use of the reactionary idea of the caliphate in the interests of the ECCI "in the name of objectively revolutionary goals of the struggle against the Entente" (p. 18 - 19).

More than half of the introductory article is devoted to the analysis of the situation in the 1920s, which largely determined the appearance of documents placed in the book, which "were not only never published before, but were practically unknown to the scientific community and a wide range of readers" (p.24). The authors focus on three key events of the period described: the World Muslim Congresses in Cairo (May 1926) and in Mecca (June 1926), and the Muslim Congress in Ufa (October - November 1926). They give a political assessment of the significance of these events, as well as - Political portraits of the most prominent participants in these events - Kings Ibn Saud and Hussein Bin Ali al-Hashimi, a prominent revolutionary, diplomat, etc. - are drawn of everything that accompanied or preceded them.-

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vedchik K. Khakimov, an outstanding religious and public figure, theologian, historian and publicist R. Fakhretdin 2. D. Yu. Arapov and G. G. Kosach's assessments of everything that happened then with Muslims inside the USSR, and in the relations of the USSR with the Hijaz, Saudi Arabia, and generally with foreign Islam are quite new, which were not previously found in our literature. At the same time, a mostly negative assessment of both the activities of the Arab communist parties and the policies of the Comintern is preserved, which was previously justified by G. G. Kosach in his well-known monograph of 2001.3 The authors also report some little-known or generally unknown details of the compilation of OGPU documents or the interpretation of the events mentioned in them.

Then there are the texts of eight documents, which are reports, reports, and analytical references devoted to the congress in Ufa, the characteristics of the composition, number, and direction of activities of Muslim clergy in different regions of the USSR, as well as "the offensive of Muslim spirituality and measures to combat it" (mainly in 1925-1926). The ninth document is an interview with R. Fakhretdin, who headed the delegation of Muslims of the USSR at the All-Muslim Congress in Mecca. The last, tenth, document is an extensive one ("based on the materials of special notification and inopressa") report of the Deputy head of the Eastern Department of the OGPU N. L. Vollenberg Head of the Department Agitprop of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) V. G. Knorin. The report summarizes and analyzes all information received by the end of 1926 about the congresses in Mecca and Cairo. All texts are provided with comments, biographical and factual references, references to the literature of recent years and some little-known articles of the 1920s (for example, K. Kazya). Tarjmani, who was a member of the leadership of the Central Duma and described the state of religious organizations of Muslims in the USSR by 1925. in the organ of the Central State Duma "Islam Majallasy"), as well as unpublished materials from Russian archives and the Internet.

D. Y. Arapov and G. G. Kosach describe their work as follows:: "The complex of Chekist documents of 1926, which very clearly and frankly illuminate the strategy and tactics of Soviet state security in relation to" Muslims", is of great importance as a fundamentally important source on the national history of the XX century and Soviet foreign policy " (p.36). We can agree with this, but it is also worth adding that from the content of the documents themselves, and even more from the author's comments, additions and clarifications, you can learn something new about the situation of the Muslim Ummah of the USSR itself at that time, and especially about its elite. In this regard, it is important that the pages of the book in one way or another mention (sometimes characterize) half-forgotten and only selectively extracted in recent years from oblivion names of representatives of this elite-F. A. Aitova, G. Barudi, G. Batalov, M. Ya. Bigiev, Mukhlisa Bubi-Bovinskaya, A.-Z. Validova, G. Gumerova, T. Ilyasov, A. Kariev, Kh. Muslyakheddinova and others.

In general, we can state more than noticeable progress in the work of Nizhny Novgorod Islamic scholars in literally all areas-scientific, teaching, organizational. By combining the efforts of specialists in Islam from Moscow to the Urals, working with religious, cultural and public institutions of Muslims, they managed to achieve significant results. The best evidence of this is the periodicals and book products produced by the Medina publishing house, as well as their active participation in the activities of institutes and centers for the study of Islam in Nizhny Novgorod, All-Russian Muslim forums and foundations.

2 In the book, Fakhretdin is referred to everywhere as Fakhretdinov, in accordance with the way his surname was written in documents of the 1920s.

3 Kosach G. G. Red Flag over the Middle East? Communist Parties of Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon in the 20-30s. Moscow, 2001.

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