A peculiar release of the accumulated social energy accumulated as a result of centuries-old interactions of large, strong, long-term coexisting communities-civilizations, was the scope of political Turkism, which made itself felt in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. One of the manifestations of the socio-political movement of Muslims (most of the Turks of Russia were Muslims) was the holding of congresses of all - Russian sounding in 1905-1906. The long-term mutual influences of Islamic, Russian and Western European civilizations were reflected in the specific socio-cultural space of the Russian Empire at a specific time - the time when Russian society plunged into the first revolution in its history.

A striking indicator of the political activity of the Turkic elite of Russia at the beginning of the XX century. These were the three All-Russian Muslim Congresses held in Nizhny Novgorod and St. Petersburg during the First Russian Revolution1. It created the objective prerequisites that allowed the Turkists of Russia to create their own party called the Union of Muslims (Ittifaq al-Muslimin) during the congresses. The creation of the organization was prepared by the efforts of a group of small but extremely active figures of Turkism (correspondence between representatives of the Turkic Russian elite of different regions; meetings; meetings with the Minister of Internal Affairs and zemstvo figures; trips to many cities of Russia; publicistic speeches in the press, etc.).

The analysis of archival documents (they contain program documents of the congresses, materials on the course of their holding, press responses to them, etc.) and published sources (Tretii..., 1906; Topchibashev, 1906) allows us to reconstruct the events related to the holding of the congresses. The initial birth of the Russian Muslim party can be attributed to the summer of 1904. This point of view is expressed among the Turkic nationalists themselves [NART, 1906] and is confirmed by historians [Ibragimov, 1926, p. 140-143; Arsharuni and Gabidullin, 1931, p. 23-24].

The author's research makes it possible to state that in the second half of 1904 - the beginning of 1905, the scattered Turkic nationalists of Russia (mainly of Tatar origin) came to an agreement on unification and on the sequence of their first open steps in the all-Russian political field. A general agreement was not reached for the phase. During the trip of one of the organizers of the congress, a political, public and religious figure G.-R. Ibragimov (1857-1944), "to the Siberian countries", at meetings of Muslims, there were heated debates about whether it should be done.

¹ The historiography of congresses is usually reflected in works on more general topics that are not specifically devoted to All-Russian Muslim Congresses: [Ibragimov, 1926; Arsharuni and Gabidullin, 1931; Davletsin, 1974, 2005; Tagirov, 1999; Fakhrutdinov, 1998; Usmanova, 2005; Khabutdinov, 2001, etc.]. It is based on a paper published in 2005 that specifically examines the history of one of the congresses (Senyutkina, 2005).

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whether to send petitions to the government. Nevertheless, Ibragimov "persuaded the Muslims to send petitions to Mr. Witte, Chairman of the Council of Ministers" [NART, l. 12b.]. The representatives of Kazan considered themselves entitled and able to speak on behalf of the Muslims of all Russia.

The campaign of Muslim petitions to the authorities initiated by Turkists in the country showed that, despite regional differences, the overwhelming majority of petitions did not concern issues of the country's political life at all. Petitions were extremely rare for the introduction of freedom of speech and the press [RGIA, d. 25, l. 94ob.], the organization of "annual congresses of mullahs for the uniform resolution of new issues" [RGIA, d. 25, l. 95]. This last request had a clearly expressed political connotation, since it is well known that the Islamic worldview is essentially traditional, and, as one of the petitions said, "every innovation is an anti-custom" [RGIA, d. 26, l. 9.]. Such circumstances make it possible to believe that the nascent movement of Turkic nationalists trying to speak the language of the world is not traditional. on behalf of "twenty million Russian Muslims", it was initially separated not only from the leadership of the Islamic denomination, but also from the overwhelming majority of believers.

The emerging party (like most other nationalist Russian parties of that time) reflected the political sentiments and social interests of only a small part of the Turkic community (well-known journalists, writers, public figures, lawyers, landowners, large businessmen, some politicized servants of the Islamic cult, etc.), who were unable to express the political views of millions of Russian Muslims. They were also unable to do so because the majority of Muslims in Russia were politically inert and did not have well-understood political interests.

Therefore, let us repeat: the name of the party, "Moslem", which suggests itself and has been in the air since 1904, is seen by the author as a screen for the political ambitions of its initiators and organizers, who did not find a common language with the leaders of Spiritual assemblies at that time and tried to cover up their not only "Islamic" aspirations and goals of activity with it. But the name fully corresponded to the education of the top Russian Turks in the Islamic spirit and the Muslim identity of the majority of the Turkic population of Russia. "Russian Muslims," A. Agayev, an ideologist of Turkism, argued at that time, " are not only a single religious community, but also one ethnic body... they belong to the great Turkic-Tatar race and speak almost one common language..."[Kaspiy, 1.04.1905].

Letters and telegrams were sent to various addresses inviting the most well-known and authoritative people in the Turkic-Muslim community to attend the congress. The imperial decree issued on April 17 (30), 1905, could be perceived by them as a clear concession of the authorities to the flood of petitions, which, of course, encouraged them and forced them to look for new forms and means of pressure on the government in conditions of internal unrest and war with Japan. At the end of May 1905 in Moscow .Chistopol hosted a widely celebrated, crowded and multi-day wedding of the Tatar theologian, public figure M. Bigiev, which gradually turned into another mass meeting of Turkic nationalists. Up to 500 Muslims from different regions of Russia gathered in Chistopol [Nart, l. 13b.]. At the meeting during the wedding, the decision to convene the congress in Nizhny Novgorod, which has already established itself as a center of public life for Russian Muslims, was again confirmed [for more information, see: Senyutkin, 2001]. The resolution adopted at the meeting stated that Russian Muslims need to achieve "popular representation" with universal and equal suffrage, freedom of conscience, religion, speech, press, assembly, and assembly [Seyidzade, 1978, p.75].

The first general meeting of those who arrived in Nizhny Novgorod for the congress took place on August 13, 1905, in the rooms of the Nizhny Novgorod fair hotel "Germany" during

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a banquet organized by the millionaire V. Yaushev. The banquet was attended by 30 people. There is information that speeches were made by Tatar G.-R. Ibragimov and Azerbaijani A.-M. Topchibashev, a well-known public figure by that time.

At this meeting, it was decided to re-apply to the Nizhny Novgorod governor with a request to allow the meeting of the "Tatar public". However, the governor the next day - August 14 - officially refused the applicants, referring to the circumstances of the war with Japan, to the fact that the city is under martial law and that such and such meetings cannot be authorized by the authorities. Then it was decided to hire one of the Volga passenger steamers and, under the guise of a daytime pleasure trip, hold the first congress of the All-Russian Muslim party on it. It should be noted that this decision was forced, poorly thought out, and made hastily. On August 15, 1905, dozens of" delegates " gathered on board the steamer Gustav Struve, which left at 13 o'clock. According to experts, from 120 to 150 people gathered there [Bigiev, 1917; Islam in the European East..., 2004, p. 55; Arsharuni and Gabidullin, 1931, p. 24]. Until 23 hours of the same day, the immediate goals and objectives of the party being born in the Oka expanses were discussed in its salons and cabins. Chairman of the First (Constituent)Congress (Mughtabar Majlis) became I. Gasprinsky, who was actively helped by Yu. Akchurin and A.-M. Topchibashev. S.-G. Dzhanturin served as the secretary. The most active participants were: S.-G. Alkin, G. Apanaev, A. Agayeva, Sh. - A. Syrtlanov, A. Akhtyamov, G.-R. Ibragimov, A. Akhmarov, M. Bigiyev, G. Iskhakov, F. Karimov, M.-Z. Ramiyev, K.-M. Tevkelev, F. Tuktarov, A. Khusainov, G. Khusainov, V. Yaushev.

The first Congress of Russian Muslims opened with a reading of the Koran by Transcaucasian Imam Shakir Sadik Rahmangulu. It became a symbol that united all the delegates of the congress and demonstrated their Muslim identity. I. Gasprinsky, who was elected chairman, gave the first floor to A.-M. Topchibashev. Ali-Mardan Bey delivered a major speech containing an analysis of the political, economic, cultural, national and religious problems of Russian Muslims. He began: "Hey, faithful, hey, brothers, I am so happy today that it is impossible to express it in words, and this day will not be erased from my memory. Undoubtedly, this day will be celebrated annually as a holiday for all Russian Muslims... We are the heirs of the Turks, of the same tribe, of the same roots, of the same religion. The lands of our grandfathers stretched from the Maghreb to Mashriq. Despite the heroism of our grandfathers, today neither in the Caucasus mountains, nor in the gardens of the Crimea, nor in the steppes of Kazan, in our historical homeland, on our own lands, we have no right to talk about our needs. Praise the Almighty... despite the oppression, today in the bosom of clear waters we had the opportunity to open our hearts to each other, see each other, embrace and rejoice. Now I am absolutely sure that if we are not allowed to speak on the water, we will take off, find a place among the stars and repeat this holiday " [Hasanli, 2004.].

Both organizational and substantive issues were considered at the congress. The nascent organization was named "Ittifaq al-Muslimin"("Union of Muslims"). At that time, political parties in Russia did not function legally, and the publication of the Manifesto of October 17, which allowed the creation of political parties in the empire, was only a short time away. But the fate of the party turned out so that it did not gain the status of legal - and remained in an illegal position all the time of its existence.

The draft congress provided for the creation of the Central Committee (in Baku) and 16 regional branches: Caucasian (Baku), Crimean (Simferopol), St. Petersburg and Moscow (St. Petersburg), Lithuanian (Minsk), Lower Volga (Astrakhan), Upper Volga (Kazan), Orenburg (Orenburg), Ufa( Ufa), Turkestan (Tashkent), Si-

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Birsky (Irkutsk), Steppe (Uralsk), Omsk (Omsk), Semipalatinsk (Semipalatinsk), Semirechensky (Alma Ata), Akmola (Petropavlovsk), Transcaspian (Ashgabat) [NART, 772, p.15]. A review of the project shows that Baku, which never became the national center of the Islamic movement, was formally chosen as a center out of respect for the influential editor of the oldest Russian Muslim newspaper "Kaspiy" A.-M. Topchibashev and "the richest Muslim in the country" oil millionaire 3. Tagiyev. After the congress, only one of the regional branches of Ittifak, located in Kazan, opened and did not work for long [TSANO, l. 13].

The resolution of the Congress read as follows: "An assembly of Muslims of all classes from various provinces and regions of the Empire, after discussing the issues raised by modern national life in Russia, as well as issues concerning the specific needs and benefits of Muslims from the point of view of current events, at a congress in Nizhny Novgorod (on the steamer Gustav Struve on the Oka River) on August 15, 1905, found:

1. It is necessary and timely to bring together the Muslims of all regions of Russia on the basis of socio-cultural and political needs and tasks of modern Russian life.

2. In achieving and implementing these goals, the progressive part of Muslims, sharing the ideals of advanced Russian society, acts in the sense of establishing a legal order in the country on the basis of the participation of freely elected people's representatives in legislation and government.

3. Realizing that the achievement of these goals is possible if Muslims enjoy equal rights with the Russian population, the progressive part of Muslims acts by all legal means in the sense of abolishing all exceptions and restrictions imposed on Muslims by current laws, government orders and administrative practice, and fully equalizing Muslims with the population of the Russian state in all rights, political, civil, and religious issues.

4. Muslims direct their activities in accordance with the actual and popular needs and demands of national life, should try to open all kinds of schools that meet the needs of Muslims, to disseminate and popularize the ideological principles of modern life, with the help of books, newspapers and magazines, popular courses, libraries-reading rooms and similar educational institutions.

5. For the successful achievement of all the planned goals, local majlises are formed, which are led by periodic congresses of Muslims. " ²

An analysis of the points of the congress resolution shows that it did not go beyond liberal aspirations and did not put forward specific demands to the government and the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly (OMDS). The phrases used in its text are: "it is necessary to bring Muslims closer together", " the progressive part of Muslims... acts in the sense of establishing... legal order", " progressive part of Muslims... it works in the sense of canceling all of them... restrictions", " Muslims direct their activities in accordance with the actual and potential needs of the people and the demands of national life...", suffer from vagueness; they can be understood differently depending on the reader's moods and beliefs. The lack of clear and unambiguous language in the resolution, which is a consequence of-

² The resolution of the Congress of August 15, 1905 is available in the following archival sources and publications (its text differs somewhat in form-translation, but not in semantic content): [NART, L. 13ob. - 14; GAU, L. 14; Ibragimov, 1926, pp. 147-148; Politicheskaya Zhizn..., 1987, pp. 14-15].

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in terms of how to implement the specific immediate and long-term goals of the organization, ³ suggests a number of considerations.

Apparently, the organizers and ideologists of the event wrapped the essence of the basic theses of the resolution in such streamlined forms as to give them (and, consequently, the congress itself) the character of only a cultural and religious meeting of the Muslim public that does not claim to be a political party. This showed their clear unwillingness to conflict with the state authorities. The absence in the text of the resolution of a section dealing with the issue of electability and turnover of the mufti (head of the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly) indicated the unwillingness of Muslim "delegates" to encroach on the long-established public-state structure of the OMDS.

At the same time, the resolution fully reflects both purely political sentiments and the claims of a part of the Muslim elite of Russia that gathered on August 15, 1905. Published on August 6 of the same year, the tsar's manifesto "On the establishment of the State Duma" gave another impetus to the activation of political life in the country. Therefore, his documents clearly distinguish the need to bring Russian Muslims closer together "on the basis of socio-cultural and political needs and tasks (emphasized by us-O. S.) of modern Russian life" and "the participation of freely elected people's representatives in legislation and state administration."

Hence, it becomes obvious that issues related to the upcoming elections of the first Russian parliament were raised and discussed on board the Gustav Struve. In Topchibashev's speech, as well as in subsequent speeches by Gasprinsky and other participants of the congress, the idea of forming a political party capable of uniting the Muslims of Russia was voiced. Based on all the speeches, a five-point resolution was adopted, the last of which stated: according to the decision of the congresses convened at a certain time, Muslims will organize local majlises.

On August 20, 1905, after a series of behind-the-scenes meetings, the congress participants went home. "Russian Turks left this first congress intoxicated by the rise of national feelings, with hope and faith in the future" [Adile Aida, 1996, p.51].

Given that the first State Duma soon had a larger number of Muslims in its ranks (compared to the second, Third, and Fourth Dumas), it is appropriate to assume that the presence of a large number of the richest Russian entrepreneurs in the cabins of the Gustav Struve on August 15 made it possible to resolve organizational and financial issues: who and with the support of whom will take deputy seats under the arches of the Tauride Palace in St. Petersburg.

The first Congress of Muslims of Russia was a pronounced manifestation of political Turkism. In his decree of August 15, 1905, the idea was expressed, unsuccessfully in form, but quite clearly in content, that Muslims should not miss the opportunity to identify and realize their interests in the conditions of the revolution: "It became inevitable for Muslims to unite in relation to the politics, culture and use of the present situation of Russia "[GAUO, l. 14].

The few surviving documents of the congress allow us to believe that it was the first step towards the formation of the "Muslim party", although its decisions were significant.

³ In contrast to other nationalist associations, which have quite specifically and clearly defined their immediate tasks and ultimate goals. An example in this case is the program of the Armenian nationalist party "Dashnaktsutyun" ("Union") formed in 1890. Its basic goal was "the formation of a free-ruling democratic republic", the methods of its activities were: "1. Armed insurrection, which in turn must be prepared; 2. Intensive revolutionization not only of the Armenian people, but also of all the peoples who are oppressed; 3. Arming and organizing the Armenians; 4. Terror and razorization of government officials and institutions" (the source's spelling is preserved - O. S.) [GARF, D. 2, L. 4-4 vol.].

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they were very indistinct and had no clearly defined political characteristics. They looked like derived products of an ethno-cultural association with a religious connotation.⁴ In fact, the Congress resolution is a general declaration.

The Congress failed to single out a universally recognized leader, although Azerbaijani historians tend to consider A.-M. Topchibashev as such. For example, D. Hasanli writes: "Under his (meaning A.-M. Topchibashev. - O. S.) personal leadership and on his initiative, on August 15, 1905, during the Nizhny Novgorod fair, the All-Russian congress of Muslims was held on the steamer Gustav Struve. As a result, a new organization was born-the Union of Muslims of Russia (Ittifagi-Muslimin) " (Hasanli, 2004). The Congress did not adopt either the charter or the program. Nevertheless, it and its decisions became an important milestone in the further political process, which included the Second and Third All-Russian Congresses of Muslims in 1906, the activity of Muslims in the State Duma, and other forms of political activity of Muslims.

Politicized Russian Muslims were never able to create a party, because they had different views: liberal, conservative and radical. In their minds, the values of Western European and Islamic civilizations were intricately intertwined. On the one hand, they sought the universal acquisition of "bourgeois freedoms"; on the other, they sought ways to restore and strengthen Islamic principles in their own environment.

It turned out that the interests of the majority of Muslims and the interests, primarily economic, of the Turkic intellectual minority at the beginning of the XX century did not coincide. The elite was eager to renew the life of the Muslim part of the Russian community, but it was driven primarily by group interests. These people broke away from the Muslim tradition of respecting the existing government, which was held by many people of the Russian part of the Ummah (the Muslim population of Russia), went into politics and looked for those patterns of actions in Western development (learning from the experience of cadets, Social revolutionaries, etc.) that would allow them to ultimately or radically change the political regime in Russia, or separate from it and try to develop in a different way.

However, extreme forms of political tactics in the form of terror were not linked to the traditional values of Russian Muslims. They were alien to terror, examples of which were fully demonstrated by the Social Revolutionaries.

At the same time, the general revolutionary mood in the country pushed the Turkic elite to the Western model of parliamentarism and partisanship, completely unfamiliar to the vast majority of Russians. The most politicized and westernized Muslim Turks were unable to provide examples of solutions to the political problems that worried Russian Turkists.

Thus, at the beginning of the 20th century, the multi-million-strong Russian Ummah was not monolithic, which was facilitated, among other things, by the scattered actions of certain groups of the Turkic elite of Russia, who were increasingly striving to strengthen their position in the context of the rapid development of the country's economy. The unity of Russian Muslims was ensured by the political value orientations of Russian civilization, embodied in the activities of the state apparatus of the Russian Empire. They felt their spiritual community primarily due to their religion-Islam.

⁴ Some of the chaotic nature of party work that was characteristic of that time was rightly noted by a contemporary, the cadet A. A. Kornilov: "The life of the Party (he speaks of cadet life, but this can also be applied to Ittifakovites. - O. S.), which began at the moment of the most intense struggle for freedom, was developing all the time in absolutely exceptional, abnormal conditions. These exceptional conditions inevitably affected both the course of party organization and the work of the party, and made this work irregular, fragmentary, feverish, and often one-sided" [Congresses..., 1997, p. 500].

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Russian civilization, which has experienced a process of significant spatial expansion, has reached the limit when extensive resource opportunities have been exhausted. Some ethnonational elites of Russia at that time (Poles, Finns) declared themselves at the beginning of the XX century as a force that wanted to destroy the autocracy and stood in the way of political separatism. This was largely the result of the influence of the Western world with its ideas of democracy, personal emancipation, equality, and freedom. Other peoples, in particular the Turks, have developed political role models.

However, the Turkic elite of Russia could not completely copy the model of behavior of Poles and Finns, since they did not have a well-formed national identity. Consequently, to solve political problems, it was necessary to attract the masses of the Turkic-speaking Muslim population, who felt their unity through religion, to their side. At that time, the word "Turks" did not have the unifying power that the concept of "Muslims" had, and "Tatars" as an ethnonym continued to be rejected by many of the Tatars themselves (Iskhakov, 1997). The Muslim identity inherent in the peoples of Russia who professed Islam dictated the traditional line of behavior of accepting the existing government and fully fit into the norms of the existence of Russian civilization with its most important value - the state.

The Turkic elite of the Russian community, due to their ethnic proximity to the Turks, turned their eyes towards the Ottoman Empire, where great changes were planned. Part of the Turkish elite was becoming Europeanized, and it was increasingly dominated by pro-Western sentiments. At the same time, Russian Turkic intellectuals sought to get an education in Europe and understand the reasons for the rapid economic growth of the West.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian Empire itself was experiencing a deep crisis. The Islamic world was also sharply weakened politically, largely due to the Europeanization of its then center, the Ottoman Empire (although spatially located on the outskirts of the Islamic world, but still the spiritual center of Muslims). The Western European world was entering the final industrial straight, which was bringing it closer to the" sunset " that would soon be felt by two world wars. The interaction of East, West and Russia contributed to the intensification of their communication - each of its components increasingly felt the influence of its neighbors. One of the manifestations of this interaction is the first political steps of the Russian Turkists.

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