Jean Radvanyi. National Institute of Oriental Languages and Cultures (INALCO), Paris, France

Indefinite answers to unasked questions: Muslims in Russia and the 2002 census

As a result of heated discussion held in the commission for preparation for the 2002 census, it was decided to exclude from the questionnaires a point about religious affiliation. This issue was certainly taboo throughout the Soviet period, and discussion about including this point to the questionnaires in 2002 proceeded more actively, as the censuses during the tsarist times (in particular, the first one of 1897) always contained this issue.

To the technical reasons of not including this point (it was argued that the form was already overloaded with questions) were added several motives for anxiety.

The values of Russian (russkii) people, even in the most official circles, were strongly confirmed, often cultivating confusion between people of a distinct ethnic group (russkii) and those constitutionally defined as a multinational community (rossiiskii); thus, statements about religious affiliation could provoke tension. Some people linked to the Orthodox Church feared that the place in society recently occupied by his Church would come under doubt. Others feared that the results of the count would impel the population to turn to other religions: to Muslim confessions in some regions, to Buddhism or to newly emerged Protestant churches and sects.

The discussion of the list of ethnic groups, which formed the base of the questionnaires, led to the introduction of number of designations that (as a rule, of regional or local use) were often based on religious criteria. The case of the kryashens, which provoked heated debate in Tatarstan, is a typical one, but not the only. Certainly, preliminary results of the census of 2002 do not allow us to make judgments about the real religious affiliation of Russia’s population. It is more possible to make conclusions on the general tendencies based on demographic characteristics and localisation of the ethnic groups. Other informational resources – for example, public polls – continue to be the main factor for the calculation of the population’s religious affiliation and, moreover, of its involvement in performing religious rites.