Xavier Le Torrivellec
The National Institute of Oriental languages and Cultures (INALCO), Paris, France
Religious identity undergoes trials: the 2002 population census in Bashkortostan
As a consequence of liberalization, which accompanied the fall of the USSR (which opposed religion), the religious question was re-opened to a Russia public that generally agreed upon God’s existence, the cultural devotion to the faith of ancestors, and renewed its trust of the clergy. Throughout the multi-confessional territory of the Russian Federation (beyond the revival of “traditional” religions: Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism), several previously unknown religious forms have appeared. Of course, we must address the nature of this phenomenon, similar to a “return to religiosity”, which Western countries have earlier gone through; however, when comparing with West, we need to take into consideration differences in modernization.
In Russia, the religious sphere occupies a special place, and within the limits of post-totalitarian society it fulfils a nearly ideological function. Helping to overcome uncertainty of critical moment in the context of a deep crisis of Russian self-awareness, a definite religiosity played palliative role in concert with the deterministic view on history. This factor assisted the entrance of the confessional theme into the sphere of political struggle. Whether Orthodoxy for Slavic people or Islam in the national republics of the Volga-Ural region – most obviously in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan – religion successfully has participated in the process of forming national governments and influencing territorial conflicts; religion also has been a key component in the dialogue surrounding sovereignty and key element, along with native language, in ethnic identity.
Islam was used by Tatar nationalists as an instrument to pressure central authorities and simultaneously served for the dissociation of Bashkirs from related, non-Muslim peoples. During the 2002 census, although there was a question in the questionnaire about the ethnicity, there was no point about religion or native language. Russian authorities decided to assign Orthodox Tatars (Kryashen) a separate nationality; this decision gave rise to arguments about religious questions and was aggravated by actual events in Russia and throughout the world. The more exceptional observations are valuable for those who seek to understand the religious situation of Muslim Russia and separate political functioning with the help of religious question from authentic return of beliefs and rites. An analysis of the correlation between ethnicity and religion based on the Bashkir example of October 2002 allows us to identify the connection between the religious factor as national identifying sign and deepening of long-standing secularization process.
