Pervaia russkaia revoliutsiia i musul'mane Rossiiskoi imperii (The First Russian Revolution and Muslims of the Russian Empire), and: Islamskie instituty v Rossiiskoi imperii: Mecheti v evropeiskoi chasti Rossii i Sibiri (Islamic Institutions in the Russian Empire:Mosques in European Russia and Siberia) (review)

The "archival revolution" has opened the way for Western students of the Russian Empire to vividly document interactions between the state and multiethnic society in regional contexts.¹ These scholars have revealed an oscillation between ideological and practical thinking and behavior among central and local officials. They have addressed the unexpected consequences caused by various actors appropriating imperial rulings and institutions to serve their own interests. Comparison among regions enables them to discover certain patterns of imperial administration. In short, their focus has been on ways in which the state machinery functioned in practice. They have largely freed themselves from a historical narrative inevitably heading toward revolution, the teleological goal of the demise of the empire. Giving an overview of new developments in the 1905 revolution and after, Robert Crews concludes that Muslims continued to fall back on the state as a potential ally in the imposition of Islamic orthodoxy and disciplining of the community: "The varied Muslim communities of the empire remained embedded in, and helped to sustain, an empire founded on religious discipline for all the tsar's children."²

Denunciation of the Russian Empire as a "prison of peoples" is now out of fashion in Russia, too. Some historians from its national regions are even inclined to idealize the imperial past, while those based in Moscow, especially, tend to defend imperial rule as a progressive phenomenon.³ The trajectory of Russia's regional historiography reflects political developments in the regions. In Kazan', for instance, the study of reformist movements (Dzhadidizm) was a booming industry in the 1990s, given the rise of a national movement and the obsession with proving the Tatars' entitlement to elements of independent statehood (gosudarstvennost'). But the very act of framing the question in terms of the "Tatar nation" revealed a profound Soviet imprint. In contrast, at the beginning of the 21st century, Kazan' scholars are increasingly addressing the Muslims' interrelations with the state. The growing role of Muslim Spiritual Boards (Dukhovnye upravleniia musul'man) in Russia's Muslim communities leads scholars to cull historical experience from imperial archives. They are disposed to demonstrate that their "traditional Islam" has served both Tatar identity and Russia's unity.⁴

Western and Russian scholarship both serve as an antidote to the agendas of national movements and as a reminder of the durability of the empire. It is rare, however, for either to ask how one should measure and evaluate the impact of late imperial revolutions and social change on Muslim communities. The two books under review provide us with contrasting views concerning the relations between the Muslim communities and the state: whereas Il'dus Zagidullin focuses on a longer period of time and is thus inclined to illustrate the stability of the empire's confessional administration, Salavat Iskhakov's subject is the political ferment triggered by the 1905 revolution in Muslim communities and their attempts to forge new relations with the state. By examining each book's merits and limitations, this review proposes a research agenda that may enhance our ability to interpret the response of Muslim society to political and social changes in late imperial Russia.

The picture that historians now have of the role that the Orenburg Spiritual Assembly played in the Muslim community in the Volga-Urals region is clearer than that of its three counterparts (one in Simferopol' and one each for Sunnis and Shiites in Tiflis). The Kazan' historian Il'dus Zagidullin has published a series of works that...