A day of mourning for those who fell during the capture of Kazan by the Russian army has been approved in Tatarstan
The elders of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Tatarstan unanimously voted to annually commemorate the tribesmen who fell during the capture of Kazan during the capture of the city by Ivan the Terrible in 1552 - Kheter kon.
This was reported by the Chelninskiye Izvestia newspaper, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
However, those gathered immediately emphasized the inadmissibility of political speculation on this topic.
“Russia is the Motherland for many indigenous peoples, who, shoulder to shoulder, with common efforts, have defended their united Fatherland many times, from time immemorial have developed on the territory of our country, and formed a diverse all-Russian mentality,” assured the chairman of the council of elders, Airat Hazrat Ayupov.
The date will be celebrated by reading the Koran and dua for the repose of the souls of those who fell on the 13th day of the month of Shawwal. It is the month after Ramadan and its dates are different every year.
Various Tatar nationalists remember those who fell in October, when Kazan was taken. The tradition appeared in the 80s immediately before the collapse of the Union, when all destructive public organizations were actively encouraged from abroad. It was canceled in 2013.
However, last year the Kazan authorities failed to ban nationalists from holding a rally. The event was planned to “raise the problems of Tatar statehood,” and the mayor’s office considered that the protesters could threaten the territorial integrity of the country. But the Vakhitovsky Court of Kazan declared the refusal of the city executive committee illegal. The action organized by the All-Tatar Public Center (VTOC) took place.
So, perhaps, the decision of the council of elders is intended to seize the dangerous initiative from the nationalists and, by tying the day of remembrance to Eid al-Fitr, give it a more religious than political meaning.
“Islam was adopted by the Volga Bulgars 1100 years ago. It is clear that when Ivan the Terrible came, he had some other tasks, Orthodoxy appeared in us. I don’t think that all this went smoothly, but our Russian Islam adapted to our Russian life. He is Islam, but Russian, more tolerant,” Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov said in an interview with RTVI.
At the same time, he admitted that in the 90s the situation was lost, and destructive decisions appeared in Islam, but the Muslim Spiritual Board of the Republic of Tatarstan took measures.
TV presenter and Moscow municipal deputy Andrei Medvedev, on the contrary, believes that on the issue of memory of the capture of Kazan, no compromises are possible. Initiatives such as the approval of a special date for Heter Kone, in his opinion, lead to a opposition between the Russian and Tatar people, who have been living together in one country for five centuries.
“Nationalism and separatism in their pure form, under the guise, of course, of preserving historical memory and religion, very neat, on soft legs. In recent years, a lot of interesting things have been happening in Kazan: there was a case where a laudatory film was made about the Tatar volunteers of the Wehrmacht. Should I explain where the money came from? What is happening is, in essence, an attempt to create a new historical reality. Where everything is based on a brutal confrontation between Russians and Tatars, which is complete nonsense.
A new, completely anti-state discourse is now being created in Tatarstan. Who needs it? And most importantly, why do supervisory authorities react to this very sluggishly? Attempts to create a new historical reality and talk about the eternal Russian-Turkic confrontation look very interesting against the backdrop of Turkey’s increasing activity and its attempts to create a kind of Turkic world,” Medvedev commented on the news in his Telegram channel.
The TV presenter recalls that in the 90s, the Tatar Community Center regularly held various events in memory of the “defenders of Kazan” with an emphasis on the “cruelty of the terrible Russian occupiers.” The same center organized the supply of humanitarian aid to Chechen terrorists. The authorities of the republic encouraged this activity in order, according to Medvedev, to frighten “Yeltsin and the Moscow elite in general with the bogeyman of nationalism.”
In the Russian Empire in Kazan, the memory of only Russian soldiers who died during the capture was honored. Ivan the Terrible founded a monastery on the site of mass graves. And when it was moved to another place due to floods, in the 19th century a monument temple was erected on an island on the Kazanka River, which became a notable landmark of the city. Due to its cultural and historical value, it was not demolished during Soviet times.
In the 90s, nationalists constantly carried out acts of vandalism in the temple, demanding that it be destroyed and a monument to the fallen Tatars erected in the city.
In Kazan, one of the attractions is also the Syuyumbike Tower, according to legend, built by Grozny for the Tatar queen, who did not want to marry him and eventually committed suicide.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.