The “Constitution” of Idel-Ural as the foundation of multinational statehood

Abstract

The question of the national autonomy of the Turko-Tatar peoples of Russia has been in the air for quite a long time. At the First All-Russian Muslim Congress, held in Moscow in May 1917, while discussing the question of the state structure of Russia, delegates split into two camps – Unitarians and federalists. The latter soon won the victory, immediately starting to draw up a project of national-territorial autonomy. One of these projects was the “Idel-Ural State”. At present, a considerable array of scientific research has been accumulated on the process of preparing and proclaiming the project of the State of Idel-Ural as a multinational state. However, among these studies there are no works that would cover the legal component of this project.

As a result of a long meeting of the National Assembly of Turko-Tatar Muslims in January 1918, a number of resolutions came into being, which generally established the framework for the subsequent constitutionalization of law and order in the State of Idel-Ural. The combination of these resolutions can be given the conditional name “Constitution” of Idel-Ural. It fixed the path of development of constitutionalism, and guaranteed the fundamental principles of building statehood: national equality, federalism, democracy, political and ideological pluralism. The “Constitution” of Idel-Ural played a particularly important role in the practice of state building of the Tatar people. This work aims to provide a general analysis of the provisions of this legal document, and thereby reveal the hidden areas of the state-legal history of the Tatars.

For citation: Zaynutdinov D.R. The “Constitution” of Idel-Ural as the foundation of multinational statehood. From History and Culture of Peoples of the Middle Volga Region. 2023, vol.13, no.3, pp.118–135. https://doi.org/10.22378/2410-0765.2023-13-3.118-135 (In Russian)