Language Policy and Power Politics in Post-Soviet Tatarstan

Abstract

Discusses changes in policies on the status of Tatar language in the Russian Federation’s Republic of Tatarstan since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 when Tatarstan signed a declaration of sovereignty with the central government in Moscow that allowed the republic to form its own local government and implement its own language policy. The examination focuses especially on attempts at nation-building in post-Soviet Tatarstan through status-planning language policies and on the way power-politics between the Federation’s central government and the Republic’s government have affected the outcome of those policies.