Muslim female education in the city of Chistopol, Kazan province (the late 19<sup>th</sup> – early 20<sup>th</sup> centuries)

Abstract

At the end of the 19th century, the total amount of Tatars in Chistopol (Kazan province) were 24.5% of all the townspeople. However, the history of the city’s Muslim communities in the pre-revolutionary period are among the poorly studied scientifi c problems. The information about Muslim female education in Chistopol in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is very fragmentary. This exact research embraced the analyses of various documents and materials, including photographs from museum collections. Moreover, the article presents the biography of a famous Tatar journalist of the early 20th century, born in Chistopol - FatimaFarida Vagapova (Navruzova) (1889–1914) and describes her long journey to knowledge. Until 1917, in Chistopol there were three Tatar educational institutions: two madrasahs and a Russian-Tatar school. In 1913, 355 girls studied in this schools. The article analyzes the main problems of Tatar women’s schools formation and development, reveals the information about the staff of these educational centers. The author provides a conclusion that the decisive role in the development of Muslim female education in Chistopol belonged to the representatives of Muhammetzakir Ishan Kamalov (1818–1893) clan and to the other residents of the city close to this family.