SOLDIERS’ UNREST DURING MOBILIZATION IN THE TERRITORY OF TATARSTAN DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR (by the documents of the State Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan)

Abstract

The purpose of the publication is to restore the event and the ethno-psychological aspects of mobilization of 1914 in Kazan province within the territories that are currently administratively make part of the Republic of Tatarstan. The novelty of the work consists in studying the issue of soldiers’ unrest and illegal actions of other social strata of Kazan governorate during soldiers’ conscription in July 1914. Unpublished archival sources of the State Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan were the basis for studying the aspects of the issue of coordinating the actions of power and municipal state structures in the person of municipal government and local military leadership with various ethnic and social groups of the local population during conscription at the beginning of the First World War. The destructive component of soldiers’ unrest and riots is considered in the context of social conflict theory developed by the political analyst T. Skochpol and the concept of functional intra-ethnic conflict created by the cultural studies scholar, sociologist and ethnologist S.V. Lurie. The issues of the dynamics in the expression of deviant behavior of conscripted servicemen in Kazan, Laishevsky, Spassky and Chistopol uyezds of Kazan governorate are elucidated. Attention is paid to the social, ethnic, psychological and religious motives of the lower ranks’ riots in the region. Such an important aspect of the problem as the causes of unfavorable mobilization course within the borders of the governorate at the beginning of the war is studied. The article identifies and touches upon the issue of the main forms of social aggression in the soldier masses, the trigger of which was introduction of the “prohibition law”.