Tatar Language Teaching in the Republic of Mordovia: Potential, Problems, Perspectives.

Abstract

The article analyses the development of the Tatar national school, including Tatar language teaching, in Soviet and Post-Soviet Mordovia. In the introductory part of the article it is explained that in the Middle Ages and the subsequent Imperial period of national history, the formation of Tatars (including on the territory of modern Mordovia) was mainly confessional, Muslim. This education was concentrated in schools of two levels - mektebah and madrasah, and was based on the Hanafi Math'hab (law school) of Sunni Islam. Further, it is concluded that in the first decades of the Soviet period the new, secular, system of national education of the Tatars developed, replacing the traditional religious (Muslim) school. The article provides an overview of formation of the Tatar national school in the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and its preservation in the Republic of Mordovia. The Soviet school system of education provided a fairly rapid increase in the literacy of the Tatars of Mordovia already in the late 1920s – 1930s, within the framework of the national school as well. As for the modern period, the special role of teaching Tatar is emphasized not only by the state authorities of the Republic of Mordovia, but also by the Regional National Cultural Autonomy of the Tatars “Yaktashlar” and by representatives of the state and public structures of Tatarstan. The article concludes that the system of Tatar national schools in Mordovia that developed during the Soviet period has adapted to new sociocultural and ethno-political Post-Soviet realities, and Tatar language teaching has not only been preserved there in the 1990s - 2010s, but continues to function effectively and to develop.