How Colonization Affected the Economic, Social, and Religious Life of the Chuvash People

From Kazan conquest to forced baptisms: Russian colonization stripped Chuvash lands, imposed heavy taxes, shattered faith. Thread on oppression & resistance in 21 posts🧵

🧵 How the Chuvash Came under Russian Rule: The Annexation of the Highland Side

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In the 1540s–50s, the Kazan Khanate and Muscovy entered into open confrontation. The Chuvash, forming a large share of the tribute-paying population, were caught in the middle.

Volga Bulgaria and Rus’ (Russia)

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Relations between Volga Bulgaria and the Rus’ principalities were far from peaceful. Economic and political rivalry often escalated into raiding warfare, alternating with fragile truces.

Example of a Belarusian book using Arabic script: a tafsir (parallel Qur’anic commentary) dated at 1890. Horizontal text lines from right to left are in Arabic language, diagonalwise descending portions, always from right to left, are in Belarusian language.

The community of Jirgän consisted of Chuvash people who converted to Islam in 1905 and erected an official mosque. They numbered seventy households, and [Fatih] served as their religious mentor until the Great Russian Revolution. Then he was forced to leave for [Central] Asia.

Chuvash Muslims after the October Revolution (1917)

[The Memoirs of ‘Abd al-Majid al-Qadiri from Istärlibash village in the south-west of Bashkiria
"Muslim Subjectivity in Soviet Russia" ed. by Alfrid Bustanov and Vener Usmanov] 1/4

Before the revolution of 1917 in the Russian Empire, among non-Russian people with higher education, the Chuvash occupied the second place [relative to the total number of people] after the Poles 🇵🇱

"DECOLONISING DECOLONISATION" by Sergei Abashin is about the trajectories of decolonization and the voices of regional scholars.

"Those who proclaim decolonization should not be free from the decolonizing view themselves."

www.oeaw.ac.at/sice/sice-bl...