The National Idea of Turkestani Jadids: Developing and Implementing

OpenAlex · English

The Jadidism Movement, which emerged within the borders of the Russian Empire, reached a certain degree in Turkestan, Volga-Ural, the Caucasus, and Crimea, and turned into an intellectual and social movement. The Jadidism originated in Turkestan in the early 20th century, unlike other Muslim (the Volga-Ural, Caucasus and Crimea) regions of the Russian Empire. For this reason, Turkestani Jadids persecuted the national idea promoted by the Muslims of Inner Russia and tried to shape it in accordance with the social, political, religious and traditional characteristics of Turkestan. During the initial stages of the formation and development of a national idea, the Jadids encouraged the establishment of charitable societies and the creation of a system of charitable funds. In addition to the societies and funds, Jadids also gave importance to the press to explain, adopt, and spread the ideas they advocated among the people, published national newspapers that would fulfill an important task in the formation of political thought among Muslims, opened publishing houses, and organized libraries. From this perspective, the “newspaper” alone, as a tool, became a sign of progress, a source of ideas and information for the Muslims of Turkestan, and for Russian society, and had a significant impact on the social lives of Turkestanis. Therefore, the newspapers Tarakkiy, Shuhrat, Khurshid, Asya, and Tujjar, which were published only in 1906-1908, fulfilled an important task as a tool and a force that enabled Turkistani Jadids to assert their national and religious identities. The activities of the societies, publishing houses, libraries, and companies established to distribute print materials for Muslims in order to raise the consciousness of Turkestanis, to realize their self-awareness, and initially to initiate a social transformation in the intellectual sense, were either severely restricted or completely stopped by the local authorities representing the current administration in the regions that they went beyond the permitted framework or carried out anti-state activities. Although this situation negatively affected the work of the Turkestani Jadids, they did not give up their struggle and managed to keep the issues they brought to the attention of the public through literature and theater. In this article, the efforts of the Turkestani Jadids to promote and put forward national ideas to realize national projects, which were their main goals, and their activities to instill these ideas in the people of Turkestan are discussed based on first-hand sources.