CHARITABLE SOCIETIES OF MUSLIM TATARS AS INSTRUMENTS OF SOCIAL MOBILITY: ORENBURG MOHAMMEDAN SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY DISTRICT AND THE NORTH CAUCASUS, EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32653/CH214492-501

Keywords:

Muslim charitable societies, Society for the Dissemination of Education and Technical Information among the Highlanders of the Tersk region, Society for the Education of Muslim Natives of the Dagestan region, Orenburg Society for the Care of Muslim Students, Akhmad-bai Khusainov’s Waqf Board of Trustees

Abstract

This study examines the mechanisms by which Muslims in Russia were integrated into the all-Russian state, educational, and cultural elite, thereby contributing to the consolidation of Russian statehood. Its primary aim is to assess the role of Muslim Tatar charitable societies under the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly (OMSA) and similar organizations in the North Caucasus during the early twentieth century as social mobility that facilitated the emergence of a modern Russian elite drawn from Russia’s Muslim populations. The specific objectives are to examine the educational systems and scholarship programs operated by these charitable societies and to evaluate their impact through the subsequent careers of beneficiaries in politics, education, literature, the humanities, and healthcare. Geographically, the analysis focuses on Orenburg province within the OMSA jurisdiction and, for the North Caucasus, on societies active in the territories of present-day Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, and North Ossetia–Alania. Key institutions considered include those in Vladikavkaz, Temir-Khan-Shura (now Buinaksk), and Orenburg, which established schools to prepare Muslim children for entry into state secondary educational institutions. The article employs comparative-historical and problem-chronological methods, together with synchronous and diachronic analysis, periodization, and classification. The principal findings demonstrate that graduates and scholarship recipients of these societies included prominent public figures (among them at least three members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly and one key minister of the Mountain Republic), as well as figures in education, literature, the humanities, and healthcare among the Muslim peoples of the North Caucasus, Tatars, and Bashkirs. Thus, early twentieth-century Muslim charitable societies in the Omsk region and the North Caucasus played a critical role in forming a modern Russian elite from among Russia’s Muslim communities.

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Author Biographies

  • Ajdar Ur'evic Habutdinov, V.M. Lebedev Russian State University of Justice
    Professor, Dr. Sci.
  • Denis Nikolaevic Denisov, Orenburg State Agrarian University
    Cand. Sci., Lecturer

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Published

2025-12-29

Issue

Section

History

How to Cite

1.
Habutdinov AU, Denisov DN. CHARITABLE SOCIETIES OF MUSLIM TATARS AS INSTRUMENTS OF SOCIAL MOBILITY: ORENBURG MOHAMMEDAN SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY DISTRICT AND THE NORTH CAUCASUS, EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY. ИАЭК. 2025;21(4):492-501. doi:10.32653/CH214492-501