Научная статья на тему 'Intellectual strategies of sovietization in order to overcome frontier, or how Chuvash nationalists formed Socialist canon of the 1920s and 1930s'

Intellectual strategies of sovietization in order to overcome frontier, or how Chuvash nationalists formed Socialist canon of the 1920s and 1930s Текст научной статьи по специальности «История и археология»

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Ключевые слова
Chuvash nationalism / identity / frontier / Sovietization / intellectual community / invention of tradition / чувашский национализм / идентичность / фронтир / советизация / интеллектуальное сообщество / изобретение традиций

Аннотация научной статьи по истории и археологии, автор научной работы — Maksym W. Kyrchanoff

The article is focused on the problems of a history of Sovietization of Chuvash cultural and intellectual discourses. Sovietization of Chuvashia is among practically unstudied problems in contemporary Russian historiography. The author analyzes the cultural and intellectual tactics and strategies of Chuvash intellectuals in contexts of Sovietization they participated in. These problems are analyzed in the context of the modernist and constructivist approach. The author presumes that the mechanisms of the nationalist imagination and invention of traditions were systemic and central for the development of the Soviet form of Chuvash national and political identities. It is presumed that the Chuvash intellectuals tried to combine nationalist and communist discourses. The author believes that some of the Chuvash Communists were Chuvash nationalists and tried to form a Chuvash cultural space, based on a synthesis of the various forms of loyalties and identities. Chuvash intellectuals tried to combine communist loyalty with the ideas and principles of political nationalism. Chuvash nationalists believed that culture, literature and language are among the areas which needed to be integrated into Soviet intellectual canon. Sovietization of identity, its actual imagination and invention become universal strategies to overcome the peripheral cultural status, marginality and general uncertainty while preserving the Chuvash national identity.

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ИНТЕЛЛЕКТУАЛЬНЫЕ СТРАТЕГИИ СОВЕТИЗАЦИИ КАК ПРЕОДОЛЕНИЕ ФРОНТИРА, ИЛИ КАК ЧУВАШСКИЕ НАЦИОНАЛИСТЫ ФОРМИРОВАЛИ СОЦИАЛИСТИЧЕСКИЙ КАНОН В 1920-1930-Е ГГ.

Статья сфокусирована на проблемах истории советизации чувашского культурного и интеллектуального дискурса. Советизация Чувашии принадлежит к числу малоизученных проблем в современной российской историографии. Автор анализирует культурные и интеллектуальные тактики и стратегии чувашских интеллектуалов в контекстах советизации. Эти проблемы анализируются в контексте модернистского подхода. Автор полагает, что механизмы националистического воображения и изобретения традиций имели системное и центральное значение для развития советской формы чувашской национальной и политической идентичности. Предполагается, что чувашские интеллектуалы пытались сочетать националистический и коммунистический дискурсы. Автор полагает, что некоторые чувашские коммунисты были чувашскими националистами и пытались сформировать чувашские культурные пространства, основанные на синтезе различных форм лояльностей и идентичностей. Чувашские интеллектуалы пытались соединить коммунистическую лояльность с идеями и принципами политического национализма. Чувашские националисты полагали, что культура, литература и язык принадлежат к числу сфер, которые было необходимо советизировать и интегрировать в формирующиеся советский интеллектуальный канон. Советизация идентичности и ее фактическое воображение и изобретение стали универсальными формами преодоления периферийного культурного статуса, маргинальности и категорий фронтирности и неопределенности в развитии национальной чувашской идентичности.

Текст научной работы на тему «Intellectual strategies of sovietization in order to overcome frontier, or how Chuvash nationalists formed Socialist canon of the 1920s and 1930s»

INTELLECTUAL STRATEGIES OF SOVIETIZATION IN ORDER TO OVERCOME FRONTIER, OR HOW CHUVASH NATIONALISTS FORMED SOCIALIST CANON OF THE 1920S AND 1930S

Kyrchanoff M. W.

Kar9ansen Mak§ame (Maksym W. Kyrchanoff), Voronezh State university,

Voronezh, Russia, 394000, Pushkinskaia 16, [email protected]

The article is focused on the problems of a history of Sovietization of Chuvash cultural and intellectual discourses. Sovietization of Chuvashia is among practically unstudied problems in contemporary Russian historiography. The author analyzes the cultural and intellectual tactics and strategies of Chuvash intellectuals in contexts of Sovietization they participated in. These problems are analyzed in the context of the modernist and constructivist approach. The author presumes that the mechanisms of the nationalist imagination and invention of traditions were systemic and central for the development of the Soviet form of Chuvash national and political identities. It is presumed that the Chuvash intellectuals tried to combine nationalist and communist discourses. The author believes that some of the Chuvash Communists were Chuvash nationalists and tried to form a Chuvash cultural space, based on a synthesis of the various forms of loyalties and identities. Chuvash intellectuals tried to combine communist loyalty with the ideas and principles of political nationalism. Chuvash nationalists believed that culture, literature and language are among the areas which needed to be integrated into Soviet intellectual canon. Sovietization of identity, its actual imagination and invention become universal strategies to overcome the peripheral cultural status, marginality and general uncertainty while preserving the Chuvash national identity.

Keywords: Chuvash nationalism, identity, frontier, Sovietization, intellectual community, invention of tradition

The missed national futurum in Chuvash political imagination of the 1930s. The Sovietization was an important factor in the development of Chuvash identity, nationalism, political and historical imagination. The process of Chuvash identity institutionalization and further full implementation of the political project of Chuvash nation became possible as a result of the former Russian Empire Sovietization in general. The Bolsheviks radically changed old and archaic imperial landscapes, imagined and invented new territories, and also provided them new political status and new national content.

Chuvashia was no exception from this universal logic of national policy of Bolsheviks. Chuvashia was among the first national regions in the former Russian Empire, which has undergone a formal political institutionalization in the federal model of political landscape organization selected by Bolshevik theorists and practitioners of national policy. The Bolsheviks began to realize their political and national project in Chuvashia in 1920. The project almost

from the beginning had a futuristic character because political steps of the Soviet authorities were not finished, but envisaged their further continuation. The political situation and the status of Chuvash Republic in the Soviet federation in 1920 changed several times. In the 1920 Chuvash Autonomous Region was established. Autonomous Region in 1925 was reformed in Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The futuristic dimension of the Chuvash national project in the first half of the 1920s developed in the context of new political forms and relationships institutionalization.

The attempts to flirt and compromise between Soviet leaders and ideologically minded Chuvash nationalists also took place. The political texts of the 1920s and 1930s are full with traces of the influence of mainly political and also ideologically calibrated and marked Chuvash national project of future for Chuvash nation. This project of universal Chuvash futurum was proposed by §e§pel Missi, but after his death paths of development and directions of Chuvash Soviet, project implementation was radically changed. Chuvash national project of future was started in 1920, but Chuvash nation developed and implemented under strict and tight control of authorities, which strived to control political, cultural and intellectual discourses. The Soviet regime also exclusively selected and determined directions of development of Chuvash identity. Politically verified and ideologically labeled futurism in Chuvash cultural and national context and landscape in the 1920s and 1930s had several forms and expressions. Cultural and intellectual version of Chuvash National futurum emerged and developed in the sphere of literature and literary criticism, but these dimensions of Chuvash identity were harshly Sovietized and integrated into officially adopted, approved and sanctioned by the Soviet authorities Chuvash discourse.

Political versions of Chuvash futurum in the 1920s and 1930s were rare and mostly appeared in the text of Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic Constitution. Traditionally historiography of Chuvash Autonomous Republic Constitution is analyzed in the context of public or legal history despite the fact that it was an integral part of national Chuvash version of the future implementation. The authors of the Constitution tried to update narratives of the past and also pointed out that «Chuvash people traveled a long road of hard struggle for their liberation. For many centuries Chuvash labour masses were under the heavy yoke of Russian autocracy. These heroic efforts of Chuvash people expressed in their attempts to defend economic and national independence, culture, language and way of life in the struggle against the oppressors... this struggle merged with the rapid flow of the great popular uprising» (Qavas respuplek... s. 3.)

The text Chuvash Soviet Constitution of 1930 was filled with lengthy historical reflections that formed and maintained Chuvash national discourse.

The Constitution text also declared that «the unequal struggle against the oppressors exhausted and bled Chuvashia. The landlord and capitalist system with its tsarist colonization and Russification policies, economic subjugation and suppression of national identity and culture of the oppressed nationalities brought Chuvash people into poverty. The heinous and hated tsarist policy led Chuvash people to degeneration. The Great October Revolution crushed landlord-capitalist regime, destroyed exploitation and national oppression. Born in civil war flames the Soviet government declared complete self-determination of nationalities» (Çâvas respuplek... s. 4).

Chuvash history in the Constitution text was invented and imagined as the main background and also prolonged preamble to Chuvash project future implementation in the Soviet political system. The Constitution text was filled with national and futuristic motifs that actualized future development prospects of Chuvash nation. Therefore, the Constitution declares that «Chuvash labouring masses with working people of the Soviet republics began to build a new life. According to the will of the working masses in Chuvashia Decree of June 24, 1920, formed the Chuvash Autonomous Area ... Chuvash Autonomous Area in the 21st April 1925 was converted in Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic» (Çâvas respuplek... s. 4).

These dynamic changes in Chuvash self-determination form in Soviet federation also actualized futuristic dimensions in Chuvash political project. The Constitution actualized futuristic prospects of Chuvash national project in the political dimension, declaring Chuvashia as "socialist state of workers and peasants" (Çâvas respuplek... s. 5). The futuristic motifs in the Constitution were significant, and some of its articles and statements «Constitution of Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic has the task to guarantee the dictatorship of the proletariat in order to suppress the bourgeoisie and destruction of exploitation of man by man, national oppression, the realization of communism... and establish order without divisions into classes and state power» (Çâvas respuplek... s.5) were mostly not frozen positions, but these ideas were understood as an action plan, which should be realized. The Constitution text formally also provided possibility of free political development of Chuvashia in the future: «Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic is free to determine the form of its relationship with federal power and form of participation in federal government of Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic» (Çâvas respuplek... s. 6 - 7).

Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic Constitution was published in 1930 in Chuvash and Russian languages. Chuvash language text of the Constitution is different from modern literary standards. The spelling of some Chuvash words in the Constitution text is different from the Russified version adopted and used in contemporary Chuvash spelling. For example,

social, political and economic terms and definition were closer to Chuvash pronunciation. The word "tep sakkune" was used instead Russified "konsitutsi" ("constitution") which is indubitable Russism. The word "konsitutsi" was used in the text, but its spelling ("kon§tittutsi") is different from the modern standards. Other social and political terms ("Sotsialisamla", "Respuplek", "Ekkonomekpe", "Soyus", "Feteratsi") were also spelled in a way which is different from modern norms. These linguistic and also nationally marked norms in the Sovietized Chuvash linguistic imagination were short-lived and they were inevitably ousted by Russified and also Sovietized norms that made nationally oriented Chuvash intellectuals impossible to cultivate futurum concepts in the national coordinate system. Political futrum, fixed in the Constitution text, also had the national character. The Chuvash Autonomous Republic was declared and imagined primarily and predominantly as Chuvash state where «a complete introduction of Chuvash language in all state and public institutions and organizations» (Qavas respuplek... s. 8) was understood as the systemic problem in the coming and further years after the Constitution adoption. The text of Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic Constitution also was an attempt to implement national modernization in the power mechanisms of the Soviet model. The central ideas of the Constitution text were filled with futuristic ethnocentric sentiments and the text if the 1930 Constitution was partly proposed in the national coordinate system. The political project of national modernization and Chuvash National futuristic aspirations of the 1920s and the 1930s remained unrealized because since the middle of 1930s central authorities choose a strategy of de facto rejection of real early Soviet federalism principles and took the decision to imitate federalism. Sovietization of Chuvash cultural, intellectual and political landscape did not lead to the final destruction of futuristic motifs and moods among Chuvash intellectuals. The representatives of national orientated Chuvash intelligentsia were was able to save and defend futurism as latent part of Chuvash national character. Futuristic elements and motifs continued to appear and develop in Chuvash cultural and literature traditions where it had the good fortune to find other and formally neutral forms and expressions being integrated into the Soviet ideological canon.

Sovietized Chuvash identity of the 1930s: official discourse. Soviet political experiment in the 1920s and 1930s, on the one hand, stimulated and allowed some forms and elements of loyal and moderate nationalism in Union republics of the USSR and autonomous republics of the RSFSR. Soviet political elites, which were mostly Russian and orthodox communist ideologues who believed in the rightness and historical inevitability of communism, presumed that compromises with national minorities and non-Russian ethnic groups and communities which imagined and reinvent themselves as independent political nations after Revolution, were purely tactical and had temporary character. The

National Union and Autonomous republics were the victims of the inconsistent policy of Soviet political elites. Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was not an exception from this universal logic of Soviet power.

The elements of the evolved and transformed nationalism that simultaneously coexisted with communism were typical for cultural landscape of Chuvash Republic in the period between two world wars. The fact of the establishment, existence and development of national communism in Chuvash Autonomous SSR in its regional forms is among debatable issues. The Soviet political elite in the 1920s and the 1930s tried to modernize the country that met Revolution of 1917 as one of the most traditional, non-modernized, archaic and backward European continental empires. Intellectual activities of Chuvash intelligentsia representatives were a form of cultural modernization. Chuvash intellectuals who were moderate or more radical Chuvash nationalists between the two world wars were very active in the national imagination, invention of Chuvash history, development of Chuvash language, promotion of the Chuvash literature. A Soviet project of political and social modernization in the Chuvash Autonomous Republic had a strong cultural and intellectual hardcore. Chuvash intellectuals tried to integrate Chuvash identity in Soviet ideological and political canon.

These attempts from historical viewpoint were extremely contradictory. Cultural debates of the 1920s and the 1930s inevitably actualized problems of gradual dying or revolutionary rapid erosion of an old social, political, economic and cultural order which, Chuvash intellectuals presumed, would be replaced by new communist relations. The future idea in Chuvash cultural and political identity of the 1920s and the 1930s and in the emerging Soviet identity, in general, had a futuristic communist base. It was rooted in the revolutionary romanticism and faith in the inevitability of future communist triumph and progrepp.Chuvash intellectuals of the 1930s, as well as other intellectuals in the Union and Autonomous republics, were simultaneously creators and formators of new version of national identity, but in the second half of the 1930s they became victims of Soviet political repression when Moscow's political elites tried to revise unprofitable compromise with the national elites but in the first half of the 1930s Chuvash intellectuals still believed and trusted their Moscow curators and mentors.

In the 1933 Communist Academy in Moscow published a very formal and extremely ideologically verified book of Dmitrii Danilov, Ivan Kuznetsov, Iosif Liublin and Sergei Petrov. Their book was focused on the successes and achievements of Soviet national policy in Chuvashia. Dmitrii Danilov, known for his loyalty to orthodox communist ideas, was the most successful author of this book: in 1940 he left Supaskar for Moscow where he died in 1966. Ivan Kuznetsov was arrested in the 1937 and only in 1955 he was able to return in

Chuvashia where he made the formally successful academic career. The fates of Sergei Petrov and Iosif Liublin were more tragic. Sergei Petrov, who in the 1930s was among the initiators of the forced and violenced collectivization, was arrested in 1938. He was sentenced to death, but the conviction was overturned and he died in 1942 in one of the camps on Kazakhstan territory. Iosif Liublin was arrested and executed in 1938. Sergei Petrov and Iosif Liublin were rehabilitated in the 1955 and 1956.

The quartet of Chuvash intellectuals in 1933 believed that their book actualized official communist perception of the Chuvash communist futurum, they believed in. Dmitrii Danilov, Ivan Kuznetsov, Iosif Liublin and Sergei Petrov believed that Soviet Chuvashia developed as the country of potential future because Soviet national policy opened and created new opportunities and horizons that earlier was inaccessible for the oppressed Chuvash nation. Dmitrii Danilov, Ivan Kuznetsov, Iosif Liublin and Sergey Petrov in officially verified and ideologized spirit and style declared that «national and cultural construction is developing in powerful paces after the October gains and achievements. Economic growth and cultural rise of the earlier oppressed peoples, who have become free nations of the USSR, are without doubt. They are actively fighting for Leninist cultural revolution, strengthening of the proletariat dictatorship and the building of a classless society» (Sovetskaia Chuvashiia. s. 5).

The situation of the class struggle and communist construction was perceived by Chuvash intellectuals as a background and foundation for the communist experiment in the autonomous republic. Chuvash ASSR like other regions took part in this ideologically and politically aligned and formatted Soviet future project. Ivan Kuznetsov wrote a lengthy and extremely ideological essay "From a history of Chuvashia" for the 1933 book where he proposed his vision of Chuvash history. Ivan Kuznetsov was one of the first authors who proposed the orthodox scheme of Communist Chuvash history based on Marxist social and economic historicism in its Soviet version.

The history of Chuvashia was imagined by Ivan Kuznetsov as a predominantly socio-economic, its national dimensions and levels were understood as forms and expressions of Chuvash bourgeois nationalism. The futuristic component in political imagination of Ivan Kuznetsov was reduced and expressed predominantly in the development of the politicized and also ideologized narratives of Chuvash history. Chuvash pre-1917 history was imagined only as a pre-history of the October Revolution. Ivan Kuznetsov did not spare colors for creation and promotion of the extremely negative images of ideological Others who, as he believed, «more than a thousand years Chuvash peoples were in the slavery of Chuvash warlords, Tatar and Russian military and feudal cliques, Chuvash-Russian bourgeoisie. Chuvash peasants were

oppressed by Bulgar Khanate in the 12th century... later Chuvash nation was ruled by Tatar khanate» (Kuznetsov, 1933, pp.9 - 10).

In the early 1930s, Ivan Kuznetsov did not pay attention to the accuracy of terms and fidelity of definitions because he suggested that ideological role of history was more mattered. Ivan Kuznetsov wrote, imagined and invented Chuvash history from the class positions. Cultivating and promoting the socioeconomic version of Chuvash history, Ivan Kuznetsov modernized some of the social and economic realities of the 19th century. For example, Ivan Kuznetsov dated by the 19th-century genesis of Chuvash proletariat (Kuznetsov, 1933, s. 19). Ivan Kuznetsov in his effort to write ideologically sanctioned history developed and expressed his extremely negative attitude to an activity of Chuvash educators. He presumed that Ivan Yakovlev actually served interests of the ruling political classes and supported of Russification (Kuznetsov, 1933, s. 24).

Chuvash socialist-revolutionaries (esery) and representatives of other bourgeois parties in the imagined conception of history proposed by Ivan Kuznetsov were imagined as class enemies and opponents (Kuznetsov, 1933, s 37). The establishment of Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in RSFSR symbolized Chuvash futuristic levels and dimensions of historical process concept of Ivan Kuznetsov. Ivan Kuznetsov was inclined to imagine Chuvash future as a predominantly communist political project. Chuvash language was imagined as a part of Chuvash modernization project and an element of Chuvash future. Dmitrii Danilov argued that after the October Revolution in Chuvashia developed "new Chuvash literary language". Chuvash language in Chuvash ASSR, as Dmitrii Danilov presumed, became «the language of the revolutionary era and creation of the masses, which after the October Revolution become active participants in political and cultural life» (Danilov, 1933, pp.110 - 111).

This language was declared by Dmitrii Danilov "revolutionary Chuvash literary language" (Danilov, 1933, s. 111). Chuvash literature history in the first half of the 1930s was imagined in the same methodologically coordinates. Chuvash literature in its historical development was rigidly divided into pre-Soviet and Soviet. Konstantin Ivanov was imagined as the greatest pre-revolutionary Chuvash author, but he was accused by Dmitrii Danilov that he was «poet and enthusiastic singer of broad, lean, rich life of kulaks... he did not know the life of poor. The representatives of the poor classes are interpreted in landscape style. They are represented by Konstantin Ivanov as funny people who live their lives in feasts. as people who lived without cares and worries... Konstantin Ivanov as a poet depended on folklore» (Danilov, 1933, pp.131 -133).

Chuvash Soviet writers were opposed by Dmitrii Danilov to the pre-revolutionary literature tradition. §e§pel Missi was imagined as «a talented poet, a communist revolutionary product of Chuvash peasantry in the certain historical stage of the proletarian revolution» (Danilov, 1933, pp.146 - 147).

The perception of historical dimension in Chuvash literature in the first half of the 1930s was not developed. Chuvash literature was imagined as part of actual political processes, new communist world and project of Chuvash future. Dmitrii Danilov understood Chuvash literature in the first half of the 1930s as literature where images of politically correct communist future were invented. Dmitrii Danilov developing these political narratives presumed that Chuvash literature was an arena for the ideological struggle against opportunism, the bourgeois survivals and Chuvash dimensions of bourgeois nationalism. The futuristic elements of Chuvash literary process in the intellectual situation of the 1930s were politicized, and the project of Chuvash national futurum was rigidly ideologized and integrated into Soviet political canon and myth. Dmitrii Danilov also tried to actualize modernization futuristic elements in the communist political project in Chuvashia. Dmitrii Danilov contrasted the pre-revolutionary and Soviet social and economic realities of Chuvashia.

Comparing the pre-Soviet and Soviet Chuvashia Dmitrii Danilov argued that Chuvash peoples in the pre-Soviet period were oppressed minority. He also believed that the social and economic relations before the October Revolution were archaic and regressive. For example, Dmitrii Danilov argued that "individual farming" that dominated in Chuvashia until 1917 was based on "barbaric labour of women" (Danilov, 1933, s. 72). Soviet Chuvashia with its newly emerging industry and recently mechanized agriculture in the beginning of the 1930s was opposed in political imagination of Chuvash intellectuals to an old and archaic traditional Chuvashia existed in the pre-Soviet period.

Finding history, taming time: the 1920s and 1930s intellectual debates and their later echoes. The political changes that had revolutionary character institutionalized Chuvash autonomy in Russian Federation and also led to the significant transformations in the political and intellectual situation in the Sovietized Chuvashia. Chuvash intellectuals began to debate about the development of Chuvash language (Timuha Hevetere, 1928; Skulta verenmelli... 1934; Vanerkke N. 1926; Vanerkke N. 1929) and place and the role of Chuvash nation in history. These discussions actualized "past" and "future" problems of Chuvash nation. Chuvash history was invented and imagined by Chuvash intellectuals as an effective tool for strengthening and development of national identity. The historical studied of the 1920s and the 1930s were widely used for the formation of historicism in its Chuvash version.

The revolution and Chuvash autonomy institutionalization let numerous Chuvash intellectuals to map Chuvashia in the new invented and imagined

political geography of the Soviet Union. Petrov-Tinehpi Missi was among remarkable representatives of revolutionary generation among Chuvash intellectuals. Petrov-Tinehpi Missi believed that "Chuvash history" as part of the academic historical studies should be focused on analysis and studies of "Chuvash nation" history. Vanter Kurije (Vanter Kurije, 1921) in the same period tried to cultivate Chuvash historical imagination based in Bulgarian and the Golden Horde narratives. The activities of Vanter Kurije assisted to Chuvashization of history and collective representations about historical past. Petrov-Tinehpi Missi (Petrov-Tinehpi Missi, 1928) also believed that in the past the neighbors deprived Chuvash nation right to be the independent and autonomous actor in history. In the 1928 Petrov-Tinehpi Missi stressed that «the period between the 1236 and 1917 was the period of servitude existence... Russian regime of oppression was the continuation of Tatar oppression period... the wild Asians began the destruction of Chuvash State ... and Russian statehood that was brutally predatory and stupid in its cruelty completed the subjugation of Chuvash nation» (Pervyi Vsechuvashskii kraevedcheskii s'ezd, 1929, s. 63).

Therefore, Petrov-Tinehpi Missi (Petrov-Tinehpi Missi, 1925) presumed that Chuvash nation in Russian-Tatar political struggles played the passive role, as Tatars and Russian actually erased Chuvash nation from the history and Russian intellectuals did a lot for its imagination as primitive and non-historical people. Chuvash intellectuals and historians of the 1920s took the first steps towards the creation and institutionalization of Chuvash historical narrative and invention of Chuvash national history. These attempts were extremely negatively evaluated by Chuvash historians of radical and orthodox communist orientation. Ivan Kuznetsov, who was among founding fathers of communist discourse in Chuvash historiography, actively criticized Petrov-Tinehpi Missi and Vanter Kurije as his ideological opponents. Vasilii Dimitriev, who was among leading Soviet and post-Soviet Chuvash historians, also criticized ideas of nationally oriented Chuvash intellectuals of the 1920s and 1930s and also rejected the concept of separate and independent Chuvash history in general.

If Vanter Kurije, Petrov-Tinehpi Missi, and V. Smolin (Smolin, 1921) tried to write a history of Chuvashia as national Chuvash history, Ivan Kuznetsov and Vasilii Dimitriev (Dimitriev, 2003) as their ideological and methodological opponents in contrary to them developed the deeply pro-Russian form of history writing. If Chuvash nationally oriented intellectuals invented and imagined Chuvash nation as an active and central subject of Chuvash history, Soviet, and post-Soviet Chuvash historians actually denied Chuvash nation in its historical personality. If Vanter Kurije, Petrov-Tinehpi Missi, and V. Smolin Chuvashized imagined the category of historical time, their ideological opponents were inclined to invent and imagine Russian influence as an extremely positive basis of Chuvash history, but Chuvash nation in this version

of historical imagination transformed in the silent majority. The main lines and vector of discrepancies and contradictions between Chuvash historians can be mapped and localized in acceptance or rejection of history of Chuvashia as a national form of history.

Vanter Kurije, Petrov-Tinehpi Missi and V. Smolin preferred to write a history of Chuvashia in the national coordinate system and they invented it as a national Chuvash history. Their ideological and political critics and opponents, including Ivan Kuznetsov, accused them that they were in captivity of national stereotypes and prejudices. Ivan Kuznetsov accused Petrov-Tinehpi Missi in the falsification of history. Ivan Kuznetsov presumed that Petrov-Tinehpi Missi instead writing of a history as class struggle history was active in attempts to write it as a history of "Chuvash people and Chuvash nation" (Kuznetsov, 1930; Kuznetsov, 1931). Ivan Kuznetsov thought that the interest of his opponents in a history of Chuvashia as the folk and national history assisted to ideologization and mythologization of history in general. Historical narratives were actively used for the actualization of images and dimensions of the past historical time in Chuvash identity. Evgenii Pogodin commenting in the late 1990s on the debates and discussions among Chuvash intellectuals between the two world wars, presumed that "the reaction Marxist historicism won Chuvash liberal positivist historicism" (Pogodin, 1999, s 76). Academic studies of Chuvash language and practical attempts of its wide promotion in the 1920s and the 1930s had a dual function.

Conclusions. Chuvash linguists, on the one hand, actualized "past" narratives because the language was invented, understood and perceived by them as a living form of continuity between different historical generations of the imagined Chuvash nation. On the other hand, language also was perceived as an expression of Chuvash nation potential in its "future" dimensions. The dichotomy of "national history" and "national language", realized and actualized by Chuvash intellectuals in the 1920s and the 1930s, lost its value by the middle of the 1950s when national history finally was forcibly replaced by a history of Chuvash people or a history of Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. These histories were not imagined as Chuvash national because an ideological struggle against the "bourgeois nationalism", including Chuvash, periodically took place in Soviet and also autonomous republics.

The role of Chuvash language also was gradually reduced. The invented categories of historical landscape and historical time in Chuvash national imagination only formally and nominally continued to exist and function as Chuvash when processes of gradual denationalization and actual Russification assisted to the erosion of national identities among non-Russian nations and ethnic groups of the USSR. The historical and linguistic studies in the 1920s and the 1930s were areas of collective "past" and "future" representations in

Chuvash identity. In the second half of the 20th century mental "past" and "future" narratives migrated in Chuvash literature. This was possible because Chuvash intellectuals of interwar decades Chuvashized categories of history and historical time. They also transformed Chuvash from non-historical inorodtsi into historical Chuvash nation and also formed and proposed the imagined category of Chuvash historical time and Chuvash historicism.

References:

1. Qávas respuplek tep sakkune. Supaskar, 1930.

2. Sovetskaia Chuvashiia. Natsional'no-kul'turnoe stroitel'stvo. Moskva: Sotsekgiz, 1933.

3. Kuznetsov. I. (1933). Iz istorii Chuvashii, Danilov, D., Kuznetsov, I., Liublin, I., Petrov, S. (1933), eds. Sovetskaia Chuvashiia. Natsional'no-kul'turnoe stroitel'stvo. Moskva: Sotsekgiz, pp.9 - 10.

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ИНТЕЛЛЕКТУАЛЬНЫЕ СТРАТЕГИИ СОВЕТИЗАЦИИ КАК ПРЕОДОЛЕНИЕ ФРОНТИРА, ИЛИ КАК ЧУВАШСКИЕ НАЦИОНАЛИСТЫ ФОРМИРОВАЛИ СОЦИАЛИСТИЧЕСКИЙ КАНОН В 1920-1930-Е ГГ.

Кирчанов М.В.

Кирчанов Максим Валерьевич, Воронежский государственный университет, Воронеж, Россия, 394000, Пушкинская, 16, [email protected]

Статья сфокусирована на проблемах истории советизации чувашского культурного и интеллектуального дискурса. Советизация Чувашии принадлежит к числу малоизученных проблем в современной российской историографии. Автор анализирует культурные и интеллектуальные тактики и стратегии чувашских интеллектуалов в контекстах советизации. Эти проблемы анализируются в контексте модернистского подхода. Автор полагает, что механизмы националистического воображения и изобретения традиций имели системное и центральное значение для развития советской формы чувашской национальной и политической идентичности. Предполагается, что чувашские интеллектуалы пытались сочетать националистический и коммунистический дискурсы. Автор полагает, что некоторые чувашские коммунисты были чувашскими националистами и пытались сформировать чувашские культурные пространства, основанные на синтезе различных форм лояльностей и идентичностей. Чувашские интеллектуалы пытались соединить коммунистическую лояльность с идеями и принципами политического национализма. Чувашские националисты полагали, что культура, литература и язык принадлежат к числу сфер, которые было необходимо советизировать и интегрировать в формирующиеся советский интеллектуальный канон. Советизация идентичности и ее фактическое воображение и изобретение стали универсальными формами преодоления периферийного культурного статуса, маргинальности и категорий фронтирности и неопределенности в развитии национальной чувашской идентичности.

Ключевые слова: чувашский национализм, идентичность, фронтир, советизация, интеллектуальное сообщество, изобретение традиций.

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