‘Biography’ by Ibrahim Makhmudov: a Soviet Party Leader Views on a Rural Muslim Community of the Early 20th Century

Abstract

The author analyzes the memoirs of Ibrahim Makhmudovich Makhmudov (1893-1970), an Astrakhan Yurt Tatar, one of the active builders of the Soviet system in the Tatar villages of the Astrakhan region. Shortly before his death, in 1969, I.M. Makhmudov completed a handwritten version of his memoirs, in which he reflected aspects of the daily life of the Muslim community of the Yurt-Tatar village of Zatsarevo in 1900-14. Based on the personal observations, Makhmudov compiled memories of the last decade and a half of the quiet life of the Tatar-Muslim community of a provincial Russian town before the turbulent events of wars and revolutions that ended with the establishment of Soviet power. The author of the memoirs, as an eyewitness and bearer of cultural tradition, comprehensively and deeply, sometimes scrupulously, covers the events of the early 20th century in a closed Muslim community - the mahalla. However, his assessments to these events and lifestyle area also assessments of a Soviet party leader, who both was an atheist and a person with a huge life experience in the struggle for the ideals of Soviet power as well as a convinced supporter.