printNational and Religious Identities:
Experience of Interconnection Analysis (on the Example of Research
in the Republic of Tatarstan)
Sitnikov A.V.
Dr. Sci. (Philos.), Prof. of the Department of State-confessional relations of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia. sitnikov-av@ranepa.ru
Romanov M.V.
Сand. Sci. (Sociol.), Autonomous Non-profit Organization Public Opinion Research Laboratory, Moscow, Russia mvroman@mail.ru
Faskhudinov R.R.
Post-graduate student of the Department of state-confessional relations of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia. rinathazrat@mail.ru
Sitnikov A.V., Romanov M.V., Faskhudinov R.R. National and Religious Identities: Experience of Interconnection Analysis (on the Example of Research in the Republic of Tatarstan). Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2022. No 3. P. 120-134
The authors of the article, basing on the results of a mass survey in September 2020 in the Republic of Tatarstan (Russia), investigate relationships between nationalism and Islamic religiosity among the Tatar population of the republic. The survey was conducted by the method of telephone interviewing on a random sample with a total of 1,000 respondents. The survey involved permanent ethnic Tatars residents of the Republic of Tatarstan over 18 years old. The authors answer the question of what place Islamism occupies in the public consciousness, how much Islam is in demand as an ideology for the political consolidation of society, and, accordingly, for religious nationalism. The authors of the article analyze how Islamism, ethnic and religious nationalism relate to each other. The analysis of religiosity showed that in Tatarstan there is no relationship between religiosity and nationalism that might be called “religious nationalism,” that is, striving for the political self-determination of the nation for religious reasons, which resonate with ethnic ones. Also, the authors of the article identified only very weak correlations between variables reflecting importance that respondents attached to ethnicity, and variables reflecting the attitude of respondents to various aspects of religiosity. Ethnic issues for the respondents were more important than religion, and ethno-nationalism was practically unrelated to religiosity in any of its manifestations. The study showed that a high religiosity of the Tatars leads to the need for manifestations of religion in the public sphere and at the everyday level, but does not cause striving for Islamism, i. e. to rebuild the political sphere in accordance with the norms of Islam.
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