THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY

186
THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND
a negative way. In this approach, a conflict greets the eye. Before
Golden Horde there was an interregnum, and if the assumptions
about Golden Horde’s bad effects on Russia were as bad as Russian
and Soviet historians claimed, the Russian state should have been in
a worse situation than the start of the twelfth century and should
have regressed more. However, Russia after Golden Horde’s dominance
became strong enough to surprise European observers.
The negative description of Golden Horde and its heirs during the
Soviet era caused some other problems both to USSR governance
and the non-Russian population. Golden Hordes’ negative image was
actually the others’, the enemy’s description. Therefore, this situation
was admissible. But then, considering the facts that the depicter and
“the other” were living under the same roof and Kremlin’s sayings
about brotherhood and friendship, there was an obvious contradiction
and created an undesirable situation for non-Russian population.
Moreover, a part of the non-Russian population was directly related
to Golden Horde. Thus, when the Soviet government realized that
this common history could unite all these populations against USSR,
Soviet authorities developed another thesis after the 1944 prohibition.
An edited book called “Materials for Tatar Autonomous Soviet
Socialist Republic” was published in 1948 and the history of the
Kazan Khanate and Tatar population was reinterpreted. According to
this work, Tatar had nothing to do with the puritanical and barbaric
Golden Horde and the Kazan Khanate which was just a remnant of
this puritanical feudal state. In addition to that, Tatars, supposedly,
lived under the oppressive dominance of these two states. 341 Hereafter,
Ivan IV saved the populations (Turks) in the region from these
two savage state’s dominance, and moreover, these population liaised
with Russians during this period. In other words, according to Soviet
historians the people of Golden Horde and Kazan Khanate, who were
suppressed by their own states, liaised with Russians when it came
to their conflicts against these states and in which they ultimately
defeated their common enemy. Meanwhile, certain facts such as the
local insurgency against Russian incursion and continuous insurrection
afterwards were ignored. This mentality was instilled into the
population so well that even today Bashkirs began to celebrate the
anniversary of the voluntary accession Bashkiria to Russia.
341 Frank, A. J., Islamic Historiography and “Bulghar” Identity amongthe Tatars and Bashkirs
of Russia, Brill Acedemic Pub., Leiden-Boston 1998, pp. 180-185; Şahin, L. “Rusya Federasyonu’nda
Orta Öğretim Tarih Ders Kitapları Üzerine Tartışmalar: Tataristan Örneği”, İdil-Ural
Tarihi Sempozyumu (10-12 Ekim 2011) Bildiriler, I: Türkçe Metinler, prepared by. İ. Kemaloğlu,
TTK Press, Ankara 2015, pp. 238.