Academic Scientific JournalsTerritorial Change and Islamic Expression in Post-Soviet Tatarstan, Journal of Geography, Politics and Society
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26881/jpgs.2026.3.01Keywords:
Tatarstan, Islam, territoriality, nationalism, Russia, political geographyAbstract
The Republic of Tatarstan is often portrayed as a model of moderate Islam within the Russian Federation, with its stability commonly attributed to the liberal traditions of Tatar Islam and interfaith coexistence. This article argues that such explanations overlook the political-geographical contexts within which competing expressions of Islam emerge and acquire public legitimacy. Drawing on qualitative historical and interpretive analysis of public discourse, institutional publications, official documents, and symbolic landscape, it examines how changing territorial conditions reshaped competing expressions of Islam in post-Soviet Tatarstan. The article first reconstructs an intellectual history of debates among nationalist organizations, intellectuals, religious leaders, and state institutions concerning the relationship between Islam and homeland before examining how those changing expressions found material form in the symbolic landscape of the Kazan Kremlin. The findings demonstrate that changing territorial conditions reshaped the discursive, institutional, and material expression of Islam as Tatarstan moved from republican sovereignty toward accommodation within a recentralized multinational Russian state.
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