52
2.6.3. The Jadids and Russian Educated Intellectuals
The Central Asian Jadids were a bit different from the ones in European
Russia and Transcaucasia. For example, Central Asian Jadids were much closer to
the Islamic cultural tradition rather than other Jadids in other parts of Russia. The
Jadids of European Russia, especially intellectuals of Crimea and Volga Tatars, and
Transcaucasia took Russian education in modern Russian schools or academies. For
example, Ismail Gasprinsky had attended a military academy in Moscow and served
as a secretary of Ivan Turgunev in Paris for two years.
130
In addition, it should not be
skipped that the Jadids of Crimea and Volga Tatars were
the founding fathers and
leading personalities of the Jadidism. Central Asian Jadids were not only different
from the Jadids of European Russia but also different from the small number of
Central Asian modern- secular and Russian educated intellectuals. As their well-
known name for these intellectuals, munevvers, which means intellectuals in Arabic
language, was used. They were commonly known as munevvers. These Central
Asians with a modern Russian secular education were in majority Tatar and Kazakhs.
While Central Asian Jadids (Jadids of the khanates of Bukhara,
Khiva and
Turkestan) were coming from families of the old cultural elite, Central Asian Tatar
intellectuals, whose families arrived in the region after the Russian conquest, came
from aristocratic elites.
131
The Kazakhs also came from aristocratic families. The
Kazakh aristocracy emerged in the Steppe by the middle of the 19
th
century.
132
And,
this Steppe aristocracy was very secular as compared with the other aristocrat groups
in Bukharan, Khivan and Turkestan. Since there was no madrasas giving a religious
130
Adeeb, Khalid,
The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia
, (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998), 105.
131
Adeeb, Khalid,
The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia
, (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998), 105.
132
Ibid, 105.
53
based education in the Steppe, and Kazakhs did not have a tradition of madrasa
learning, Kazakh children were sent to Russian schools
since the beginning of the
19
th
century and this situation caused a birth of a secular Kazakh elite class in the
Steppe.
133
“The Russian conquest of Turkestan brought the Qazaq steppe under
greater influence of the Islam reproduced in madrasas, as madrasa students found it
safer to travel to the steppe in the summer. Writing in 1910, Ahmet Bukeykhanov
saw two competing new elites emerging in the Qazaq lands, one formed like him in
Russian institutions, the other increasingly Muslim and formed in the madrasas of
Central Asia and the Volga”.
134
The secular intellectuals
of Central Asia generally
went to Russia to take education. To give an example, Mustafa Chokay, who was a
descendent of Khivan royal family and a famous leader of Kokand Autonomous
Government, which was founded in 1917 and was destroyed by the Bolsheviks in
1918, got education in law faculty in St. Petersburg University. Although Chokay’s
activities were similar to Jadids, he belonged to the group of Russian educated
secular intellectuals. Even, to demonstrate the distinction between Jadids and secular
intellectuals
,
“it was very difficult to find any interaction or link between them
before 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution. The Jadids represented the modernization of
the Muslim cultural tradition of Central Asia; the secular intellectuals were fluent in
the idiom of European thought. The Jadids spoke to
Muslim society in order to
achieve cultural change; the secular intellectuals spoke to the Russian state and
Russian society in order to achieve political change”.
135
When Jadids and secular
intellectual group merged into a common political movement in 1917, the modern
educated intellectuals had the leading role in the politics although Jadids had
133
Ibid, 106.
134
Adeeb, Khalid,
The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia
, (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998), 106.
135
Adeeb, Khalid,
The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia
, (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998), 106.
54
numerical majority and influence
over the local people; because modern secular
intellectual group owned an advantage of using Russian language and Russian
political idiom perfectly.
136
Central Asian Jadidism as being different from Russian
educated modern secular intellectuals, concentrated on Muslim modernism, because
Jadidism’s rhetoric had its roots in Islamic tradition and culture of Central Asian
Muslim society.
137
Therefore, their basic emphasis was upon the modernity which
was congruent with the true essence of Islam, and modernization of Muslim society
through a new understanding of Islam.
138
In addition, there was a difference between
the Jadids and secular intellectuals about the program for the political future. For
example, the main idea of Russian educated secular intellectuals (munevvers) was
not
separated from Russia; instead, they were favor of national, territorial, cultural
and federal autonomy for the Muslim nationalities under the rule of Russia. In short,
they were much more interested in cultural matters rather than political.
139
However,
The Jadids were the severe advocates of full independence for future program.
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