DISGRACED MULLAH APANAEV: HOW THE GENDARMES CRUSHED THE MUSLIM UNION AND THE BOLSHEVIKS EXECUTED ITS FOUNDER
KAZAN'S IMAM AND PHILANTHROPIST GABDULLA APANAEV
PART 2
Historian Radik Salikhov continues to introduce Realnoe Vremya readers to the life of the renowned Tatar imam Gabdulla Apanaev.
In the second part of his essay, the researcher explores in greater detail Hazrat Apanaev’s political activities and the repressions to which this religious figure was subjected.
ON THE PATH TO UNITY IN THE “MUSLIM UNION”
Gabdulla Apanaev, who was more of a practical organizer than a theoretician, launched an extensive campaign alongside his close friend G. Barudi.
They began with the most important task: building a social base for the Muslim Union. In 1905–1907, thanks to G. Barudi’s efforts, almost all the mudarrises of Kazan—and, consequently, their congregations—largely accepted the programme of the emerging party and were prepared to support it. Despite numerous disagreements, the city’s strong student movement also sought cooperation with the “fathers of the nation,” and G. Apanaev played a significant role in this process. At the same time, progressive religious leaders in the rural districts of the province, who faced pressure from the conservative majority, and Jadidist teachers urgently needed to unite and establish a common leadership centre.
For Kazan’s progressive Muslims, coordinating their efforts with like-minded people in other regions of Russia was also a pressing concern. Representatives of the local Muslim Union branch—G. Barudi, G. Apanaev, Y. Akchura and S. Alkin—successfully addressed these issues together with student movement leaders A. Ishaki and F. Amirkhan.
In a short time, they managed to win the support of most of the Tatar population in Kazan Province and neighbouring provinces, foster cooperation, establish a system for collecting funds for the party treasury, arrange for schools and madrasas to receive books free of charge, and carry out many other initiatives.
According to the organisers’ plans, the culmination of these efforts was to be an All-Russian Congress of Teachers and Shakirds (madrasa students). Preparatory courses for teachers were also scheduled to open in Kazan in May 1907.
The programme was ambitious. More than 100 delegates from Kazan, Vyatka, Perm, Ufa, Orenburg and Nizhny Novgorod provinces planned to attend classes on methods of teaching secular subjects at the 10th Mosque, whose imam was S. Galeev, the younger brother of G. Barudi.
They then intended to discuss the resolutions of the Third All-Russian Muslim Congress, as well as the main provisions of the “Unity” student union’s programme, in order to determine their future strategy and tactics.
FROM RESPECTED IMAM TO “DANGEROUS CRIMINAL” AND REBEL
However, all these plans collapsed overnight. In 1905–1906, Muslims managed to hold three All-Russian congresses, establish their own political party, and form a fairly strong Muslim faction in the State Duma. This surge of activity seriously alarmed the authorities, who moved decisively to launch a campaign of repression.
Seizing the opportunity, the provincial administration obtained a copy of the Union’s programme and discovered provisions calling for a restructuring of Russia’s social order. Accusing the Kazan branch of Ittifaq of anti-government activities, the authorities declared any attempt to implement the principles originally laid down in the party programme illegal. The gendarmerie and police acted efficiently. The moment the preparatory courses for teachers began, they were immediately shut down, and the delegates who had arrived for the congress were hastily sent home. Those identified as the principal troublemakers—G. Barudi, S. Galeev (Barudi), G. Apanaev, A. Ishaki, as well as Kazan merchants S. Galikeev, S. Aitov and A. Kazakov, who had financed the unauthorised meetings—were placed under investigation.
After a year-long investigation, G. Barudi, S. Galeev, G. Apanaev and A. Kazakov were sentenced to two years of exile in Vologda Governorate by a decision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs dated 17 March 1908. A. Ishaki had been exiled earlier under a different charge. In this way, the Kazan branch of the Young Muslim organisation was decapitated. For several more years, investigative authorities continued identifying and persecuting their like-minded associates throughout the province’s districts.
The case, which was suspended and reopened several times, was given the revealing title “On the Political Reliability of Kazan Mullahs G. Galeev, Kh. Maksudov and G. Apanaev.” As a result, dozens of imam-khatibs were removed from their posts, while many Jadidist madrasas and schools were closed. Pogroms instigated by denunciations from conservatives such as Ishmi-Ishan and A. Ishmuratov destroyed the results of painstaking and productive efforts to educate the people and unite them around the ideals of freedom and justice.
On 31 March 1910, G. Apanaev returned from exile. Six months later, his home was searched, and he was interrogated as a suspect in the case involving the Izh-Bubi madrasa. It should also be noted that, at the time, his name appeared in several other high-profile cases pursued by the Kazan Provincial Gendarmerie Directorate against Pan-Islamists.
Thus, involuntarily transformed from a respected religious leader into a “dangerous criminal” and rebel, Hazrat Gabdulla nevertheless refused to surrender and continued to defy fate.
The articles written by G. Apanaev during this period, as well as his polemics with the ideologues of great-power Russian chauvinism, are particularly noteworthy. In the newspaper Kama-Volga Söze, he wrote in excellent Russian, with a lively style and undisguised sarcasm and irony, demonstrating his profound knowledge of Russian history and the country’s contemporary political situation.
His passionate calls to end campaigns of persecution against inorodtsy (non-Russian peoples), along with his condemnation of the autocracy’s missionary policies, run like a red thread through his other press publications from that period.
THE PREACHER AND ENLIGHTENER’S SECOND RENAISSANCE AND TRAGIC END
After returning from exile, G. Apanaev once again found himself at the very heart of public life. He was elected to the city council, where he served on four committees. He also put himself forward as a candidate in the elections to the Fourth State Duma. The disgraced mullah continued to devote much of his time to his beloved cause — education and enlightenment. However, he had to start all over again.
Following G. Apanaev’s exile, he was removed from his position as imam of the Yunus Mosque congregation. The provincial administration appointed Mukhammettayip Altynbaev in his place, a graduate of the Kyshkar madrasah (now located in the Arsky District of Tatarstan — Editor’s note), who was known for his highly conservative views. The new religious leader reversed all the reforms introduced by his predecessor. The once-famous educational institution, founded by Mullah Gabdulla and later renamed Utyamysh, soon became a low-prestige Muslim school with outdated teaching methods and few students.
Nevertheless, G. Apanaev managed to revive his creation. This time, however, the madrasah was located on Ekaterininskaya Street (now G. Tukay Street) and was no longer affiliated with any mosque. The tireless mudarris (madrasah teacher) embarked on an extensive educational programme, choosing a direction that the authorities considered dangerous at the time: training teachers for the province’s new-method schools.
The administration’s negative reaction was not long in coming. In a letter sent to the Minister of Internal Affairs on 2 November 1910, Kazan Governor M. Strizhevsky expressed concern that Apanaev’s school and the Muhammadiya madrasah had produced a number of graduates with a pronounced national and Muslim orientation. Since these graduates remained highly popular among the people as preachers of new Muslim ideas, the official proposed barring them from serving as mullahs or teachers.
Despite harsh restrictive measures, discrimination and police surveillance, G. Apanaev’s educational institution, like the Muhammadiya madrasah, stubbornly continued to bring the light of knowledge and culture to the people.
The final years of Hazrat Gabdulla’s life were overshadowed by tragic events. In 1916, his eldest son, Yahya Apanaev, was killed on the front lines of the First World War. A year later, the mullah realised that a national catastrophe was looming in the wake of his personal tragedy. He vehemently protested against the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, and the liquidation of the “Zacaban Republic.”
The circumstances surrounding G. Apanaev’s execution remain largely unknown and are still shrouded in mystery. On 25 June 1919, during the uprising of a Tatar battalion in Kazan, he was taken hostage. It was at this time that the rebels killed revolutionary K. Yakupov, deputy chairman of the Central Muslim Military Commissariat. Apparently, Gabdulla Apanaev was made to pay for everything: his leadership of the Muslim Union, his support for the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, and his merchant-class background.
The mullah was accused of preparing a counterrevolutionary uprising and murdering M. Vakhitov — without any evidence whatsoever. He and the others arrested alongside him were sentenced to death by firing squad. The sentence was carried out immediately.
Radik Salikhov
Profile
Radik Salikhov is a historian and Deputy Director for Research at the Sh. Marjani Institute of History.
Born in 1965.
Doctor of Historical Sciences; Head of the Department of Contemporary History at the Sh. Marjani Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan; recipient of the 2008 State Prize of the Republic of Tatarstan in Science and Technology; member of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan since 2016.
Radik Salikhov has made a significant contribution to the study of the spiritual and material heritage of the Tatar people; the social structure of Tatar society in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries; the influence of Jadidist reforms on the Muslim community; the formation of the national merchant and industrial elite; the region’s economic history; historical and contemporary heraldry in Russia; and the regional history of Tatarstan.
Under his academic supervision and guidance, eight doctoral dissertations leading to the Candidate of Historical Sciences degree have been completed. He is the author of eight monographs and more than 80 academic articles.
From 2002 to 2006, he served as Executive Secretary of the Heraldic Council under the President of the Republic of Tatarstan. Since 2006, he has served as Deputy Chairman of the Council.
