“We will definitely roll this constitution back to its 1992 default settings.”
I will begin with conceptual matters. Why are they important to us? Because we conceptualise our political activity and conduct serious intellectual work aimed at restoring our status and achieving independence. There is no way around this — a serious undertaking requires a serious approach. Anyone who thinks that everything can be achieved by simply throwing one's hat at the problem will never achieve any results.
Following the changes that began in 2002 and concluded with the latest amendments in January 2023, the arrangement of political and legal entities established in the Constitution effectively reduced Tatarstan to the status of an ordinary constituent entity of the Russian Federation. Yet originally, Tatarstan was declared an independent, self-governing, sovereign state, possessing all the necessary attributes, institutions and statuses.
The Republic established its relationship with Moscow through a federal treaty on the division of powers and matters of joint jurisdiction. In 1994, this treaty was concluded for a period of 10 years and was incorporated both into the Constitution and into the legislation of the Russian Federation. In 2004, it expired, and Moscow refused to extend it. After lengthy negotiations, it was possible to extend it in 2007, but in a significantly reduced form. Then, in 2017, ten years later, Moscow finally refused to renew it.
I want to emphasise: the Constitution stipulated that Tatarstan was a democratic state governed by the rule of law, united with the Russian Federation — that is, through cooperation. This interaction was structured on the basis of the federal treaty, as an associative commonwealth. Both formally, in terms of the actual state of affairs, and legally, Tatarstan and the Russian Federation acted as equal entities. Tatarstan was not part of the Russian Federation — it was on the outside, not on the inside.
And then 2017 arrives — a watershed year, a negative year for the Tatars. The treaty was not renewed. An attack on the Tatar language and the education system began — this was an ideological blow. And somewhat earlier, in 2016–2017, there was an attack on the banking system: the collapse of Tatfondbank, followed by another seven Tatarstan banks. This was a blow to the economic foundation. The three pillars that supported Tatarstan were dismantled.
When Tatfondbank collapsed, Tatarstan requested financial rehabilitation from the Central Bank, offering guarantees from the republican budget and guaranteeing repayment of all debts. The request was rejected. Meanwhile, Moscow bailed out Otkritie Bank and others, whose financial holes amounted to nearly a billion dollars. Because they were their own. But here — no. In addition, a huge number of Tatarstan residents lost their deposits, and businesses went bankrupt. The objective was also to destabilise the situation internally.
This point is important for the future. When we restore sovereignty, we will definitely refer to this fact. It is decisive in the legal sense. When Tatarstan established its relations with the Russian Federation, it was not part of it. It was an equal entity. Once the treaty expired and Moscow refused to renew it, Tatarstan legally fell out of this relationship. The thread was broken. What document now regulates these relations? None. Legally, Tatarstan is in free navigation, in free drift. This means that interstate relations are currently unregulated.
People will tell me: what do you mean, unregulated? Here is Tatarstan, it is part of Russia, and so on. But it exists in the position of an occupied territory. Russia is currently acting like terrorists who have seized Tatarstan and are ordering it around. There is no legal foundation for this. Bandits take hostages — what kind of legal relations can there be in such circumstances? Anyone who falls into the hands of bandits is a victim. Here, the law of force applies. This is not a legal norm; it is potestarity — rule through force.
Of course, in 2002 and especially in 2023, the deputies of the State Council of Tatarstan voted to remove this legal subjectivity from the Constitution. But they had no right to do this. Although the provision stating that Tatarstan is a state remained in the Constitution. What is status? It is a form of codification of rules and legal relations established on the basis of the will of citizens. And what we see is the disregard of these legal and fundamental principles.
Therefore, I believe that we need to distinguish between two concepts. The first is the legal, fundamental one, which we preserve and which does not disappear anywhere. The second is the situational-political one, created as a result of external pressure from Moscow. Criminals can force a hostage to sign any document — to give up an apartment or a company. But when the criminals are caught and exposed, all of this is reversed, because the court and the investigation establish that the legal form is illegitimate. The same applies here. We will definitely bring this issue back.
The same applies to the concept of "sovereignty", which appears in the Constitution of Tatarstan, including in its first, fundamental section, which could not be amended without a nationwide referendum. The Constitution was adopted by the State Council, but on the basis of a referendum. The referendum is the supreme legal authority. The legal order is a hierarchy, a system of prescriptions, and it cannot simply be ignored. They wanted to, so they rewrote it — they might as well have written the Russian Constitution on tree stumps. But this is simply a mockery.
Let me remind you: the Constitution of Tatarstan was adopted on 6 November 1992. The Constitution of the Russian Federation was adopted in 1993, after Yeltsin bombarded and shelled the White House building, where the deputies of the Supreme Soviet were sitting. He imposed the so-called Constitution. It was written in blood. And it came a year after the Tatarstan Constitution. Tatarstan's status as a subject was established a year earlier, and everything happened peacefully.
And when they say that the Tatars want to secede and organise an interethnic massacre — that is a lie. There has not been a single interethnic conflict in Tatarstan, unlike in the Russian Federation, which went to war against Chechnya and, in the very centre of Moscow, on live television, shelled the parliament with tanks. And these are the people telling us that we want a massacre? The extent to which lies, cynicism and hypocrisy permeate the entire history and political nature of this space is astounding.
They removed the concept of "sovereignty", but the will of the people cannot simply be ignored. According to the Constitution, the people are the source of power. Neither officials, nor Putin, nor Minnikhanov, nor Shaimiev — they are merely managers implementing the will of the people. But here, power does not come from the people, because their will has been ignored. The representation of Tatarstan as a sovereign entity has been abolished — this is a violation of all norms. That is why I say: everything that happened after 2002, when they began cutting up the Constitution, is illegitimate. Because the people were not asked for their opinion. They are afraid to hold a referendum. And because all of this was done under external pressure. And the law? We couldn't care less — any criminal regime adopts laws. Nazi Germany adopted laws too. But when a criminal regime adopts laws, those laws are not legitimate in the universal sense. This is an attempt to institutionalise a dictatorship.
If a government violates the fundamental principles established by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Charter, the people have the right to revolt. Revolt in itself is legitimate. Revolution is what is truly legitimate.
Our task is to keep this in mind and communicate it to the people. Because we will definitely roll back this Constitution to its original 1992 settings. To the settings from which the process of tampering began in 1999 under pressure from Moscow.
Now, specifically. In 2002, the main reference to the citizenship of the Republic of Tatarstan was removed from the text. And according to the Constitution, we have citizenship. If there is state subjectivity, there must also be citizenship — it automatically comes as part of the package. The concept of sovereignty began to be used less frequently; it gradually dissolved. Nowadays, just try saying it — it is, generally speaking, a political crime. Then came further targeted editing. But the bilingual model, with the Tatar language as a state language, remained. Starting in 2017, there was an attempt to destabilise this issue as well and remove Tatar as a state language. However, the attributes of statehood remained: the status of president, the state language, and the republic as a state — this is even stipulated in the Russian Constitution: republics within the Russian Federation (in parentheses — states).
And at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, the final blow began — the complete castration of sovereignty. The State Council of the previous convocation adopted a package of amendments. They removed the word "sovereign", the reference to the treaty on the division of powers, and the title "President of the Republic of Tatarstan", replacing it with "Rais". I proposed a more radical format — to call the position "Chancellor". At least it would sound like the head of a chancellery. Because "Rais" in its Tatar form does not sound particularly impressive — we say kolkhoz raise, meaning "collective farm chairman". Something more fundamental would have been bashkan, "Chancellor". But the Kremlin has its own two brain cells; they didn't think of it.
They removed citizenship and the status of president. But there is something else important: they removed the reference to Tatarstan opposing the propaganda of war and declaring the peaceful nature of its existence. Tatarstan is currently in a difficult position because its main task is to acquire the full status of a subject of international law and international relations. Moscow imposed its will in every possible way. Tatarstan resisted — in the 1990s it was strong, but in the early 2000s, with the arrival of this war criminal Putin, it was gradually forced to fall into the wake of this sinking ship.
The question arises: how can Tatarstan preserve itself? Is Tatarstan, at its core, a theoretical space? To what extent does it have the ability to restore its status? I believe that its status can and must be restored. All the necessary resources for this exist.
When we speak about the "Five Tatarstans", my concept also includes two additional elements: an active Tatarstan and a passive Tatarstan, or a dynamic and a static one. There is the republic, and there is the Tatar people living in the diaspora. 75% of Tatars live outside Tatarstan. This is an enormous force, an incredibly powerful resource. In the 1990s, Tatarstan was strong and occupied the position of dynamic Tatarstan, setting the pace and determining the direction of movement. The Tatars in the diaspora occupied a more static position. It is like a piston: the dynamic part exerts pressure, and the static part rises. Ruslan Aysin
Coordinator of The Tatar Council
