Muslim charitable societies and Muslim committees and bureaus (based on the Kazan, Ufa and Orenburg provinces)

Abstract

The article is devoted to Muslim charitable societies and Muslim committees and bureaus as forms of self-organization and social movements ofRussian Muslims in the early 20^th century. As early as at the end of the 19^th century first Muslim charitable societies were created as cultural, educational and social centers of communities with collegial management. Muslim committees and bureaus, formed after the February Revolution of 1917, were mainly socio-political organizations of Muslim Turkic-Tatars from the Orenburg District Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly (OMSA), they did not represent any political bodies of a specific orientation. In the spring and summer, sometimes in the early autumn of 1917, they united the activities of various Muslim organizations in the provincial city, and later often throughout the province, becoming direct predecessors of the provincial Milli Shuras (National Councils), which, from the very beginning, were the bodies of national-cultural autonomy. In this article, we analyze the continuity and interaction between these two structures, as well as their public activities.