Muslim clergy of Tobolsk guberniya in 1830 (evidence of congregational registers)

This article analyzes handwritten Muslim registers of the Turkic-speaking peoples of Western Siberia. These books were compiled by the Muslim clergy in the Old Tatar language using Arabic script and were later translated into Russian. The sources are archival documents in Tatar and Russian, written in 1830 in 45 settlements in Tara, Tobolsk, and Tyumen Okrugs of Tobolsk Guberniya. These are the earliest surviving sources among similar archival documents in the area under study. This composition of the Muslim clergy in 1830 is analyzed using the understudied sources with historical, social, and cultural information contained in them. Information about 49 individuals has been established, including their spiritual rank, personal name, patronymic (surname), and place of service. The authors conclude that Muslim congregational records are valuable historical and linguistic sources. A comparison between the original and its translation confirms the accuracy of information translated into Russian. However, there were some discrepancies in writing personal names, associated with rendering specific aspects of Tatar pronunciation into Russian. Russian translations also revealed some traces of Siberian Tatar regional dialect: 1) ts-ch merger: Retsepov - Rəҗəb ugli, Sabantsev - Sabanchiev; 2) җ → ch: Җəgъfər - Chebir; 3) omission of consonant sound at the beginning of the word: Gabdulla ugli - Abdulin; 4) з → с: Urazay - Urasay, etc.