Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism as understood by Russian officials (early 20th century)

The authors of the article are recognized pundits in the history of Russian Islam, the spiritual and religious life of Muslim peoples in Russia. In the late 19th - early 20th centuries two global phenomena emerged which in Russia were referred to as “pan-Islamism” and “pan-Turkism”. As a matter of fact, these are phenomena that manifest the unification trends of the Muslims (pan-Islamism) and of Turkic ethnic community (pan-Turkism). In that period in Russia the bulk of Muslim population was made up by Turkic peoples, such as Tatars, Azeri, etc. Being well aware of the difference between the terms “panIslamism” and “pan-Turkism”, the authors, nevertheless, arbitrarily combine them together without separating the ideas from their holders, thus emphasizing the intersection of similar ideas in the consciousness of Russian administrative elite. The article focuses on the views of political police officials of the Russian Empire on pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism. The authors use numerous documents of the political police to carry out a detailed analysis of how and why the police officials’ conception of pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism evolved. This change was primarily effected by revolutionary, international and military events which occurred in the early 20th century. According to the authors, the police officials shared the opinion that the proliferation and expansion of pan-Islamism/pan-Turkism could trigger political separatism in the Muslim community, which could eventually cause the territories with a predominantly Muslim population to break away from the Russian state. On the other hand, the police officialdom treated pan-Islamism/ pan-Turkism differently in accordance with a particular Muslim region. The police assessments of pan-Islamism/pan-Turkism, which were mostly of mythical character, and their strong exaggeration of its political