Mukden Congress

Mukden Congress (I Far Eastern Congress of Turkic-Tatars) - a meeting of representatives of the Tatar emigration of the Far East ( China , Korea , Japan , Manzhou-Guo ) held from February 4, 1935 to February 14, 1935 in Mukden ( China ), convened on the initiative of the famous Tatar public figure G. Iskhaki ^[1] . The congress was attended by 41 deputies representing the Tatar communities of the region (representatives of local Idel-Ural committees), more than a hundred activists of Idel-Ural, official representatives of Manchuria and Japan. The main goal of the congress was to unite regional Tatar political, religious, cultural organizations. At the congress, a negative assessment was given to both the communist transformations in Russia and the aspirations of the revival of Russia by the White Guard emigration. The acquisition by the Tatars of territorial and state independence within Russia ( Ural-Volga state ) was considered as a guideline. Representatives of the public reacted to the results of the congress mixed. Soviet citizens and representatives of the White Guard emigration reacted to them mainly in opposition or hostility, most Tatars are neutral. The exception was the representatives of the Ukrainian public, who provided the pages of their newspaper “Ukrainian Herald” to propagate the ideas of G. Iskhaki. Ishaqi failed to push the Tatar emigrants to manifest open hostility towards the USSR, and official representatives of Japan and Manzhou-Guo refrained from supporting his ideas ^[2] .

At the congress, the Idel-Ural National Religious Committee of the Turkic-Tatar Muslims of the Far East was formed ^[3] . Despite the increased emigration of Tatars to Europe, the USA and Australia from the mid-30s, the committee from 1935 to 1945 resolved issues related to the life of the Tatar diaspora in the Far East, was in charge of the cultural and religious issues of the Tatar diaspora, led the Tatar communities, libraries, and printing houses , schools. The committee’s publications made a significant contribution to the development of the Tatar diaspora in the region: the newspaper Milli Bayrak (The National Flag) and the magazine Shakirdlyar Tany (Zarya Shakirdov). Among the important achievements of the committee was the opening of a mosque in Harbin in 1937, in 1938 a home for the elderly and disabled, in 1940 a boarding school for orphans and children of insolvent parents.

After the defeat of the Kwantung Army and the surrender of Japan in 1945, the Idel-Ural committees ceased to exist, and most of their leaders were arrested by the Soviet counterintelligence agencies.