Muslims of the Soviet East

In the 1930s, most of the Muslim clergy (as well as worshipers of other faiths) were physically destroyed in the USSR. In addition, in the 1930s, the languages ​​of the Muslim peoples of the USSR were translated from Arabic letters, first into Latin, and then into Cyrillic. This led to the fact that Soviet Muslims were culturally divorced from both foreign Muslims and the written tradition of their ancestors. Graduates of Soviet schools (even those where instruction was conducted in the languages ​​of Muslim peoples) did not speak Arabic.

During the Second World War , the activities of the Muslim clergy were legalized in the USSR, which was merged into four Muslim religious departments. The largest of these was the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan (SADUM) . All spiritual departments of Muslims were first subordinated to the Council for Religious Cults and its local representatives, and since 1965 to the Council for Religious Affairs and its local representatives.

The first attempt to create a Muslim religious journal in the USSR dates back to 1944. Then SADUM appealed to the Council of People's Commissars of the Uzbek SSR with a request for permission to publish its own monthly magazine. On September 11 of that year, the Council of People's Commissars of the Uzbek SSR issued decree No. 1088-142-s. The representative of the Council for Religious Cults for the Uzbek SSR I. Ibadov sent this Resolution to the Chairman of the SDRK I. Polyansky , a motion by the SADUM to publish a monthly journal, his own opinion and samples of materials planned for publication in the journal ^[1] .

The sanction for the creation of a magazine with a circulation of 3 thousand copies. given by V.M. Molotov . The Council for Religious Cults insisted that the publication be in Arabic. According to the historian V. A. Akhmadullin, insisting on the publication of magazines in Arabic script, the Soviet authorities sought to avoid their distribution among Soviet youth, who did not study the Arabic alphabet in school ^[2] . Therefore, the magazine was aimed at those Muslims who knew the Arabic script - foreigners and Soviet Muslims of advanced age who had been educated before the abolition of the Arabic script ^[2] . The latter were few, since a significant part of the elderly Muslims were illiterate. As for foreigners, SADUM magazines were supposed to show them false information about freedom of conscience in the USSR ^[2] .

All articles in the new journal were to undergo double coordination: in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Uzbek SSR and in the Plenipotentiary Council for Religious Cults. Only three “double” numbers really came out - No. 1/2 (1945 in the Uzbek language ), No. 3/4 (1946, the circulation of 5 thousand copies in the Uzbek and Kazakh languages, as well as in Farsi ) and No. 5 / 6 (1948, circulation of 5 thousand copies). The issues of the magazine appeared very late, part of the circulation was distributed abroad. After 1948, the publication of the magazine stopped for 20 years ..

The Religious Council has attempted to revive the magazine. At the end of 1951, in response to the request of SADUM to allow the publication of the lunar calendar , I. V. Polyansky proposed to publish a journal with a calendar instead of a calendar, but this idea was not realized ^[3] .

The border of the 1950s - 1960s is a period when many Muslim countries with which the USSR began to build allied relations gain independence. In April 1956, K. Khamitov, Plenipotentiary of the Council for Religious Cults under the Council of Ministers of the Tajik SSR, proposed organizing a religious illustrated journal in the Uzbek and Tajik languages ​​at the SADUM, and publishing the rubric on students of the Mir-i-Arab madrasah in Arabic ^{[ 3]} . However, this project has not been implemented.

The publication of a Muslim magazine pushed the Foreign Ministry of the USSR . In May 1957, Foreign Minister of the USSR G. T. Zaitsev sent a letter to Deputy Chairman of the Council for Religious Cults V. I. Gostev, in which he proposed to counter the propaganda of Great Britain and the United States in Arab countries by the publication of a magazine in Arabic by one of the Muslim religious authorities ^[4] . At that time, the Islamic Review magazine ^{[5] was} published in London . Gostev endorsed this idea, but pointed out the difficulties that existed at that time: the lack of a printing base, paper, and qualified personnel ^[5] . In 1957, the first issue of the magazine ^[5] was prepared in Tashkent. In 1958, the Council for Religious Cults approved the publication of the journal “in the Uzbek, Arabic and Farsi languages, bearing in mind the distribution of the main circulation of this journal abroad” ^[5] . In March 1960, the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs again informed the Council for Religious Cults that it was necessary to publish the journal SADUM ^[5] to counter Western propaganda in eastern countries. However, at that time the Khrushchev anti-religious campaign was already underway. Three weeks later, the Council for Religious Cults stated that the publication of the magazine was impractical, and it was necessary to limit itself to the release of individual books, photo albums and films about Soviet Muslims ^[5] .

The advent of power in the USSR in 1964 by L. I. Brezhnev led to the cessation of a powerful anti-religious campaign. In these conditions, they returned to the idea of ​​the Soviet Muslim magazine. In July 1968, the first issue of the journal “Muslims of the Soviet East” ^{[5] was} published.

"Muslims of the Soviet East" came out in July 1968. In 1989, a revolution took place in SADUM - the chairman of the SADUM Shamsiddinhan Babakhanov ^[6] , who was also the editor-in-chief of the magazine, was forced to resign under pressure from the environment. After that, the editorial policy of the magazine changed - in 1990 there was no French version, but a full-fledged Russian version appeared ^[7] . In 1991, the editors announced, citing readers' requests, that the magazine as of No. 2 of 1991 would be called “Muslims of Movarounnahar” ^[8]

The magazine was multilingual. He published in Uzbek, Arabic (since 1969), English (since 1974) and French (since 1974) languages ^[7] . The war in Afghanistan led to the need to strengthen Soviet propaganda in neighboring countries, and the magazine began to be published in Farsi (from 1980) and Dari (from 1984 to 1988) ^[7] . There were no versions in the languages ​​of the Muslim peoples of the USSR (except for Uzbek), as for a long time there was no Russian version - the magazine was intended for a foreign reader. The Russian version of the magazine appeared only in 1990.

• Islam in the USSR