Socio-linguistic portrait of Volga Tatars in the second half of the 19th century – the first decade of the 20th century: Theoretical foundations of study

The aim of the research is to determine the theoretical foundations for studying the socio-linguistic portrait of Volga Tatars in a historical perspective. The article reviews the works of Russian scholars in the field of studying language variations, language collectives, and the typology of language personalities, which are identified as key components of the category under consideration. The work is novel in that it is the first one to pose this question in Tatar linguistics. As a result, a methodology for studying the socio-linguistic portrait of Volga Tatars in the second half of the 19th century – the first decade of the 20th century has been developed.