Tatars and state national policy in Bashkortostan in the 20th – early 21st centuries: the population census aspect

The article examines the processes of ethnic categorization of Tatars during the Population Census on the territory of Bashkortostan in the context of the state national policy of the regional authorities in the 20th and 21st centuries. The case is solved in the framework of the polyparadigmatic approach that allows combining constructivist, instrumentalist and primordialist methodologies. This allows us to identify the place and role of reified categories of ethnicity in the state policy at the level of the national republic. The analysis traces the stability of the established political management patterns in the interaction of two levels of political practices: the central and the regional one. Thus, the regional interests of the republican authorities – the desire to increase the number of Bashkirs at the expense of Tatars during statistical surveys of the region’s population – are explained by the Bolshevik national policy and the principles of ethno-territorial division of the Soviet State. The case demonstrates the possibility of reconstructing ethnic identity among ethnic groups close in culture and language (Bashkirs and Tatars) using the following: administrative resources, symbolic policies, and information technologies. Based on the conducted analysis, the following conclusion has been made: a) regarding the significance of the political situation, which influences the reliability of the population statistical survey; b) the importance of developing more sensitive tools (the All-Russian Population Census form) for adequately recording ethnic identity in a culturally complex society; c) regarding the need to depoliticize the All-Russian Population Census for the harmonization of interethnic relations and the success of the process of integrating the peoples of the Russian Federation into the Russian nation.