Terra sebv s acta mvsei sabesiensi s

 

 

11

 

 

 

 

P

REFACE 

 

 

 

This volume of studies is the result of a collaboration between “Ioan Raica” 

Municipal Museum of Sebeş, Kazan Federal University and the “1 

Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia. The collaboration gave several 

university scholars and researchers from the Russian Federation and 

Kazakhstan the opportunity to publish the results of their research on 

Russia and nearby regions from the early Middle Ages to the present day. 

Grouped in several sections, the 32 articles written by 48 authors with very 

diverse institutional backgrounds have been drawn up in accordance with 

the publication rules of the Terra Sebus: Acta Musei Sabesiensis journal, i.e. they 

use abbreviated quotes in the footnotes and then provide details at the end 

of the articles, under the bibliographical abbreviations. Given that the 

volume is an English language publication, it was decided that the Russian 

titles be written in Russian but with Latin letters instead of Cyrillic, to 

facilitate their understanding by readers who use English.  

With a surface area of over 17 million square kilometres, today’s 

Russian Federation is 70 times bigger than the United Kingdom, which 

makes it a “geographical dimension” hard to ignore in the contemporary 

world, but also difficult to understand, especially by West Europeans and 

North Americans. Without claiming that this volume has fully encapsulated 

the long and fascinating history of Russia, we can say that it does provide 

the reader with unique information. It analyses cultural, economic, social 

and political aspects of the big evolutionary stages of the Russian state, 

which has had several names along the centuries - The Great Principality of 

Moscow, The Russian Empire, The Soviet Union and The Russian 

Federation. The Miscellanea  chapter also includes studies whose diversity 

exceeds the geographic and cultural borders of Russia and approach 

interesting aspects of the lives of certain Asian communities (slavery and 

elites in early Turkic society, the typology of culture during the Ming 

dynasty) and aspects from the medieval history of Western Europe 

(hagiographies, the study of castles). 

It may easily be observed that although located at the periphery of 

Europe but in the centre of Eurasia, the Russian space is more closely 

linked to the European continent than to the Orient, as proven by the 

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cultural articles from this volume. Music, painting, architecture, literature 

and poetry have always been more adapted to the European horizon than to 

the Asian one, in spite of the obvious influences of other cultural regions. 

Considering that in the contemporary world Russia has lost the role 

of superpower it held during the Cold War, and that today it is profoundly 

isolated, to an extent previously only seen between the two World Wars, 

this volume aims to build a bridge between Russian and Western culture, 

leading to a better knowledge of events from the Russian perspective on a 

time axis stretching from the second half of the first millennium AD to 

present times. 

In the course of almost twelve centuries of Russian history, never has 

the burden of choosing the right path been heavier than at the dawn of this 

millennium. The Russian Empire has always been both European and 

Asian. Nevertheless, a quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War 

and the fall of the Soviet Union, Russians must make a decision which may 

prove crucial in their country’s evolution. To quote Christian Daudel, 

professor of geography and geopolitics at the University of Saint-Étienne, 

“in the long-term, Russia does not have a future without Europe, just like 

the European Union does not have a future without Russia”; in other 

words, the two major territorial entities will inevitably reach a point where 

they must draw up common strategies to satisfy their mutual interests.  

 

 

The Editors 

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Terra Sebus: Acta Musei Sabesiensis, Special Issue, 2014, p. 15-30 

 

 

ASTANA THE CAPITAL OF KAZAKHSTAN AND  

ASTANAS IN SIBERIA AS A LINGUISTIC-CULTURAL  

ASPECT OF THE NATIONAL ISLAM OF EURASIA



 

 

 

Irina Sovetovna KARABULATOVA



 

Elena Nicolayevna ERMAKOVA



 

Galina Alexandrovna SHIGANOVA



 

 

 

Introduction 

Sufi brotherhoods (Naqshbandi, Yasaviyya, Kadiriya) played a major role in 

introducing the steppe nomads to Islam. They began their journey from the 

sedentary urban centres of Maverannahr (such as Bukhara) and spread 

across the steppe. This determined the predominant influence in nomadic 

environments of a heterodox form of Islam. This Islam of nomads 

organically combined elements of pre-Islamic traditions with Sufi ideas. 

Such an attitude toward religion allowed the formation of a positive 

perception of the ideas of Sufism on Turkish soil. The Türks of Asia and 

Siberia did not consider Sufism as a heretical movement, not sharing the 

views of popular Islam and official Islam.

1

 Thus, Islam’s further penetration 

into the region and its influence on political life took place in close 

connection with pre-Islamic traditions, including the traditions of the 

neighbouring Mongols.

2

 These processes were not the result of an 

ideological battle, but rather a flexible acculturation and adaptation of 

different ideas.

3

 

                                                 



 This work was funded by a subsidy allocated to Kazan Federal University from a state 

assignment in the sphere of the scientific activities. 



 Institute of Social and Political Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian 

Federation, Moscow; Kazan Federal University, Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation; 

e-mail: [e-mail]. 



 Tobolsk State Socio-Pedagogical Academy named after D. I. Mendeleev, Tyumen 

Region, Russian Federation; e-mail: [e-mail]. 



 Chelyabinsk State Pedagogical University, Russian Federation; e-mail: 

[e-mail]. 

1

 Trimingham 1989, p. 23. 

2

 Ibid. 

3 

Golden 2011, p. 192; Esposito 2002, p. 256; Cribb, Herrmann 2007, p. 30; Sayfulina et al. 

2013, p. 492-496; Robinson 2000, p. 187. 

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