Main menu / 2025, vol.10, no.4 / Gabdrakhmanova G.F.

State regulation of marriage registration and wedding ceremonies among Tatars in the mid-1970s: evidence from a single document

Gabdrakhmanova G.F.

592-606 p.


doi.org: https://doi.org/10.22378/he.2025-10-4.592-606
EDN: https://elibrary.ru/NEKSUA


Abstract. A document describing how state governance of the traditional spiritual culture of the Tatar people was implemented in the mid-1970s in the Tatar ASSR was discovered in the archives of the Ethnological Research Department of Sh. Marjani Institute of History of the Republic of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences. It contains recommendations on the conclusion and registration of marriages and the conduct of wedding ceremonies. They were prepared by R.K. Urazmanova, a senior researcher at G. Ibragimov Institute of Language, Literature, and History of the Kazan Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences and Candidate of Historical Sciences. The materials were published in 1977 by the Civil Registry Department of the Council of Ministers of the Tatar ASSR, pursuant to the instructions of the Council of Ministers of the Tatar ASSR (Resolution No. 228 “On the status of work on the introduction of new civil customs into everyday life in the Tatar ASSR and measures for their improvement” dated April 7, 1976). This brochure is a bibliographic rarity and a valuable source on the Soviet nationality policy. It reveals how Soviet authorities sought to change the traditional complex of wedding rituals. Some customs and rites were condemned and ridiculed, while others were encouraged and imbued with new meanings. The most encouraged aspect of the wedding was the official registration of the marriage. Its script became a key component of the recommendations of the party organs of the Tatar ASSR. It provides a wealth of information on how wedding culture changed among the republic’s Tatar population during the Soviet era.


Keywords: Tatars, traditional spiritual culture, marriage, family, wedding, state national policy

For citation: Gabdrakhmanova G.F. (2025) State regulation of marriage registration and wedding ceremonies among Tatars in the mid-1970s: evidence from a single document. Istoricheskaya etnologiya [Historical Ethnology]. Vol. 10. No. 4: 592–606. https://doi.org/10.22378/he.2025-10-4.592-606 (In Russ., Tat.)


REFERENCES

Khanipova I.I. (2024) Visual sources about new Soviet rituals in a Tatar village in the 1970s. Istoricheskaya etnologiya [Historical Ethnology]. Vol. 9. No. 2: 184–200. https://doi.org/10.22378/he.2024-9-2.184-200ю (In Russ.)
Urazmanova R.K. (2014) Festive culture and the culture of holidays of the Tatars. The 19th – early 20th centuries. Historical and ethnographic essays. Kazan: Ikhlas Publ. (In Russ.)
 

About the author: Gulnara F. Gabdrakhmanova, Doctor Sc. (Sociology), Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Ethnological Research, Marjani Institute of History of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences (7 Baturin St., Kazan 420111, Russian Federation); https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1796-5234; e-mail: medi54375@mail.ru


Received 9.06.2025 Revised 26.08.2025   Accepted for publication 30.09.2025

Published Online 01.12.2025