Kazan: Encyclopedia II - Kazan - History

Kazan - History

It is disputed when Kazan was founded by the Volga Bulgars, as written records for that period are sparse. Estimates range from the early 11th century to the late 13th century (see Iske Qazan). It was a block-post on the border between Volga Bulgaria and Finnish tribes (Mari, Udmurt). Another question was where the citadel was built originally. The archeologic explorations gave rests of the urban settlement in 3 parts of the modern city: in the Kremlin, in Bişbalta in the place of modern Zilantaw monastery and near the Qaban lake. The oldest was the Kremlin which could be dated back to 11th century.

In the 11th and 12th centuries, Kazan could have shielded a Volga tradeway from Scandinavia to Iran. It was a trade center, the main city for Bulgar settlers in the Kazan region.

In the 13th century, re-settlers came to Kazan from Bolğar and Bilär, which had been ruined by the Mongols. Kazan became a center of a duchy, which was a dependency of the Golden Horde.

After the destruction of the Golden Horde, Kazan became the capital of the powerful Khanate of Kazan (1438). The city bazaar Taş Ayaq (Stone Leg) became the most important trade center in the region, especially for furniture. The citadel and Bolaq channel were reconstructed, giving the city a strong defensive capacity. Russians managed to occupy the city briefly, in 1487 but they withdrew.

In 1552, the city was conquered by Russia under Ivan the Terrible. During the governorship of Alexander Gorbatyi-Shuisky, most of the city's Tatar residents were killed, repressed, or forcibly Christianized. Mosques and palaces were ruined. The surviving Tatar population was moved to a place 50 km away from the city and this place was forcibly settled by Russian farmers and soldiers. Serving to Russia Tatars was settled in the Tatar Bistäse settlement near the city's wall. Later Tatar merchants and handycraft masters also settled there.

Kazan was largely destroyed as a result of grand fires. After one of them in 1579, the icon Our Lady of Kazan was discovered in the city. During the Time of Troubles in Russia the independence of Kazan Khanate was restored with the help of Russian population, but independence was suppressed by Kuzma Minin in 1612. The history of that period is unclear.

In 1708, the Khanate of Kazan was abolished, and Kazan became the center of a guberniya. After Peter the Great's visit, the city became a shipbuilding base for the Caspian fleet. It was largely destroyed in 1774 as a result of a revolt by border troops and peasants led by the Don Cossack ataman (captain) Yemelyan Pugachev, but was rebuilt soon afterwards, during the reign of Catherine the Great. Catherine also decreed that mosques could again be built in Kazan. But discrimination against the Tatars continued.

In the beginning of 19th century Kazan State University and typography appeared. The Qur'an was firstly printed in Kazan in 1801. By the end of the 19th century, Kazan had become an industrial center of Middle Volga. People from neighboring villages came to the city looking for work. In 1875, a horse railway appeared; 1899 saw the installation of a tramway.

After the Russian Revolution of 1905, Tatars were allowed to revive Kazan as a Tatar cultural center. The first Tatar theater and the first Tatar newspaper appeared.

In 1918, Kazan was a capital of the Idel-Ural State, which was suppressed by the Bolshevist government. Kazan was also the center of an anti-Bolshevik Bolaq artee Republic. In 1919 (after the October Revolution), Kazan became the center of Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In the 1920s and 1930s, most of the city's mosques and churches were destroyed (as occurred elsewhere in the USSR).

During World War II, many industrial plants and factories were evacuated to Kazan, and the city subsequently became a center of the military industry, producing tanks and planes.

In the 1990s, after the dissolution of the USSR, Kazan again became the center of Tatar culture, and separatist tendencies intensified. Since 2000, the city has been undergoing a total renovation. A single-line metro, the north-southeast running Central Line, opened on 27 August 2005. The Kazan Metro has five stations. But there are plans to extend the line in both directions, bringing the total number of stations on it to 11, according to Website UrbanRail. Net; Five stations will cross the Kazanka River and extend further north, while one station will complete the line's southeast end. Kazan celebrated its millennium in 2005, when the largest mosque in Russia was inaugurated in the kremlin, and the holiest copy of Our Lady of Kazan was returned to the city. The date of "millennium", however, was fixed rather arbitrarily.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki