Ethnographic Methods in Studying Islamic Soviet Past in the Russian Federation (given experience obtained while preparing a series of Encyclopedic Lexicons on Islam in the Russian Federation)

Abstract

During the work under encyclopedic lexicons from the series Islam in the Russian Federation we faced the problem of lacking reliable documentary evidences concerning preservation of Muslim congregations in some regions, as well as the problem of continuity in the local Islamic tradition. Given general attitude of the Soviet power to religion, there are no archival sources witnessing everyday activities of registered and non-registered congregations. To draw a complete picture we had to resort to the methods of ethnography and area studies (kraevedenie). Methods of investigation combined interviewing elderly imams, descendants of their official and unofficial predecessors of the late Soviet times, search for and study of their family archives and life stories. The worked resulted in establishing the chain of transmission of Islamic knowledge in a number of regions and congregations, including resettled ones on the territory of the Tula, Vladimir, and Ivanovo districts.