A Muslim Azef, or One More Orientalist: Playing the Other in Imperio-Orientalist Mirrors

2017. No. 158/HUM/2017.

Bessmertnaya O.

The paper discusses constructing various versions of Muslim identity by politically opposite actors, the government and Muslim activists, involved in ‘placing’ Muslims in modernizing late-imperial Russia. The problem is approached through the extreme case of M.-B. Hadjetlaché (ca 1870-1929), a baptized Jew reinventing himself as Circassian and Muslim and as such working as a State agent against Muslim opposition and vice versa. His strategies of deceit and reasons to trust him in different cultural and political milieus reveal reciprocal and often shared Orientalisms of the ‘regimes of truth’ defining the processes under study.

Keywords: доверие, trust, обман, orientalism, ориентализм, трикстер, конец XIX в., начало XX в., late Russian Empire, поздняя Российская империя, deceit, мусульмане в России, tricksters, Магомет-бек Хаджетлаше, M.-B. Hadjetlaché, late 19th–early 20th centuries, Muslims in Russia, Muslim opposition, ‘pan-Islamism’, progressive discourse, мусульманская оппозиция, "панисламизм", прогрессистский дискурс