ABSTRACT
This article uses the coverage of Ireland’s Easter Rising in three Russian Muslim newspapers to examine the discourses on national rights and rebellion among Tatar and Kirghiz (Kazakh) intellectuals. While many studies of the 1916 uprisings in Central Asia have focused on the role of Russian colonial policy in creating unrest among the Kirghiz and Turkestani populations, this chapter argues that Russia’s Turkic-language press offered enough information on events outside of the empire for literate Muslims to be able to imagine their own efforts to gain rights and autonomy as part of a larger struggle by small nations, minorities, and colonial populations around the world. A comparison of the newspaper coverage of the Easter Rising and the early events of the Turgai Uprising also suggest transnational continuities in the planning and execution of anti-colonial revolts during World War I. This chapter is based on material from the Turkic-language press of Kazan and Orenburg as well the memoirs if Turgai uprising leader Alibi Jangil’din.
