‘Mothers of the Nation’: How Shafika Gasprinskaya Turned the World of a Muslim Woman Upside Down

19 July 2021

 

Every year, every day, we are moving farther and farther away from the events of 1917, when the first ever all Russian Congress of Muslim Women took place in Kazan, which was held on 24 April. At that time the list of invitees comprised 60 women. However, in fact, about 72 representatives of the Muslim women’s world came, and several hundred more were among the spectators and listeners.


Khadicha Tanacheva, Salima Yakubova, Zakhida Burnasheva, Ilkhamia Tuktarova, Shafika Gasprinskaya – these are only a small part of women who changed and improved lives of Muslim women through their work and actions. The participants of the Congress fought for women’s electoral rights, equal right to work and have an opportunity to take an active part in public life of their Ummah. Each of the Muslim women made an invaluable contribution to the common cause. And today we would like to tell you about one of them – Shafika Gasprinskaya.


Shafika Gasprinskaya was born in 1886 in Bakhchysaray, where she received her education. She was the daughter of the great Crimean Tatar enlightener Ismail bey Gasprinsky and Bibi Zukhra Akchurina, who came from a noble family of the Volga Tatars. The girl started working very early together with her father at the Terjiman newspaper.


After her graduation from high school in 1906, Shafika became editor-in-chief of the first women’s magazine in the Muslim world – ‘Women’s World’ – which was initially a supplement to ‘Terjiman’. ‘Women’s World’ was a special weekly academic and literary magazine that aimed at spiritual development and education of women of those times.


The program of the magazine for Crimean Muslim women was approved in St Petersburg and included such issues as government regulations and laws concerning women, practical advice on household chores, family and children’s hygiene, problems of domestic work: needlework, weaving, silk weaving; stories about lives of women in different countries, biographies and portraits of prominent women, stories and letters of the readers, scientific discoveries, inventions, literature news, advertisements and announcements. 


It is noteworthy that the magazine was greatly demanded not only in its ‘homeland’, but also in such countries as Egypt, Turkestan, Japan and even India.


Unfortunately, the fate of ‘Women’s World’ was tragic: in 1910 only 10 issues of the magazine were issued, while in 1911 – only 3. Shafika Gasprinskaya tried unsuccessfully to resume publication of the magazine in 1917. The four historical issues can be seen in Turkey at the Hikki Garikh library, and another three issues are kept at the Paris Library. These are the largest collections.


As soon as the first issue of the ‘Women’s World’, still smelling of ink, was printed, the main topic in Gasprinskaya’s life became women’s issues. She threw all her energy in order to unite all the Muslim women from around the world.


In 1905-1914, women’s societies started to be established everywhere, and both the Terjiman newspaper and the Women’s World magazine paid special attention to bringing to its readers information about the present situation of female population in different regions of Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia. They raised such issued as the education of Muslim women and the possibility to open special schools for them.


It was Gasprinskaya who proposed a 14-point action program to improve the socio-economic and public status of women. She spoke of the necessity to leave in the past those customs that were a visible example of humiliation of women’s honor and dignity. She also advocated the prohibition of marrying off girls under 16. Shafika Gasprinskaya was never tired of talking about establishing hospitals, pre-schools and schools for girls.


Thanks largely to her tireless work, it was decided to establish the Crimean Central Muslim Women’s Committee and its main objectives were defined. They included, for instance, recognition of all human rights for Muslim women, broad promotion of democratic ideas, spread of knowledge necessary for participation in public and political life, involvement of as many Muslim women as possible in consciously demanding and exercising rights both in family and in public and political life, as well as protection of women’s rights and cultural and educational activities among the wider population.


‘The women involved in the movement must be highly educated, tolerant and have a heart full of love for their native land and people’, Gasprinskaya noted in her speeches. As far as the work of the Committee is concerned, all their energy was focused on introducing maternal and child protection, facilitating the entry of Muslim women into all areas of public and official activity and holding various events.


In mid-August of the year 1917, a three-day regional women’s congress was held in Crimea, where Shafika Gasprinskaya delivered her main speech and reminded of the necessity to study women’s rights in Islam in order to successfully and as quickly as possible defeat the existing discrimination. And already in November she was elected as a delegate to the First Qurultay of the Crimean Tatar people from the Yevpatoria district. ‘Women must take an active part in the election of Qurultay delegates and its work. We must work today for the sake of tomorrow’, she highlighted addressing her counterparts.


In 1918, due to certain events, Shafika Gasprinskaya left Crimea and went to her husband’s homeland, Azerbaijan. However, she did not stay there long – after her husband’s death she migrated to Turkey, where she remained active, helping refugees and devoting herself to her work in the Red Crescent.


Already in Istanbul in 1930 Gasprinskaya established the Union of Crimean Tatar Women. It was in Turkey where she passed away in 1975 at the age of 88.

 

 

Ilmira Gafiyatullina

Photo: Creative Commons