Local history of Eushta and its place in the processes of construction and support of collective identity of local Tatars

The article is dedicated to the modern representation of the local history in the Tatar settlement Eushta (it has been a part of Tomsk since 2005). Previous studies have shown that the actualization of the local and regional identities of local Tatars are situational, and is not related to historical ethnic names. Indigenous Tatars, who live in Tomsk and Tomsk region, have long been mixing with newcomers such as Kazan and Volga Tatars, as well as among themselves and with the Russian population (especially in the city). However, some differences in language between the local Tatars and the Kazan ones, as well as some features of the local Tatar cuisine are still significant markers in the identification of "us" and differentiation from "them". Our goal was to identify how important the memory of the past is for modern Eushta residents and what is the place of Knyaz Toyan in it. The research is based on qualitative methodology: observations carried out in the village, semi-structured interviews with the old people of the village, with a school director, a teacher of history, and museum employees were held, and a massive survey among schoolchildren was conducted in order to identify their sources of historical information, as well as their individual understandings of the significance of certain historical events and personalities on the national and local level. As a result, we identified the so-called "places of memory of Toyan" in Eushta that is the street which has been named after the Tatar knyaz on the initiative of local residents, the village club (named after Toyan) and the school. The school is the most important place of memory of the distant past, including that associated with Toyan, and it is here that this memory is actualized the most. This is due to several facts: a) the school has a museum, where thanks to the efforts of enthusiastic local historians Tatar household items have been collected, and a stand has been set up representing the history of the village from ancient times; b) the school director has once headed the Tomsk Regional Museum. Being involved in the museum sphere of the city, he initiated the participation of the school museum in the city program of support and rehabilitation of school museums representing the project together with colleagues of the school's future museum (on a professional level). The results of the survey among the schoolchildren have shown that currently oral sources of information prevail over the written ones, especially when it comes to the local history. The schoolchildren of grades from 6 to 9 demonstrated the distinctive Russian collective memory of the past as a "memory of wars". However, the gaps in knowledge about the local history (with its healthy - and not imposed by the state - patriotic potential) make schoolchildren of Eushta a suitable target audience for the museum workers, ethnographers, historians and archaeologists which is focused more on the perception of oral history.

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