A brief history of the Tatar language teaching in universities in the 1920s and 1930s

This paper investigates the history of the Tatar language functioning in the Tatar Republic which was created in 1920 as the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Since 1921, the republic began to grant Tatar the status of the state language which was used in almost all spheres of public life. In our article the main attention is paid to functioning of the Tatar language in the higher educational institutions of the Tatar republic in the 1920s and 1930s. To this end, archival documents and published materials were analyzed; main universities of the republic were reviewed; statistics on the number of Tatar students were given; use the Tatar language in these universities and main teaching methods implemented were explored; the textbooks on the Tatar language were described; some difficulties in the Tatar language teaching in the period under review were pointed out.