Is there a peripheral Islam? Reflections on the Siberian Muslim press on the eve of World War I

The author of this article analyzes two newspapers of Siberia's Turkic-speaking community (Sibiriya, published in Tomsk between 1912 and 1914 and Turmus, published in Ufa between 1914 and 1918) in order to bring to light a certain number of paradoxes due to the extremely peripheral situation of Siberian Islam which emerged in the Tomsk Muslim urban community between the Balkanic unrest and the outbreak of the First World War. Among these paradoxes are a fascination for Turkey fostered by distance and the telegraph's monopoly on foreign news; the weakness of the pan-Turkic feeling which in Siberia is prevented from spreading by the secular hostility between Tatar farmers and Qazaq shepherds; lastly, the powerful cultural influence exerted by Russian deportees and exiles, especially that of the regionalist movement which was particularly active at the turn of the century.