The present article considers the evolution of the institution of waqf among the Kazan Tatars in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Basing on an analysis of different sources and secondary literature, the author tries to point out the fallacy of some approaches claiming that the institution of waqf had legal status for the Kazan Tatars. On the contrary, an attempt is made to demonstrate that the interior policy of the Russian authorities aimed to oust the rules of Muslim law from the legal framework. Numerous attempts on the part of the Kazan Tatars to restore the institution of waqf proved unsuccessful owing to the resistance of the Russian authorities.

A special place belongs to the historical thought of the late 19th - early 20th centuries in the spiritual heritage of the Tatar people. In a short time, Tatar historians have achieved significant results in the reconstruction and study of the national past. Their successes were appreciated by Russian and European scholars and orientalists, and their unconditional leadership among other Turkic Muslims was generally recognized. The works by Sh. Mardzhani, R. Fakhrutdinov, G. Akhmarov, H. Atlasi, G. Gubaidullin are being republished today and are returned to the reader. Their work is being successfully studied, but there are no works where the formation and development of Tatar historical science at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries would be considered specifically. A systematized study of the historical thought of the Tatars during the Jadid period, the determination of the characteristics, trends, and the directions of its development remains an urgent task of modern science. This scientific article examines the features of Russian-Tatar relation coverage by Tatar historians of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, reveals the information and analytical activities of censorship and its special attention to historical writings, contains an overview of little-known sources - popular editions and publications in time-based press, dated to the centenary of The Patriotic War of 1812 and the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov, the authors of which, showing the commonality of the historical fate of Russians and Tatars, substantiated the thesis of "equal rights in a common Fatherland". The obtained analytical results are very effective in increasing the level of education of educators in this field.

A special place in the spiritual heritage of the Tatar people belongs to the historical thought of the late XIX -early XX centuries. Tatar historians achieved significant results in the reconstruction and study of the national past in a short time. However, there is no works "where the formation and development of the Tatar historical science of the late XIX-early XX centuries would be considered specially". Systematized study of the historical thought of the Tatars of the period of Jadidism, the identification of features, trends, directions of its development remains an actual task of modern science. This paper is aimed at investigating the specific features of the spiritual and social and political development of the Tatar people at the end of the XIX -beginning of the XX centuries. The leading method for the investigation of this problem is the comparativehistorical one, which includes historical comparisons, and also gives the opportunity to study both historiographic facts relating to a particular historical situation and the phenomena of historiography in their qualitative change, contributing to the elucidation of the laws of the development of historical thought. The main results: the development of the historical thought of the Tatar intelligentsia during the period of Jadidism was generalized for the first time, the features of the development of historical knowledge and the formation of the foundations of historical science in the Tatars at the end of the XIX -beginning of the XX centuries were singled out, its main directions were identified, their problems and development tendencies were shown. Bringing around a wide range of sources and taking into account the estimates existing in the literature, the authors attempted to conduct integrated study and analysis of the discussions on the ethnonym and ethnic self-identification that played an important role in the formation of the historical and national identity of the Tatars.

Impetuous and turbulent flow of the national life of the Tatars in the late XIX-early XX centuries are traditionally associated with the formation of an ethnic community of a new national type and the turning points of world history. The paper presents the first experience of the systematization of information on public organizations of Russian Tatar students in the Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century. The study is based on the materials of a valuable, little-researched source-the Tatar periodical press of that time. Organization of youth societies abroad is considered as part of the process of the emergence and development of charitable and other associations representing elements of civil society. Along with the Istanbul societies mentioned in the literature, the organizations of young people in Cairo, Mecca, Medina and Beirut are identified, as far as the sources and content and nature of their activities allowed. The documents illustrating the attempts of state structures to resist the training of Muslim youth abroad and their interest in the activities of the respective societies are given. The role of foreign charitable societies and compatriots of Tatar students as a special social institution has been determined. The findings, the factual material of the paper can be used to write general and special works on the history of Turkey, Russia and Tatarstan, the Tatars and other Turkic peoples.