Idel-Ural State
The Idel-Ural State also known as "Volga-Ural State", "Idel-Ural Republic" was a short-lived Tatar republic located in Kazan that claimed to unite Tatars, Bashkirs, Volga Germans, and the Chuvash in the turmoil of the Russian Civil War. Often viewed as an attempt to recreate the Khanate of Kazan, the republic was proclaimed on 1 March 1918, by a Congress of Muslims from Russia's interior and Siberia. "Idel-Ural" means "Volga-Ural" in the Tatar language.
, where the sessions of the National Parliament took place.
The Republic, which in reality included only some sections of Kazan, was defeated by the Red Army on 28 March 1918.
The president of Idel-Ural, Sadrí Maqsudí Arsal, escaped to Finland in 1918. He was well received by the Finnish foreign minister Carl Enckell, who remembered his valiant defence of the national self-determination and constitutional rights of Finland in the Russian Duma. The president-in-exile also met officials from Estonia before continuing in 1919 to Sweden, Germany and France, in a quest for Western support. Idel-Ural was listed among the "Captive Nations" in the Cold War-era public law of the United States.
