Persian and Turkic from Kazan to Tobolsk: Literary Frontiers in Muslim Inner Asia

This chapter explores the use of Persian as a literary language in the northern reaches of Muslim Inner Asia, above all the Volga-Ural region and Western Siberia, down to the 19^th century; it argues that Persian continued to serve as a language of learned communication, especially in particular fields, in these regions, despite the overwhelmingly Turkic-speaking Muslim population, and despite the steady increase in the production of literary works in Turkic. After a series of general observations about the gradual shift from Persian to Turkic, and consideration of the clearer patterns of Persian’s persistence to the south, in Central Asia, the focus shifts to manuscript catalogues that reveal important aspects of Persian literary production, and consumption, in the Volga-Ural area and Siberia.