Declaration of Independence

Council of the United Tatar State - Congress,

July 4, 2023

Adopted unanimously by the Four (Republic of Tatarstan, Republic of Bashkortostan, Samara Region, and Orenburg Region) United States of Tatar State.

When the course of events leads to the fact that one of the peoples is forced to terminate the political ties that bind it to another people and take an independent and equal place among the powers of the world, to which it is entitled according to the laws of nature and its Creator, respect for the opinion of mankind requires from him an explanation of the reasons that prompted him to such a separation.

We proceed from the self-evident truth that all people are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, which include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights, men instituted governments, deriving their legitimate authority from the consent of the governed. In the event that any form of government becomes destructive to these very purposes, the people have the right to change or abolish it and establish a new government based on such principles and forms of organization of power as, in its opinion, will best ensure the safety and happiness of the people. Of course, prudence requires that governments established long ago should not be changed under the influence of insignificant and fleeting circumstances; accordingly, all experience confirms that people are more inclined to bear vices as long as they can be tolerated than to exercise their right to abolish the forms of government that have become habitual to them. But when a long series of abuses and violence, invariably subordinated to the same goal, testifies to an insidious design to force the people to submit to unlimited despotism, the overthrow of such a government and the creation of new security guarantees for the future becomes the right and duty of the people.

These numerous colonies have long shown patience, and only necessity compels them to change the former system of their government. The history of the reign of the current President of Russia is a set of countless injustices and violence, the immediate goal of which is the establishment of unlimited despotism. To confirm the above, we present the following facts to the impartial judgment of all mankind.

He refused to consent to adopt laws that were most useful and necessary for the common good.

He forbade his governors to pass urgent and fundamental laws unless their action was delayed until obtaining his consent. Still, when they thus came to his consent, he defiantly left them without any attention.

He usurped the electoral system and became a tyrant.

He subjugated the legislature through bribery, corruption, and violence.

He tried to prevent the settlement of our states by the indigenous representatives of our peoples, for this reason ignoring the laws on the naturalization of fellow citizens (Tatars) and refusing to pass other laws aimed at encouraging immigration.

He created obstacles to the administration of justice by refusing to consent to the adoption of laws on the organization of an independent judiciary.

He placed the judges in exclusive dependence on his will by determining the terms of their tenure and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He created many new positions and sent a host of officials to us in order to oppress the people and deprive them of their livelihood.

In peacetime, he maintained a permanent internal army in our country in the form of many supervisory and control bodies without the consent of our legislators.

He seeks to make the military power independent and superior to the civil power.

He united with other persons to subject us to a jurisdiction alien to our constitution and not recognized by our laws, approved their acts that claimed to become legislation, and served:

• for quartering with us large formations of the armed forces;
• to release, by means of lawsuits, which are only apparently so, from the punishment of military, police, and governors who have committed murders of the inhabitants of these states (regions);
• to stop our trade with all parts of the world;
•  to tax us without our consent;
• to deprive us in many court cases of the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of a jury trial;
•  to send the inhabitants of the colonies beyond the regions of their residence in order to bring them to trial there for the crimes attributed to them;
• to revoke the rights and freedoms granted to us, to repeal our most valuable laws, and fundamentally change the forms of our government;
• to suspend our legislators' activities and assume the power to legislate in our place in various cases.

He relinquished control of the colonies, declaring that we were stripped of his protection and starting a war against us.

He is at the moment sending an army of our citizens to his war in order to finally sow death, ruin, and establish tyranny among us, which have already found expression in facts of cruelty and perfidy, which hardly occurred even in the most barbaric times, and are absolutely unworthy for the head of a civilized nation.

He forced our fellow citizens who were taken prisoner to fight against their country, kill their friends and brothers, or die themselves at their hands.

He incited us into internal strife by dividing us into many sub-nationalities and creating artificial languages to wash out our native Tatar language.

He forbade teaching not only our native Tatar language but also the languages of other colonized peoples.

He introduced insurmountable barriers to all peoples' development, prosperity, and creation.

He unrestrainedly began to assimilate us in order to create a single mass of the thoughtless "Russian world.”

In response to these harassments, we each time submitted petitions, drawn up in the most restrained tone, asking for the restoration of our rights. In response to our repeated petitions, only new injustices followed. A sovereign whose character has all the traits of a tyrant cannot be the ruler of a free people.

Equally, we should have considered our brothers from Moscow to the Urals, from the Urals to the Far East. From time to time, we warned them against the attempts of Russian colonialism and Great Russian chauvinism to illegally subjugate us completely to their jurisdiction and the so-called "Russian world.” We reminded them of the reasons why we found ourselves in this position and because of which our other brothers were able to leave the prison of peoples - the Russian Empire, the USSR, and Russia. We appealed to their innate sense of justice and generosity. We implored them, for the sake of our common blood ties, to condemn these oppressions of the numerous colonized peoples on Russia's territory, which inevitably led to a rupture of our ties and communication. Unfortunately, they also remained deaf to the voice of justice and common blood. We are therefore compelled to recognize the inevitability of our separation and regard them, as we regard the rest of humanity, as enemies in war, friends in peace.

Therefore, we, the representatives of the united Tatar State, having gathered in a general Congress, calling on the Almighty to confirm the honesty of our intentions, in the name and under the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly record and declare that these united colonies are and by right should be free and independent states, that they are freed from all dependence on Russia and that all political ties between them and the Russian state must be completely severed, that, as free and independent states, they are authorized to declare war, conclude peace treaties, enter into alliances, trade, make any other actions. All that an independent state has the right to. And with firm confidence in the patronage of Divine Providence, we swear to each other to uphold this Declaration with our lives, wealth, and spotless honor.

Congress of United Tatar State