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Biography
Albert Alexeyevich Razin (Russian: Альберт Алексеевич Разин, 12 June 1940 – 10 September 2019) was an Udmurt language rights activist and Neopaganist who committed traditional self-immolation (tipshar) in the centre of Izhevsk as an act of protest against the language policy of the Russian federal government and the russification of the Udmurt people.
Biography
Albert Razin was born into a peasant family in Alnashsky District of the Republic of Udmurtia.
In 1962 he graduated from the Udmurt State Pedagogical University. He later became Candidate of Sciences in philosophy. In the early 1990s, Razin led an institute at the Udmurt State University.
Razin was an activist of the Udmurt national movement and was actively engaged in the protection of the Udmurt language. Together with other activists, he issued numerous formal protests against the Russification policies of the federal government, such as the cancellation of obligatory teaching of minority languages at schools. He was also known as an active revivalist of Udmurt traditions and Udmurt neopaganism.
Self-immolation
On 10 September 2019 Albert Razin and a fellow Udmurt language activist came out in front of the State Council of Udmurtia in the Udmurt capital city of Izhevsk. Razin was holding posters in Russian language, saying "If my language dies tomorrow, then I'm ready to die today" (a quote from Rasul Gamzatov, the Avar poet)and "Do I have a Fatherland?". At one point he set himself on fire. He was then brought to a hospital in a critical condition, with burns to nearly 100 percent of his body, and died several hours later.
The Udmurt State Council postponed its session following the incident.
Linguistic rights activists from several regions of Russia (Chuvashia, Bashkortostan and others) as well as academics and officials from Finland and Estonia and Human Rights Watch expressed their solidarity with Razin's demands.
Family
Razin was survived by a wife and an 18-year-old daughter.