Authors in this article present the findings of the research project on the leadership and the ethnopolitics in Tatarstan. They are making an attempt to conceptualise the ethnocratic leadership, they characterise the existing model of leadership through the ethnopolitics and Russian regionalism. The research leads to the conclusion that as a result of the Tatarisation of the political regime an ethnocratic model of leadership has been formed in the republic. The model shows some hybrid characteristics and constitutes peculiar synthesis of ethno-politics, authoritarianism and clannishness with the elements of the facade democracy. This model of leadership is manifested in different forms and shapes depending on the specific environment, as well as political and situational contexts. Much attention was paid to the genesis and evolution of this model of leadership and its links with the republican elite which recruitment, circulation and legitimacy is strongly connected with the ethnicization of politics.

Russia is a state with a multi-ethnic federal structure inherited from the USSR. Implementing an ethnic policy that would unite and integrate its citizens is one of its most important goals. Among Russia’s federal subjects are also national republics pursuing their own ethno-political concepts, either conciliatory or conflictual. Tatarstan and Chechnya are examples of such republics. With the use of the comparative method, the article is an attempt at demonstrating many factors that have an impact on the shaping and implementing of the ethnic policy through such criteria as the status of the republics, the concept of the nation, and ethnocentrism, historical memory, the role of Islam and its politicization, and the language policy. The article also outlines their consequences and possible future scenarios.