The sociolinguistic situation: past, present and future in Bashkortostan________________________________________IntroductionIn the region between the Volga and the Urals, the Federal Republic of Bashkortostan is located. Its natural gas and oil resources have always maintained this region as an important region within the Russian Federation. Looking at its history, Bashkortostan, with an area of ​​143,000 km² and more than four million inhabitants, has been an important region due to its ethnic and linguistic diversity (Gorenburg, 1999; Grimes, 2000). According to Gorenburg (2003), Bashkortostan was the first autonomous republic created by the communist government to prevent the domination of a Tatar-Turkish republic. Subsequently, Bashkir and many other Turkic ethnic groups and languages ​​were under the influence of Russian for more than a century. This process of Russification ended after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. But as a result, in some regions, in the current republics of the Russian Federation, a determined trend towards the revitalization of ethnic languages ​​has become predominant. In this essay, the sociolinguistic situation of the past, present and future of Bashkortostan will be discussed as a case study.________________________________________________________________Historical OverviewFrom the 13th to the 15th century, the Bashkirs lived under the rule of the Mongol Khanate. When Tsar Ivan IV conquered the Kazan Khanate, Bashkortostan then became a Russian colony and Ufa was founded as the capital of Bashkortostan. Consequently, many Russians settled in the region alongside their policies of colonization and centralization. Since the region was so rich in natural resources (gas and oil), an era of industrialization began...... middle of article ......wissenschaftliche und international Studien 16. Köln: BIOst .Grävingholt, J. (1999b). Regionale Autonomie und postsowjetischer Autoritarismus: Die Republik Baschkortostan. Part II: Herrschaftspraxis und föderale Beziehungen. Berichte des Bundesinstituts für ostwissenschaftliche und international Studien 17. Cologne: BIOst.Grimes, BF (2000). Ethnologue: The languages ​​of the world. 14th edition. (Internet edition: http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/). Hagendoorn, L., Drogendijk, R., Tumanov, S. and Hraba, J. (1998). Inter-ethnic preferences and ethnic hierarchies in the former Soviet Union. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, Vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 483-503. Yagmur, K. and Kroon, S. (2003). Perceptions of ethnolinguistic vitality and language revitalization in Bashkortostan. Multilingual and Multicultural Development Review 24 (2003): 319-336.