Nation-Building and Identity in the Post-Soviet Space: New Tools and Approaches (original) (raw)

Manifestations of Nationalism: The Caucasus from Late Soviet Times to the Early 1990s

Europe-Asia Studies

WHEN MIKHAIL GORBACHEV INTRODUCED HIS POLICY OF REFORMS, he was not prepared for the rise of nationalism and ethnic conflict that would grip the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s. As a native of the ethnically mixed Stavropol Krai in the North Caucasus, Gorbachev, according to his own account, was well aware of the multinational character of the Soviet Union and the sensitivities of some of its ethnic minority groups (Nahaylo & Swoboda 1990, p. 231). However, in line with Marxist thinking, which anticipated the decline of nationalism, he was brought up believing that the 'friendship among peoples' was strong and that in socialism nations would ultimately grow ever closer together until their complete fusion (sliyanie) into a supranational 'Soviet people'. As a result, when Gorbachev became general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985, nationalities policy was not on his economic or political agenda. The 27th Congress of the CPSU in March 1986 even contained a declaration that 'the nationalities question inherited from the past has been successfully solved in the Soviet Union' (Denber 2018, p. 279). Gorbachev, as he would later confess, initially underestimated the importance of this issue completely (Lapidus 1989, p. 210). 1 He was not able to foresee, therefore, that by introducing far-reaching changes to the Soviet polity through political liberalisation and economic reform, he would reopen the 'national question' and ultimately unleash powerful forces that would become increasingly difficult for the central state to control. Gorbachev experienced a first taste of the seriousness of the 'national question' in December 1986, when the long-standing first party secretary of the Kazakh Soviet Republic, Dinmukhamed Kunaev, was replaced with an ethnic Russian, Gennadii Kolbin. This imprudent move on the part of the Soviet leadership was a break with the traditional practice of reserving the post of party first secretary in a non-Russian ethnically defined republic for a member of its 'titular nationality'. Large demonstrations subsequently gripped the Kazakh capital of Almaty (Alma-Ata), which were severely repressed, leaving several people dead. In the years that followed, manifestations of nationalism-including Russian nationalism-became more

Identities in Formation; Nationality, Religion and Transnational Ideas in Former Soviet Central Asia

Turkish Yearbook of International Relations, 1996

The polilicaltremors experienced in international rclations since 1989 significantly altered political geography of Eurasia, sweeping away at the same time the international system that had bcen built up over many years and certainties that many people believed to be inviolate. Within less than seven years since the World had heard Gorbachev's rise to power in Moscow, he cam c to supervise the disintegraıion of the lası of the great empires. Instead, within the vast area once govemed centrally from Moscow, suddenly emerged i5 new states, 'some of which, in modem times, have never enjoyed the status of independent actors in international politics'.l As the newly independent states (NIS) starıed to search for orientation and were open up to outside inOuences, many older states volunteered to be instrumental in their quest within the emerging international system.

Forging the nation: National identity and nation building in post‐communist Russia

Europe-Asia Studies, 1998

AFTER THE DOWNFALL OF THE USSR all the newly independent states had to embark on the road of nation building (defining 'who are we the people' and fostering the people's national identity, i.e. their sense of belonging to one distinct community) and state building (defining state boundaries which can be accepted by all major political players and creating new political institutions which can inspire the loyalty of the people). By now they have achieved varying degrees of success, depending on the demographic and ethnic composition of a country, its political culture, and its economic situation. In the case of the Russian Federation (RF) this set of issues is further complicated by the fact that Russia has traditionally been the centre of an empire, and therefore confusion over the 'just borders' of the new state is greater among politicians, intellectuals and even ordinary people than is the case in the non-Russian newly independent states. Thus more ideas about what is the Russian nation and what should be the geography of the new Russian state are currently to be found in the RF than is the case in the other 14 former Soviet republics. However, in both Russia and other newly independent states, the main problem of nation building is the same-namely, how to reconcile civic identities based on inclusive citizenship and exclusive ethnic identities based on such common characteristics as culture, religion, language and a common ancestor of a dominant nationality, on the one hand, and of ethnic minorities, on the other.

Peoples to Nations: The Making and Breaking of the Soviet System of Ethno-Territoriality

Trust and Peace Building in the South Caucasus, 2015

It is commonly perceived that one of the core tenets of Soviet ideology was centred on the eventual abolishment of national distinctions and the progressive drawing together of nations under Communism. Shorthand analysis, then, often compares the ethno-political conflicts that erupted after the breakdown of the USSR along its southern rim to an explosion of primordialist sentiments akin to forces that blow off the lid of a pressure cooker: once the repression of nationalist emotions eased, the claims of the nation to exclusive rights and predominance in the homelands irresistibly burst out into the open. When looking more closely at the discourse and practice of Soviet nationality policy, however, this metaphor is hard to sustain. We argue, quite to the contrary, that this policy, combined with regional particularities prevalent in certain constituent states of the USSR, did not permanently temper nationalist feelings. It rather seems to have prepared the ground for the national chauvinism which made the fall of the Soviet Union so violent in some areas, including in the South Caucasus.