Politics Of Nationality And The Erosion Of The Ussr

The Soviet Union has undergone many changes recently as many of its peoples are demanding autonomy and even independence. This volume of essays analyzes recent political and social movements and trends among a variety of Soviet ethnic groups and explains their grievances and goals.

Until recently, most people thought of the Soviet Union as a powerful, stable and highly centralized state. Since 1988, however, several thousand people have been killed in inter-ethnic clashes, and many of its large and small nationalities have recently obtained autonomy and independence. This volume analyses recent political and social trends among a broad range of formerly Soviet ethnic groups. It attempts to discover the demographic, cultural, political, and economic sources of contemporary ethnic discontents and to examine their social and political expressions. The authors, all distinguished specialists, analyze some of the larger groups of peoples in the former USSR, such as Ukrainians, as well as the less well-known smaller peoples, such as Koreans and Karelians. The complex nationality struggles in the Caucasus area and in Central Asia are also subjected to penetrating scrutiny by leading scholars. Several authors attempt an assessment of the future prospects of the post-Soviet states and weigh alternatives for the reconstitution or further disintegration of the former USSR. Authors from Europe, North America and Israel are represented in this study of ethnicity and politics in the 1990s.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union has provided scholars with tremendously rich material for the study of comparative nation building. Not since the decolonization of Africa in the 1960s have so many new states been established in one stroke in one region. The post-Soviet states, moreover, have all the necessary prerequisites for fruitful comparison: a number of similarities, but also significant differences in terms of size, culture, and recent history. In order to survive in the long run, modern states normally must have a population that possesses some sense of unity. Its citizens must adhere to some common values and common allegiance towards the same state institutions and symbols. This does not means that all inhabitants must necessarily share the same culture, but they should at least regard themselves as members of the same nation. Strategies to foster this kind of common nationhood in a population are usually referred to as 'nation building'. After a decade of post-Soviet nation building certain patterns are emerging, and not always the most obvious ones. Some states seem to manage well against high odds, while others appear to be disintegrating or sinking slowly into oblivion. To a remarkable degree the former Soviet republics have chosen different models for their nation building. This book examines the preconditions for these endeavors, the goals the state leaders are aiming at, and the means they employ to reach them. }

This book chronicles the final two decades in the history of the Soviet Union and presents a story that is often lost in the standard interpretations of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR. Although there were numerous reasons for the collapse of communism, it did not happen—as it may have seemed to some—overnight. Indeed, says Roman Szporluk, the root causes go back even earlier than 1917. To understand why the USSR broke up the way it did, it is necessary to understand the relationship between the two most important nations of the USSR—Russia and Ukraine—during the Soviet period and before, as well as the parallel but interrelated processes of nation formation in both states. Szporluk details a number of often-overlooked factors leading to the USSR's fall: how the processes of Russian identity formation were not completed by the time of the communist takeover in 1917, the unification of Ukraine in 1939–1945, and the Soviet period failing to find a resolution of the question of Russian-Ukrainian relations. The present-day conflict in the Caucasus, he asserts, is a sign that the problems of Russian identity remain.

The Soviet Union is a subject of enduring fascination for the whole of the Western world. This book focuses on the main cultures, political, social, and economic developments in the USSR since 1945.

The 'nationality question' was long central to Soviet thought and policy, and the failure to provide a convincing answer played a major role in the break-up of the Soviet Union into ethnically or nationally defined states. Zisserman-Brodsky explores various explanations of nationalism and its resurgence through a close and unprecedented examination of dissident writings of diverse ethnic groups in the former Soviet Union, thereby bridging macro-theory with micro-politics. Dissident ethnic networks were a crucial independent institution in the Soviet Union, and a basis of civil society. Voicing the discontent and resentment of the periphery at the policies of the centre or metropole, the dissident writings, known as samizdat highlighted anger at deprivations imposed in the political, cultural, social and economic spheres. Ethnic dissident writings drew on values both internal to the Soviet system and international as sources of legitimation; they met a divided reaction among Russians, with some privileging the unity of the Soviet Union and others sympathetic to the rhetoric of national rights. This focus on national, rather than individual, rights helps explain developments since the fall of the Soviet Union, including the prevalence of authoritarian governments in newly independent states of the former Soviet Union.

Using rarely seen archival information, this book provides an account of the experiences of the Germans living in the Soviet Union from the early post-revolution period to the post-Soviet era following the collapse of communism.