Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: the prison-house of nations
- 2 Dispersal and reunion: revolution and civil war in the borderlands
- 3 Bolshevik nationality policies and the formation of the USSR: the Bolsheviks dispute national policy
- 4 Nation-building the Soviet way
- 5 Surviving the Stalinist onslaught, 1928–1941
- 6 The Great Patriotic War and after
- 7 Deportations
- 8 Territorial expansion and the Baltic exception
- 9 Destalinisation and the revival of the republics
- 10 Stability and national development: the Brezhnev years, 1964–1982
- 11 From reform to dissolution, 1982–1991
- 12 Nation-making in the post-Soviet states
- 13 The orphans of the Soviet Union: Chechnya, Nagorno Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdniester
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
12 - Nation-making in the post-Soviet states
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: the prison-house of nations
- 2 Dispersal and reunion: revolution and civil war in the borderlands
- 3 Bolshevik nationality policies and the formation of the USSR: the Bolsheviks dispute national policy
- 4 Nation-building the Soviet way
- 5 Surviving the Stalinist onslaught, 1928–1941
- 6 The Great Patriotic War and after
- 7 Deportations
- 8 Territorial expansion and the Baltic exception
- 9 Destalinisation and the revival of the republics
- 10 Stability and national development: the Brezhnev years, 1964–1982
- 11 From reform to dissolution, 1982–1991
- 12 Nation-making in the post-Soviet states
- 13 The orphans of the Soviet Union: Chechnya, Nagorno Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdniester
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
By at least early December 1991, it was clear that the days of the Soviet Union were numbered. Under a series of agreements in December the fifteen new states agreed to mutually recognise each other, and the international community was not far behind in accepting their legitimacy and establishing diplomatic ties. Some delays were caused by outstanding territorial claims between the new states, while a number of international organisations and governments hesitated as a result of the experience in the former Yugoslav states, where the readiness of Western governments to welcome the new formations without qualification may have contributed to ethnic violence. International recognition also opened the door to aid and advice: the two were frequently linked as governments sought to reproduce the economic transition from communism that had already taken place in Eastern Europe. While many of the new governments were eager to attract international support, more important were the internal dynamics of political development which varied substantially from country to country. Popular fronts had been at the forefront of the movements for independence, but the distinction between their members and communists was often blurred. Thus the extent to which the new leaderships represented a break with the past varied enormously. Each of the post-Soviet states inherited key elements of a national infrastructure from the Soviet period, but what could be built on top of this infrastructure in terms of a new, independent state-based national identity was up for grabs. Early political contests, which in some cases turned violent, were therefore key in determining future developments.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Red NationsThe Nationalities Experience in and after the USSR, pp. 282 - 321Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013