Airat Aklaev, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences
Ethnic conflict is a persistent feature of modernity, but the last decade has brought seismic changes in the relations between scores of ethnic communities around the world. The former Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia have experienced a particularly dramatic upsurge in ethnopolitical activism and communal strife since the late 1980s. Understanding the causes, manifestations, and consequences of ethnic conflict has preoccupied policymakers and the public in the post-Soviet period and poses a major challenge to contemporary scholarship.
In Russia, this challenge was redoubled by the general unpreparedness of the orthodox Marxist tradition in the social sciences, predominant in Russia at the beginning of perestroika, to deal with issues of ethnic conflict--which had been deemed obsolete in a society of "mature socialism" and "triumphant internationalism" where "the nationalities question" had been resolved "completely," "definitely," and "for good." In responding to the imperatives of ethnic resilience in a context of rapid and profound sociopolitical change, Russian social scientists had not only to address a fairly new domain of research but also had to change their theoretical perspectives, learning from and drawing upon the mainstream non-Marxist theoretical approaches and tailoring these perspectives to Russia’s realities.
This bibliographic essay attempts to identify and to survey major topics and areas of concern in the causes and prevention or management of intrastate ethnic conflict that have been addressed by the post-Soviet Russian-language literature (late 1991-mid 1996).
Because research on domestic ethnic conflict is a comparatively recent endeavor in Russia, there are to date few monographs and books in the field. Therefore, this essay focuses on articles that have appeared in Russian-language scholarly journals and in edited volumes, numbering by now in the several hundreds. Obviously, the scope of this essay does not permit lengthy coverage of each of these articles. Our primary concern is with works that directly examine the causes and prevention or resolution of intrastate ethnic conflict. Therefore, a large number of case studies addressing the intricacies of particular disputes could be only roughly classified and briefly mentioned in the endnotes to this review. For more detailed summaries of each of the articles we refer the English-language reader to the recently published annotated bibliographies of articles. The main aim of this essay is to provide a broad overview and analytical identification of the major topics and trends in contemporary Russian-language literature on ethnic conflict.
The essay is organized into three sections. The first section considers the causes of intrastate ethnic conflict, distinguishing between structural explanations of the upsurge of nationalism and ethnic strife in the former Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia and explanations of ethnic conflict pointing to legacies of the past. The second section examines the literature dealing with the causes and dynamics of conflicts that have resulted from the rapid changes in the former Soviet Union, as well as area surveys and case studies of ethnic conflict in different successor states, with a particular focus on the Russian Federation. The last section provides an overview of the literature on issues of management and/or prevention of intrastate ethnic conflict in post-Soviet Russia.
CAUSES OF INTRASTATE ETHNIC CONFLICT
Every social conflict takes place within a social structure that qualifies it in various ways. What will be is, for the most part, a function of what has been, modified slightly by what is now; even rapid and radical political changes must eventually contend with the extant cultural constraints and historically defined context. Both the former Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia are extremely diverse in their ethnic composition. While precise estimates vary, there were more than 150 ethnic groups in the Soviet Union, most of which laid claim to Soviet territory as their homeland. Non-Russian ethnicities made up slightly more than one-half of the population of the USSR. All of these nations had been incorporated into a single state of--considering the geographic, cultural, economic, and religious implications of such consolidation--virtually unprecedented diversity. As of 1989, according to census data, some 60 million people in the former Soviet Union (20 percent of the total population) lived outside of their home ethnic administrations or were members of groups without home administrations. Many of these were and are Russians (some 25 million), who constitute the largest minority in nearly all the successor states of the Soviet Union (outside Russia). In post-Soviet Russia non-Russian ethnicities approximate one hundred in number and account for 20 percent of the country’s population. Among the eighty-nine subjects of the Russian Federation, there are thirty-two ethnically defined territorial units, including twenty-one republics within Russia, one autonomous oblast (region), and ten autonomous okrugs (areas).
Varieties and Typologies of Conflict
There is a consensus among scholars that the former Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia alike have experienced several different kinds of ethnic conflict, many with deep historical roots, rather than a single type. Therefore, it is not helpful to view all post-Soviet ethnic problems as involving the same grievances, issues, and remedies.
This variety of ethnic disputes and their causes is reflected in the different typologies of ethnic conflict in the post-Soviet space that can be found in the recent literature.
One kind of typology, almost self-evident, is based on the underlying "matrioshka" nationalisms which reflect the hierarchy of ethnoterritorial units within the former Soviet Union and, to a considerable extent, of post-Soviet Russia as well. Thus, Yaroschuk (1991) is one of many scholars who follow Galina Starovitova’s typology of ethnic conflict. The author identifies five main spheres of conflict in the USSR: (1) relations between the central Union authorities and the Soviet republics; (2) relations between the Soviet republics; (3) relations between the government of a Union republic and ethnoterritorial autonomies within the Union republic and also between the autonomous formations in the republic; (4) the status and problems of ethnic minorities that do not have an ethnoterritorial formation within a Union republic; and (5) the status and problems of divided ethnicities. The subdivision of the USSR into Union Republics was the prerequisite for the development of nationalist separatist movements. Yarugina and Marchenko (1992) note that the new type of ethnic conflict on the territory of the former USSR is related to the legacy of unresolved ethnoterritorial problems (Crimea in Ukraine, Abkhazia within Georgia, the Dniester area within Moldova, etc.). Since the disintegration of the USSR, conflicts in the Russian Federation have followed a process of ethnoterritorial "sovereignization" which repeats previously existing patterns of conflict: (1) conflicts between the federal center of the Russian Federation and republics within Russia (former autonomous republics of the RSFSR), and (2) conflicts between either ethnically defined republics and/or between ethnically defined republics and non-ethnically defined regions (oblasts and krais), between republics and ethnic minorities within a republic, etc.
Another kind of conflict typology combines a typology of the conflicting units with that of the conflicting issues. An example of this can be found in Etinger (1993). Etinger suggests the following classification of conflicts between nationalities within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS): (1) territorial conflict associated with the issue of reunification of separated ethnic groups (Nagorno-Karabakh and, partially, South Ossetia); (2) conflict stemming from the desire of an ethnic minority to exercise the right to self-determination by creating an independent state (Abkhazia); (3) restoration of territorial rights to those who had been subjected to forced deportation (the conflict between the Ossetians and the Ingush over the Prigorodnyi district); (4) territorial claims of a post-Soviet state to a neighboring successor state (claims of Estonia and Latvia to some areas of Russia’s Pskov region); (5) conflicts that emerged as a result of arbitrary territorial changes made in the Soviet era (the Crimea and, potentially, boundary issues in Central Asia); (6) conflicts associated with the material interests of the ruling elites (Grozny or Kazan, on the one hand, and Moscow, on the other hand); (7) conflicts associated with factors of a historical nature, preconditioned by the traditions of a long-standing struggle for national liberation against the parent state (the confrontation of the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus and the Russian administration); (8) conflicts caused by the presence of "deported peoples" on the territory of other republics (the Meskheti Turks in Uzbekistan, the Chechens in Kazakstan); (9) conflicts associated with discrimination against the ethnic Russian population in post-Soviet states; and (10) linguistic disputes disguising ethnopolitical grievances and status claims of ethnic groups (Gagauzia and the Trans-Dniester area within Moldova).
Medvedev (1993) believes that the initiation and escalation of ethnic conflict are, in fact, results of the processes of national self-determination that arose in the wake of perestroika and directed to the establishment of the priority of the collective rights of an ethnic group over the rights of the individual. The main conflict-generating factors, according to Medvedev, are disintegration of state structures of society at all levels; confrontation between regional elites and the center; struggle between ethnic elites for positions of power; conflict between nationalist and former communist forces, or the disguise and conservation of the communist regime by means of sovereignization (the Central Asian case); consolidation of pro-imperial political forces; and the absence of political strategy on the part of conflict participants. Seven primary types of conflict in the former USSR are identified: (1) riots and pogroms in which the new elites, in pursuit of their political objectives, direct the public’s anger and resentment toward other ethnic groups as scapegoats; (2) conflicts between the titular nationality and ethnic minorities which concern the rights of the minorities in the newly independent states; (3) consequences of deportations of peoples in 1937-1944 under Stalin to regions of forced resettlement or during their return to the ethnic motherland; (4) armed clashes between the political and clan elites within the republic; (5) political conflicts over claims to increase the territorial-administrative status of the non-titular ethnicities; (6) conflicts caused by historically disputed territories; and (7) intergovernmental conflicts. In the author’s view, ethnic conflict in post-Soviet Russia is the result of the processes of sovereignization of the former autonomous republics and regionalization among non-ethnically defined oblasts and krais. Depending on the relationship between the titular nationality and the Russian-speaking population, Medvedev distinguishes two types of conflicts: conflicts within the republics of Russia in which titular ethnicities predominate numerically (Chechnya, Dagestan, Chuvashia, Tuva, etc.) and conflicts within the republics of Russia in which Russians and members of the non-Russian titular nationality make up almost equal parts of the population (Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, etc.).
A third proposed typology of conflict is related not to the type of ethnoterritorial stratification, but to other criteria. For instance, Pain (1992) distinguishes between three types of interethnic conflicts in the former Soviet Union: (1) conflicts of "uncontrollable emotions" (for example, the riots and pogroms in the republics of Central Asia), in which the reasons one or another ethnic group has become the target of violence are unknown; (2) conflicts of "ideological doctrines," in which the demands of the conflicting parties are expressed in the propaganda of the nationalist movements (for example, the conflicts over the disputed territories); and (3) conflicts of "political institutions," supported not only by ideological doctrines but also by the political organizations and institutions of state power.
Identifying Sets of Causes of Conflict
The conventional wisdom among journalists and policymakers alike has been that ethnic conflicts spruang up in the republics of the former Soviet Union because the abrupt removal under perestroika of the "totalitarian lid" which kept smoldering ethnic tensions in check and the collapse of authoritarian rule made such conflicts possible. The "lid" on ancient rivalries has been lifted, and long-suppressed grievances are now being settled. Many scholars agree that this conventional wisdom offers only a partial explanation of the causes of ethnic conflict, however. For instance, it fails to explain why conflicts have broken out in some places and not in others, and why some ethnic disputes are more violent than others. In short, this single-factor explanation cannot account for significant variation in the incidence and intensity of ethnic conflict in such large and diverse a setting as the former Soviet Union.
Three broad sets of causes of ethnic conflict in the former Soviet Union are identified and discussed in the literature: (1) general, structural, and systemic causes; (2) causes related to Soviet and pre-Soviet legacies; and (3) causes resulting from the process of rapid sociopolitical change itself, specifically from economic reform and processes of postcommunist democratization.
Though Marxian tradition is still strong among post-Soviet social scientists, its monopoly has been seriously undermined as a result of perestroika. Ethnic conflict is one of the areas where orthodox class-ethnicity linkages and other one-sided approaches of Marxism have proved particularly unilluminating. Among few recent works which are declaredly Marxist in their interpretations of the causes of ethnic conflict are those of Semenov et al. (1991), Dzhunusov (1991), and Dzhunusov and Mansurov (1994).
The early 1990s saw the rise of new thinking about ethnicity and the search for new paradigms or adaptations of Western perspectives to the post-Soviet experience to explain nationalism and ethnic conflict. Among seminal contributions, articles by Valery Tishkov and Andrei Miller deserve special attention.
Tishkov (1992 and 1993) defined the concept of ethnic conflict in relation to the political systems of the former Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia and launched the discussion of the applicability of various non-Marxist theories on the origin and dynamics of ethnic conflict to the peculiar post-Soviet context. To Tishkov, the diverse multiethnic composition and institutionalization of ethnicity in the very constitutional structure of the ethnoterritorial units of the USSR, the nexus of ethnicity and territoriality, the sociopolitical and cultural hierarchy of ethnic groups, and the history of repression and other unresolved legacies of the Soviet period make it extremely difficult to delineate the precise boundary between sociopolitical conflict and ethnic conflict in the former Soviet Union. Any manifest confrontation along ethnic lines is, in the author's opinion, the defining trait of an ethnic conflict. A number of theories on the origin of ethnic conflict are discussed. To Tishkov (1993), sociological theories are limited in their ability to explain ethnic conflict. He notes the greater explanatory potential of the perspectives of political science, able to account for the political mobilization along ethnic lines and the critical role of ethnic elites in the process. In understanding the outbreak of ethnic conflict, an important role is played by sociopsychological mechanisms. Theories of social and political psychology may explain the phenomenon of mass mobilization, the intensity of the emotions of conflict participants, the force of the groups' ambition to achieve autonomy, and the commitment of ethnic militants and their propensity for violent action. Irrational perceptions of threats to the group's self-esteem, collectively shared ethnic anxieties, and a deep resentment of "historical injustice" provide the mobilization potential for the ethnic rank and file. The nexus of the social, psychological, and political explanations is found in the issue of group legitimacy, connected with the aspirations of the ethnic group to form its own state. The author notes that the struggle for statehood is not only the means to ensure the people’s economic interests, but is also an aim in itself¾ to confirm the status and the fact of the group’s existence based on the perceived need to protect it against domination, and to ensure the preservation of the physical and cultural environment of the group. The peculiarity of the development of interethnic relations on the territory of the former USSR consists, in the author’s opinion, also in the coexistence of two ethnic systems within its boundaries, the "centralized" and the "dispersed" systems, as well as in the absence of ethnonational statehood for the numerically large Russian ethnic group. The ethnic principle underlying the USSR state structure, which obtained legitimacy in the Soviet period and which embodied the ethnopolitical stratification and inequality of status among non-titular nationalities, is of great significance in this regard. Considering the particular role of the problem of group legitimacy in the outbreak of ethnic conflicts, the author emphasizes fear of domination and subordination to other ethnic groups as being more powerful than material interests. This can also account for the political relevance of symbols of group legitimacy (conferring state status to native territory, language, etc.). The possession and affirmation of these symbols becomes the object of the ethnic conflict. The symbolic requirements differ from material interests, however, in that they do not submit to redistribution or compromise, as they are expressed in terms of moral and emotional categories. For Tishkov, this is the main reason for the irrationality and destructiveness of ethnic conflicts.
Rykalina (1995) also stresses that the multiethnic composition of the populations of virtually all the Soviet successor states means that virtually any domestic social conflict acquires an ethnic dimension. Such "ethnicization" of intergroup disputes often provides the ground for radicalist demands and acute forms of contention, since disputed issues of ethnic identity are difficult to negotiate and their results tend to be perceived as "zero-sum." The article attempts to provide an overview of the major theoretical approaches accounting for the nature of ethnonationalist conflicts: sociological, political, and psychological perspectives. The author argues that, particularly given the conditions of post-Soviet states, the most heuristic approach to scholarly research on ethnonationalism and ethnic conflict would combine sociological and political approaches, for such cross-perspectives are likely to yield significant results in studies of ethnic group legitimacy, politicization of ethnic claims, ethnic identities, and subfederal statehood.
Within these new directions of non-Marxist thinking about ethnic conflict, discussions of the structural causes of its origin proceed along several major lines: (1) the linkage between modernization and nationalism and, more generally, ethnic conflict in times of rapid sociopolitical change; (2) ethnic conflict as a product of political development, and its relation to sequences of crises of political development, particularly to identity and legitimacy crises of modernizing political systems; (3) the relation of ethnic conflict and nationalism to issues of self-determination; and (4) the issue of ethnonationalism and ethnocracies in the post-Soviet setting.
The articles by Miller (1992, 1995) reject the previously predominant Soviet political and academic "language codes" that treated domestic nationalism as a negative and value-laden concept and attempt to restore the scientific value-free use of the term in scholarly discourse. When analyzing ethnosocial processes on the territory of the former USSR, the author tries to employ the interpretation of nationalism which was born within the framework of modernization theory. The positive role of nationalism is as a conception of "a culture’s own" state, with a homogeneous culture and rule by a government belonging to this culture. In the case of the USSR, it became apparent that nationalism was the only efficient means of achieving massive mobilization; this resulted in the irreversible disintegration of the totalitarian regime. To Miller, restoration of the Russian empire in the form of the USSR did not permit, unlike in West European countries, progression to the full stage of national self-determination. And now the republics which were formerly incorporated in the Soviet Union are reaching the stage of nation formation at which territorial conflicts between them seem inevitable. Interethnic conflicts associated with genocide, forced deportation, and assimilation of ethnic minorities are also likely to emerge at the next stage, which, in the author's opinion, will see cultural majorities in the new states legitimating their actions by claiming to protect their culture and achieve internal national and cultural homogeneity.
A similar approach to the nexus between nationalism and modernization is espoused by Krasilschikov et al. (1993). To the authors, an acute problem faced by Russia today is the task of modernization, which implies a general social, economic, spiritual, political, and technological renewal to be realized through a sequence of reforms. A complex formationally civilized approach to social development serves as the methodological basis for understanding the reasons behind postcommunist modernization. The authors divide world history into three large societal macro-formations: primary (archaic), secondary (economic), and tertiary (post-economic). While the developed countries have already entered the stage of transition from an economic formation to a post-economic one, other countries, including Russia, find themselves still at the stage of secondary macro-formation. Contemporary Russian society represents a symbiosis of an Asiatic (etatistic) mode of production with industrialism. The conclusion drawn by the authors is that none of the well-known models of modernization can be suitable for Russia in every respect.
Zdravomyslov (1994) and Zdravomyslov and Matveyeva (1995) stress that the sociology of the transition period is concerned with understanding four major areas of overt social conflict in Russia today: constitutional reform of the regime, privatization and market reform, the interplay of federal and regional interests in the process of establishing a new Russian statehood, and, finally, Russia’s integration into world civilization processes. The interethnic conflicts in Russia and the other post-Soviet successor states are typical of rapidly modernizing societies, yet each has its peculiar characteristics due to the specific and intricate configuration of cultural and political components. The country is currently undergoing a "period of risk" or crisis.
Byzov (1994) examines ethnopolitical conflict from the perspective of an "overtaking" modernization. The great superethnic formation that was the former USSR started on the path to political modernization in the mid 1980s, much later than Western countries, and thus its modernization processes were of an "overtaking" character. For Russia and ethnic Russians these processes meant the loss of an organic type of development and imperilment of their perceived ethnocultural distinctiveness. The article goes on to discuss the ethnocultural consequences of postcommunist modernization, including changes in identity of ethnic groups, particularly Russians. The establishment of a new Russian self-consciousness is likely to be realized through consolidation of smaller forms of ethnoregional solidarity. Although the ethnocultural traits of ethnic Russians will be largely preserved, minor changes will inevitably result from the rapid social change and intensified interethnic disputes. Ethnic Russians residing in non-Russian successor states of the Soviet Union are bound to suffer even more severe identity crises than their "mother ethnicity" in Russia.
A critique of the of modernization framework’s treatment of issues of nationalism is offered by Kandel (1994). To the author, twentieth-century history has shown that nationalism diverges from the transnational tendencies of world development and contradicts the demands of effective economic development. Since nationalism redirects social energy into the sphere of interethnic relations, it acts in the author’s view as an antimodernist force. Kandel argues that nationalism fails to perform a consolidating function in present-day societies but is akin to totalitarianism in one way or another. Realization of nationalist ideals inevitably increases interethnic and intercultural distance. Interethnic conflicts are but one of the manifestations of salient trends opposing modernity. A special section of the article considers the specific traits of post-totalitarian nationalism in the former socialist world. The author argues that these trends generate interethnic conflicts which under postcommunist conditions tend to become violent confrontations. The author concludes with a discussion of the incompatibility of postcommunist nationalism and modernization.
Skakunov (1992) introduces the discussion of ethnopolitical stability in the context of civilizational development and the transformation of traditional social culture. To Skakunov, the concept of stability as an invariability of the political system, which in the years of "stagnation" was an end in itself, should allow room under present conditions for the concept of stability as steadiness of political development. The essence of internal political conflict and the appropriate mechanism of analysis and control over stability may be described in terms of Toynbee’s theory of civilizational development, which can be applied to the analysis of modern processes in Russia. The dominant socioculture of a society predetermines the model of conflict suited to it, its functions, structure, process of development, and choice of strategy of control over the conflict. Since a substantial part of Russian society, particularly its periphery, adheres to traditional socioculture, this explains the hegemonic nature of most ethnonational conflicts ongoing in Russia. The hierarchical context of these conflicts plays a specific role in the structure of elite groups, who normally occupy the dominant place in the traditional society. The redistribution of the spheres of influence between "old" and "new" elites striving to straddle the processes of social and nation-state rearrangement in Russian society reveals the function of ethnopolitical conflicts in the country. The traditionalist nature of ethnopolitical conflicts in the former USSR is also manifested in their irrationality, the superimposition of regime and legitimacy crises, and, effectively, the zero-sum perceptions of the conflicting parties. The only rational way out of these conditions is by choosing a strategy of stable and sustainable modernization. To Skakunov, the coexistence within Russia of various types of civilizations and an imbalance between ethnically different social and cultural systems engenders instability under conditions of postcommunist modernization.
Analyzing the interplay between ethnopolitics and processes of postcommunist modernization, several authors try to apply Western theories of political development and sequential crises of modernization to the consideration of ethnic conflicts in the post-Soviet setting, particularly as regards legitimacy and identity crises.
Zubok (1994), Aklaev (1995, 1996), and Tsutsiyev (1995) discuss the ethnic dimension of legitimacy crises in the former Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia. Other scholarship focuses on ethnic implications of the identity crisis. Kolesova (1992) views interethnic and interconfessional conflicts as natural adaptation crises of ethnic and social groups challenged to attain compatible identities at the stage of nation-state formation and proposes a model of intranational interethnic compatibility. Yadov (1994) examines the issue of social identifications in crisis societies and at redefinitions of both individual identity and in-group solidarity in post-Soviet societies. Gasanova (1995) deals with identity changes and identity stress under the conditions of rapid socio- and ethnopolitical change occurring in post-Soviet Russia. The disintegration of the Soviet Union has led to increased collective ethnic anxieties, changes in ethnic stereotypes, and shifts in priorities along the continuum "tradition – modernity." These factors produce major personality stress under conditions of economic and political instability. In many ethnic republics within Russia, to say nothing of non-Russian post-Soviet successor states, ethnic Russians are undergoing dramatic changes in self-perception and self-evaluation through a reassessment of their group status and stereotypes of the group’s history and role in relations with the titular ethnicities.
Chernysh (1995) discusses the degree of stability of national identification and the dynamic changes in the national identities of Russians in successor states. Lurje (1994) proposes a "crisis of imperial consciousness." Every empire represents not only a geopolitical but also a cultural phenomenon. The history of colonization policies influences the world outlook and identity of both ethnic dominants and ethnic subordinates. In the author’s view, the history of the Russian empire and subsequent Russification under the Soviet Union can account for the shifts in the collective consciousness by which "Russian-ness" came to be perceived as "stateness." A demythologization of social consciousness is needed to mitigate present-day interethnic tensions between ethnic Russians and ethnic non-Russians. The article discusses at length the present crisis of Russian identity and the ways it is related to sociopolitical and ethnopolitical change.
A number of authors view the upsurge of politicized ethnic assertiveness and militant nationalism as the product of a deep crisis of values in postcommunist society. Every society needs a binding set of values and, since communist values and beliefs underwent a massive erosion under perestroika, the need to replace the collapsed value system is often fulfilled by nationalism. Klimova and Chalikova (1991) write that self-consciousness and perceived historical and cultural unity at the communal level is a powerful subjective factor of ethnic consolidation. Its evolution under conditions of democratization in the USSR gave rise to nationalist movements. This upsurge of nationalist movements is associated with a crisis of technocratic and utopian-communist illusions that has induced many nationalities to search for support for their values in their ethnic past, i.e. in the deeper layers of social consciousness. Klimova and Chalikov point out that, before the period of perestroika, the political meaning of interethnic relations in the USSR meant placing an absolute stress on the significance of the integration processes. Centrifugal processes, which fail to meet the interests of the nation as a whole, and which stress ethnonational expediency, started to gain strength upon the disintegration of the USSR. During this period, the loss of social points of reference brought about the dominance of issues and values of nationalism. The nationalist potential of social institutions and values became a criterion for evaluating them. The attainment of sovereignty brought about the consolidation of these tendencies through the use of state power at the level of the former Union Republics. Osipov (1991) considers identity crisis at the level of the individual and concludes that ethnic self-consciousness remains the only form of group self-identification that really matters in conditions of the vacuum of values produced by the collapse of communist ideology.
Lapin (1993, 1994) reports the results of the survey project "Our Values Today," conducted by the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Philosophy in 1989-93, which examined the evolution of Russia’s transitory society towardmodernity and a modern system of shared values. Lapin concludes that present-day Russian society can be considered a society in crisis passing through a stage of drastic reform. The author identities three stages in the crisis dynamics of the last decade: (1) abrupt destabilization of the social order in the mid to late 1980s, characterized by rapid pluralization of values, desocialization of individuals, increasing social and ethnic tensions, and inconsistent attempts by the authorities to curb the communist agony; (2) culmination in 1990 of social disorder and arrival at the stage of mass political manifestations, strike activism, and the transition of interethnic conflicts into the stage of local warfare; and (3) the collapse of the Soviet Union beginning in 1991 and the subsequent crisis of sociopolitical disintegration. A consequence of the crisis of integration has been the identity crises of citizens wandering between the poles of anarchy and institutionalization and of social democracy and totalitarianism. The only viable way out of the current stage, in the author’s view, is through the building of a normal civil society in Russia. This is bound to be difficult and laborious, but Russian society cannot possibly become free without forging the true freedom and responsibility of the individual. Sosnin (1995) discusses some of the implications of Russia’s political culture for present-day ethnopolitical conflicts. In the political crisis that ensued after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the breakdown of economic ties, the devaluation of political and ideological regulators, and the vacuum of ideals, the policies of federal authorities often served to destabilize and aggravate interethnic political relations. During this period of transition nationalism is very likely to become the leading force in popular political mobilization. The article goes on to consider personal and group motivations as sociopsychological factors in the dyamics of ethnic conflict in post-Soviet Russia.
Finally, a series of publications deals with the linkage between nationalism and self-determination and the peculiarity of post-Soviet nationalisms as political ideologies and as social movements. Guseinov (1993) writes about self-determination as the moral right of any mature communal group. The aggravation of interethnic tensions is explained to a considerable extent by the deformations of the principle of national self-determination in Russia and by the policies of ethnic unification and Russification. The right of many ethnicities in Russia to possess their own ethnoterritorial units can be regarded as an attempt to make up for this historical injustice. At the same time, in today’s conditions the right to self-determination needs reviewing.
To Panarin (1994), nationalism is one of the primary variables of postcommunist development. It would be more correct, though, to speak of nationalisms, as the situations in different parts of the former Soviet Union are as different as the different legacies inherited by the successor states. The article goes on to elaborate a typology of nationalist doctrines in the former Union Republics of the USSR. The abrupt upsurge of militant nationalisms worldwide in the early 1990s, as pointed out by Galkin (1994), can be compared with analogous developments in 1914-18 and 1939-45. The author goes on to consider the peculiarities of the present wave of ethnopolitical assertiveness with a particular focus on the former Soviet Union. The concept of "superethnicism" is proposed for understanding militant nationalism. Its four characteristic features are (1) the tendency toward sovereignization of large and midsized ethnolinguistic communities; (2) conspicuous intolerance toward ethnic minorities; (3) rising xenophobia among those in calm areas toward refugees and migrants from the areas experiencing ethnic violence; and (4) pronounced opposition toward internationalization. This new superethnicism requires an adequate response from the international community if peace and security are to be maintained.
Karapetyan (1993) observes that in the late 1980s the leaders of a number of Union Republics and nationalist movements placed the principle of self-determination in the center of their ideological platforms of struggle against the system of totalitarian unitarism. Yet consistent overstressing of this principle is fraught with negative consequences for peace between the newly born nations of the CIS. In attempting to solve the contradictions between the right of a people to self-determination and the principle of inviolability of borders of sovereign nations, one should start by placing priority on human rights, since their protection is not exclusively an internal affair of the relevant nation-states. Practical experience has shown that those sovereign nations that absolutize the principle of territorial integrity and ignore the right of peoples to self-determination often resort to military violence, jeopardizing human rights and ethnic minority rights and thus posing a serious threat to global security. In the post-Soviet setting, such policies are often based on the inconsistent belief that a republic's territory belongs to only one titular nationality and not to all the ethnic groups populating the republic as its citizens. The strivings of resident ethnicities for self-determination cannot be interpreted as encroachment upon the territorial integrity of the sovereign republic, since the principle of territorial integrity should apply to those without ethnoterritorial autonomy or statehood as well. Former Soviet republics that have realized their right to self-determination and become independent states cannot be viewed as free from the obligation to protect the rights of ethnic minorities on their territory and to cope with the legacy of unresolved ethnic disputes. Among other works considering the issues of nationalism, self-determination, sovereignty, and causes of ethnic conflict in the post-Soviet setting, those by Zeinu (1992), Khadikov (1992), Tafayev (1993), and Dzhunusov and Mansurov (1994) can be mentioned.
Post-Soviet developments have posed the issue of ethnonationalism and ethnocracy particularly sharply. Tishkov (1992) discusses this issue as regards post-Soviet Russia. The formation of independent states on the territory of the former USSR is the natural result of the disintegration of a system whose existence was based on the ethnic principle. Ethnonationalism was also reliably supported by Soviet ideology and social knowledge, which considered the nation as the base for state legitimation. Therefore, under conditions of social and economic crisis and bankruptcy of socialist values, the multiple educated ethnic elites that had formed in the Soviet time succeeded in mobilizing the masses around ethnonationalist slogans and obtained political power in the newly born nations. Around the world, nationalism often appeared in culturally diverse nations as a political program for the formation of sovereign civil communities. Ethnicity, on the contrary, is a social phenomenon associated with belonging to a certain culture. In this connection, the states formed on the territory of the former USSR can be considered political regimes whose vitality under conditions of multiethnicity requires an authoritarian or totalitarian administrative system. The most complicated conditions for the creation of a national state exist in Russia, where the formation of a single nation of Russians is hindered by the existence of national-territorial formations incorporated within it. In addition, the political elites of these national-territorial formations are influenced by the examples of the elites of the former Soviet republics who recently came to power. Ethnonationalism as the most understandable and accessible basis for collective action, aimed at the realization of goals and interests of ethnic elites, can become functional in Russia under a national-state structure, which would optimally combine the rights of already formed ethnic administrative-territorial formations.
In their post-Soviet development many of the successor states have displayed strong tendencies toward the establishment of mononational states based on the concept of ethnicity from which ethnic minorities are excluded or downgraded to the status of second-class citizens. Several authors propose the term "ethnocracy" to describe these states. To Bazhanov (1995), the expulsion and eradication of cultural components of other ethnic origins have also manifested themselves in the political life of new nations. Russia occupies a distinctive place in this process, for unlike other former Soviet republics the driving force of sociopolitical transformation in Russia was not ethnonationalism but anti-communism. Yet even in the setting of post-Soviet Russia interethnic dynamics are volatile and ethnopolitical conflicts have also assumed violent forms. The author concludes with the necessity of adequate monitoring of interethnic tensions in Russia and early warning of latent conflicts.
Volkov (1992) writes about ethnocracy as an unforeseen consequence of post-totalitarian transition. One of the peculiarities of post-totalitarian nationalism in the former USSR, to Volkov, is that its principal bearer is ethnocracy, i.e., ethnonationalist elites. The backbone of the new elite includes representatives of the old nomenklatura, businessmen of the "shadow" economy, and nationalist intellectuals. Their ratio depends upon the correlation of the social forces, ethnic traditions, and geopolitical surroundings. The elite has a strongly pronounced authoritarian character and tendency to seek legitimation with the help of national-patriotic and national-communist slogans. Nationality is the simplest form of sociality which has been preserved in totalitarian society, and has become an instrument for acquiring and keeping power in the hands of the elite. For the businessmen incorporated in the ethnocracy, the claims to sovereignty mean that during the transition period favorable conditions for privatization of state property be provided. The nomenklatura may keep their power over the territory and maintain control over the bulk of the large-scale property located on the territory by declaring the supremacy of the local laws. The ethnic factor serves as a filter and helps to get rid of competitors. Inflaming nationalist passions is used as a way of overriding their own people and instigating them to fight for their interests. Thus the people turn their discontent toward the artficial image of an external "enemy." Their genetic relation to Bolshevism makes it easy for ethnonational elites to substitute for the dictatorship of the proletariat the dictatorship of the interests of the titular nationality, and to preserve the division of society into supporters and opponents, as well as an intolerance of criticism by the mass media and censorship. Tishkov’s 1991 analysis of the results of elections to republican parliaments shows that, in the power structures that formed in 1990 in the Union and Autonomous republics of the USSR, there was a trend in favor of the representation of titular nationalities in keeping with their share in the republics' population. The composition of the deputies of republican parliaments reflects the degree of development of ethnonationalism among the titular elites and, above all, a correlation with ethnopolitical forces at the republican level.
Shnirelman (1995) considers nationalist myths diffused among East Slav peoples (ethnic Russians, Belorussians, Ukrainians). In the author’s view, nationalist myths are being created by national intellectuals and propagated by the intelligentsia with the aim of using these myths as an instrument of ethnopolitical mobilization under interethnic conflict. Diffusion and manipulations of nationalistic mythology necessarily entail the aggravation of interethnic tensions and threaten ethnic peace. Conflicting and contradictory versions of nationalist myths reflect the struggles for predominance between ethnic counter-elites. The article goes on to consider the major processes in the creation of nationalist myths (selection, reinterpretation, and tradition-invention).
Kosolapov (1995) attempts to discuss the general systemic causes of interethnic conflicts and violence in the post-Soviet space and to distinguish those systemic factors from the influences, stimuli, and motives deriving from concrete ethnopolitical dynamics in a particular region. The author examines the differences in the factors and manifestations of interethnic conflicts in the post-Soviet period compared with the Soviet period. At the same time, some important similarities concerning the impact of intra-elite struggles on the dynamics of ethnopolitical conflict are observed. The author proposes a typology of "conflictualness" as distinct from the typology of ethnic conflicts. In this regard, three levels of "ethnic conflictualness" are distinguished: the conflictualness of perestroika, the conflictualness of the period of disintegration of the USSR, and the post-Soviet conflictualness. This, generally speaking, corresponds to before, during, and after the process of rapid social change began in the former Soviet Union. The article concludes with the identification of new sources of post-Soviet conflictualness at the current stage and asserts the necessity of a scientific elaboration of Russia’s policies toward the changing dynamics of ethnopolitical conflictualness.
In the next section we review the literature on the influence of historical legacies on ongoing ethnic conflicts in the post-Soviet successor states.
Legacies of the Past as Causes of Ethnic Conflict
There is a consensus in the literature on ethnic conflict that many of the factors that contribute to conflict are derived from the legacies of the Soviet period in general and the legacy of institutionalized ethnicity, the nexus between ethnicity and territoriality, and the ethnopolitical hierarchy of inequalities in particular. Other legacies of the past, to be considered in this subsection, include socioeconomic disequilibrium and the unbalanced socioprofessional structures of different ethnic groups, as well as the history of assimilation and cultural discrimination under the Soviet regime, which increased the salience of language and religion as sources of ethnic conflict. Altogether these legacies account for the depth of perceived communal discrimination.
It is vital to take into account the critical role of the articulated ethnohierarchical structure of the USSR "federation," " the "matrioshka" type federalism which constituted the structural setting of ethnopolitical conflicts. One of the fundamental innovations of federal state formation under Soviet rule was the Stalinist linkage of ethnicity, territory, and political administration. Ethnicity was institutionalized on the group level by the creation of a federation of ethnoteritorial units, governed by indigenous political elites and organized into an elaborate administrative hierarchy. The degree of economic, cultural, political, and many other rights and the opportunities to satisfy the interests of many peoples depended on the status that was ascribed to an ethnicity within the rigid structures of the USSR federation. Only fifty-three of the more than one hundred Soviet nations were officially identified with a particular territory and so afforded rights by virtue of their national-territorial status--the so-called "titular" nationalities. The nature of these rights varied widely. Fifteen national groups were given the highest status of Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs) or "Union Republics," which together encompassed the entire nation. Directly accountable to and within the territories of the Union Republics, in order of descending status, were twenty Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSRs), eight Autonomous regions (oblasti), and ten Autonomous districts (okruga). The rights of each of these formations were enumerated in the Soviet Constitution, including areas of dependence, guaranteed institutions, rights of autonomy and--in the case of the Union Republics--secession. Finally, there were also "peoples without territory," i.e., without ethnoterritorial formations of their own, which, under Soviet conditions, meant deprivation of any collective rights of the ethnic group.
It is worth keeping in mind that the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 provided for the disappearance of two upper-level types of ethnopolitical conflict: conflicts between the Soviet federal center and Union Republics, and between Union Republics. All the remaining types, though modified, have persisted in the successor states.
Kotozhekov (1991) proposes applying the concept of ethnic stratification in order to analyze the degree of interethnic tension in the Soviet Union and assess its likely development. The article reflects on the "Russification" policy conducted in the USSR in the pre-perestroika period, on the integration type of development, and on relations between the dominant and subordinate groups. The democratization of Soviet society in the pre-perestroika period resulted in the fact that in many regions of the USSR the dominant-subordinate relations between ethnic groups have led to overt conflict. This type of development features a permanent character of confrontation between ethnic groups struggling for power, equal rights, and affirmation of their sociopolitical and cultural identities.
Dragunsky (1993) discusses the issue of why ethnicity and ethnic identity have played so important a role in the emergence of state institutions in the successor nations. The author considers the history of the nationalities problem in pre-revolutionary Russia and during the Soviet period and the way political culture embraced the underlying ethnopolitical tensions. The Russian empire was reborn and reconstituted in the structures of the Soviet Union, which functioned on the principles of ethnocratic hierarchy. The article distinguishes two major periods in the process of the "imposition of ethnicity" upon Soviet ethnopolitics: (1) the introduction of obligatory inclusion of each individual’s ethnic identity in his official documents (passports); and (2) the salience of ethnic identity during the collapse of the communist ideology and political system, when "imposed ethnicity" became the major instrument of political mobilization and activity of large social groups. The politicization of ethnicity has acquired a momentum of its own and will be difficult to reverse in the process of postcommunist democratization. The legacy of "imposed ethnicity," concludes Dragunsky (1993), is likely to influence post-Soviet politics to a considerable degree in the short and medium run. The author goes on to consider similarities and differences between major trends in the formation of communist elites among ethnic Russians and non-Russian ethnicities.
Most current ethnoterritorial disputes and deeply felt ethnic grievances are viewed by scholars as deriving from this legacy of ethnohierarchical relations between different types of ethnoterritorial units of the former Soviet Union. Petrov (1993) analyzes the array of ethnoterritorial claims and interethnic conflicts in the successor states of the former Soviet Union. By December 8, 1991 (the date of the official dissolution of the USSR), the number of registered ethnoterritorial claims amounted to 168. That was twice as many as in March 1991 and four times as many as in 1990. Nine percent of the territory of the former USSR is being contested in two or more disputes. The article goes on to consider the historical roots of the territorial claims of different ethnicities within the former Soviet space, as well as the underlying political and economic causes, and identifies objective and subjective components of the pre-Soviet and Soviet legacies. The author concludes with an overview of five scenarios of eventual evolution of ethnoterritorial conflicts in the post-Soviet successor states.
Glezer and Streletsky (1993) identify six types of causes of ethnoterritorial conflicts currently prominent in the successor states: (1) claims for a change of the national state to which the territory belongs; (2) claims for change of belonging and status of the territorial unit; (3) lack of autonomy of ethnic groups and desire to attain autonomy; (4) ethnic heterogeneity of an ethnoterritorial formation and attempts to promote ethnic cleansing; (5) problems of ethnic groups divided by national political borders; and (6) physical inability of a given ethnicity to live on a territory because of its environmental degradation. Ethnopolitical conflicts of the first two types make up two-thirds of the total number of disputes. The authors go on to identify five stages in the escalation of territorial ethnic conflicts: (1) claims put forward in the form of a declaration; (2) introduction of ethnoterritorial claims accompanied by the supporting activity of the masses; (3) conflicts without human casualties; (4) interethnic clashes resulting in casualties; and (5) interethnic wars. Of the total number of ethnoterritorial disputes, 40 percent have not gone beyond the second stage and 15 percent are beyond the the third or fourth stage. The Armenia-Azerbaijan, Georgia-Ossetia, Georgia-Abkhazia, Ossetia-Ingush, and Moldova-Pridnestrovje conflicts are at the fifth stage of interethnic warfare.
While the Transcaucasus is viewed as the hottest spot in terms of actual interethnic violence, Streletsky (1993) warns that the successor states in post-Soviet Central Asia can be regarded as potentially even more explosive because of the legacy of territorial demarcation of the 1920s, which is still vastly perceived as unjust by many regional ethnic groups and which already resulted in short-lived but violent confrontations in Osh in1989. Post-Soviet Central Asia, occupying a territory of about four million square kilometers, is divided by natural, ethnic, and cultural boundaries into a large number of microworlds. If the cultural boundaries in Central Asia are relatively stable, the political boundaries are extremely unsteady, and very seldom in the history of Central Asia have they coincided with one another. All the interstate boundaries existing today in Central Asia are the result of territorial demarcations realized there after the establishment of the communist regime in the 1920s and ’30s. The failure of ethnic-group settlement patterns to coincide in the past and at present with republican boundaries favors the growth of ethnoterritorial disputes and conflicts in the region. Unlike in other regions of the former Soviet Union, ethnoterritorial claims at the state level are not typical for Central Asia. Claims are put forward there mainly by nationalist movements, political parties, and ethnic communities. There are more than fifty ethnoterritorial disputes currently under way in Central Asia. Only 12 percent of them are supported by the local authorities. More than 40 percent of territorial claims are only formulated as statements and declarations by political forces which do not yet enjoy any mass support. Another 30 percent of the claims have manifested themselves in some form of mass nonviolent action. But more than 25 percent of territorial claims have resulted in violent interethnic conflicts involving numerous human victims, among which, for example, are the bloody border conflicts of the late 1980s. Streletsky identifies four groups of ethnoterritorial conflicts in Central Asia: (1) noncoincidence of political borders and patterns of ethnic settlement (the claims of the nationalist radicals representing the Uzbek minorities in Tajikistan and, respectively, the Tajik minority in Uzbekistan), (2) ethnic separatism (demands for political autonomy made by the Karakalpaks in Uzbekistan and the Badakhshan peoples in Tajikistan), (3) claims for a degree of cultural autonomy by territorially concentrated ethnic minorities (the Uigurs, Germans, Koreans, Russians, Kurds), and (4) ethnotribal competition (particularly salient in the current crisis in Tajikistan). The article analyzes the historical origins and current state of a number of ethnoterritorial disputes and potential hot spots in Central Asia (Ferghana Valley, Samarkand and Bukhara, Osh Region, Gorny Badakhshan, Northern and Southern Tajikistan, Northern and Southern Kyrgyzstan, Northern Kazakstan). The problems of the Russian-speaking population of the Central Asian republics and the potential for interethnic conflict between the titular nationalities and the Russian-speaking people warrant a separate discussion, particularly in view of rising cossack movements among Russians in North Kazakstan. Finally, another aspect of latent ethnoterritorial conflicts in the region is their international implications and the likely impact of independence by the Central Asian republics on nationalist movements in China, Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey.
Ethnoterritorial disputes (particularly in the North Caucasus) and the status of different types of federation subjects are a major source of ongoing conflict within post-Soviet Russia. Dyachkov (1993) offers an overview of the major viewpoints in the ongoing debates between different groups of Russian policymakers and academics on the ethnocultural and ethnopolitical development of subfederal units. We will return to this issue in the next section of this essay.
Recent Russian-language literature also discusses the historical contexts and events that account for the deep-rooted conflicts in the North Caucasus. Many animosities and territorial disputes between Russians and Chechens as well as some other peoples of the North Caucasus date back to the more than forty-year-long Caucasian War (1817-64). For example, Khoperskaya and Chernous (1993) review the major landmarks in the political history of Russian-Northern Caucasian relations since the eighteenth century, focusing on the historical roots of the present-day ethnic conflicts in the region. Prazauskas (1994) deals with the impact of the history of ethnopolitical conflict between Russia and North Caucasian peoples on the current ethnic tensions in the region. The legacy of the Russian empire and the Soviet Union includes imperial domination and recurrent repression against the peoples of the North Caucasus. As a successor to those regimes, Russia must be doubly conscious of this history and doubly delicate in its ethnic policies toward the republics of the North Caucasus. The only viable strategy for center-periphery relations and peacekeeping in intra-Caucasian disputes is negotiations. The policies of divide and rule and application of coercive force to ensure compliance are inadmissible. Khoperskaya and Denisova (1995) also consider historical aspects of the integration of the North Caucasus into Russia. There have been two main trends in Russia’s policies toward the North Caucasian peoples since as early as the nineteenth century: the policies of force and the policies of liberal colonialism (colonial illuminism). The competition between these policies can be observed even today, particularly as suggested by recent dramatic developments in Chechnya. The article goes on to consider specific aspects of the management of ethnic policies and of the current state of ethnopolitical conflict in republics of the North Caucasus (Ingushetia, Chechnya, Karachai-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Adygeya, Dagestan, North Ossetia-Alania). Hanaklu and Tsvetkov (1995) report the results of monitoring research and in-depth surveys conducted by the Department of Sociology and Philosophy of the Adygeya Republican Institution for Humanitarian Research among ethnic groups residing in the republic of Adygeya within Russia. The survey was designed to include indicators of shared beliefs about ethnic history, interethnic attitudes, and opinions and evaluations of the state of interethnic relations in the region and in the Russian Federation at large. The survey data report on opinions, attitudes, and evaluations of the Caucasian War and its legacy for present-dayon interethnic relations between the Adygeya and the Cherkessy ethnic groups; on the resurgence of Russian cossack organizations; and on relations between the peoples of the North Caucasus and Russia. The authors conclude with an assertion of the binding necessity of undertaking an official reevaluation of the historical past, necessary in order to manage current ethnic tensions and combat ethnic prejudices. The past resonates in contemporary conditions, and a judicial treatment of history is part and parcel of observing the "rules of the ethnopolitical game" in today’s democratizing Russia.
Another set of deeply-rooted grievances stems from the legacies of the nationalities policies conducted during the Stalinist period in the 1930s and ’40s. The history of Soviet nationalities policy regarding the Russian Federation is discussed in Nenarokov (1993, 1994) and Doronchenkov (1995). Kaltakhchyan (1992) discusses more generally the issue of rehabilitation of repressed peoples and the implications of this for present-day ethnopolitics in Russia. Recent literature also reports new research concerning the history of Stalinist repressions and forced population transfers, particularly as these affected Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Kalmykia, Dagestan, and other repressed ethnicities that lacked their own ethnoterritorial formations.
Such a broad set of causes of interethnic strife as perceived socioeconomic deprivation and material injustices often contain underlying legacies of ethnoregional underdevelopment or ethnically relevant disproportion in occupational structures of conflicting ethnic groups, as shown in the recent literature. Interethnic competition for occupational positions often has historical roots. Aruturnyan (1994) noted that outmigration of ethnic Russians from non-Russian republics of the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s was due in significant part to the fact that the "socioprofessional status" of Russians was steadily declining. Some sociological surveys conducted in the Russian Federation suggest that representatives of many non-Russian ethnic groups stress the economic situation of the region, the perceptions of inequality in the material well-being of different ethnic groups, and obstacles to upward mobility as primary sources of conflict.
Scholarship pays considerable attention to cultural (linguistic and religious) antecedents of ethnic conflict in the successor states. Many grievances have to do with the consequences of the Russification policies pursued during the Soviet period. Alpatov (1995) notes that in multiethnic states issues of language choice and the status of languages assume tremendous ethnopolitical importance. The article considers ethnolinguistic stagnation in the Soviet Union in the 1950s and ’80s and the abrupt change in the linguistic dimension of ethnic politics at the end of the 1980s, and proposes a distinction between the interests of ethnolinguistic revival and the interests of linguistic and ethnic imposition and dominance.
Aleksakhina (1995) considers the ethnopolitical implications of the linguistic situation and of the use of languages in multiethnic republics within the Russian Federation. The author suggests a reexamination and reformulation of some of the recently adopted principles of linguistic policy.
Dyachkov (1995) holds that recent research on interethnic relations and conflicts pays inadequate attention to the component of sociopolitical status and the function of minorities’ languages. His article considers the history of fluctuations of the official policies of Soviet and Russian authorities in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1990s toward the languages of small-numbered ethnic groups. A special section of the article criticizes several articles of Russia’s "Law on the Languages in the Russian Federation" and discusses the relationship between assimilation and integration in linguistic policies, as well as expresses concerns over the protection of the languages of small-numbered ethnicities within Russia.
A number of recent publications concern the conflict-generating propensity that linguistic issues and language policies have assumed in the post-Soviet states and in ethnic republics within Russia. Analyses of new legislation on official languages and their conflicting issues in successor states are given in Dorovskikh (1991) and, as regards language legislation in republics within Russia, in Aklaev (1994).
Repression of and discriminatory policy toward religions under the Soviet regime constitute another legacy that explains some of the causes of post-Soviet ethnic conflicts. To Malashenko (1994, 1995), the confessional (religious) factor can be used to predict the exacerbation of ethnopolitical conflicts in many areas of the former Soviet Union. Malashenko (1994) gives an extensive overview of religion-laden intra- and interethnic conflicts on the territory of the former Soviet Union that range in their forms from overt warfare (as in Tajikistan) to latent tensions (as in the Khakassia republic within the Russian Federation). The religious factor is present in the relations between Russia and Tatarstan, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Georgia and Abkhazia, and North Ossetia and Ingushetia. The article goes on to compare the state of ethnoreligious tensions in the post-Soviet setting with the situation in the former Yugoslavia. Lokosov (1991) reports the results of a sociological survey on religious beliefs and conflicting attitudes among different ethnic groups in Ukraine. Naumets (1995) considers the role played by religion and religious ideology in present-day ethnic conflicts in Russia and provides an overview of proposals for changes in the current legislation on religion and confessional policies.
Sots (1992) and Kosukha (1994) deal with ethnoreligious conflicts in post-Soviet Ukraine. Three-quarters of Ukraine’s religious associations are either Orthodox or Greek-Catholic. The interconfessional conflict that has become manifest since the early 1990s is a major factor not only of religious life and interconfessional relations in Ukraine, but also of the sociopolitical and ethnic situation there. One of underlying reasons is the state’s interference in the interconfessional conflicts and disputes between the two churches. The Russian Orthodox Church had been favored by the official state structures during the Soviet period. Ambivalent policies of the independent Ukrainian state have also contributed to the aggravation of conflicting feelings and behaviors. The article quotes extensively the results of survey research on interethnic and interreligious conflict in Ukraine conducted in autumn 1991, with a follow-up in spring 1993, by the Department for the Study of Religion of the Institute of Philosophy at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and by the Institute of Interethnic Relations and Policy Research of the Ukrainian Academy of Management. The sampling comprised Kiev, Galicia (a western Ukrainian region), and nine other regions of Ukraine. To Kosukha (1994), the religious revival in today’s Ukraine needs to be backed by adequate state policies aimed at moderation of interconfessional disputes.
Particular attention in recent publications on the countries of the CIS has been given to the problems of Islamic revival and the role of Islam in state-building and interethnic relations, particularly in the North Caucasus and Central Asia. Case studies on Islam as a dimension of ethnic conflict in post-Soviet Russia include the republics of Chechnya and Tatarstan, as well as Astrakhan oblast. For example, Ruban (1995) examines the relation of interethnic conflict and interconfessional tensions in the case of the Astrakhan region in Russia during 1991-93, which resulted in violent interethnic clashes, riots, and anti-Chechen pogroms. Since 1994 interethnic clashes have been absent in the region, yet latent tension persists and overt conflict behavior can be easily sparked. To a great extent the demands of the local population for expulsion of those belonging to a number of Caucasian ethnic groups were reactions to the uncontrolled migration of refugees from the Northern Caucasus. The collision of interests in the spheres of commerce and production between immigrants and the local population is also assessed as a factor of diffused negative stereotypes and attitudes toward immigrants from the Caucasus (particularly, toward ethnic Chechens, Armenians, Georgians, Azeris, and immigrants from Dagestan). Results of survey research conducted in July-August 1994 in Astrakhan suggest that the religious factor (differences between either Christian Orthodox adherents or Muslims) plays a much less important role in negative stereotypes and orientations than ethnic identity. Fifty-two percent of respondents reported themselves prepared to take an active part in interethnic conflict on the side of their ethnic group. Among young businessmen the share of conflict-prone respondents was 67 percent. The authors conclude that religious (confessional) motivations can eventually be exploited in the case of overt ethnic conflict, yet it is tensions in interethnic relations that are likely to be the real stimulus and therefore require attention.
Causes of Conflict Related to the Dynamics of Rapid Change
A broad and important set of causes of post-Soviet ethnic conflict relates to the processes of rapid sociopolitical change taking place in the postcommunist transition. The works focusing on the process of post-Soviet transition as a cause of ethnic conflict can be divided into three groups. First is the literature on economic change and the ways economic reform stimulates nationalism and interethnic conflict (Igrunov 1993, Koroteyeva and Novikov 1994, Babakov, Matyunina, and Semenov 1994, Koroteyeva 1995). Next is the only recently begun research on the complex set of interrelations between political democratization and ethnic conflict (Perepelkin and Shkaratan 1991, Egorov 1994, Drobizheva, Aklaev, Koroteyeva, and Soldatova 1996, Mukharyamov 1995, Viunitsky 1995). Finally, the third and largest group of publications considers the dynamics of ethnic conflict in the successor states and case studies. The following two subsections attempt to provide a survey of these areas and case studies.
Dynamics of Post-Soviet Ethnic Conflicts outside Russia
Academic discussions in the Russian-language literature on the manifestations and dynamics of ethnic conflict center on several major clusters of research concern: (1) understanding the changes in ethnopolitics and new patterns of intrastate ethnic strife entailed by the disintegration of the Soviet Union; (2) the "Russian question" (Russky vopros), i.e., the problems of the new Russian diaspora: conflicts involving Russian minorities in the newly independent states; (3) the implications of intrastate ethnic conflict for new geopolitical arrangements, particularly Russia’s stance toward intrastate ethnic conflict in other countries of the CIS and its involvement in peacekeeping activities in the zones of deadly ethnic violence; (4) case studies of specific ethnic conflicts and area studies within the former Soviet Union; and (5) studies of the dynamics of the escalation of ethnic conflicts in the post-Soviet setting.
Several publications directly tackle the ethnic dimension of the disintegration of the USSR, investigating whether the disintegration had been predetermined and the emerging patterns of intrastate ethnic conflict in new independent states (Zubov 1992, Cheshko 1992, 1995; Salmin 1992, Drobizheva 1993, Litvinova 1994, Nastasyuk 1994). Kagansky (1995) advances a structural-typological theory of the disintegration of the USSR and assesses the trends toward regionalization in further ethnopolitical development. The restructuring of the post-Soviet space means, first of all, the restructuring of relations to authority, the devolution of the authority of the center, and an increase in the importance of the regions. The Soviet Union was a state which actually conducted a war against its regions and republics. His article goes on to consider in more detail the issues of ethnic regionalization and ethnoterritorial separatism in contemporary Russia. Lysenko (1995) examines the main transformations of ethnopolitical conflicts in the period after 1991 and notes that the ongoing disputes are related primarily to the process of nation- and state-building under way in the successor states.
A particularly sensitive issue for the Russian public and for scholars is the changing status of ethnic Russians in the former republics of the USSR and Russia’s policies toward ethnic compatriots in the "new abroad." The literature on the subject deals with the political and sociopsychological concomitants of the transition of Russians and Russian-speakers to minority status (Tishkov 1993, Drobizheva 1993, Tishkov 1995), changes in their collective self-consciousness (Arutyunyan 1994, 1995, Savoskul 1994, Ginzburg 1994, Savoskul and Ginzburg 1995, Soldatova and Shaigerova 1993, Soldatova, Shaigerova, and Shlyagina 1994, Sokolovsky 1995), the issues of group rights (Abashidze and Blishenko 1995, Ekk 1995, Lisetsky 1993), assessments of potential outmigration (Tishkov 1993, 1995, Lebedeva 1993, Ostapenko and Subbotina 1992), and the necessity of special policies on behalf of post-Soviet Russia toward ethnic Russians in the successor states ( Kozlov 1993, Barsenkov and Vdovin 1993, Blishenko, Abashidze, and Martynenko 1994). Cross-national surveys are presented by Arutyunyan (1994, 1995), Lebedeva (1995), Savoskul (1996), and Ostapenko and Subbotina (1993). A series of case studies analyzes the situations in the Baltic states (Sillaste 1992, Tishkov 1993, Drobizheva 1994), Central Asia and Kazakstan (Arapov and Umansky 1992, Brusina 1993, Osipov 1993, Brusina and Osipov 1993, Brusina 1995, Arenov and Kalmykov 1995), the non-Russian Slav republics of Ukraine and Belarus (Lebedeva 1994, Levyash 1994), and Moldova (Bruter and Solonar 1993, Lisetsky 1993).
The new policies of post-Soviet Russia toward ethnic conflicts in other successor states, as viewed in the recent literature, are not to be limited to the issue of protection of Russian minorities. The literature examines an array of problems concerning Russia’s influence in the post-Soviet space regarding geopolitics and ethnic aspects of national security (Belkov 1995, Sorokin 1994, Surovtsev 1995, Dragunsky, Sorokin, and Utkin 1994, Yegorov 1995, Furman 1996), the interplay between the ethnic and superethnic components of Russia’s policies (Bogaturov 1995, Razuvayev 1994, Shmelev 1993, Vyunitsky 1993), border disputes (Kolosov and Krindach 1994, Sytnyansky 1994), the introduction of ethnic components into Russia’s new military doctrine (Belkov 1994, Proskurin 1995), and Russia’s role in peacekeeping activities in the zones of deadly ethnic violence in the former USSR (Bekmurzayev 1994, Pustogarov 1994, Solodovnikov 1994, Kovalevsky and Petrovsky 1995, Serebryanikov 1995).
The disintegration of the USSR produced a shift in the interests of Russian scholars of ethnic conflict from intrastate conflicts within former republics of the Soviet Union to conflicts within Russia. Yet there are some interesting case studies on intrastate conflicts within the successor states published in Russian. Among them are publications on the causes of ethnic conflict in the Baltic states (Lakis 1993, Ustinova 1993, Raitvyr 1995, Apine 1994, Tsilevich 1994, Hallikk 1995), in successor states in the Transcaucasus (Agadzhanian 1991, Yamskov 1991, Perepelkin 1992, Furman 1992, 1994, 1995, Dadiani and Shumikhin 1994, Anastasiadi 1994, Arutyunyan 1995, Tania, Argun, and Tania 1995), in non-Russian Slav states (Turchenkov and Nemirovsky 1994, Furman 1995, Popova 1993, 1995, Tolpygo 1994), in Moldova (Mikhailov 1992, 1993, 1995, Stepanova 1993, Zemba 1993, Guboglo 1993, Bruter and Solonar 1993), and in Central Asia (Logashova 1991, Iljhamov 1992, Amelin 1993, Novak 1994, Olimov 1994, Olimov and Olimova 1995, Shakhov 1994, Savin 1994, Esenov 1995, Karaev 1995, Kuznetsova 1995, Arenov 1995, Averin 1995, Sharapov 1995).
Studies of the Escalation of Ethnic Conflict
A new and important feature of recent Russian-language literature is the emergence of specialized research on the dynamics of ethnic conflict and an increasing attention to mechanisms of conflict escalation and the transition from nonviolent to violent ethnic action. The bulk of current research on the dynamics of conflict escalation employs a sociopsychological perspective. Soldatova (1993, 1994, 1996) considers changes in collective perceptions and identity shifts under conditions of escalating interethnic tension using a system of group psychological indicators. Shikhirev (1992) analyzes changes in justifications of violence in the course of intense ethnic conflict. Shikhirev (1991, 1995) and Gasanov (1994) deal with processes of creation and projection of "enemy images." Personality and group motivations as sociopsychological factors of ethnic conflict dynamics are discussed by Sosnin (1995); and the impact of patterns of interaction upon changing perceptions of conflict participants, conflict subjects, and government agents is discussed in Zaprudsky (1993). The role of the media in conflict escalation is considered in Ivanov (1992), Malkova (1992, 1995), Chichanovsky (1995), and Alavidze, Antonyuk, and A. Vildanova (1995).
Specialized research on interethnic and ethnopolitical violence began relatively recently, but a number of publications in this field have already appeared. Aklaev (1993) and Sokolovsky (1995) discuss the application of Western perspectives on political violence to the study of the causes of deadly conflicts in the Soviet and post-Soviet experience. Discussing political violence in a larger theoretical vein, Guseinov (1994), Stepanov (1995), and Serebryanikov (1996) consider the ethnic dimension of the concepts of violence and non-violence. Changing patterns of ethnopolitical violence in the post-Soviet period as compared with the period before August 1991 is the main concern of Aklaev (1993). Terrorism has become a recurrent form of interethnic hostilities. Vitiuk (1993), Lazarev (1993), and Luneyev (1995) deal with terrorism as a manifestation of interethnic violence, focusing primarily on the cases of ethnic conflict in the Transcaucasus, Central Asia, and Moldova. Cheban (1992) and Smulsky (1995) discuss methodological issues of identification of militarized ethnic violence and its consequences. Remarchuk (1995) considers army intervention in violent domestic ethnic conflict and the long-term consequences of such practice.
A significant body of literature deals with issues of refugees and forced migrations in the former Soviet Union as both a consequence and a cause of deadly interethnic conflicts. Lebedeva (1993, 1994) and Zayonchkovskaya (1994) analyze the sociopsychological motivations of outmigrations due to ongoing or anticipated ethnic conflicts. Patterns of dynamics of forced migrations are analyzed in Toshenko (1991), Morozova (1992), Krasinets and Barinova (1994), Komarova (1995), Orlova (1993), Moskvin and Potemkina (1995), Tishkov (1993), Rybakovsky and Tarasova (1994), Rybakovsky (1995), and Subbotina (1995). Problems of refugees from the zones of ethnic violence and their adaptation are discussed in Chervyakov, Shapiro, and Sheregi (1991), Susokolov (1991), Lebedeva (1993), Vitkovskaya (1993), Zubarevich (1993), Filippova (1994), Soldatova, Shaigerova, and Shlyagina (1994), Andrichenko and Belousova (1995), Doshitsyn (1995), and Ladodo (1995). The ill-adapted refugees constitute a particularly explosive social category that is easily mobilized by ethnic entrepreneurs to violent retaliatory action; thus, forced migration tends to induce new escalation of ethnic hostilities. Soldatova (1994) and Melnik (1995) discuss this problem with regard to the Ossetian-Ingush conflict, and Ruban (1994) considers the situation in the Astrakhan region.
Dynamics of Ethnic Conflict in Post-Soviet Russia
After the disintegration of the USSR, the most pressing concern of Russian scholarship on ethnic conflict was assessment of the probability of further proliferation of separatism, this time within the Russian Federation itself. Drobizheva (1992, 1993) and Pain (1995) discuss the pivotal issue of that moment--would Russia share the destiny of the collapsed Soviet Union?
Drobizheva (1992, 1993) points out the main factors that provoked conflict between the central administration of the Russian Federation and its former autonomous republics and argues that further disintegration of Russia is unlikely. The article goes on to stress the difference between the ethnopolitical situations in the former Soviet Union and in contemporary Russia: the ethnic composition of the republics, in only seven of which does the titular nationality make up more than half of the population, and their geopolitical positions (only six former autonomous republics have external boundaries). Only a small number of ethnic groups have had the experience of their own national state in the past: Dagestan, Chechnya, Tuva, and Tatarstan. The fact that in thirteen of the twenty former Russian autonomous regions Russians are numerically dominant but low in group status is a serious source of ethnic tensions. To Drobizheva (1992 and 1993), the roots of ethnic conflict within Russia can be found in social mobility and education among the titular nationalities, combined with little migration. The change in status of the titular nationalities and the growth of the intelligentsia and the media not only provide an objective basis for a rise in national self-consciousness but also create grounds for the propagation of the idea of nationalism and awareness of their own interests. National interests are usually defined by titular elites as resurrection of the national language; in artistic culture an orientation toward one's own traditions and rituals; rebirth and politicization of religion; attention to ecological dangers; and attention to demographic differences. Drobizheva (1993) further recounts the situations in different trouble spots within Russia and discusses the impulses behind separatist tendencies. She points to the presence of three kinds of attitudes toward the future of the Russian Federation: (1) some blue-collar workers, poorly paid intellectuals, and sincere communists who were pessimistic or aggressive toward ethnonational groups would opt for the old Union, fear capitalist relations, and are likely to want Russia to go its own way; (2) those who were already part of or entering the new system, e.g. businessmen, new industrialists, private farmers, and intelligentsia (who value freedom and their material position equally), think that a return to the old Union is impossible, believe that one can learn from the West, and want stability in a unified Russia. Some think that division into republics is not necessary and would advocate gubernizatsiya; and (3) part of the liberal-minded intelligentsia and business class may well be indifferent to the eventual exit of one or another republic from Russia. In conclusion, she argues that Russia will follow the Union's path in a different manner: there will be more than one variant in relations between the federal center and the republics; principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity will come into conflict with peoples' right to self-government; most republics will face constant internal opposition; and Russia will take advantage of the feelings of Russians within the republics. Like former Union leaders, Russian leaders find themselves deeply immersed in power struggles and cannot possibly refrain from using nationalist ideas to enhance their support.
Russia’s post-Soviet experience has shown that the country is not free from various manifestations of ethnic conflict, including deadly violence.
The literature focuses on a number of conflict-generating aspects of the contemporary ethnopolitical landscape in the Russian Federation: (1) elite struggles, (2) the "Russian question" (Russky vopros) within Russia, and (3) the federalization and center-periphery disputes over political authority and budget issues.
An important cause and factor influencing the dynamics of ethnic conflict in today’s Russia is the rise of new central and local elites: the transformation of the "old guard" into new holders of power and intensified struggles for power among them. Among works analyzing the changes in the composition and interests of central and regional elites are those by Babayeva, Tarshiks, and Reznichenko (1994), Badovsky (1994), Berezovsky (1994), Afanasyev (1994), Galan (1995), Kinsburgsky (1995), Petrov (1995), and Smirnov (1994). A number of publications examine in more detail the formation and functioning of regional elites in Bashkortostan (Khairullin 1992), in Tatarstan (Akhmetov 1992, Farukshin 1994), and in Siberian republics and regions (Tarasov 1993, Shubkin 1995).
Within Russia the "Russian question" is manifested in two ways with regard to ethnic conflict. On the one hand, as in the case of the successor states, it acquired salience as an issue of status and of the interests of ethnic Russians within Russia’s republics (former autonomous republics). This facet is considered in Kozlov (1995), Drobizheva (1995), Ryzhova (1996), and Gasanov (1994). On the other hand, the issue concerns a painful and uncertain process of change in the Russian identity after the end of the Soviet Union; disputes about the nature of Russia’s statehood, with concomitant reevaluations; or, on the contrary, the rebirth of "imperial" and derzhavnost (great statehood) elements in Russia’s political culture. There is a vast literature on the problem, but the ethnic aspects are perhaps more pronounced in Pugachev (1992), Kuleshov (1993), Byzov and Lvov (1994), Gudimenko (1994), Petrenko (1994), Ryabov (1994), Klyamkin and Lapin (1995), Kozlov (1995), and Podoprigora (1995).
The wave of sovereignization in Russia’s former autonomous republics, acute tensions between the federal center and the subjects of the federation, as well as between ethnically defined republics and non-ethnically defined territorial units of the federation (krais and oblasts), produced a deep constitutional crisis in 1991-93. Attempts to resolve it were made in early 1992 with the stipulation of new Federation Treaty and in December 1993 with the referendum on Russia’s new constitution. Unitarism and more or less disguised derzhavnost or decentralization and a continuing process of federalization have become the key issue facing ethnic peace and the further development of statehood in Russia. Acute debates on these issues, particularly those involving ethnopolitical considerations, are reflected in Abdulatipov (1994, 1995), Barsenkov and Vdovin (1992), Ilyinski, Krylov, and Mikhaleva (1992), Khakimov (1993, 1995), Iljin (1994), Kuzeyev (1993, 1994), Mukhametshin (1994), Ozhiganov (1994), Pain (1994, 1995), Pustogarov (1995), Tishkov (1993, 1995), Lysenko (1995), Morozova (1995), Korzhikhina (1995), and Nenarokov (1995).
The dynamics of the constitutional crisis of 1992-93 and the evolution of ethnopolitical conflict are dealt with in Tavadov (1994), Barsamov (1994), Rukavishnikov (1993), Ryabov (1994), Krasnov (1995), and Aklaev (1996).
Ethnopolitical aspects of constitutional reform under way in the Russian Federation and its republics since 1991 are analyzed in Cheshko (1993), Mikhaleva (1995), Bobrova (1995), Guboglo (1995), Tarasenko (1995), and Aklaev (1996).
The acute problem of formal parity and actual inequalities between different kinds of federation subjects (republics versus oblasts and krais) are reviewed in Ebzeyev and Karapetyan (1995), Zorin (1996), Karapetyan (1996), and Stroyev (1996).
Issues of budgetary federalism in Russia and their implications for ethnic conflict are discussed in Koroteyeva and Novikov (1994), Koroteyeva (1995), Koroteyeva (1996), Leksin, Milner, and Shevtsov (1994), Semenov (1994), Malikova (1995), Barsky (1995), Bogacheva (1995), Gonchar and Goreglyad (1995), Lavrov (1995), Liubimtsev (1995), and Ushakov (1995).
Russia’s Republics and Regions
A large part of the recent literature is case studies of ethnic conflict in different republics and regions of Russia. The greatest part concerns the situation in the North Caucasus, which is the hottest spot and the only one where ethnic disputes have resulted in large-scale deadly violence (specifically, Chechnya and North Ossetia). Hagba’s (1995) article attempts to summarize the ethnopolitical tensions and ongoing conflicts in the North Caucasus. The article discusses a number of factors likely to exacerbate tensions and interethnic strife in the area: (1) the multiethnic and multiconfessional composition of the area’s population; (2) the deeply rooted territorial disputes dating back to pre-Soviet and Soviet times; (3) the sociopsychological consequences of mass deportations and ethnic repression under the Soviet regime; (4) the legacy of ethnohierarchical structures of statehood; and (5) the influence of the bordering Islamic states (Turkey and Iran). The article ends by proposing a typology of ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus in the post-Soviet period and argues that three distinct types of interethnic struggles should be differentiated: those over historically disputed territories (as present in Karachai-Cherkessiya and in the Ossetian-Ingush conflict); (2) those of militant ethnosecessionism (Chechnya, Abkhazia); and (3) movements for the restoration of historical justice and for overcoming the consequences of the mass deportations under Stalinism. Among other works on the North Caucasus that have appeared recently are those of Aslanbekov and Gostev (1993), Karkmazov (1994), and Chernov (1995). Ethnic conflict in North Ossetia and Ossetian-Ingush violence is under analysis in Ogoev and Dzutsiev (1992), Myshyakov (1993), Dzadziev (1994), Gostieva and Dzadziev (1995), Dzutsev (1995), Soldatova (1994), and Tsutsiyev (1994, 1995). Research on other republics in the North Caucasus includes, on Kabardino-Balkaria, Akkieva (1995) and Babich (1995); on Daghestan, Gasanov (1994), Gryzlov (1995), Kisriev (1995), Abdulatipov (1995), and Ivanov (1995); and on Adygeya, Hadzhibekov (1995) and Polyakova and Hadzhibekov (1995). The greatest number of case studies concern Chechnya: Sarmatin (1992), Korotkov (1994), Perepyolkin (1994), Fedorov (1994), Gakaev (1995), Gorlov (1995), Kagarlitsky (1995), Magometkhadzhiyev and Akhmadov (1995), Miziulina (1995), Serebryanikov (1995), Ruban (1995), Tishkov (1995, 1996), and Toshenko (1995).
An important factor of ethnopolitical conflict in the North Caucasus is the Russian cossacks. Research on the role of these communities in the rising ethnic tensions and assessments of their potential for conflict are discussed in Zotov (1994), Averin (1995), Kritsky (1995), Lukichev and Skorik (1995), Mukhin (1995), and Tishkov (1996).
The literature on the republics in the Volga area is mostly analysis of ethnopolitical conflict between the federal center and Tatarstan (Garipov 1992, Iskhakov 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, Khakimov 1993, 1995, Komlev 1993, Mukhametshin 1993, 1995, Musina 1992, 1994, 1995, Perepzholkin 1992, Sharapov 1995, Shaikhutdinova 1995, Galeyev 1995); Bashkortostan (Kulsharipov 1992, Karimova 1993, 1994, 1995, Kosikov 1994, Kuzeyev 1994, Guboglo 1995, Selivanov 1995); and Komi (Shabayev 1994).
Recent publications on Siberian republics within Russia include those of Ivanov (1994), Vinokurova (1994, 1995), Zheleznova (1994), and Zykov (1995) on Sakha (Yakutia), of Anaiban (1994, 1995), Balakina (1994), Balakina and Anaiban (1995), Kuzhuget and Tatarintseva (1995), and Moskalenko (1994) on Tuva; Filippov and Filippova (1993), on Gorno-Altay; Zhukovskaya (1993), Osynsky (1994), and Abaeva and Kryanev (1995) on Buriatia; and Guzenkova (1993), Guzenkova, Korostelev, and Pimenov (1993), Viktorin (1994), Guchinova (1995), and Zhukovskaya (1993) on Kalmykia. The issues of the small-numbered ethnicities of Russia’s north and Siberia are dealt with in Arutiunov (1992), Susokolov (1993), Klokov (1994), Kryazhkov (1994), Popkov (1994), Sokolova (1994), Donskoj (1995), and Shabayev (1995).
In recent years some research has appeared on ethnic conflict in non-ethnically defined regions of Russia (oblasts and krais). Among the articles are research on the Astrakhan oblast (Viktorin 1993, Ruban 1994, 1995); Orenburg oblast (Futoryanskaya 1994, Amelin 1995); Krasnodar krai (Kritsky 1994); Stavropolye krai (Ladodo 995); and Chelyabinsk oblast (Gurevich and Aksenova 1995).
CONFLICT REGULATION AND PREVENTION
Until now the subject of conflict analysis has predominated in the Russian-language literature over the subject of conflict management, and hence specialized academic publications in the field of conflict prevention and regulation are limited in number. This seems to be another academic legacy of the previous times. It is sufficient to observe that conflict resolution as a discipline in the academic curricula of Russian universities appeared only in the post-Soviet period. In the last two or three years, however, publications in the field have begun to appear, and it is already possible to discern three subgroups of published research: (1) literature on issues of conflict monitoring and prognosticating; (2) literature on issues of conflict management; and (3) literature on prevention of intrastate ethnic conflict. The last section will provide an overview of these sub-groups.
Monitoring and Prognosticating of Ethnic Conflict
The conduct of mass representative ethnosociological surveys on issues of interethnic relations in the former Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia is an established practice in Russian academic research in the social sciences, and many included a focus on issues of ethnopolitics and conflict as well. Since the early 1970s a research team headed by academician Yuri Arutyunyan has conducted a series of longitudinal cross-republican ethnosociological surveys in all regions of the former USSR. The sample included the Russian Federation, Estonia, Georgia, Moldova, and Uzbekistan. The results of these surveys today have acquired unique value, for they make it possibile to trace the evolution of ethnic relations on the basis of data received through mass representative surveys in both urban and rural areas of the republics over the last twenty years. In the 1990s Atuyunyan’s Ethnosociology Department began the publication of a multivolume set of comparative survey data. To date six volumes in the series have appeared. A series of comparative surveys on issues of the Russian diaspora was conducted by Lebedeva (1995) and Savoskul (1996).
The results of cross-republican and cross-regional ethnosociological survey programs that focused on interethnic relations in post-Soviet Russia have been published in a series of articles and books produced by the research groups of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Social and Political Research’s Center for the Sociology of Ethnic Relations; of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Ethnology’s Center for the Study of Interethnic Relations; and the Department of Socio-Psychological Problems of Interethnic Relations. To some extent, ethnic issues are dealt with in the cross-regional surveys conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation and by the Russian Center for Public Opinion Research (VCIOM). Prognosticative models of conflict are usually part of these programs.
The only specially focused ethnic conflict monitoring program under way is that of the Program on Conflict Regulation and Prevention, set up by the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Ethnology and Harvard Law School.
A set of literature elaborates the prognosticative models of interethnic tensions and consequences of conflict: Kotov 1991, Stepanov, Zdravomyslov and Matveyeva, Akhiezer, and Kolosov and Treishvits.
Recent literature discusses several aspects of ethnic conflict management. Chumikov (1995) discusses conflict management and the institutionalization of social conflicts with some consideration of ethnopolitics. Sosnin (1994), Nasinovsky and Skakunov (1995), and Smolyansky (1995) suggest some avenues for the application of international experience of conflict management. Pain (1992) considers operational methods, tactical solutions, and strategic principles as categories of conflict management. Frolov (1992) and Sosnin (1994) focus on issues of mediation and negotiation in the management of ethnic conflicts. Means of transforming ethnic conflict are considered in Tishkov (1994). Confidence-building techniques and the issue of reaching mutual trust in the process of conflict management are considered in Medvedev and Kazimirchuk (1993) and Semenov and Stepanyan (1994). The role of nongovernmental organizations in managing ethnic conflict and some examples from different areas are discussed in Iordan (1992), Koltun (1991), Terekhov (1993), and Yurchenkov (1994). The psychological training of peace activists is the focus of Mirimanova (1995). The need to create special institutions to keep protracted ethnic conflict at a low level of intensity is the concern of Evstafev (1993).
The problems of intrastate and ethnic conflict prevention are viewed as two-fold : (1) as the creation of a system of viable institutions for regulating ethnic conflict, and (2) as the forging of a new discourse of nationalism that shifts away from ethnic nationalism to civic nationalism and a discourse of pluralism and unity in diversity.
The institutional aspects of conflict prevention are central concerns of a number of publications that describe searches for adequate power-sharing arrangements. Since the beginning of the 1990s a considerable range of literature has appeared that discusses the necessity of elaborating new conceptions of nationalities policies for post-Soviet Russia. Tishkov (1993), Abdulatipov (1994, 1994), and Pechenev (1994) discuss the strategic orientations of nationalities policies for preventing conflicts. Kalinina (1995) focuses on state institutions as conflict regulators, and Yusupovsky (1994) and Zagashvili (1995) write about institutions based on principles of mutual development and increasing interdependence of nationalities as a guarantee of peaceful patterns of interethnic interactions. Morozova (1995) discusses the institutional system of checks and balances as a conflict-regulating device in federal center-periphery relations. Lukichev and Skorik (1994) consider the models of "quasi-statehood" and "quasi-sovereignty" for republics within Russia. Democratic federalization and institutionalization of real federalism and not only effective decentralization is the major concern of Pastukhov (1994), Tishkov (1995), Mukhametshin (1994), Shaimiev (1995), and Shumeiko (1995). Building federalism implies to many authors learning from the federal models of other countries and tailoring these principles to Russia’s realities (Abolin 1994, Chirkin 1994, Tavadov and Mironov 1994). We reviewed the vast literature on problems of federalism in Russia, particularly the issues of budgetary federalism, in the previous section. The need for institutions to be based on legal approaches and to apply juridical mechanisms of conflict management with the aim of subsequent institutionalization of conflict is discussed in Blishenko and Abashidze (1992), Kazannik (1993), Demidov (1994), Kudriavtsev (1994, 1995), Abdulatipov (1995), and Abashidze and Blishenko (1995).
The discourse of interethnic relations, in order to effectively prevent disruptive conflicts, must be based on a new conception of statehood, on an ideology of unity and revival of the country (Patukhov 1994, Abdulatipov 1995). The debates center on the nature of such a uniting ideology, whether it should be restored Russian derzhavnost, a variant of statism, "Eurasianism," or something else.
A group of theoreticians discuss what kind of public discourse can make possible the management of ethnic differences and the prevention of disruptive conflicts through principles compatible with liberal democracy. This option, as it is suggested, requires an ability to forge civic nationalism, basing the country’s unity on liberal values of citizenship and legal equality which do not deny but presume democratic values of pluralism and diversity. It is discussed in Tishkov (1995, 1996), Pain (1995), Abdulatipov (1995), and Matveyeva (1996). An important dimension of this discourse of ethnic peace presupposes, as stressed by Lebedeva (1994) and Tishkov (1995), the diffusion of values of interethnic tolerance.