The Nationalities Question in the Soviet Union

In order to take on board the nature of these changes, chapters have been rewritten and updated, and new chapters added. The plan of the book has also been reorganised and is now divided into seven parts. Part One provides two overviews of nationalities policy, the first in relation to the Soviet period, the second since the establishment of the post-Soviet states. Chapters three to twenty-one are divided into five parts, covering the nationalities of the Russian Federation, the Baltic States, the South-West Borderlands, Transcaucasia, and Muslim Central Asia, while Part Seven examines the diaspora nationalities. In again bringing together a large group of contributors with expertise on particular nationalities it is hoped that this book will illustrate to the reader the often strikingly different ways in which national and ethnic groups have been affected by and responded to the transition from one multiethnic federation to fifteen multiethnic states. In order to ensure continuity and the book's overall coherence, each contributor has followed a similar format. Chapters begin by briefly locating each nation within an historical, geopolitical and cultural context. Next, each nation is dealt with as part of the Soviet Union, paying particular attention to socio-economic and political developments during the Soviet period, and to relations with Moscow. Each chapter then focuses on analysing developments during the Gorbachev period (1985-91), with particular attention being paid to such common themes as the impact of the reforms on national cultures and local economies, the role of native leaders in relation to such changes, issues pertinent to fuelling ethnic and territorial demands, and the emergence and consolidation of new national organisations and other forms of ethno-cultural resistance. A final section explores the reshaping of national and ethnic identities since 1991 and how in the process relations between the national and ethnic groups are reconstituting themselves.