Abstract
The Soviet ethno-federal system provided both a territorial structure and a legacy of ethnic minority leaders asserting power within the authoritarian Soviet regime. These two conditions offered national republics tested precedents for achieving greater power through negotiation. Russia’s weakness in its first years of independence after the Soviet dissolution also created conditions of institutional malleability at the central level; new government structures were created and old ones reformed or discarded. Despite certain parallels in their historical experiences, however, the governing officials of the autonomous regions (most often those who represented titular ethnic groups) differed in their separatist strategies. Central government responses to these strategies varied as well.
… it is evident that Chechnya’s 150-year existence within the Russian Empire/Soviet Union has been a negative experience for Russia.
—Igor Yakovenko1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Igor Yakovenko, “Russia’s Disintegration: Factors and Prospects,” Russia in Global Afairs 2, no. 4 (2004): 70.
See, for example, Vladimir Gel’man, “The Unrule of Law in the Making: The Politics of Informal Institution Building in Russia,” Europe — Asia Studies 56, no. 7 (2004): 1021–40.
Michael McFaul, Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001).
Timothy J. Colton, Yeltsin: A Life (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 289.
William Barclay, “Russian Workers Offered Coffins,” United Press International, May 4, 1994; Lilia Fedorovna Shevtsova, Yeltsin’s Russia: Myths and Reality (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1998).
Cameron Ross, “Federalism and Democratization in Russia,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 33, no. 4 (2000): 30.
Steven L. Solnick, Stealing the State: Control and Collapse in Soviet Institutions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998).
Joel S. Hellman, “Winners Take All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Postcommunist Transitions,” World Politics 50, no. 2 (1998): 203–34.
Daniel Treisman, “Russia’s ‘Ethnic Revival’: The Separatist Activism of Regional Leaders in a Postcommunist Order,” World Politics 49, no. 2 (1997): 212–49.
This historical survey is derived from several sources: Allen Frank and Ronald Wixman, “The Middle Volga: Exploring the Limits of Sovereignty,” in New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations, ed. Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997);
Katherine Graney, “Projecting Sovereignty: Statehood and Nationness in Post-Soviet Russia (Tatarstan, Bashkortostan)” (Dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999);
D. M. Iskhakov et al., “Tatary,” in Narody Rossii: Entsiklopediya, ed. V. A. Tishkov (Moskva: Naychnoe Izdatelstvo: Bolshaya Rossiiskaya Entsiklopediva, 1994).
See, for example, Ravil Bukharaev, The Model of Tatarstan under President Mintimer Shaimiev (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 44–51.
Goskomstat, Itogi Vserossiiskoi Perepisi Naselenia 1989 Goda (Minneapolis, MN: East View Publications, 1996).
N. V. Bukbulatovu, “Vstuplenie,” in Bashkiry, ed. Fardaus Gilmitdinovna Khisamitdinova and Zinnur Gazizovich Uraksin (Moscow: Golos-Press, 2003), 4–5;
Ronald Wixman, The Peoples of the USSR: An Ethnographic Handbook (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1988), 23.
Daniel E. Schafer, “Building Nations and Building States: The Tatar — Bashkir Question in Revolutionary Russia” (Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1995).
N. V. Bukbulatovu, “Bashkiry,” in Narody Rossii: Entsiklopedia, ed. V. A. Tishkov (Moskva: Nauchnoe Uzdatel’stvo, Bolshaya Rossiiskaya Entsiklopedia, 1994), 106.
For the discussion of Stalin and Vakhitov, see Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917–1923, Rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997).
Kimitaka Matsuzato, “From Ethno-Bonapartism to Centralized Cacipuismo; Characteristics and Origins of the Tatarstan Political Regime, 1990–2000,” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 17, no. 4 (2001): 50.
M. Steven Fish, Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 33.
Robert W. Orttung, “Business and Politics in the Russian Regions,” Problems of Post-communism 51, no. 2 (2004): 48–60.
Stephen Mulvey, “Russia’s Suicide Bomb Nightmare,” BBC Online, February 6, 2004 [2005]); available from http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3020231.stm; Brian Glyn Williams, “Russo-Chechen War: A Threat to Stability in the Middle East and Eurasia?” Middle East Policy Council Journal 8, no. 1 (2001): 128–148.
See, for example, John B. Dunlop, Russia Confronts Chechnya: Roots of a Separatist Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998);
Anatol Lieven, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998).
Matthew Evangelista, The Chechen Wars: Will Russia Go the Way of the Soviet Union? (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2002), 91.
Valery Aleksandrovich Tishkov, Chechnya: Life in a War-Torn Society (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004).
Taimaz Abubakarov, Rezhim Dzhokhara Dudaeva: Pravda i Vymysel. Zapiski Dudaevskogo Ministra Ekonomiki i Finansov (Moscow: Insan, 1998).
Dzhabrail Gakayev, Ocherki Politicheskoi Istorii Chechni (XX Vek) (Moscow: Chechen Cultural Center, 1997), 109: Cited in Tishkov, Chechnva, 42.
Carlotta Gall and Thomas De Waal, Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 127.
Valery Stepanov, “Ethnic Tensions and Separatism in Russia,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 26, no. 2 (2000): 305–32. For arguments that troop withdrawal was indication of collaboration between Dudayev and Russian forces, see Alexander Shinkin, “Chechnya Split into Military Camps. One Step to Fratricide,” Russian Press Direst, June 26, 1993.
M. Yu. Keligov, M. B. Muzhukhoev, and E. D. Muzhukhoeva, “Ingushy,” in Narody Rossii: Entsiklopedia, ed. Valeri Aleksandrovich Tishkov (Moskva: Nauchnoe Uzdatelstvo, Bolshaya Rossiiskaya Entsiklopedia, 1994), 164.
Fiona Hill, “Russia’s Tinderbox: Conflict in the North Caucasus and Its Implications for the Future of the Russian Federation” (Cambridge, MA: Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, 1995), 41.
Copyright information
© 2009 Julie A. George
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
George, J.A. (2009). Russia Weakened, 1991–1999. In: The Politics of Ethnic Separatism in Russia and Georgia. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230102323_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230102323_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37825-8
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-10232-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)