Schedule of Readings

I. Introduction

Finding places on the Map: Empire, Soviet Union, Post-Soviet Space

II. The Break-up of the Russian Empire

Mikhail Pokrovskii. Russia as the Prison of Nations (1930)

Ronald Grigor Suny. The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Chapter 4: Nationalism and Revolution, 96-120.

Fall of the Empire: from Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. You will need to establish a username and password for this site.

• Independence for Finland
• Independence of the Estonian Soviet Republic

QUESTION: How did your region or republic enter the Russian Empire, and what was its status as the empire dissolved?

III. The October Revolution and its Nations

Richard Pipes. The Establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In The Soviet Nationality Reader: The Disintegration in Context (1992), 35-85.

Lenin and Nationalities Policy

Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Resolution on the Nationalities Question, April 1917

Sovnarkom, Declaration of Rights of the Peoples of Russia. November 16, 1917 (November 3)

Lenin on the National Question (December 1917)

Ukraine

Central Rada, First Universal Declaration. June 10, 1917

First All-Ukraine Congress of Soviets, Resolution on Self-determination of the Ukraine. December 12, 1917 (November 29)

Attempt to Unite Slavic and Baltic Republics: Alliance between the Soviet Republics of Russia, the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and White Russia for the Fight against World Imperialism. June 1, 1919

Transcaucasia

Transcaucasia: an overview

• Declaration of an Independent Georgian Democratic Republic. May 26, 1918
• Georgian Independence. Peace Treaty between the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR) and the Democratic Republic of Georgia. May 7, 1920
• Sovietization of Armenia. Agreement regarding the Independence of Armenia and its Conversion to a Soviet Socialist Republic. December 2, 1920
• Lenin Authorizes the Invasion of Georgia. February 14, 1921
• Lenin, Letter to Ordzhonikidze. March 2, 1921. On Treatment of the Georgian middle class.

Central Asia

The Muslim East: read text and view images.

• Appeal to the Moslems of Russia and the East. December 7, 1917 (November 26)
• Constitution of the Bukhara People's Soviet Republic. September 23, 1921
• Sultan-Galiev, Methods of Anti-Religious Propaganda Among the Moslems. 1922
• Proclamation to All Moslems in the World. May 23, 1923

IV. Reorganizing the Empire

The People's Commissariat for Nationalities. 1920

Formation of Autonomous Republics (1922)

Lenin, On the Question of the Nationalities or of Autonomization (1922)

Declaration of Union and Treaty of Union. December 30, 1922.

Constitution of the Soviet Union. Treaty. January 13, 1924. Read preamble, chapters II & X.

V. Nation-building under Stalin

Ronald Grigor Suny. The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union. Stanford University Press, 1993. Chapter 3: State-Building and Nation-Making: The Soviet Experience, 84-126.

Stalin and Nationalism

Stalin on the Limitation of National Self-Determination (January 1918)

Stalin on the Revolution and Nationalities: The October Revolution and the National Question (1918).

Stalin. Practical Resolution of the Moslem Question. June 10, 1923.

Counting and Classifying the Peoples

Francine Hirsch. "The Soviet Union as a Work-in-Progress: Ethnographers and the Category 'Nationality' in the 1926, 1937, and 1939 Censuses," Slavic Review 56, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 251-78.

• Birobidzhan: the Jewish Homeland
• Creation of the Ethnic Republics
• The Lost Census (1937)

Creating the National Cultures

Robert J. Kaiser. The Geography of Nationalism in Russia and the USSR. Princeton University Press, 1994. From Chapter 3: National Consolidation and Territoriality during the Interwar Period, 124-147.

Douglas Northrop, Nationalizing Backwardness: Gender, Empire, and Uzbek Identity, in A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin, ed. Ronald Grigor Suny and Terry Martin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

• All-Union Agricultural Exhibition of 1939

Creation of National Elites

Terry Martin, "An Affirmative Action Empire: The Soviet Union As The Highest Form Of Imperialism." In A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-Building in the Age of Lenin and Stalin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 67-90.

• Making Central Asia Soviet
• On National Cadres (1933).
• How the National School is Made Indigenous (1933)

Divide and Keep Conquered

Yuri Slezkine "Ethnoterritorial Units in the USSR and Successor States." In Identities in Transition: Eastern Europe and Russia After the Collapse of Communism, University of California Press Digital Collection (1996), pp. 92-102.

• Settling the Nomads in Kirghizia (1933)
• Dissolution of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (1937)
• Soviet Territorial Annexations (1939)

VI. Nationality in the Late Soviet Union

The Merging of the Nations

Drawing the Peoples Together. Read and view images.

Iu. V. Arutiunian, On Several Trends in Narrowing Cultural Differences among USSR Peoples at the Stage of Developed Socialism. July-August 1978. Istoriia SSSR, No. 4, 1978, pp. 94-104.

• Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1977). Read Chapter VIII, Articles 70-75.
• Short-Lived Secession Attempt (Abkhazia). Zarya Vostoka, May 26, 1978, p. 12.

Nationality under Gorbachev

Ronald Grigor Suny. The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. DK266 .S94 1998. Chapter 20.7: The Awakening of Nations, 462-465.

Ivan Dzyuba, A Commonwealth of Cultures. August 1990

• Jill Smolowe, The Killing Zone, Time Magazine, Jan. 29, 1990
• On the Events In Fergana Province. Pravda, June 10, 1989
• Baltic Independence
• Declaration on the State Sovereignty of the RSFSR. June 12, 1990
• Draft Treaty on the Union of Sovereign Republics. March 1991.

The Break-up of the Soviet Union

The End of the Soviet Union

• Minsk Agreement, December 8, 1991
• Charter of Commonwealth of Independent States, December 21, 1991
• Francis X. Clines, The End of the Soviet Union; Eleven Soviet States Form Commonwealth Without Clearly Defining Its Powers. New York Times, December 22, 1991.
• Gorbachev Resigns, December 25, 1991

QUESTION: What was the status of your region or republic between December 9 and December 25, 1991?

VII. After the Empire: Reconfiguration of the Soviet Space

David Chioni Moore. "Is the Post in Postcolonial the Post in Post-Soviet? Notes Toward a Global Postcolonial Critique." PMLA 116.1 (2001), pp. 111-128.

Galina Starovoitova: Sovereignty after Empire: Self-Determination Movements in the Former Soviet Union (1996)

Demodernization

Stephen F. Cohen, 'Transition' Is a Notion Rooted in U.S. Ego. New York Times, 27 March 1999.

Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr., "The Feudalization of the State." Journal of Democracy 10(2):47-53 (1999).

Human Rights and the Internationalization of the Soviet Sphere

Giorgio Agamben, "Beyond Human Rights," In Means Without End: Notes on Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000, 14-25.

Constitution of the Russian Federation (1993). Articles 17-21.

David Kaye. Khashiyev & Akayeva v. Russia. ECHR, February 24, 2005. The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 99, No. 4. (Oct., 2005), pp. 873-881.

Diasporas

Igor Zevelev. Russia and its New Diasporas. Washington: United States Institute of Peace, 2001. Chapter 4: Russians outside Russia before and after the Breakup of the Soviet Union, 91-129.

Paul Kolstoe. Russians in the Baltic, in Russians in the Former Soviet Republics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.

Efforts to integrate Russians in Latvia stoke tensions. By Dan Bilefsky International Herald Tribune. Friday, February 16, 2007.

• Citizenship row divides Latvia. By Angus Roxburgh. BBC News, Riga. 5 March, 2005
• Latvian lessons irk Russians. By Angus Roxburgh, BBC News, Riga. 29 March, 2005.

The Last Soviet in Tallinn: Saga of the 'Bronze Soldier', Tallinn-Life.com

• For exhaustive coverage of the Bronze Soldier incident, see Wikipedia: Bronze Soldier of Tallinn (not required)

Krista Goff. Non-Titular Ethnic Identity in Soviet Transcaucasia: the Khanlar Armenian Experience. Honors Thesis, Macalester College (2004).

QUESTION: What is the status of non-titular nationalities in your region or republic, and of representatives of your ethnic group in other republics?

Drawing Borders, Making Allies

"Living in the Hood: Russia, Empire, and Old and New Neighbors," in Robert Legvold (ed.), Russian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century and the Shadow of the Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), pp. 35-76.

Four Enclaves' post-Soviet Fate in Limbo. By C.J. Chivers, The New York Times, August 20, 2006.

Post-Soviet States and Regional Organizations (Wikipedia)

QUESTION: What international-regional organizations is your ethnic group, region or republic a member of or engaged with? What obligations does this entail; what benefits does it bring; what does this say about the chosen identity of the given group?

VIII. (Re)creating the Nation-State

Stuart Hall, "Who Needs Identity?" In Questions of Cultural Identity, Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay (eds) London: Sage, 1996, 1-17

Pål Kolstø: Political Construction Sites: Nation-building in Russia and the post-Soviet States. Chapter 3: Discovering The Centuries-Old State Tradition. Boulder: Westview press 2000, pp. 30-52.

The Search for a "Russian Idea"

Vera Tolz, Search for a National Identity in the Russia of Yeltsin and Putin, in Restructuring post-Communist Russia. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Galya Andreyeva Krasteva. The Theory of Lev Gumilyov as a Source of the Modern Russian Neoeurasianism. The Eurasian Politician - July 2003.

Who's the Real Slav Here? Russia and Ukraine

Andrew Wilson, Rival Versions of the East Slavic Idea in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. In The Legacy of the Soviet Union. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Vitaly Chernetsky. Mapping Postcommunist Cultures: Russia and Ukraine in the Context of Globalization. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007. Chapter 7. (Post)colonial (post) Carnivalesque, or the Poetics and Politics of Bu-Ba-Bu, 206-227.

Chechnya: Revival of Ancient Hatreds?

Anatol Lieven. Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). Chapter IX: 'We are Free and Equal like Wolves': Social and Cultural Roots of the Chechen Victory, 321-354. DK511.C37 L548 1998

Valery Tishkov. Chechnya: Life in a War-Torn Society. California Series in Public Anthropology, 6 (2004). Chapter One, Ethnography and Theory: A Moral Dilemma.

Central Asia: Backwards or Forwards to Identity

Kyrgyzstan, The Kidnapped Bride. Frontline, March 2004.

Theodore Levin, The Reterritorialization of Culture in the New Central Asian States: A Report from Uzbekistan. Yearbook for Traditional Music, Vol. 25 (1993), pp. 51-59.

Adeeb Khalid, "A Secular Islam: Nation, State, and Religion in Uzbekistan," International Journal of Middle East Studies 35 (2003): 573-598.

Kathleen Collins, Clans, Pacts, and Politics in Central Asia.
Journal of Democracy - Volume 13, Number 3, July 2002, pp. 137-152

IX. Asserting Sovereignty: the Color Revolutions

The Rose Revolution (November 2003)

Giorgi Kandelaki. Georgia's Rose Revolution: A Participant's Perspective. United States Institute of Peace. (July 2006).

International Crisis Group. Abkhazia Today. Europe Report N°176 – 15 September 2006.

The Orange Revolution (November 2004)

The Orange Revolution. BBC (2005). In-class viewing.

The Tulip Revolution (April 2005)

You will need to log onto CIAOnet through Lester before you can access the articles from Transitions Online.

Kyrgyzstan: A Second Round Beckons. Transitions Online (TOL) Week in Review, February 22 - February 28, 2005.

Vitali Silitski, Beware of the People. Transitions Online, 31 March 2005

Hamid Toursunof, Kyrgyzstan: Stability Pact. TOL Week in Review, March 29 - April 4, 2005

Our Take: A Tulip revolution Still Only in Bud. Kyrgyzstan's new president needs to be revolutionary. TOL Week in Review. June 28 - July 4, 2005.

Hamid Toursunof, End of a Revolutionary Moment. Transitions Online, 14 July 2005.

Hamid Toursunof, A Man's Thumb on the Scales. Transitions Online, 19 June 2007.

X. Conclusion

Manuel Castells. The Information Age. Volume III: End of the Millenium (1998). Chapter I: A Time of Change.

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