Alexander J. Motyl in front of the Hotel Chelsea, New York. Photo © Anne Mandelbaum.

26 | HARRIMAN FEATURED The Non- Russians Are Coming! FIELD NOTES FROM THE

FRONT LINES OF SOVIET The Non- NATIONALITY STUDIES Russians BY ALEXANDER J. MOTYL Are Coming!

erestroika had just begun, The exception to this rule was when Columbia’s premier Central and I happened to be at a , not because Asian specialist, Edward Allworth, P conference evaluating its it was a laggard, but because it had established the Program on Soviet implications for the Soviet state. At a long tradition of studying the Nationality Problems. Conferences, one point during the discussion, I non-Russians. Back in the 1930s, workshops, brown-bag presentations, suggested that Mikhail Gorbachev’s the university offered courses in and publications followed. Professor reforms had to be viewed in the Ukrainian, and a distinguished Allworth’s most important publica- context of the USSR’s multinational historian, Clarence Manning, wrote tion may have been Ethnic Russia in the character. The Russian/non-Russian extensively about Ukraine and even USSR: The Dilemma of Dominance, one dynamic was, I said, critical. A sea- translated a condensed version of the first sustained scholarly efforts soned Sovietologist turned to me and of Ukrainian historian Mykhailo to treat the Russians as part of the said, “But Alex, the non-Russians just Hrushevsky’s multivolume History USSR’s nationality question. It was in don’t matter.” of Ukraine-Rus’. (Hrushevsky also 1984, just after I received my Ph.D. Obviously, they did matter, so much served as independent Ukraine’s first in political science from Columbia, so that the Soviet “nationality ques- president in 1918.) The Kharkiv-born that Professor Allworth asked me to tion”—which Gorbachev, like most linguist George Y. Shevelov focused deliver a talk on the Ukrainian famine mainstream Sovietologists, never quite on the Slavic languages in general, of 1932–33 and explicitly asked that understood—arguably brought the and Ukrainian and Russian in partic- I address the question of whether or Soviet empire to its knees. Once that ular, after coming to Columbia from not it had been engineered by Stalin. happened, all students of the USSR and Harvard in 1958. As I recently looked back at my notes its successor states were compelled to The study of the USSR’s from that talk, I was somewhat sur- incorporate the non-Russians into their non-Russian nations began tak- prised to learn that I had argued that research and teaching. ing institutional shape in 1970, the famine was indeed man-made—a

HARRIMAN | 27 ­­ I was somewhat surprised to learn that I had argued that the famine was indeed man-made—a position that has only now become the conventional wisdom among most reputable historians.

position that has only now become the conventional wisdom among most reputable historians. Edward Allworth wasn’t the only Columbia scholar interested in the non-Russians. Natalya Sadomskaya examined them in her courses on Soviet anthropology. Robert E. Lewis, of the geography department, trained a cohort of excellent young geog- raphers, most of whom specialized in the interaction of geography and national identity; unfortunately, the university closed down Bob’s depart- ment just as its relevance to Soviet studies was growing exponentially. Historians also got in on the act. Marc Raeff revealed that Ukrainian intellectuals and religious men had a fundamental impact on imperial Rus- sia’s ideology and identity; Michael Stanislawski studied imperial Russia’s Jews; Nina Garsoian offered courses on Armenia. Andrzej Kaminski and Istvan Deak of the Institute on East Central Europe focused on the mul- tinational character of, respectively, the Polish-Lithuanian Common- wealth and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. My own dissertation adviser, political scientist Seweryn Bialer, wrote a seminal article, “How Rus- Seweryn Bialer, Robert and sians Rule Russia,” for Problems of Renée Belfer Professor of Communism; devoted a key chapter Political Science to the non-Russians in Stalin’s Succes-

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sors, the book that garnered him the MacArthur Prize; pushed me to think of the USSR as an empire; and sug- gested that I write my dissertation on “ethnic stability” in the USSR—which I did. Professor Bialer and I eventually organized an international confer- ence on the emerging nations of East Central Europe and the Soviet West (“Toward a New Eastern Europe”) at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio estate. Its participants included key opposition figures from Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland. It was thanks to Professor Bialer, Institute director Robert Legvold, and former Harriman director Marshall Shulman that the Institute received a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation to establish the Nationality and Siberian Studies Program in 1988. I was offered the position of program director and assigned an office on the thirteenth floor of the International Affairs Building, then occupied by Professor Bialer’s Research Institute on Inter- national Change (formerly Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Research Institute on International Communism). My assistant, Ph.D. candidate Charles Furtado, and I spent the next four years following in Professor Allworth’s footsteps with a slew of conferences, monthly workshops and seminars, and publications. The program funded courses in the Georgian and Ukrainian languages, Siberian geog- raphy, and Georgian politics; invited Leslie Dienes, Tadeusz Swietochowski, and James Mace as visiting scholars; published five books (in particu- lar, Thinking Theoretically About Soviet Nationalities and The Post-Soviet Nations, Robert Legvold, director which attempted to incorporate of the Harriman nationality studies into the study of Institute (1986–92) ethnicity and of the USSR); and came

HARRIMAN | 29 ­­ Elizabeth Valkenier, Richard Ericson, Jack Matlock, and Alexander Motyl speak to the press about the October 1993 crisis over Boris Yeltsin’s relations with the Supreme Soviet.

to serve as the central forum for bach, both at the City College of The titles of the special issues nicely Soviet nationality specialists resid- New York. By the mid- to late 1990s, reflected the rapidly changing envi- ing in the New York, New Jersey, and that relationship culminated in the ronment in the Soviet Union. The Connecticut areas. It was then that Harriman’s decision to collaborate first issue was simply entitled “The we established a strong working even more closely with ASN and its Soviet Nationalities and Gorbachev”; relationship with the Association president Ian Bremmer and launch the second was “The Soviet Nation- for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) what has now become a mainstay of alities against Gorbachev”; the third and its flagship publication, Nation- the university’s academic calendar, was “The Soviet Nationalities with- alities Papers—in particular, with the annual ASN convention. out Gorbachev.” Our Soviet guests ASN president Michael Rywkin and A highlight of our collaboration weren’t particularly happy with that the journal editor, Henry Hutten- was the publication of three spe- last title, though they had to admit cial issues of Nationalities Papers in that it was not wholly inaccurate. 1989–1991. All three (subsidized by The timing of the Nationality and the program) featured the redacted Siberian Studies Program’s found- transcripts of all-day workshops ing couldn’t have been better. As we Some of us argued that dedicated to investigating the rela- began our work, the USSR began Gorbachev was destabilizing tionship between perestroika and visibly to come apart at its seams, as the Soviet multinational state; the nationalities. Some of us argued the non-Russians that hadn’t mat- that Gorbachev was destabilizing the tered suddenly seemed to matter others, that the USSR was Soviet multinational state; others, above all else. The world was utterly likely to survive. that the USSR was likely to survive. unprepared for the advent of the

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nationalities. Most Sovietologists were Russian-language instructor Edward The Soviet Union’s collapse uninterested in the non-Russians; Beliaev and Ambassador Jack Mat- also compelled the Harriman Washington DC’s collective knowl- lock to teach at the former Roberts edge was pretty much confined to one College. In 1989, as the countries of to rethink its mission. State Department analyst, Paul Goble; East Central Europe were poised to journalists had no clue about where shed their communist regimes, I had the “Stans” were, and the public was three meetings with a highly placed almost completely ignorant about half official at the East German Mission to declines. Once again, I discovered that the USSR’s population. One Euro- the United Nations. During the first, the case for Soviet disintegration was pean diplomat who was about to be he assured me that the Party would strong and that the case for thinking posted to Ukraine asked me to brief easily deal with the demonstrations in of the USSR as a declining empire was him about a country he knew nothing Leipzig and other East German cities. especially strong. That conference about. His colleagues felt sorry that he During the second, as the demon- led to a decade’s worth of writing on was being demoted in so rude a fash- strations snowballed, he assured me Soviet imperial collapse in compara- ion. His spouse wondered whether that the Party would learn from its tive perspective. the east Ukrainian city of Kraków was mistakes. During the third, sometime Naturally, I wasn’t the only one to worth visiting. The diplomat asked me in August or September, when thou- have begun thinking of the USSR as an what he should know about Ukrainian sands of East Germans were escaping empire. A large number of scholars, literature. I said that, if asked, he to West German embassies, he asked both at the Harriman and elsewhere, should always note Ukraine’s three me if I thought it possible for him to picked up on the theme and pro- greatest poets—, embark on graduate studies in the duced a rich historical and social , and . Sure United States. I knew then that the science literature. At the Harriman, enough, a few weeks after his posting Wall would soon fall. historian Mark von Hagen (who to Kyiv, News from Ukraine (a KGB-run One of the key issues dividing served as director of the Institute English-language newspaper) ran an scholars in the late 1980s was whether in the late 1990s), political scientist interview with the diplomat and he or not perestroika and glasnost would Jack Snyder, and sociologist Karen claimed these very three poets as his lead to the USSR’s collapse or regener- Barkey led the way. My own focus was personal favorites. ation. Duke University’s Jerry Hough on the dynamics of imperial col- Those of us in the nationality famously insisted almost until the very lapse—the rapid and comprehensive studies community had inhabited end of 1991 that the ongoing distur- dismantling of an imperial structure, an academic ghetto until perestroika bances were all part of Gorbachev’s as happened with the Soviet Union, shattered the USSR into its constitu- master plan. I personally thought that Austria-Hungary, and Romanov Rus- ent republics. We then burst onto the perestroika wouldn’t rock the boat sia. Von Hagen’s interest in empire stage of policy relevance and journal- too much until I was asked to attend a eventually paved the way for his shift istic interest and, for some five years, CIA conference on possible scenarios from studying the imperial core, Rus- dominated the public discourse. of the USSR’s collapse and prepare a sia, to studying its periphery, Ukraine. Moody’s sent an analyst to attend scenario on a revolt by the non-Rus- Snyder incorporated nations and our seminars on Gorbachev and the sians. To my surprise, the scenario nationalism into his international nationalities. Tom Friedman, then a came easily and logically, persuading relations perspective, while Barkey little-known foreign correspondent, me that perestroika could actually showed how relevant the Ottoman visited me in my office to talk about subvert the entire Soviet system. experience was to the Soviet demise. the non-Russians. Ersin Kalaycioglu Another conference, organized by The Soviet Union’s collapse also of Istanbul’s Bogazici University and the Center of Austrian Studies at the compelled the Harriman to rethink I tried to establish a Black Sea stud- University of Minnesota, focused on a its mission. In 1992, I succeeded Allen ies program; we failed to find the comparison of the Habsburg Empire Lynch, who had accepted a professor- funds, but still managed to organize and the Soviet Union. My assignment ship at the University of Virginia, as several conferences and enabled was to compare and contrast their associate director. Economist Richard

HARRIMAN | 31 ­­ oping proficiency in any language of the former Soviet space (with a reading knowledge in a second lan- guage); and a core course focusing on the Soviet legacies in the USSR and East Central Europe would be made mandatory so as to provide all Harriman students with a common intellectual experience. One of the consequences of the Harriman’s embrace of the entire postcommunist space was that the study of the non-Russians boomed. Ukrainian studies took off, in no small measure thanks to the gen- erosity of a Ukrainian-Canadian philanthropist, Peter Jacyk. In time, the Ukrainian Studies Program was established within the Insti- tute, offering courses in Ukrainian language, literature, history, and politics. Georgian, Hungarian, Serbian, Polish, and Central Asian studies also grew in size and vigor, while Russian studies remained at the core of the Institute’s mission. Greatly contributing to the Har- riman’s reputation as a center for nationality studies was its collabo- ration with the ASN. Ian Bremmer Alexander Motyl (1990s) and I first organized two one-day conferences in the 1990s to see whether there’d be interest in actual conventions. Both events were suc- Ericson was the director. Rick and I research agenda. Once again, Rick cessful, and we decided that a bona knew that the Harriman’s program and I opted for a more expansive fide convention would be in order. of study and regional focus needed approach on the grounds that the The Harriman gave its support and some serious revision in light of the entire postcommunist space still agreed to serve as the venue for the USSR’s collapse and the fall of com- needed to be looked at as a whole, annual gathering. The first con- munism in East Central Europe. The even as bits and pieces were drift- vention was a bit of a touch and first question that needed address- ing in different directions. After go affair. Ian and I met at a down- ing was whether the Institute would some debate, the Harriman faculty town Starbucks and discussed the devote itself to just Russia or to all approved the changes. As a result, format. He then gave me a sheaf of the successor states. We opted for the Institute of East Central Europe papers including the panel top- the latter. The next question was became a center within the Har- ics that had been submitted to the whether we should incorporate East riman; students could fulfill their ASN. I proceeded to cut them into Central Europe into the Harriman’s language requirement by devel- strips and lay them out on the floor

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As long as the Soviet Union Developing an expertise in three or more independent countries, existed, it was perfectly even those with common pasts, is possible to acquire genuine extremely difficult, perhaps even expertise in the nationalities. impossible. I refocused on Ukraine and Russia. Others devoted their research to the Baltic states, Central Asia, the Caucasus, or individual of my studio apartment, arranging countries of East Central Europe. and rearranging them thematically At the same time, as national- until something resembling a full ity experts were narrowing their range of panels was on hand. By the research interests, mainstream time the second convention was to Sovietologists were expanding theirs, be held, we had developed a some- usually adding some non-Russian what more sophisticated way of state or states to their repertoire. organizing the panels. Since those Even more important perhaps, early days, the ASN has evolved into non-Sovietologists discovered the a highly professional organization former communist space and began and its conventions have become incorporating bits and pieces into must-attend affairs for students of their comparative research—whether the “nationalities.” on transitions to democracy, eth- Of course, sometime in the nic conflict, war, or marketization. 1990s it became obvious to all of us In effect, nationality studies came to matter to the social sciences and nationality experts that the term Early publications in “nationality” no longer applied. The humanities, in exactly the manner nationality studies, including Soviet Union’s fourteen non-Russian that the nationality studies commu- edited volumes by Alexander republics had become independent nity had always insisted they should. Motyl and the ASN’s states; and the nationalities were In so doing, however, nationality Nationalities Papers. now nations, with their own histo- studies lost its raison d’être. Iron- ries, cultures, politics, societies, and ically, Soviet nationality studies so on. In effect, that also meant that disappeared at the moment of its Soviet nationality studies—which had greatest triumph. involved having an expertise in all or most of the fourteen non-Russian Alexander J. Motyl is professor of political republics—was no longer possible. science at Rutgers University–Newark. He As long as the Soviet Union existed, continues to teach at the Harriman Insti- it was perfectly possible to acquire tute. He is a narrator in the Institute’s genuine expertise in the nationali- oral history project. ties. Soviet sources were few, much of the information they contained was repetitive and applied to all the republics, and Western publications could be fitted on one shelf. Knowl- edge of one non-Russian language and Russian enabled you to study the nationalities in general. After 1991, that was no longer true.

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