National Identities and Identity Politics in the Post-Soviet States

Graham Smith, Vivien Law, Andrew Wilson, Annette Bohr, Edward Allworth. Nation-Building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Politics of National Identities. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. xi + 293 pp. $110.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-521-59045-7. Reviewed by Steven T. Duke Published on H-Russia (September, 1999) Nationalism and national identities remain As the authors recognize in the Preface, "it is key features of the post-Soviet world. This vol‐ clearly impossible for any one individual to be ume, one of many attempts in the last decade to conversant not only with the languages, histories better understand the nature and transformation and diverse political and social cultures of the of national identities in the Soviet Union and its fourteen new or restored borderland states, but successor states[1], contains nine chapters written also with the disparate academic disciplines re‐ by six authors affiliated with Sidney Sussex Col‐ quired to arrive at a balanced picture of the lege in 1995. As the frst monograph-length collab‐ changes now underway" (p. ix). Yet while the es‐ orative effort of the Post-Soviet States Research says contained in this volume generally succeed Programme at Sidney Sussex College, this collec‐ in achieving their individual aims, overall the vol‐ tion of essays on twelve of the ffteen post-Soviet ume suffers from many of the problems inherent states (the Russian Federation, Lithuania, and in any collection of essays: promising approaches Tajikistan are excluded from detailed considera‐ and suggestive conclusions contained in one essay tion) is based on the premise that identity politics are not carried over into others; the subject mat‐ in the non-Russian states have an "elusive, ever- ter is segmented rather than integrated; the au‐ shifting nature" and change "kaleidoscopically in thors vary in their knowledge and use of local lan‐ the very moment when a coherent pattern guages; and individual essays diverge in their ba‐ seemed to be emerging...." (p. ix). Although this sic assumptions, style, methodology, and content. volume does not cover this topic as completely as Despite these weaknesses, the volume will benefit the second edition of The Nationalities Question advanced students (primarily graduate students) in the Post-Soviet States, edited by Graham Smith, and specialists alike. the essays in this volume are new and make it a In his introductory essay, Graham Smith, Di‐ welcome addition to the literature.[2] rector of the Post-Soviet States Research Pro‐ gramme, addresses issues of post-colonialism in H-Net Reviews relation to what he calls "borderland identities" can be seen in various combinations and (a term he never fully defines). Smith challenges strengths depending on whether minority groups the notion that the Soviet Union was a simple fed‐ within the fourteen post-Soviet states possess a eration or an empire; instead, he believes the state patron (such as Russia, Poland, or Uzbek‐ USSR was a "federal colonial" polity because "the istan) and whether minority populations are re‐ particular nature of the Soviet federation ensured gionalized or dispersed geographically. that nation-building took place at both the eth‐ Three essays appear in the volume's Part I, norepublic and all-union levels" (p. 4). He argues entitled "Rediscovering National Histories": Na‐ that three main features exemplified the "federal tional history and National identity in Ukraine colonial" nature of the fourteen ethnorepublics: and Belarus" by Andrew Wilson, "National identi‐ first, the ethnorepublics lacked complete indepen‐ ty and myths of ethnogenesis in Transcaucasia" by dence in internal policies yet were able to exert a Viktor Shnirelman (who visited Sidney Sussex Col‐ significant amount of local control when national‐ lege for one term), and "History and group identi‐ ism was not part of the agenda; second, the Soviet ty in Central Asia" by Edward Allworth (who Union paradoxically "provided the social space spent a sabbatical year at the College, visiting for nation-building at the ethnorepublic scale" from Columbia University). (pp. 5-6) through programs such as korenizatsiia, Wilson's essay on Ukrainian and Belarusian despite its efforts to build a strong central state; historiography is the one essay here that ought to and third, the fourteen ethnorepublics' relations be required reading in all undergraduate history with Moscow differed considerably based in large courses on Muscovy and Imperial Russia. Wilson part on the nature and timing of their incorpora‐ provides wide-ranging analysis of seven historical tion into the Soviet Union. Thus, the image of Rus‐ myths perpetuated by Ukrainian and Belarusian sia as an expanding imperial state was not uni‐ historians which challenge Russophile claims to formly diffused throughout the ethnic republics, the medieval kingdom of Kievan Rus' as the fore‐ either in the 1920s, 1940s, or 1980s. runner of Muscovy and the Romanov empire. In Smith also fnds variations within the "nation‐ Wilson's parlance, these seven include myths of alising regimes" that came to power as the Soviet origins, foundation myths, myths of descent, Union fell apart. He concludes three main per‐ homeland myths, myths of national character and spectives have shaped the way these nationalizing of the 'other,' myths of empire and colonialism, regimes "draw upon and bring into the public and myths of resistance and revival. Wilson con‐ sphere of the post-colonial present the codes of trasts these with Russophile myths that claim colonialism...." (p. 13). De-Sovietization has been Kievan Rus' as their own. The author rightly ar‐ achieved by outlawing the Communist Party, gues that Ukrainian historiography has been purging Soviet-era government officials, creating more successful than its Belarusian counterpart boundaries against migrants (primarily Russian in supporting these myths on a factual basis, al‐ speakers) in the realms of itizenship and state em‐ though Belarusian historians have made signifi‐ ployment, and employing ethnic codes to win cant strides in their efforts. electoral support. Boundaries have been reinvent‐ According to Wilson's very readable summa‐ ed by essentializing one trait, particularly lan‐ ry, Ukrainophile historiography now asserts that guage, rediscovering the past to invent national the Ukrainian people were the frst inhabitants of heroes, and totalising specific ethnic or linguistic the lands of the middle Dnieper (meaning the Rus‐ differences into absolutes. Cultural standardiza‐ sians came later), although their recordable histo‐ tion has also promoted the titular languages at the ry begins with the Kievan Rus' state. Belaru‐ expense of Russian. Smith believes these factors 2 H-Net Reviews sophiles have likewise argued for a homeland on provide sufficient description of those camps or their current lands, contending that the east Slav‐ more clearly periodize their work. More could be ic tribes were highly differentiated before the done to link historical revisionism in the Soviet founding of the Kievan state. era and period of transition to other political Both historiographies assert that Russian trends of the time--for example, what contributed speakers played only a marginal role in Kievan to the politicization of Vladislav Ardzinba (a pro‐ Rus', while Belarusian historians claim that an in‐ fessional historian who became Abkhazia's presi‐ dependent state of Polatskaia-Rus' existed even dent in the early 1990s) and Georgian historian before Kiev and fourished throughout the Marika Lordkipanidze. eleventh and twelfth centuries. Both also propose Edward Allworth's essay on the role of history that the Tatar invasions of the thirteenth century in group identities in Central Asia stresses the per‐ had limited impact on Ukrainian and Belarusian sistence of older, multiethnic trends in the region, territories, which were later taken over by the in contrast to the ethnic polarization in the Cauca‐ Kingdom of Lithuania, in which they enjoyed sig‐ sus region. The author argues that due to "the tra‐ nificant linguistic and cultural influence until the ditional urge for inter-ethnic symbiosis, ... officials Union of Lublin of 1569. Thanks to their resis‐ with monoethnic preoccupations have failed to tance under Poland-Lithuania, the independence overcome the influence of the rich indivisible her‐ of the Cossack Hetmanate of the eighteenth centu‐ itage bolstering the resistance of the cultural ry, the formation of independent states in 1917-18, elites against persistent manipulation and distor‐ and their resistance to Bolshevik conquest, both tion of the area's history" (p. 68). Allworth discuss‐ nations could rightly claim the independence they es the multicultural precedent of Jadidism in the gained in 1991 was not a fuke but the result of early twentieth century, the Soviet-era search for firmly rooted historical developments. "harmless heroes," and the efforts of a few aca‐ Viktor Shnirelman's essay on Transcaucasia demic rebels in the 1960s and 1970s to rediscover also studies historical myths, yet in contrast to Temur (Tamerlane) as a local hero (albeit a de‐ Wilson, Shnirelman's focus includes the use of scendent of Chinggis Khan, not an Uzbek). such myths by politicians. Shnirelman chooses to Yet official efforts to dictate which historical use a set of myths which do not correspond with myths were acceptable and which were not per‐ Wilson's straight-forward typology. The author sisted in the 1990s, and Allworth confesses that frames his analysis around the "three

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