This book focuses on the study of ethnic minorities in post-Soviet Eurasia, their self-perceptions and their relations with ethnic majorities, and further arguing that the Soviet notion of ethnicity stood at the centre of Soviet administrative structure, thus impacting political institutions and ethnic autonomies.
This book focuses on the study of ethnic minorities in post- Soviet Eurasia, their self-perceptions, and their relations with ethnic majorities and dominant state- and nation-building. Contributors to the book examine strategies and networks which minorities create for preserving a group’s distinctiveness while at the same time maintaining coexistence with the majority. The chapters also study the effects of different contextual settings of these strategies and networks. Offering a unique systematic comparison of selected cases using ethnicity as the main concept, the book argues it was the Soviet notion of ethnicity which stood in the centre of the administrative structure of the Soviet Union and that it consequently had a profound impact on how individual ethnic majority and minority groups in the former USSR understood themselves and imagined each other, how political institutions in individual Soviet republics and ethnic autonomies were formed, and how this institutional setting defined the distribution of political power between ethnic majorities and minorities. It also argues that this complex system of relations between ethnic minorities and majorities has significantly changed during the past 30 years and resulted in the formation of a post-Soviet notion of ethnicity. This book will be of interest to researchers studying Post- Soviet Politics, Political Geography, International Relations, Political Science, History, and Area studies.
Introduction. Part 1 Theorizing ethnicity in the Soviet and post-Soviet
contexts
1. Ethnicity in Soviet and post-Soviet states in context
2.
Situations and strategies of national minorities in post-Soviet Eurasia: a
conceptual and theoretical framework Part 2 Case studies
3. Between Kurdish
nationalism and Yezidi ethno-religious exceptionalism. Identity split among
the Yezidis in Armenia and Georgia
4. Like plastic? Ethnic ambiguity as a
survival strategy among the Megrelians in the de facto state of Abkhazia
5.
Between two states: the Lezgins struggle for cultural survival in Russia and
Azerbaijan
6. The evolution of Azerbaijani Talysh identity: construction,
deconstruction, and reconstruction across Soviet and post-Soviet eras
7. We
were nomads. The influence of the border on the mobility of Georgian
Azerbaijanis after 1991 and 2020
8. What went wrong? Reflections on the Komi
ethnic movement
9. Contesting culture: state instrumentalization of Sakha
traditions in the post-Soviet Republic of Sakha
10. Latgalians contested
identity through the past and the present
11. Identity narratives of the
Rusyns in Transcarpathia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union
12. The
Gagauz diaspora in Transnistria: preserving identity in a multi-ethnic
environment
13. Koryo-saram spirals of migration and transformations of
identity
14. Kazakhstani Russians in transition: identity formation in times
of uncertainty
15. Karakalpaks: entity with and without autonomy. Conclusion
Vincenc Kopeek is Associate Professor and Deputy Head of the Department of Human Geography and Regional Development, University of Ostrava, Czechia. His research focuses on ethnicity, de facto states, and informal politics in the South Caucasus. He is the co- editor of De Facto States in Eurasia (Routledge, 2020). His recent articles have been published in Europe- Asia Studies, Problems of Post- Communism, and Caucasus Survey.
Martin Lepi is Assistant Professor at Charles University, Prague, Czechia. In his research, Martin focuses on centre- periphery tensions and their impact on the geography of secessionist movements, inter- ethnic relations, and the electoral prospects of regionalist parties, particularly in Southern Europe and the Caucasus. His work has been published in Political Geography and Nationalities Papers.
Libor Jelen is Assistant Professor at Charles University, Prague, Czechia. He focuses on nationalism and geopolitics in post- Soviet Eurasia. He is the author of the monograph Conflict Regions of the World Europe (in Czech, 2021), and his work has been published in Geopolitics, the Czech Journal of International Relations, and the Bulletin of Geography.
