1st Edition
Ethnicity and Ethnic Minorities in Post-Soviet Eurasia
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.
Lists of figures
List of maps
List of tables
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Note on the transcription and the usage of geographical names
List of abbreviations
Map of the case studies
Introduction
Libor Jelen, Vincenc Kopeček, and Martin Lepič
Part 1 Theorizing ethnicity in the Soviet and post-Soviet contexts
Chapter 1. Ethnicity in Soviet and post-Soviet states in context
Libor Jelen and Vincenc Kopeček
Chapter 2. Situations and strategies of national minorities in post-Soviet Eurasia: a conceptual and theoretical framework
Martin Lepič
Part 2 Case studies
Chapter 3. Between Kurdish nationalism and Yezidi ethno-religious exceptionalism. Identity split among the Yezidis in Armenia and Georgia
Vincenc Kopeček
Chapter 4. Like “plastic”? Ethnic ambiguity as a survival strategy among the Megrelians in the de facto state of Abkhazia
Andrea Peinhopf
Chapter 5. Between two states: the Lezgins’ struggle for cultural survival in Russia and Azerbaijan
Javid Asadov
Chapter 6. The evolution of Azerbaijani Talysh identity: construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction across Soviet and post-Soviet eras
Mirkamran Huseynli and Alexander Mutnansky
Chapter 7. We were nomads. The influence of the border on the mobility of Georgian Azerbaijanis after 1991 and 2020
Klaudia Kosicińska
Chapter 8. What went wrong? Reflections on the Komi ethnic movement
Paul Fryer
Chapter 9. Contesting culture: state instrumentalization of Sakha traditions in the post-Soviet Republic of Sakha
Sofia Lukina and Martin Lepič
Chapter 10. Latgalians — contested identity through the past and the present
Libor Jelen
Chapter 11. Identity narratives of the Rusyns in Transcarpathia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union
Tomáš Hoch
Chapter 12. The Gagauz diaspora in Transnistria: preserving identity in a multi-ethnic environment
Andrei Crivenco and Libor Jelen
Chapter 13. Koryo-saram — spirals of migration and transformations of identity
Valeriy S. Khan
Chapter 14. Kazakhstani Russians in transition: identity formation in times of uncertainty
Marina Perglová
Chapter 15. Karakalpaks: entity with and without autonomy
Slavomír Horák
Conclusion
Martin Lepič, Libor Jelen, and Vincenc Kopeček
Index
Biography
Vincenc Kopeček 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 Lepič 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.
