Introduction
Since the republics in the Soviet Union proclaimed independence in 1991, there have been significant changes concerning the ethno cultural, and demographic situation. The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the major reason behind the creation of the Russian Diaspora. More than twenty-five million Russian citizens found themselves in the midst of newly and freshly created states, which were often redesigned as their new political dwellings (Beissinger, 2008). After some time, the displaced Russians were compelled to either assume a fresh political identity, or to return to the Russian Federation, which was newly created. Assuming fresh political identity would ultimately distinguish these parts of the nation as a new Russian Diaspora of the Soviet Republics established earlier (Hashamova, 2007). The major problem arising from the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the inability to determine the true nature of the relationship that the ethnic Russians would have to share with the other ethno cultural colleagues who were left in the former republics (Mamattah, 2012). A serious problem is also witnessed when establishing the relationship between these people with that of the Russian state
This paper investigates the insights of a state of affairs where the majority is overturned to become a minority, by digging deeply into the example of the post-Soviet countries, as well as the ethnic Russians. Additionally, the paper will highlight the geographic understanding of minorities, assessing the condition of the United States, and the changing the geographical patterns witnessed in the post-Soviet territories. Similarly, the paper will also discuss the reasons behind a situation where brotherhood and union could be antagonized by a political wave. The Russian-Ukrainian crisis is analyzed from a geographical as well as geopolitical perspective. Lastly, a discussion on how some Ukrainian could potentially become ‘the other’ of the Ukrainian majority will be provided.
Historical Identity of the Soviet Union
Gaining an understanding of the historical identity of the Soviet Union plays a very crucial role in internalizing the scope of events leading to the overturning of the majority into minorities. Recognizing national identities was an easy task. However, recognizing the boundaries surrounding the ethnic identification was not quite easy (Reuter & Remington, 2009). It owes to the fact that identifying the ethnic boundaries was quite ambiguous along with the internal borders of the Soviet Union. As a result of the Russian fraction of people who were initially non-Russians that occurred during the Soviet Era, the process of identifying different individuals as Russian became quite difficult (Safaeva, 2007). An exploration of the relationships surrounding the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the creation of the Russian Diaspora entangles itself with different elements of expansion of a state as well as the idea of Russian migration. However, the term Soviet was remained in absolute terms. The term was vital in conglomerating and coordinating the multi-ethic empire in the country.
The understanding of the ethnic relations in the post-soviet world begins with a detailed view of the activities that preceded the disintegration of the political boundaries in the region. This is because of the fact that before the formation of new boundaries, the communities and ethnic groups were much more focused on ethnic integration. This is to say that the communities were focused on ensuring that they created stronger bonds among the members of a particular ethnic group and similarly, among the members of two or more different groups. This endeavor was however, disrupted by the splitting of the Soviet Union into various independent national jurisdiction. This is because after the splitting of the Soviet Union, the development of political and national identities took the center stage in the agendas of many of the citizens in the Post-soviet countries. The implications of this were that the citizens in all the affected regions haggled with the idea of returning to Russia in anticipation of strained political and ethnic relations in the region while others pursued their interests by joining those nations where their ethnic majority settled (The Guardian, 2014). The idea of sovereignty and ethnic-belongingness is further explored in the following few paragraphs.
Owing to the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the idea of the sovereign nation rose. The idea challenged the initial idea of which advanced for ethnic bonding, which was placed, on the major guise of Sovietization. It later led to the recognition and discovery of quite new political identities in a very new and different dimension from the old one. Different Russian historians drew upon a very close relationship between state migration and expansion as the main feature that Russian just colonized itself. An explanation of this scope of colonization implied a very close link between the people living in different Russian colonies and those living in the Russian State. By creating the Soviet Union in 1921, Russia continued to exemplify the blending of minorities in different bordering countries (Hill, 2015). It happened regardless of whether these were imperial minorities or not. The Sovietization policy adopted acted as a major forum of blanketing the distinct minorities’ in the Soviet Union. This effect is depicted best as a process of excessively spreading the interethnic relations and contacts across the Soviet Union (Hashamova, 2007). It largely provoked the accusations of erosion and assimilation of the very foundation which sought to gain an existence of the pre-existing ethnic communities. The blanketing perspective has gradually developed to be termed as a Russian myth, which is also referred as a Russian perception of ‘imagined community’. The mythic view of the ethnic composition in Russia quite resonates the Russian understanding of the current neighbors of the Russian state, and more particularly, those that make up the Common wealth Independent States (CIS). The Russian elites who live in Moscow have been influenced to a greater extent by the Sovietization policy (Light, 2012). The policy sought to prove a very significant point, that there was no any other sensible and effective way of effectively maintaining prestige and power in the Post-Soviet era other than having to re-enact the Soviet relationships, except that this would be done along Russian line which is an opposite strategy to the earlier one which was Soviet in nature (The Guardian, 2014). Reification the by systematic relationships is an indicator of political leverage which the Russian minorities in the near abroad used to play in reasserting the Russian prestige and power in the Post-Soviet era.
Many Russophile myths and beliefs have demonstrated the Soviet persistence and power; hence, replacing the former Soviet identity with a very new monolithic identity. In this new identity, the Slavic factor is seen as a very important aspect in building a strong relationship and which would later develop between the Russian and the other non-Russian republics, which are majorly composed of Ukraine and Belarus (Safaeva, 2007). It was a factor which was greatly advocated for by different Russian Historians, notably, Ruslan Khasbulatov, who sought to be the former Soviet states together with regard to the communities which make up the nation together with the dissipation of the heterogeneity in terms of ethnic composition which was once witnessed in the Soviet Union (Fowkes, 2002). There are many factors, which have contributed to the current problems, which are being witnessed in the process of assigning national identity in the Russian former republics. Among all these factors, artificial minority plantation is seen as the one contributing heavily to the perception of displaced Russians. This problem was simply advanced by the cessation of communism (Garaz, 2012). This owes to the way the political framework in the USSR help the different minorities together under one Soviet identity and which sought to preserve its being which was distinct from the others. As a result of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Soviet nationality, which was once termed as being very profound, rapidly vanished and with no time become quite obsolete regarding a major instruction political identifier.
Russians later become a part and parcel of the larger population of the Russian diaspora, without even moving a little step out of their original settlements. As a result, the Russian moved from being members of once privileged and respected majority who save their home as the larger Soviet Union to minority members of fourteen different and newly independent states. Some of these states experienced sovereignty for the first time in many years while others experienced sovereignty for the first time in their history (Hughes & Sasse, 2011). However, to some degree, all these nations sought to elevate his status of the titular group and as a result, they were quite hostile to the new existence of the Russian minority which only comprise of between two to thirty-eighty percent of their entire populations (Light, 2012). The Soviet identity had arguably lost its ability to hold and bringing the ethnic groups together. At the same time, the Soviet territories had become the major point of condensation regarding the question of whether Russians who are living in the former republics have contributed to the creation of a new Russian (UN, 2016) Diaspora of they have just provided an example of themselves as an ethnic minority in the region. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the populations in the Russian Diaspora were confronted with difficult choices which acted in such a way that the contentions political massifs emerged in the Ukrainian society (Song, 2005). The reactions of the Russian Diaspora entailed the options of either choosing to remain in the non-Russian state or to simple leave the non-Russian states. Following the results of the reactions from the minority, Russia had to work hard so as to try to find out a way of filling the space which was left behind by the collapsed Soviet Union and the faded Soviet unionism and identity. The emergence of Irredentism has also occurred especially because geographically large concentrations of Russian citizens live in some geographical areas, which are contagious to Russia.
Russian-Ukrainian Crisis
The Russian-Ukrainian crisis ideally began with the creation of the post-soviet Russia. This is because the boundary concerns remained unsolved after the creation of the two nations and considering the pursuit of natural wealth, the regions around Crimea remains disputed to date. Consequently, the fueling of conflict in the region has been placed squarely on the hand of the Russian authorities. It has been reported in the past that Russia has from time to time supplied arms and ammunitions to the separatist fighters in Crimea. However, the fighters on many occasions cite reasons unrelated to the post-soviet struggle in the region and instead indicating that being sidelined by the Ukrainian authorities as the main reason why Crimea struggles for cessation from Ukraine (Rywkin, 2014).
Looking closely at the disputed region, and Russian areas bordering Crimea. There are various ethnic characteristics that help in shaping a perspective on the kind and source of aggression between Crimea and the Ukrainian authorities. The first major observation is the fact that majority of ethnic minorities in Crimea have larger ethnic representation within Russian boundaries. This means that the struggle for cessation is not only politically instigated but also ethnically supported. The separatists in Crimea are at times said to find safe hiding grounds on the Russian side of the border and from the safe havens in Russia, the separatists launched guerilla attacks on the Ukrainian soldiers. This drew the Ukrainian forces and authorities to a blame game with Russia considering the fact that Ukraine does not have the international jurisdiction to pursue enemies into the Russian territory yet the Russian authorities tend to hide the enemies in her boundaries (Rywkin, 2014). Notably, it is easy to overlook the ethnic relations role in the Ukrainian crises especially in instances where the world majorly focuses on the abuse of military power and international laws on the part of Russia for supporting the separatist wars in Crimea and even threatening to attack Ukraine. However, considering the ethnic composition of the areas bordering Crimea helps in shedding light on the contributions of ethnic relations in political aggression in the region.
Ideally, Ukraine serves as a very good case in the point of the former Soviet Union that has become a fully independent country, independent of the Russian authority that still has a lot of political disputes to share with its major neighbors. Chechnya and Moldova serve as case examples of territorial entities that seek to gain independence, where Chechnya seeks political independence from Russia. A common term ‘ post-Soviet space’ is used to refer to how the colorable of the former Soviet empire, which was once seen as a very string Union and empire, has seen a very strong assertion of the national identity coupled with an affirmation of the national boundaries. Since communism collapsed in the original Soviet Union, most of the Baltic states -which included Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia-, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Central Asian States- which include Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan-, Ukraine, Armenia and Azerbaijan still have a strong political relationship with Russia (Wanner, 2010). Commonly, these countries are usually referred to as the former Republics of Soviet. Upon the immediate aftermath of the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, these countries were referred as New Independent States (NIS) (Fowkes, 2002). Exploring the relationship between the NonRussian residents and the Russian residents’ greatly observes the boundaries surrounding the identity of the ethnic minority groups in the Soviet space. In analyzing this situation, a very critical question of whether the government of Russia has the mandate and the explicit right to interfere with the domestic affairs of the other sovereign nations which broke from the Soviet Union so as to overturn any kinds of unfavorable outcomes and which do not reflect the quality of the Russian minorities in political view usually arises (Rywkin, 2014). Additionally, the answer to the question of whether the less defined Russian ethnic minorities can create contention between the states where the ethnic minorities in Russian reside and the Russian state is critical in analyzing the whole situation of ethno-cultures in Russia.
Situatedness in the United States
Russia’s overturning of majority to minority illustrates how political forces can play an important role in destabilizing the ethnic composition of a country. The situation in the Soviet Union indicates the United States is not very safe from such a thing. For instance, the process of the Russian minorities in the original Soviet Union being turned from an imperial minority to just ordinary one has been gradual and one that has been in motion since the collapse of the union in 1991. In most of the cases, the formation of the Russian Diaspora within the neighboring countries of Russia resulted from a state organized colonization. It forms the basis for national movements and nationalism (Romaniuk, 2008). Additionally, this has been a major factor surrounding the development of a policy based in Moscow, which deals with ethnic demographic proportions. The future of the Russian citizens who are living outside the Russian federation will highly depend on the resolution of the major differences witnessed between the concepts of Russian as a language and ethnicity, usually referred to as Russia and Russian as a state or nation, referred as Rossiia. Since the Soviet Union collapses, almost 25 years later, the issue of Rossiia and Russkii still provides a crucible attached to a lot of political significance among all the neighboring states in Russia and the Russian state itself (Suny, 2006). These two issues have not yet been reconciled even up to now. Following the collapse of the communist ideology, the integration of the Russian minorities into what has been termed as ‘near abroad’ has been quite unsuccessful and still acts as an expedient renewed form of polarization within the constructs of Soviet Socialist Republics of Ukraine. The foreign policy enacted by Russia has served as a good exemplification that the Russian Federation has totally assumed the responsibility of protecting the Russian minorities who have been displaced from other regions. The Russian policy uses compatriots aboard as a way of re-exerting political influence as well as power in the entire region of Eurasia (Romaniuk, 2008). Upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine stood as a good example of the largest concentration of the migrants from Russian as compared to all other former republics. A simple political division can overturn the situation in the United States where the White will no longer be the majority in some territories.
Political and Ethnic Crucible
The nature of ethnic conditions in Ukraine creates a lot of problems in integrating the Russian community. It is so especially after the breakup of the Soviet Union. After the breakup, the major implications of the distribution of the Russian ethnic communities in Ukraine are now significant and more political in their dimension as compared to the time prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union (Arbatova, 2010). The concentration of Russians in Ukraine acts as a good indicator of an even gradation of the Russian people towards the eastern part of Ukraine. The Russian minorities are highly concentrated in the territories, which are to the far east of Ukraine. Additionally, the concentration of the Russians is strong in the vicinity, which is immediate to Crimea, Donetsk and Kharkiv. A closer look of the Russian minorities indicates that on top of the Russians tending to reinforce their traditional dominance in administration, education, and industry in major urban areas of the total population of the Russians who live in Ukraine, almost three quarters of these Russians live in five industrially developed towns of Ukraine. In 2001, statistics indicated that 17.3% of the significant ethnic groups in Ukraine were made up of Russians (Garaz, 2012). The settlement of Russians in Ukraine has really created a complex set of overlapping identities in the entire communities of Russian origin.
The question of whether this overlapping poses a major threat to the identity of the Russians living in Ukraine is however hard to answer. Fundamentally, hardening the identity of Russians has been a central component in pressuring the Government of Russia to defend the Russians who live aboard. However, this was practically witnessed in the western periphery of Ukraine. According to Blum (2007), Russia enacted measures that were protectionist in nature. Specifically, Russia did this by undertaking military operations in the verge of 1990 during the breakaway of the Trans-Dniestria that later declared its secession from the state of Moldova in the flowing year. Through this renewed sense of Russian chauvinism, Russia was quick to adopt a special relationship with the ethnic minorities living in the country. It led to the acceptance of responsibility for geopolitical security by Russia for its citizens living aboard (Arbatova, 2010). Security issue remains the major reason behind Moscow’s military intervening in Moldova. However, it is worth noting that security issues were not the only reasons behind Moscow assuming a more active role in relating to the Republics in the Post-Soviet era. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the security of the large population of Russians living in the neighboring lands became a great source of anxiety for the elites in Moscow. Specifically, the political elite in Moscow were majorly concerned with the territorial losses which could result from the dissolution of the union. Additionally, after the collapse of the Union in1991, preservation the Russian territorial integrity was vital element in building the position of Russia as a great power in different international affairs (Garaz, 2012). However, this position was threatened significantly when the state of Chechnya declare its own independence from the Federation.
Re assertion of prestige and power by Russians are similarly linked with the communities in the Russian diaspora. These neighboring countries therefore play an imprint role in the Russian foreign policy as well as the international relations entered by Russia (Fowkes, 2002). The dissolution of the Soviet Union and Chechnya has both represented a severe challenge to the territorial integrity of Russia. On the other hand, the existence of sizeable minorities in Russia represents a tangible constituent that may later compel Moscow to come up with measures intended at protecting the Russians living in diaspora. It owes to the fact at the Russian prestige and power is highly related to the populations as they live within this particular territory. Despite the fact the Russia still remained the largest land in 1990’s, the population in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which is estimated as being roughly 148 million, is barely half of the total population of the former Union (Beissinger, 2008; Puddington, 2012). It has led to the country being ranked behind other countries in the world and who are regarded the major competitors to Russia, notably, China, India, Brazil, the United States and Indonesia. Serious tensions within different Russian elites have been directed to fears that originate from the loss of the Russian borderlands as well as the subsequent effects on the territorial capacity. As a result, equitable focus should concentrate to the consequent migration of the representation of the Russian ethnic groups, who are equal to Russian’s loss of prestige and power.
Identity of Russia in Ukraine
Among the issues that acted to facilitate the societal identity in Ukraine since it broke from the Soviet Union is the social cultural division, which is majorly three-way, being made up of Ukrainophone Ukrainians, Ethnic Russians and Russofone Ukrainians. This division has greatly mitigated the national agenda develop by Ukraine. At the same time, the division has largely impacted Ukraine’s foreign policy as well as other international affairs of Ukraine (Romaniuk, 2008). During the Soviet era, Ukraine had passed through a period of ethnic and linguistic merging. At this particular period, Ukrainians and Russians easily and frequently mingled. Many people who lived in Ukraine accepted and used both Ukrainian and Russian as heir native languages. It owes to the fact that a large number of Russians considered Ukraine as their fundamental homeland (Foxall, 2014).
The ethnic fluidity evident in Ukraine even presents a greater confusion and ambiguity. With regard to the Russian diaspora living in Ukraine, these populations represent a national minority, whose culture, social political, and linguistic status are continuously shifted towards the periphery of both state and national interest. For instance, the Ukrainophone Ukrainians are the most focal group of Ukraine and those ethno political discourses usually focus on their unique rights as the indigenous community of the country. It in turn creates a political precedent, commonly termed as the Ukrainian space. Additionally, the Ukrainophone Ukrainians have continuously exuded a dismissive attitude towards the Russofone Ukrainians as well as the ethnic Russians (Jordan, 2005). They advocate for very profound discourse of the indigenous rights. Similarly, the main structural language of this group of people usually centers on concepts such as colonialism, Russification, and indigenous.
On the other hand, the Russofone Ukrainians are considered as the most unique group in Ukraine. They are spoilt on the commonalities with the other major Ukrainophone counterparts. Interestingly, Russofone Ukrainians usually seek to propagate the principle behind sovereignty, which emerged following the break of the Soviet Union. It acted to precipitate a major expression of new political identity. The Russofones usually claim that their territorial rights in Ukraine are grounded on the Russian space, which was brought about by the principle of forcible Russifination on the side of the Ethnic Russian minority, the situation can be considered as being quite peculiar (Fowkes, 2002). It is due to the different policies adopted by both Ukraine and Russia, which concern the rate of social transformation in each of these countries. Both of these countries have formed expectations and objectives that are not necessarily congruent to each other. The major effect of this ethno political discourse can be looked on from two major dimensions. First it implies the potential reclamation of the territories in Ukraine, which were inhabited by the ethnic Russians by Ukrainians (Beissinger, 2008). Secondly, the discourse disenfranchises the long-term moral claim of the Russian diaspora to the rights, which were granted to them by the government of Ukraine in 1991. The two effects are however interrelated.
Conclusion
In concluding, this section recaps the major views and observations made from the analysis of the post-soviet ethnic relations in the former Soviet Union and more specifically in areas bordering Russia. In the times of the Soviet Union, ethnic and communal integration took the center stage in the political developments of the region. However, the splitting up of the Soviet Union polarized the region and in return, the communal and ethnic relations. This is because countries like Ukraine started pursuing political independence by breaking away from the socialist perspectives that characterized the former Soviet Union and in the process antagonizing Russia. In the modern post-soviet era, political aggression in the region is hardly viewed from the perspective of ethnic and communal conflicts but rather as the fight for resources and other politically instigated perspectives whereas the breeding grounds for the conflicts fall in the hands of ethnic and ideological tensions.
This paper has demonstrated the changing geographical patterns in the post-Soviet territories. Despite the fact that nationalization movements have sought to deal with the problem, which surrounds the issue of integrating Russian Diaspora, the existence of these communities is more regular as compared to the existence of the identity of the Russian identity. Although various sources that seek to leverage the situation are available to the government of Russia, the Russian diaspora living in Ukraine remain very symbolic as opposed to a threat to national security for both the Russian Federation and Ukraine. The diaspora in Ukraine remain a very fluid concept. Additionally, this concept is readily and easily influenced by linguistic and social cultural elements within the nation hosting them. When Russia gained independence in 1992, the country inherited a very spatial distribution of its population that was quite incompatible from the former Soviet Union. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, there was a large-scale departure of Russian speakers from the Russian states of the Former Union. It has illustrated the fact that political divisions have the ability to antagonize brotherhood and union.
References
Arbatova, N. (2010). Frozen conflicts and European security. Security Index, 16(3), 51-59.
Beissinger, M. R. (2008). A new look at ethnicity and democratization. Journal of Democracy, 19(3), 85-97.
Blum, D. W. (2007). National identity and globalization: Youth, state, and society in post-Soviet Eurasia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fowkes, B. (2002). Ethnicity and ethnic conflict in the post-communist world (p. 139). New York, NY: Palgrave.
Foxall, A. (2014). Ethnic relations in post-soviet Russia: Russians and non-Russians in the north Caucasus (Vol. 98). London: Routledge.
Garaz, S. (2012). Exploring the link between power concentration and ethnic minorities’ mobilization in Post-Soviet Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine (Doctoral dissertation, Central European University).
Hashamova, Y. (2007). Pride and panic: Russian imagination of the west in post-soviet film. New York: Intellect Books.
Hill, F. (2015). How Vladimir Putin’s World View Shapes Russian Foreign Policy. In Russia’s Foreign Policy (pp. 42-61). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Hughes, J., & Sasse, G. (2001). Comparing regional and ethnic conflicts in post-Soviet transition states. Regional & Federal Studies, 11(3), 1-35.
Jordan, P. A. (2005). Defending rights in Russia: Lawyers, the state, and legal reform in the post-Soviet era. UBC Press.
Light, M. (2012). Migration,‘Globalised’ Islam and the Russian State: A Case Study of Muslim Communities in Belgorod and Adygeya Regions. Europe-Asia Studies, 64(2), 195-226.
Mamattah, S. (2012). Locating ethnic identity: Russian German identity construction in Ulyanovsk. Europe-Asia Studies, 64(10), 1911-1937.
Puddington, A. (2012). Promise and reversal: The post-soviet landscape twenty years on. Retrieved from https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-reports/promise-and-reversal-post-soviet-landscape-twenty-years
Reuter, O. J., & Remington, T. F. (2009). Dominant party regimes and the commitment problem the case of united Russia. Comparative Political Studies, 42(4), 501-526.
Romaniuk, S. (2008). The Russian minority in post-communist politics: a case study of Ukraine, Moldova and Chechnya. Central European Journal of International and Security Studies, 56-75.
Rywkin, M. (2014). Ukraine: Between Russia and the West. American Foreign Policy Interests, 36(2), 119-126.
Safaeva, S. (2007). Post-Soviet integration through the prism of political transformation in the newly independent states. Central Asia and the Caucasus, (5 (47)).
Song, S. (2005). Majority norms, multiculturalism, and gender equality. American Political Science Review, 99(4), 473.
Suny, R. G. (2006). Provisional stabilities: the politics of identities in post-Soviet Eurasia.
The Guardian. (2014). "Russian Nationalism And The Logic Of The Kremlin's Actions On Ukraine". the Guardian. Retrieved on 4 May 2016, available at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/29/russian-nationalism-kremlin-actions-ukraine
UN (2016)."3. Ethnic Conflicts In The Context Of Social Science Theories". Archive.unu.edu. N Retrieved on 4 May 2016, available at http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu12ee/uu12ee08.htm
Wanner, C. (2010). Burden of dreams: History and identity in post-Soviet Ukraine. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press.
