Introduction to Russia and Eurasia - "Nation"?



The fuzzy edges and potential chaos of Russia/Northern Eurasia emerge in perhaps the theoretically most interesting way in the permuting contrasts of the idea of "nation" as it is used by the "natives" today and might reasonably be used by scholars. At one extreme we find the Gypsies scattered from Vladivostok to the Baltic referring to themselves and referred to as a nation, and, as if this weren't enough, each of their constituent subdivisions is also considered a nation. Scarcely less problematical are diaspora groups—for example, the Tatars, who are trying to realize their ancient claims to lost homelands in the Crimea. Further along are many indigenous groups with a territory, usually traditional, in the Caucasus, Siberia, or European Russia who, although small and weak, have distinct cultures, a long-standing polity, and a strong sense of national and cultural identity: the Gagauz in Moldova, for instance; the Khanty and Eskimos of Siberia; dozens of other Siberian and Caucasian entities; and the legendary Terek Cossacks on the Terek River, numbering 250,000 and claiming separate nationhood. A considerable number of ethnicities have an organized government, a complex political economy, and sometimes aggressive territorial claims: the Azerbaijani Turks in the southeast Caucasus, the Chechens of the northern Caucasus (the center of the local Islamic movement), the numerous and powerful Buriats, and the Tuvans, Kazakhs, and Georgians, who respectively dominate, try to dominate, or are seen to dominate central Siberia, Turkestan, and the western Caucasus and are, on various counts by which nations rank themselves, superior to their Russian "big brother." Finally, there are the huge nationstates of Russia and Ukraine.

The most immediate variables in the spectrum of what it means to be a nation are the degree of governmental organization, of ethnic consciousness, of linguistic and cultural distinctiveness, of de facto independence, and of political, economic, and military size and power. Perhaps insight into the idea of nation might be gleaned from contemplating the groups that are not so designated: the Old Siberian Russians (Siberiaki) ; many of the smaller Caucasus groups such as the Kubachi and the Jews; and many immigrant groups such as the Koreans and the Siberian Germans. The question of nationhood is today more volatile in the former Soviet Union than in western Europe or East Asia. Perhaps the main cultural and political lesson to be learned from the varieties of nation in Russia/North Eurasia is that, rather than get bogged down in what may be terminological or purely taxonomic questions, one should construct a large and open semi-system of continuous, fuzzy variables from some synthesis of social science and, even more, the meanings and actual practices of the population in question.


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