Paul Goble
Staunton, April 12 – The just-completed visit to Turkey by Abkhaz President Sergey Bagapsh represents both a problem and an opportunity for Ankara and Moscow, involving as it does many issues far beyond the question of broader international recognition for that breakaway republic, according to a leading Russian expert on the region.
In an essay carried by the “Novaya politika” portal yesterday, Sergey Markedonov argues that Bagapsh’s April 7-10 visit to Turkey must be put in this broader context rather than seen as only an effort to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough for a country that is only “partially recognized” (novopol.ru/-turetskiy-voyaj-sergeya-bagapsha-text99510.html).
Ankara both through its embassy in Tbilisi and its foreign ministry have made clear that Bagapsh’s visit does not represent a change in Turkish policy and that Turkey “does not intend to recognize Abkhazia as an independent state.” Indeed, the Turkish foreign office said it continues to view Georgia as “a strategic partner,” something that recognizing Sukhumi would destroy.
As Markedonov points out, Bagapsh was the guest in Turkey not of the government but of the Federation of Abkhaz Associations and the Federation of Caucasus Associations, two umbrella groups which unite many of the large Caucasian diasporas living in the Turkish Republic.
As Turkish Foreign Minister Akhmet Davitoglu said in September 2009, Markedonov continues, Ankara “does want to become acquainted with Abkhazia and seek to regularize its relations with Georgia,” a statement that is part of the reason why many now call him “the Turkish Kissinger.”
Markedonov suggests that no one should see Ankara’s stance as “altruistic.” Instead, it reflects Turkey’s longstanding desire to “have contacts with all the players,” not only because it wants to exert its influence in the Caucasus more than in the past but also because of the large Caucasian diasporas in Turkey itself.
Such people, the Russian analyst continues are “voters” but “not only that.” Among them are “military men and employees of the special services and experts and journalists.” Consequently, “from a pragmatic point of view, it is wrong to ignore their positions.” And thus any effort to block the Abkhaz leader’s visit could have serious negative consequences at home.
But, Markedonov continues, this is precisely the reason why “Ankara is not recognizing the independence of Abkhazia.” That would create the kind of “precedent of ethnic self-determination” that it opposes. If it acted differently, then “representatives of the Circassian, Chechen and Crimean Tatar diasporas could demand” similar treatment from Ankara.
Moreover, if Turkey recognized Abkhazia, it would find itself at odds with Moscow, Kyiv and its partners in NATO and the European Union. “Striving to enter ‘a single Europe’ is also as strong as the desire not to allow the use of an Abkhaz precedent by Kurdish separatists” in Turkey itself, Markedonov points out.
At the same time, however, “Turkey is in a position to broaden ‘the Abkhaz window’ and to force Tbilisi to be more correct in issues concerning the detention of Turkish ships and in general in the struggle with ‘Turkish contraband,’ as the actions of Turkish sailors in Abkhaz waters are described officially by Georgia.”
Abkhazia and Bagapsh personally benefited from the visit, given the centrality of the diaspora in the thinking of Abkhazian leaders. But at the same time, the visit may complicate the relationship of this breakaway government with its Moscow sponsors who may not be entirely pleased to see Abkhazia behaving so independently.
That is at least in part because Moscow, after the events of August 2008, had won greater support among many of the North Caucasus diasporas in Turkey, some of whose leaders have refused to support calls to declare the events of 1864 a genocide or to take part in Circassian efforts to block the Sochi Olympics.
But however that may be, Markedonov concludes, “on the eve of the Sochi Olympiad [scheduled for 2014], the ‘Circassian quesiton’ is becoming extremely important.” Consequently, establishing “constructive relations with the Caucasus diasporas of Turkey with Abkhazia’s help could be an extremely important task for Moscow.”
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Kazan Parents’ Call for Studying Russian Not Tatar Sparks Conflicts about More than Language
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 12 – Six hundred mothers of middle school pupils in Kazan have called on the Russian education minister to reduce or even end obligatory instruction in Tatar to all students in their republic, the latest effort to reduce the ethnic content of Russian Federalism, has triggered a debate between Russians and Tatars over far more than language.
Many of those signing this appeal are themselves ethnic Tatars, a fact that has led some in that Middle Volga republic to talk about the existence of “a fifth column” working against the interests of the Tatar nation. But it has also become the occasion for Russians there and elsewhere to demand that instruction in Tatarstan be in Russian not in the national language.
The original appeal suggested that “the study of Tatar interferes with the mastery of Russian, that learning Tatar is very difficult and that in general it is useless for the future of the child,” all contentions that Tatar intellectuals, like writer Tufan Minnullin, have dismissed as absurd or worse (www.intertat.ru/rus/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1642:-q&catid=119:2010-11-30-19-29-29&Itemid=501).
Minullin, who is also a member of Tatarstan’s State Council, said on Kazan television that he might have understood such calls if they came from ethnic Russian parents but “when Tatars reject the language of their ancestors and write complaints to Moscow [he] would call this a denunciation of one’s own people.”
According to Minullin, these parents have “the baseless and strange” conviction that “instruction in Russian is the key to the success of a child and that it will allow him to become a big boss.” In fact, he continues, that is absurd, as even the most superficial examination of conditions in Kazan will show.
“If in contemporary society, the Russian language were the chief and main condition for the achievement of the top positions, then ever Russian would be a boss, and there would not be drunkards and criminals on the streets.” But of course, “the issue is not about language;” it is about “the tragedy of the [ethnic] Russian people.”
Everyone knows about this even if few talk about it, Minullin suggests. “In our Tatar schools there is not a single drug addict, and yet how many problems there are in Russian language schools?!” And “how many Tatars who do not know and have not learned their native language … are sitting in prisons or suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction?”
“Moscow does not need out native language just as America, Germany or the others do not need it. We need our language,” Minullin says, “and therefore we will defend it.” That means seeking the repeal of the “barbaric” federal law “which was adopted against all the peoples who live in the Russian Federation” and which limits non-Russian languages.
Up to now, Moscow hasn’t pushed the law forward because people in the Russian capital have recognized that it was a mistake, but now it appears some there want to push things further. Minullin says that he agrees with one historian who noted that “we trust the state too much, but the government has its own problems and tasks.”
Consequently, the Tatar writer continues, “only the people can defend its language.”
Another Tatar commentator, Murza Kurbangali Yunusov, in response to the appeal of the 600 Kazan parents explicitly has addressed the question of “who needs the Tatar language?” (http://www.intertat.ru/rus/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1673:2011-04-01-12-51-04&catid=119:2010-11-30-19-29-29&Itemid=501%20%20).
“What has led these mothers to speak out against the enlightenment and education of their children in the state language?” During the war, one could understand opposition to “the language of the fascists.” But Tatarstan is today “one of the most stable, tolerant and multi-national and multi-confessional republics of a federative state.”
Yunusov says he was particularly struck by this because he had just been in Kazakhstan where the national language is “being reborn.” Ever more people there “are beginning to understand and what is the main thing speak it,” even though in the recent past, the status of Kazakh was “much worse” than that of Tatar.
If the Kazan mothers and their Moscow backers have their way, he continues, “a time will come when Kazakhs will instruct Tatars in their native language just as a hundred years ago the Tatars instructed the Kazakhs.” Indeed, he points out, even the Russian Empire did not block non-Russians from studying native languages and foreign ones as well.
Tragically, it appears that many now think Tatar isn’t important given that neither the president of Russia can read a Tatar text written out for him or the senior officials of Tatarstan use the language in public, but that is all the more reason why “the letter of the 600 must become the litmus test for citizens of Tatarstan and the Russian Federation as a whole.”
“The Russian Federation,” Yunusov points out, “is a federative state, and it is required to introduce Tatar as the second state language. The president, the cabinet of miners, the parliament and local organs of power are required to ensure genuine bilingualism in the republic,” speaking in Tatar but ensuring simultaneous translation into Russian.
Those “citizens of Tatarstan who do not know Tatar should be given special assistance in order to master [it], such as the support that existed in the years of the formation of the republic [in the 1920s]. And they should be regularly reminded that all “the false prophets” and “grave diggers” of the language have proved to be wrong.
Other writers, Tatar and now, have added their voices to this defense of Tatar both on constitutional grounds and because the loss of any language is a loss of a perspective on the world which cannot be had any other way (http://www.peoples-rights.info/2011/04/pora-vernut-gospodderzhku-prepodavaniyu-tatarskogo-yazyka-v-tatarstane/).
But the Kazan mothers have received support from the Society of Russian Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan and the Regnum news agency which often takes an [ethnic] Russian position on developments in non-Russian countries and non-Russian republics now within the Russian Federation.
Regnum has published an appeal by the Society which reads in part “Citizens of Russia, did you know that in the schools of a subject of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tatarstan, half of the population of which consists of ethnic Russians, the Russian language is not taught as a native one?!” (www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1393502.html).
“Children during the entire period of instruction receive not 1200 hours of Russian but only 700 hours; that is, 500 fewer than their fellows in other regions of Russia.” The Society calls for “supporting the demands of parents in the defense of Russian in the schools of the republic,” a call that sets the stage for more controversy in Kazan and not just about language.
Staunton, April 12 – Six hundred mothers of middle school pupils in Kazan have called on the Russian education minister to reduce or even end obligatory instruction in Tatar to all students in their republic, the latest effort to reduce the ethnic content of Russian Federalism, has triggered a debate between Russians and Tatars over far more than language.
Many of those signing this appeal are themselves ethnic Tatars, a fact that has led some in that Middle Volga republic to talk about the existence of “a fifth column” working against the interests of the Tatar nation. But it has also become the occasion for Russians there and elsewhere to demand that instruction in Tatarstan be in Russian not in the national language.
The original appeal suggested that “the study of Tatar interferes with the mastery of Russian, that learning Tatar is very difficult and that in general it is useless for the future of the child,” all contentions that Tatar intellectuals, like writer Tufan Minnullin, have dismissed as absurd or worse (www.intertat.ru/rus/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1642:-q&catid=119:2010-11-30-19-29-29&Itemid=501).
Minullin, who is also a member of Tatarstan’s State Council, said on Kazan television that he might have understood such calls if they came from ethnic Russian parents but “when Tatars reject the language of their ancestors and write complaints to Moscow [he] would call this a denunciation of one’s own people.”
According to Minullin, these parents have “the baseless and strange” conviction that “instruction in Russian is the key to the success of a child and that it will allow him to become a big boss.” In fact, he continues, that is absurd, as even the most superficial examination of conditions in Kazan will show.
“If in contemporary society, the Russian language were the chief and main condition for the achievement of the top positions, then ever Russian would be a boss, and there would not be drunkards and criminals on the streets.” But of course, “the issue is not about language;” it is about “the tragedy of the [ethnic] Russian people.”
Everyone knows about this even if few talk about it, Minullin suggests. “In our Tatar schools there is not a single drug addict, and yet how many problems there are in Russian language schools?!” And “how many Tatars who do not know and have not learned their native language … are sitting in prisons or suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction?”
“Moscow does not need out native language just as America, Germany or the others do not need it. We need our language,” Minullin says, “and therefore we will defend it.” That means seeking the repeal of the “barbaric” federal law “which was adopted against all the peoples who live in the Russian Federation” and which limits non-Russian languages.
Up to now, Moscow hasn’t pushed the law forward because people in the Russian capital have recognized that it was a mistake, but now it appears some there want to push things further. Minullin says that he agrees with one historian who noted that “we trust the state too much, but the government has its own problems and tasks.”
Consequently, the Tatar writer continues, “only the people can defend its language.”
Another Tatar commentator, Murza Kurbangali Yunusov, in response to the appeal of the 600 Kazan parents explicitly has addressed the question of “who needs the Tatar language?” (http://www.intertat.ru/rus/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1673:2011-04-01-12-51-04&catid=119:2010-11-30-19-29-29&Itemid=501%20%20).
“What has led these mothers to speak out against the enlightenment and education of their children in the state language?” During the war, one could understand opposition to “the language of the fascists.” But Tatarstan is today “one of the most stable, tolerant and multi-national and multi-confessional republics of a federative state.”
Yunusov says he was particularly struck by this because he had just been in Kazakhstan where the national language is “being reborn.” Ever more people there “are beginning to understand and what is the main thing speak it,” even though in the recent past, the status of Kazakh was “much worse” than that of Tatar.
If the Kazan mothers and their Moscow backers have their way, he continues, “a time will come when Kazakhs will instruct Tatars in their native language just as a hundred years ago the Tatars instructed the Kazakhs.” Indeed, he points out, even the Russian Empire did not block non-Russians from studying native languages and foreign ones as well.
Tragically, it appears that many now think Tatar isn’t important given that neither the president of Russia can read a Tatar text written out for him or the senior officials of Tatarstan use the language in public, but that is all the more reason why “the letter of the 600 must become the litmus test for citizens of Tatarstan and the Russian Federation as a whole.”
“The Russian Federation,” Yunusov points out, “is a federative state, and it is required to introduce Tatar as the second state language. The president, the cabinet of miners, the parliament and local organs of power are required to ensure genuine bilingualism in the republic,” speaking in Tatar but ensuring simultaneous translation into Russian.
Those “citizens of Tatarstan who do not know Tatar should be given special assistance in order to master [it], such as the support that existed in the years of the formation of the republic [in the 1920s]. And they should be regularly reminded that all “the false prophets” and “grave diggers” of the language have proved to be wrong.
Other writers, Tatar and now, have added their voices to this defense of Tatar both on constitutional grounds and because the loss of any language is a loss of a perspective on the world which cannot be had any other way (http://www.peoples-rights.info/2011/04/pora-vernut-gospodderzhku-prepodavaniyu-tatarskogo-yazyka-v-tatarstane/).
But the Kazan mothers have received support from the Society of Russian Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan and the Regnum news agency which often takes an [ethnic] Russian position on developments in non-Russian countries and non-Russian republics now within the Russian Federation.
Regnum has published an appeal by the Society which reads in part “Citizens of Russia, did you know that in the schools of a subject of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tatarstan, half of the population of which consists of ethnic Russians, the Russian language is not taught as a native one?!” (www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1393502.html).
“Children during the entire period of instruction receive not 1200 hours of Russian but only 700 hours; that is, 500 fewer than their fellows in other regions of Russia.” The Society calls for “supporting the demands of parents in the defense of Russian in the schools of the republic,” a call that sets the stage for more controversy in Kazan and not just about language.
Window on Eurasia: Russian Federation on the Way toward Final Disintegration, Kashin Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 12 – The process of the disintegration of the Russian empire will finally conclude sometime in the next few years until what some may still want to call Great Russia with a capital in Moscow will be limited to the space between Smolensk and Vladimir, according to Oleg Kashin.
But this development, the Russian journalist says, will have less to do with the actions of nationalist groups, Russian or non-Russian, than with the rise of a generation for whom Moscow is increasingly irrelevant to their identities and concerns, much as the Soviet center became irrelevant to the union republics a quarter of a century ago.
In a March 24 speech in Moscow that has been posted online and sparked widespread discussion, Kashin argues that it is instructive to consider Russia today by recalling how people “looked at the Soviet Union in 1983,” a time when “it was difficult to guess that eight years later it would not exist” (www.openspace.ru/society/russia/details/21660/).
Kashin points out that “in the Putin decade, the unity of Russia cased to be an absolute value,” and “for many Russia ceased to be a value in general because these by the millions each year have been leaving” to take up residence abroad, “from which they will not return in the near future.”
As a result of the declining significant of Russia and Moscow as sources of identity and influence, “the centers of the federal districts, and also places like Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg in principle [today] occupy just the same place that Kyiv, Minsk and Tbilisi occupied in the Soviet Union,” that is, as “potential new capitals of other countries.”
Because that is the case, the Yekaterinburg journalist argues, the ongoing disintegration of the Russian Federation is occurring along “purely political lines” and in ways that recall the Belovezha accord by which the leaders of the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus put an end to the USSR.
“Somewhere in some park will assemble a few key governors, they will sign a second Beloveshchaya accord, and that will be that,” Kashin continues. “The destruction of the Soviet Union was legally accomplished when the delegations of [the three Slavic republics] left the Supreme Soviet of the USSR” and the latter no longer had a quorum.
The sense of Moscow’s and even the Russian Federation’s growing irrelevance to people in many parts of the Russian Federation is clear to anyone who travels about the country, the journalist says. “It is especially felt” in large regional centers where “Moscow is ceasing to be the place towards which they are oriented as an economic and mental source.”
“We,” Kashin suggests, “are an empire that has not yet fallen apart.” But “sooner or later this process of disintegration must be concluded.” It is “completely wild,” he says, “that in the framework of one country should live such varied, literally, states as St. Petersburg and Daghestan.” This place is “already not one country;” these are “different countries.”
Kashin stresses that this process has less to do with ethnic conflicts than with political ones. “In contemporary Russia,” he suggests, there are no strongly felt inter-ethnic contradictions. If tomorrow the police disappeared from the streets and a public murder day began, it is hardly the case that this would take the form of ethnic cleansings.”
Instead, he argues, these conflicts would be “not inter-ethnic but rather between representatives of different social classes.” And he continues, within any of the national state formations, what is happening now is this: “the new generation of local residents is being educated not in the spirit of separatism [as such] but in that of the denial of Russia.”
Young Tatars, for example, are now focusing on Mintimir Shaimiyev’s refusal to sign the federal treaty in 1992 as “a colossal step in the development of national sovereignty an d a step toward future independence.” When this generation takes power there, Kashin says, “Tatarstan just like the Caucasus will cease to be part of Russia.”
Even in nominally ethnic Russian regions, the journalist continues, ever more people feel alienated and apart from Moscow and from Russia. One official in Kirov oblast, for example, said he hoped for a new “big war in the Caucasus” because that would allow more parts of the federation to escape and possibly have “a good life.”
Some may think that Moscow television is unifying people “populating the space from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok.” That is nonsense, Kashin says, noting that in his native Kaliningrad, people look to Europe rather than to Moscow, view Russia as foreign. “Moscow is needed only by the Muscovites,” they now believe.
And as these developments take place, Kashin argues, identities will shift. After the collapse, “the Central Federal District lacking oil will feel itself somewhat worse than it does not, but everything will be fine in the Khanty-Mansiisk district.” And “sooner or later,” people who now call themselves Russians will describe themselves as “some kind of Khanty.”
“Of course, in this hypothetical collapse of Russia, the Far East will become very important for China, Japan and America and perhaps will life quite well. Because, of course, Russia now in essence doesn’t have it, and no one [in Moscow] needs it,” something people there strongly feel.
Twenty years ago, Moscow couldn’t prevent the disintegration of the country. “We saw,” Kashin says, “how the Kremlin reacted in 1991 – it introduced tanks in Vilnius and in Baku. Did that save the Soviet Union? Obviously, not.” And today’s vaunted “power vertical” has no better answer.
Indeed, the construction of that institution may have made the end closer, Kashin suggests. “When there was a strong regional power … the country was more stable. But in that same Vladivostok, when two years ago were revolts of car owners against increased fees, Moscow had to send in the Moscow OMON” because it couldn’t rely on local forces.
“This step means much more as far as the future hypothetical disintegration of Russia is concerned than any declarations of local politicians,” Kashin says.
Recent coverage of Gorbachev’s 80th birthday, Kashin says, has suggested to many in the Russian Federation that “the main beneficiary” of the end of the USSR was Estonia, “which got into the Euro zone first.” Clearly, some of “our oblasts,” such as Petersburg or Novgorod or Kaliningrad, are wondering whether they will be able to follow.
Although few are taking this possibility seriously just as few took Andrey Amalrik’s essay “Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?” when it was written, Kashin says, history is moving quickly, and the end of the Russian Federation is likely to take place sometime in the next five years or at least “during the life of our generation.”
In that event, Kashin concludes, Great Russia will be reduced to the space “from Smolensk to Vladimir.” Makhachkala, the capital of Daghestan, “will be on that side of the border. As will Kaliningrad [the already non-contiguous part of the Russian Federation], and as even more will be Vladivostok,” the major port on the Pacific.
Staunton, April 12 – The process of the disintegration of the Russian empire will finally conclude sometime in the next few years until what some may still want to call Great Russia with a capital in Moscow will be limited to the space between Smolensk and Vladimir, according to Oleg Kashin.
But this development, the Russian journalist says, will have less to do with the actions of nationalist groups, Russian or non-Russian, than with the rise of a generation for whom Moscow is increasingly irrelevant to their identities and concerns, much as the Soviet center became irrelevant to the union republics a quarter of a century ago.
In a March 24 speech in Moscow that has been posted online and sparked widespread discussion, Kashin argues that it is instructive to consider Russia today by recalling how people “looked at the Soviet Union in 1983,” a time when “it was difficult to guess that eight years later it would not exist” (www.openspace.ru/society/russia/details/21660/).
Kashin points out that “in the Putin decade, the unity of Russia cased to be an absolute value,” and “for many Russia ceased to be a value in general because these by the millions each year have been leaving” to take up residence abroad, “from which they will not return in the near future.”
As a result of the declining significant of Russia and Moscow as sources of identity and influence, “the centers of the federal districts, and also places like Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg in principle [today] occupy just the same place that Kyiv, Minsk and Tbilisi occupied in the Soviet Union,” that is, as “potential new capitals of other countries.”
Because that is the case, the Yekaterinburg journalist argues, the ongoing disintegration of the Russian Federation is occurring along “purely political lines” and in ways that recall the Belovezha accord by which the leaders of the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus put an end to the USSR.
“Somewhere in some park will assemble a few key governors, they will sign a second Beloveshchaya accord, and that will be that,” Kashin continues. “The destruction of the Soviet Union was legally accomplished when the delegations of [the three Slavic republics] left the Supreme Soviet of the USSR” and the latter no longer had a quorum.
The sense of Moscow’s and even the Russian Federation’s growing irrelevance to people in many parts of the Russian Federation is clear to anyone who travels about the country, the journalist says. “It is especially felt” in large regional centers where “Moscow is ceasing to be the place towards which they are oriented as an economic and mental source.”
“We,” Kashin suggests, “are an empire that has not yet fallen apart.” But “sooner or later this process of disintegration must be concluded.” It is “completely wild,” he says, “that in the framework of one country should live such varied, literally, states as St. Petersburg and Daghestan.” This place is “already not one country;” these are “different countries.”
Kashin stresses that this process has less to do with ethnic conflicts than with political ones. “In contemporary Russia,” he suggests, there are no strongly felt inter-ethnic contradictions. If tomorrow the police disappeared from the streets and a public murder day began, it is hardly the case that this would take the form of ethnic cleansings.”
Instead, he argues, these conflicts would be “not inter-ethnic but rather between representatives of different social classes.” And he continues, within any of the national state formations, what is happening now is this: “the new generation of local residents is being educated not in the spirit of separatism [as such] but in that of the denial of Russia.”
Young Tatars, for example, are now focusing on Mintimir Shaimiyev’s refusal to sign the federal treaty in 1992 as “a colossal step in the development of national sovereignty an d a step toward future independence.” When this generation takes power there, Kashin says, “Tatarstan just like the Caucasus will cease to be part of Russia.”
Even in nominally ethnic Russian regions, the journalist continues, ever more people feel alienated and apart from Moscow and from Russia. One official in Kirov oblast, for example, said he hoped for a new “big war in the Caucasus” because that would allow more parts of the federation to escape and possibly have “a good life.”
Some may think that Moscow television is unifying people “populating the space from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok.” That is nonsense, Kashin says, noting that in his native Kaliningrad, people look to Europe rather than to Moscow, view Russia as foreign. “Moscow is needed only by the Muscovites,” they now believe.
And as these developments take place, Kashin argues, identities will shift. After the collapse, “the Central Federal District lacking oil will feel itself somewhat worse than it does not, but everything will be fine in the Khanty-Mansiisk district.” And “sooner or later,” people who now call themselves Russians will describe themselves as “some kind of Khanty.”
“Of course, in this hypothetical collapse of Russia, the Far East will become very important for China, Japan and America and perhaps will life quite well. Because, of course, Russia now in essence doesn’t have it, and no one [in Moscow] needs it,” something people there strongly feel.
Twenty years ago, Moscow couldn’t prevent the disintegration of the country. “We saw,” Kashin says, “how the Kremlin reacted in 1991 – it introduced tanks in Vilnius and in Baku. Did that save the Soviet Union? Obviously, not.” And today’s vaunted “power vertical” has no better answer.
Indeed, the construction of that institution may have made the end closer, Kashin suggests. “When there was a strong regional power … the country was more stable. But in that same Vladivostok, when two years ago were revolts of car owners against increased fees, Moscow had to send in the Moscow OMON” because it couldn’t rely on local forces.
“This step means much more as far as the future hypothetical disintegration of Russia is concerned than any declarations of local politicians,” Kashin says.
Recent coverage of Gorbachev’s 80th birthday, Kashin says, has suggested to many in the Russian Federation that “the main beneficiary” of the end of the USSR was Estonia, “which got into the Euro zone first.” Clearly, some of “our oblasts,” such as Petersburg or Novgorod or Kaliningrad, are wondering whether they will be able to follow.
Although few are taking this possibility seriously just as few took Andrey Amalrik’s essay “Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?” when it was written, Kashin says, history is moving quickly, and the end of the Russian Federation is likely to take place sometime in the next five years or at least “during the life of our generation.”
In that event, Kashin concludes, Great Russia will be reduced to the space “from Smolensk to Vladimir.” Makhachkala, the capital of Daghestan, “will be on that side of the border. As will Kaliningrad [the already non-contiguous part of the Russian Federation], and as even more will be Vladivostok,” the major port on the Pacific.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
