(Estimated Pub Date) the Challenge of Ethnic Conflict to National and International Order in the 1990S: Geographic Perspectives- October 1995

Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268
Second, Korenizatsiya (indigenization) policies that
targeted members of the titular nation for preferential
treatment in their home republic clearly fostered a
more ethnically exclusionary outlook regarding the
appropriate status of the titular nation vis a vis all
other nations in the republic. Most nationalists have
come to view all their former republic as homeland,
even while many nationalists lay claim to a more
extensive homeland.
On the one hand, the federal structure reduced the eth-
noterritorial conflict that might otherwise have
occurred—it provided the political geographic struc-
ture for a relatively peaceful dissolution of the USSR.
On the other hand, several of those national communi-
ties with units that were only autonomous have
attempted to secede from the successor states in which
their homelands are located.'This has resulted in con-
flict escalation at the intrarepublic scale, which has
been particularly severe in the Caucasus.
Territorial nationalism is strongest in the regions
where nations are most fully formed. Again, Estonia
and Latvia—with their exclusionary citizenship laws,
constitutions, and so forth —may be seen as most
nationalistic. The state-building project in these two
republics is synonymous with the exclusion of ethnic
others, particularly Russians, even though their poli-
cies have excluded the population arriving since
World War H rather than all nontitular people.
Ethnic conflict is more likely where two or more
nations feel a strong sense of homeland toward the
same place, where both groups have become politi-
cized, and where the power relationship between the
two groups has shifted to favor one over the other.
This is certainly true in the case of conflicts over
Nagomo-Karabakh in Azerbaijan and Abkhazia and
South Ossetia in Georgia.
R
A final note under this factor: it has become increas-
ingly apparent over the past few years that a Russian
sense of national consciousness and sense of home-
land are not well developed. Russians as the dominant
group in the USSR experienced an overlapping sense
of identity with the Soviet People idea, and with the
entire USSR as the Russian homeland/Socialist father-
land. Also, because of the great geographic dispersal
r
of the Russian population, a more localized, subna-
tional identity is also apparent. Both of these detract
from the strength of a Russian national identity and a
sense of homeland. As a result, there has been a lively
debate within the Russian community over the ques-
tion: “What is Russia?”.
Ethnodemographic Trends
Most nationalists view the ideal polity as an ethnically
pure nation-state with all members of the nation in and
no outsiders present and with political borders drawn
on the basis of the (mythical) ancestral homeland, that
is, the state ideally is viewed as the political geo-
graphic embodiment of the nation. However, none of
the successor states encompasses one and only one
nation (see tables l and 2):
~ Armenia is ethnically homogeneous but has the
highest percentage of members living outside a suc-
cessor state.
~ Almost all Estonians, Latvians, and Georgians are
included in their respective states, but members of
nontitular groups are also present.
Demographic dilution of the indigenous nation in its
homeland, usually occurring as the result of the in-
migration of Russians, tended to exacerbate intereth-
nic relations and was a catalyst for rising nationalism.
Latvians and Estonians experienced the greatest
demographic dilution in their homelands between
1960 and 1990, and the feared demographic Russifica-
tion became the cornerstone of their nationalistic pro-
grams (Parming, 1980). Abkhazians similarly cited
Georgian in-migration and Abkhazian dilution as a
critical factor in the need for Abkhazia to be indepen-
dent, and the Armenian declaration of independence
in Nagomo-Karabakh was preceded by a decade of
Azeri in-migration.
By way of contrast, Kyrgyzstan has about the same
level of demographic dilution as Latvia, but this has
not been a major issue in Kyrgyzstan. In the Central
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Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268