Multinational States in the Former Soviet Union

A multinational state is a state that contains more than one nation. In some states, nations all contribute cultural features to the formation of a single nationality, which was defined in Chapter 7 as a group of people who share legal attachment to a particular country. Cultural groups can coexist peacefully, remaining culturally distinct while recognizing and respecting the distinctive traditions of other groups. For example, the United States has numerous cultural groups who consider themselves as belonging to a single U.S. nationality. In other states, one cultural group may try to dominate others, sometimes by force.

The new states in the former Soviet Union are a mixed collection of nation-states and multinational states. The diversity of states offers geographers a good opportunity to understand the assets and challenges of differences in the ethnic composition of states.

Russia: The Largest Multinational State

With the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia is now the world’s largest multinational state. Russia comprises 81 percent ethnic Russians, but the 2010 census counted 185 ethnic groups among the remaining 19 percent. Russia classifies ethnicities primarily by language family.

Non-Russian ethnic groups are clustered in three principal locations. Three of the country's four largest non-Russian ethnic groups—the Tatar, Bashkir, and Chuvash—are located primarily in the center of Russia, between the Volga River and Ural Mountains. These groups speak Turkic languages. Ethnic groups in this area that speak Uralic languages include the Komi, Mari, Mordvin, and Udmurt. Most of these groups were conquered by the Russians in the sixteenth century, under the leadership of Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible).

Ethnicities in Russia

Russians are clustered in western Russia, and the percentage declines to the south and east. The largest numbers of non-Russians are found between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains and near the southern borders.

A second important cluster of non-Russian ethnic groups is in the far southwest, along the border with the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia. This area contains a complex mix of ethnic groups classified as Caucasian (Chechen, Avar, Kabardian, Lezgian, and Ingush), Turkic (Azerbaijani, Dargin, Kumyk, and Karachay), and Indo-European (Armenian and Ossetian). A third cluster of non-Russian ethnicities, along the southern border with Kazakhstan and Mongolia, include the Turkic-speaking Kazakh and Tuvan and Mongolic-speaking Buryat.

Russia’s constitution grants autonomy over local government affairs to around two dozen of the most numerous ethnicities. Local government units with a large ethnic population are allowed to designate the ethnic language as an official language in addition to Russian. Nonetheless, independence movements are flourishing among several of Russia’s ethnicities.

Pause & Reflect 8.2.4

How ethnically diverse do the former Soviet Republics appear, compared with states elsewhere in the world? Refer to.

Ukraine

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, prospects for a stable nation-state were favorable in independent Ukraine because it possessed economic assets such as coal deposits, a steel industry, and proximity to the wealthy countries of Western Europe. However, Ukraine’s minority Russian population started an uprising in the eastern region of the country, where they were clustered. Claiming that the Russian ethnic minority in Ukraine was endangered, Russia invaded eastern Ukraine and seized Crimea.

Ethnicities in Ukraine

The Russian ethnic minority is clustered in the east of the country, near the border with Russia.

Crimea, a 27,000-square-kilometer (10,000-square-mile) peninsula, has long been an area of conflict. Crimea’s population is approximately 60 percent Russian, 24 percent Ukrainian, 10 percent Tatar, and 6 percent other ethnicities.

Russia took control of Crimea in 1783, and in 1921 it became an autonomous republic within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, which in turn was a republic within the Soviet Union. In 1954, the Soviet government transferred responsibility for Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was then also part of the Soviet Union.

When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Crimea became an autonomous republic in the newly independent Ukraine. In 2014, Russia invaded Crimea and annexed it, claiming that the majority of the Crimean people, who are ethnic Russians, supported the action (Figure 8-25). Nearly every other country in the world continues to recognize Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea. However, the international community has not found a way to remove the Russians and restore Crimea to Ukraine.

Crimea

A Russian soldier stands next to a tank, Simferopol, Ukraine (Russian-occupied Crimea).

Georgia

The population of Georgia is more diverse than that of its Caucasus neighbors Armenia and Azerbaijan. Ethnic Georgians comprise 71 percent of the population. The country also includes about 8 percent Armenian, 6 percent each Azeri and Russian, 3 percent Ossetian, and 2 percent each Abkhazian, Greek, and other ethnicities.

Georgia’s cultural diversity has been a source of unrest, especially among the Ossetians and Abkhazians. During the 1990s, the Abkhazians fought for control of the northwestern portion of Georgia and declared Abkhazia to be an independent state. In 2008, the Ossetians fought a war with the Georgians that resulted in the Ossetians declaring the South Ossetia portion of Georgia to be independent. Russia has recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent countries and has sent troops there. Only a handful of other countries recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, although the two operate as if they were independent of Georgia.

Georgia

The fence prevents people from moving between Sochi, Russia (foreground) and Abkhazia, Georgia (background).

Kazakhstan & Kyrgyzstan

The five states in Central Asia carved out of the former Soviet Union display varying degrees of conformance to the principles of a nation-state. Together the five provide an important reminder that multinational states can be more peaceful than nation-states.

Kazakhstan is a relatively peaceful multinational state divided between Kazakhs, who comprise 67 percent of the population, and Russians, at 18 percent. Kazakhs are Muslims who speak a Turkic language.

Kyrgyzstan is a multinational state that has suffered from ethnic conflict. The population comprises 69 percent Kyrgyz, 15 percent Uzbek, and 9 percent Russian. The Kyrgyz and Uzbek peoples are both Muslims who speak Altaic languages. Nonetheless, conflict between the two ethnicities led to the overthrow of successive presidents in the first decade of the twenty-first century as well as violence in 2010 that included charges of ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks by Kyrgyz.