|
Soviet Union [USSR] Other Nationalities of the Caucasus
In addition to the three major nationalities in the Caucasus
region, about two dozen other nationalities and numerous subgroups
resided there. Most of these nationalities lived in the Dagestan
Autonomous Republic located northeast of the Caucasus Mountains in
the Russian Republic. In 1989 the more than 2 million people of the
Dagestan Autonomous Republic were among the most diverse
populations, ethnically and linguistically, in the world. The
nationalities ranged in size from almost half a million Avars to
barely 12,000 Aguls and even smaller groups. The great majority of
the Dagestan people were Sunni Muslims; but small numbers of Shia
Muslims, Christians, and Jews were also present.
Central Asian Nationalities
Soviet Central Asia, a vast area of over 3.9 million square
kilometers, is made up of the Kazakh, Kirgiz, Turkmen, Uzbek, and
Tadzhik republics. In 1989 some 49 million people, or over 17
percent of the population of the Soviet Union, lived there. About
37 million people, or over 75 percent of the population of Soviet
Central Asia, belonged to nationalities that were traditionally
Islamic. In the 1980s, they, like Muslims in other parts of the
Soviet Union, have been very resistant to the process of
Russification. In 1989 some 98 percent of Soviet Central Asian
Muslims spoke primarily their own languages, and their fluency in
Russian was low in comparison with other Soviet nationalities.
The five nationalities of Soviet Central Asia shared a number
of common characteristics. They had similar ethnic origins,
experienced similar historical development, and, most important,
were all part of an Islamic society. But regional and cultural
differences were also present, especially between the Tadzhiks, who
speak an Iranian language, and the rest, who speak Turkic languages
with various degrees of commonality. The life-styles of the five
peoples also differed, from the Tadzhiks, who have an ancient urban
tradition, to the Kazakhs, some of whom were still nomadic as late
as the 1920s.
Data as of May 1989
|
