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Soviet Union [USSR] Other Nationalities
In the late 1980s, other nationalities, including the
Belorussians, Moldavians, Georgians, and Jews, demanded that
measures be taken to preserve their cultures and languages.
Belorussians centered their demands primarily on recognition of the
Belorussian language as the official language of the republic.
Moldavians asked the government to allow them to use the Latin
alphabet, as do other Romanian speakers, while Georgians appealed
for greater religious concessions. Soviet officials, meanwhile, had
changed their policy toward Jews and were allowing greater numbers
to emigrate. The Soviet press was also giving increased and
positive coverage to Jewish cultural activity; and Soviet
authorities had promised to permit the teaching of Hebrew and to
allow the opening of a kosher restaurant in Moscow, a Jewish
museum, and a Jewish library.
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English-language sources on nationalities in the Soviet Union
are abundant. The Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities,
edited by Zev Katz, provides a very good overview of the fifteen
nationalities that have their own union republics, as well as the
Tatars and the Jews. Stephen Rapawy's "Census Data on Nationality
Composition and Language Characteristics of the Soviet Population:
1959, 1970, and 1979" and W. Ward Kingkade's "USSR: Estimates and
Projections of the Population by Major Nationality, 1979 to 2050"
give comprehensive statistical analyses of the nationalities listed
in the Soviet census of 1979. The Soviet government's
Natsionalnyi sostav naseleniia, Chast'II gives data
on the 1989 census. Excellent essays on various aspects of the
nationality question and on particular nationalities in the Soviet
Union can be found in The Last Empire, edited by Robert
Conquest; in Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices,
edited by Jeremy R. Azrael; and in Soviet Nationality
Problems, edited by Edward Allworth. The availability of
English-language secondary sources on particular nationalities
varies. The history, religion, culture, and demography of Soviet
Muslims are covered in great detail in such recent works as Shirin
Akiner's Islamic Peoples of the Soviet Union and Alexandre
Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush's Muslims of the Soviet
Empire. Equally comprehensive is the treatment of Estonians in
Toivo U. Raun's Estonia and the Estonians; of Kazakhs in
Martha Brill Olcott's The Kazakhs; and of Tatars in AzadeAyse Rorlich's The Volga Tatars and in Tatars of the
Crimea, edited by Edward Allworth. Nora Levin's two-volume
The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917, Benjamin Pinkus's
The Jews of the Soviet Union, and Mordechai Altshuler's
Soviet Jewry since the Second World War are some of the
available sources on Soviet Jewry. Orest Subtelny's Ukraine: A
History is an excellent general treatment of the relationship
between Ukrainians and Russians, while Jaroslaw Bilocerkowycz's
Soviet Ukrainian Dissent is particularly valuable for the
period since the 1960s. Alexander R. Alexiev's Dissent and
Nationalism in the Soviet Baltic sets the scene for the stormy
events that took place in the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian
republics in the late 1980s. Few or no monographs are available in
English on such major ethnic groups as Belorussians, Moldavians,
Poles, and Germans or on the large number of smaller nationalities.
Analyses of current developments regarding these and other Soviet
nationalities are provided, however, by Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty's weekly publication Report on the USSR.
The status of various religions in the Soviet Union and their
relationship with the Soviet regime are treated extensively in such
works as Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twentieth
Century, Cross and Commissar, and Religion and
Nationalism in Soviet and East European Politics, all three
edited by Pedro Ramet, as well as in Christianity and Government
in Russia and the Soviet Union by Sergei Pushkarev, Vladimir
Rusak, and Gleb Yakunin. John Anderson's Religion and the Soviet
State deals primarily with religious repression in the 1980s
and with Soviet authorities' varying treatment of the different
religions. An analysis of the basis of Soviet atheism and a
historical analysis of Soviet religious policy is provided in
Dmitry V. Pospielovsky's A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism
and Soviet Antireligious Policies and Soviet Antireligious
Campaigns and Persecutions. A detailed, extensive, and most
readable account of Russian Orthodoxy can be found in Jane Ellis's
The Russian Orthodox Church, while Bohdan R. Bociurkiw
presents a clear and concise history of the Ukrainian Catholic
Church and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in his
Ukrainian Churches under Soviet Rule. (For further
information and complete citations,
see Soviet Union USSR -
Bibliography.)
Data as of May 1989
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