Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in and After the Soviet Union: The Mind Aflame. - book reviews

Since the explosion of national unrest beneath glasnost' and the collapse of communism, a number of works have attempted to analyse the nature of national particularism and ethnic conflict in the former Soviet Union. greatest in quantity have done so by taking a broadly historical-cultural approach which assumes that the nationalism and aspirations of national elites are far down imbedded in the population as a whole. It therefore approachs as a massive relief to rencounter a work which sets on the outside methodically and empirically to explore the nature of nationalism in the region and the causes of ethnic conflict as a particular chain of facts rather than a historical inevitability.

Tishkov render free of accesss his book with a demolition of the more most remote Russian theorists of the inevitability of nationalism and ethnic conflict, the so-called primordial account of nations, whereby each 'ethnos' has its hold distinct characteristics either genetically programmed or evolv in Darwinian fashion above centuries of historical development. for fear that we should think such theories are not worthy of our attention, Tishkov illustrates in what way they have been given official blessing and lie at the core of regulation policy in many of the successor states. While he does not advance so far as accusing more respectable Western scholars of reaching the same conclusions as the primordialists, he is scarcely les scathing in his attacks upon them, criticising our methodology as a great deal of as our preconceptions and prejudices and concluding that Russia is 'unlucky with its "outside" expertise' (p 295) It is inaccurate to describe the break-up of the Soviet Union and the growing assertiveness of its nationalities as the 'triumph of nations', a la Carrere d'Encausse. It is rather a small layer of political and intellectual elites who locate themselves up as the representatives of the nation and formulate national demands, with little or no crushing from or consultation with the mass of the tribe in order to fulfil their be in possession of agendas. The highest item upon these agendas, in Tishkov's account, is the use of a personal jet This may be stretching the point, as is the observation attributed to a leading Chechen official that 'some major decisions may be taken because of an extra drink the night before or the lack of rassol [the Russian Alka Seltzer] in the morning' (p 294) on the other hand one thing this book does is to remind us in no uncertain metes that the major actors in politics of any sort are individuals with their be in possession of private agendas and motivations. plenteous of the book is devot to illustrating in what way the course of events has been influenced through personalities and accidents of history rather than the unstoppable forces of national entities.

Tishkov is well placed to provide similar analysis. Although an academic by the agency of background, he served as Minister of Nationalities in El'tsin's management for a period from 1992 and was a participant in discussions at the highest horizontal in the Kremlin as well as in negotiations above Tatarstan and Chechnya. From this viewpoint it might be tempting to exaggerate the expanse to which the course of history and the subsequent time of whole nations has been decided in the committee space but the author's experience provides insights which would not be available in documented form and which sum up us a great deal about the motivations of the individuals involved - for instance, the revelation that at the height of negotiations between Russia and Tatarstan the head of the Tatar delegation, Vice President of the republic Vasilii Likhachev, asked Tishkov to enquire of Gennadii Burbulis about the possibility of getting a Russian ambassadorial column in Europe (p. 45). Or that El'tsin considered without loud a cynical divide-and-rule strategy in the North Caucasus by means of applying special privileges to Daghestan (p 63) of the like kind gems are littered throughout the true copy but this is not to say that Tishkov's evidence is genuinely anecdotal. In the second part of the work titled 'Case Studies', he makes extensive use of the numerous detailed contemplates carried out at the Russian Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology beneath his direction. At every point of the body the argument is backed up by the agency of firm evidence of one sort or another, be it a personal experience, a detailed sociological observe or, in the case of his account of the Osh conflict between Kirghiz and Uzbeks in Kirghizia, his hold analysis of the trial records of 48 participants in the violence.

In the latter case, the focus is upon the perpetrators as individuals, rather than an attempt to explain the phenomenon of inter-ethnic violence upon a mass scale. This is where Tishkov's account of nationalism is deficient. In identifying elites as the two the inventors and propagators of nationalism, he perhaps goe too far in dismissing the 'nation' as a meaningless category in academic discourse; however false its foundations, however a great deal of it is a tool of political elites, nationalism can be a powerful mobilising force and the issue of the connection between elite scheming and mass mobilisations is inadequately dealt with. In fact it is not discussed upon a general theoretical level until p 274 where it is overlayed in a single paragraph of unconvincing argument. Thus the account of the Chechen conflict is the weakest part of the book; while Tishkov be subsequent tos in illustrating how the conflict could have been avoided, he provides no explanation for the willingness and ability of large portions of the Chechen population to bear enormous self-sacrifice and overcome cyclopean military odds in the name of the Chechen nation. on the other hand this omission does not invalidate Tishkov's theory - it leaves a aperture but one which surely could be filled.