Dividing Divided States. Gregory F. Treverton

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       The Breakup of the Soviet Union and the Russian Diaspora

      Issue and Outcome

      When the Soviet Union (hereafter referred to as “former Soviet Union,” or FSU) was disbanded in 1991,¹⁷ fifteen new republics were formed and, consequently, an estimated 43.4 million people living outside of their “ethnic homelands” instantly became foreigners in their countries of residence.¹⁸ Russians constituted the majority of this group, with 25.3 million of them living outside the Russian Federation. In the years that followed the disbanding of the FSU, many in this new Russian diaspora immigrated back to Russia: 3.3 million Russians who had previously lived in a different FSU state moved to Russia between 1989 and 2002.¹⁹

      In general, Russians living in the other NIS were not the targets of violence, and thus were not forced to leave. Technically, then, they cannot be considered “forced migrants” or “refugees.” Nevertheless, because Russians had acquired dominant positions in the non-Russian states under the Soviet regime, at independence they were in some cases seen as “occupiers” and representatives of the “former colonial power,” and their positions were sometimes threatened by the new government policies implemented by the other NIS. Moreover, rising nationalism in some of the NIS made ethnic Russians feel less at home, particularly in the non-Slavic states.²⁰

      In essence, the Russian migrants were “ethno-migrants,” who left their homes in the non-Russian states for various reasons, including anxiety about their future and economic well-being outside Russia. The context of this anxiety was rising violence, even if not directed at them, or of the new states trying to establish a national identity separate from that of the FSU or Russia.²¹ The pull of economics also attracted some of the migration: Russia’s economy was twice the size of those of all the FSU states combined and was more prosperous than any of them except that of Estonia. Probably for economic reasons, fewer Russians emigrated from the more nationalist (but richer) Baltic states than from other NIS that were formally more welcoming but poorer.

      While the Russian federal government set up the Federal Migration Service (FMS), and a number of local governments followed suit with their respective regional organizations, very little state support was accorded to the settlers beyond a small emergency payment. As a result, many of the returnees were confronted with difficulties in finding housing and employment commensurate with their professional qualifications. This resulted in widespread dissatisfaction among them and a sense of instability, as well as a loss of confidence in the state institutions that were supposed to provide them with resettlement support.

      The international community, through the UNHCR, IOM, and several NGOs, played a key role in the resettlement process by assisting Russia along two lines. First, the UNHCR and the IOM, in particular, helped the Russian government set up the institutional and legislative framework for dealing with migration. Second, they provided support to the migrants in integrating themselves in Russia, in the forms of both direct assistance and individual capacity building.²²

      Course of the Dispute

      Although Russian settlements in non-Russian states on the periphery date back to the sixteenth century, the migration accelerated under more systematic sponsorship of the Soviet region. In a number of these states, the Russian population increased rapidly; by 1989, Russians on average made up 18 percent of the population in non-Russian states and 27 percent in their urban areas. Moreover, a number of ethnically non-Russian Soviets, known as “Russophones,” identified themselves with Russia in terms of culture and language.²³ The Russian and Russophone population was not evenly distributed among the various states, ranging from 11 million in Ukraine to 52,000 in Armenia. Kazakhstan had the second largest population of Russians, with 6 million, while Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Latvia also had large Russian populations, between 900,000 and 1.6 million. In contrast, the rest of the republics had Russian populations of half a million or less.

      Russians and Russophones also represented a large proportion of the population in some cases—30 percent in Estonia, 34 percent in Latvia, 22 percent in Ukraine, and 38 percent in Kazakhstan.²⁴ As a result, over four decades of Soviet rule, the proportion of the population from the titular nationality dropped from 90 to 60 percent in Estonia, and from 75 to 52 percent in Latvia. Russification was less of an issue in the other Baltic state, Lithuania, because the Russian population represented only 9 percent of the total population.²⁵

      In general, the Russian populations residing in the non-Russian periphery were highly concentrated in urban areas, with the exception of Kazakhstan and to a lesser extent Kyrgyzstan.²⁶ On the whole, they were also relatively more educated than the titular nationalities, occupied higher-level posts, and had superior socioeconomic status. In some cases, this caused strong anti-Russian sentiment among the titular groups.²⁷ Partly as a result of this and partly because of strong cultural differences between some of the titular nationalities and ethnic Russians, there was little mixing between the two groups during the Soviet years.

      The ethnic Russians formed “isolated ethnic enclaves,” except in the Slavic states, where Russians had closer cultural ties with the local populace.²⁸ Given that Russian was the official language within the Soviet Union, very few Russians learned the local language even if they had lived outside Russia for generations, a practice that further reinforced their isolation from the local populations.²⁹

      The breakup of the Soviet Union launched a gradual emigration of ethnic Russians and Russophones to the Russian Federation. Net immigration to Russia from the non-Russian states increased from 105,000 in 1991 to a peak of 915,000 in 1994, then fell back to 124,000 in 2001. The extent of the emigration from the various NIS was not uniform. Indeed, the majority of Russians and Russophones residing in the Transcaucasus states and Tajikistan chose to leave, while far fewer of them emigrated from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan (25 percent) and Kazakhstan (22 percent). On the lower end of the spectrum, 10 to 13 percent of the Russians and Russophones residing in the Baltic states and Moldova chose to emigrate, while very few of them left Ukraine and Belarus.³⁰

      Despite some anti-Russian sentiment, ethnic Russians were not persecuted, nor were they targeted for major ethnic violence. Rather, their decision to emigrate was driven by some combination of more subtle factors. For one, at independence, in order to build a separate identity from the Soviet Union, the other post-Soviet states changed the official language from Russian to the local one and elevated their ethnicity, for instance by ensuring positions in the government administration and greater political representation for local ethnicities.

      Some states, notably Estonia and Latvia, took even more drastic steps by restricting citizenship to just titular nationalities. This not only made the Russian/Russophone population uncomfortable but also directly threatened their acquired social and economic status, prompting many of them to leave. So too the level of cultural connections between the Russian/Russophone diaspora and the titular nationalities played a role in determining the level of emigration: the extent of emigration from the other Slavic states was minimal, while in Turkmenistan, growing nationalism as well as the rise of Islam led to increased ethnic Russian emigration.³¹

      In other states, emigration was driven by factors unrelated to ethnicity. In Georgia and Tajikistan, for example, instability and violence following independence, while not targeted at the Russian diaspora, led many of its members to leave. Finally, the pull of the Russian economy, twice as large as all the FSU economies combined, appeared to offer better employment opportunities and earning potential.³²

      At the breakup of the Soviet Union, policies toward the Russian diaspora in the post-Soviet states ranged from hostile to accommodating. Some states devised exclusionary policies toward the Russians, while others shaped policies to dissuade them from emigrating, though none was prepared СКАЧАТЬ