Suchergebnisse

In a famous article during the Soviet period, Walker Connor once asked, rhetorically:The Ukrainians, as a method of asserting their non-Russian identity, wage their campaign for national survival largely in terms of their right to employ the Ukrainian, rather than the Russian, tongue in all oral and written matters. But would not the Ukrainian nation (that is, a popular consciousness of being Ukrainian) be likely to persist even if the language were totally replaced by Russian, just as the Irish nation has persisted after the virtual disappearance of Gaelic, despite pre-1920 slogans that described Gaelic and Irish identity as inseparable? Is the language the essential element of the Ukrainian nation, or is it merely a minor element which … has been elevated to the symbol of the nation in its struggle for continued viability? [Emphasis in the original]

This essay in political historiography aims to show how Professor Richard Pipes's monumental work on Soviet nationalities has been received by Soviet publications. It is more limited in scope than the main title connotes, since it does not deal with Soviet reactions to the totality of Pipes's scholarly work, only to an early but important part of his opus; nor is it concerned with Soviet attacks on Pipes's government service. The printed media surveyed include mostly articles in professional journals and books. Working through the Current Digest of the Soviet Press, this writer has tried to locate Soviet newspaper articles dealing with Pipes's work on nationalities, but has had no success. This is less of a shortcoming than it first appears, because even articles in Soviet scholarly journals, even books undergirded with an impressive scholarly apparatus, insofar as they deal with such a sensitive topic as the partial failure to solve the nationality problem, cannot but follow the party's policies of the moment. Apolitical historiography in the Soviet Union simply does not exist.

Policy toward non-Russian Soviet nationalities; based on conference paper. Includes some comparison of the 1961 Communist Party program with the 1986 program approved by the 27th CPSU congress.