New Europe College Regional Program Yearbook 2001-2002

N.E.C. Yearbook 2001-2002
institutionalizing territorial nationhood and ethnic nationality as fundamental
social categories. In doing so, it inadvertently created a political field
supremely conducive to nationalism. 50
The Soviet Union did not suppress nationalism, but re-shaped it. There
were two types of republic created – unional and autonomous – based on
local ethnic communities, newly incorporated in the Soviet empire.
Ethnicity and nationality of the republics were defined according to Stalin’s
definition of nation: “a historically evolved, stable community of language,
territory, economic life and psychological make up manifested in a
community of culture” 51 . This is obviously an ethno-nationalist position.
Thus, the Soviet Union was the only state in the world where the ethnic
principle was used as a basis for its administrative structure. 52 The Soviet
republics were defined as quasi-nation states, complete with their own
territories, names, constitutions, legislatures, administrative staff, cultural
and scientific institutions, etc. At the time of its dissolution, the Soviet
Union included 53 nation-state formations, each one based on selfdetermination
of an ethnic group.
Interpretation of the former Soviet empire distinguishes between the
degree of institutionalization of ethnic identities and their psychological
depth: “it is important to distinguish between the degree of
institutionalization of ethnic and national categories and the psychological
depth, substantiality and practical potency of such categorical
identities”. 53 The populations incorporated in the Soviet empire were
required to have a national consciousness at local level and express their
patriotism at the unional level. At the same time, however, Soviet
patriotism was supposed to replace national local identities – patriotism
being a moral quality, the patriot being a person who acts voluntarily
and rationally in the interest of his country. 54 This double national strategy
has similarities with the agrarian reform of the Bolsheviks: to gain the
support of the enormous mass of peasants incorporated in the empire,
land was allotted to the peasants for a short period of time, only for it to
be were collectivized 10-12 years later – a strategy more successful than
the “patriotization” of ethno-nationalism. Although ethno-nationalism was
something created, it was nonetheless stronger than Soviet patriotism.
This is why Walker Connor considers the case of the Soviet Union to be
the most instructive example for the force of ethno-nationalism “wherein
a most comprehensive, intensive and multigenerational program to
32