Paul Goble
Staunton, Dec. 12 – Thirty years after the end of the Soviet Union, Kazan’s Business-Gazeta portal has performed a useful service in tracing the careers of those who led Tatarstan three decades ago. Some have died, others are semi-retired, but many remain professionally and politically active (business-gazeta.ru/article/532707).
Three things are striking about Tatarstan’s elite in 1991. First, most of its members were part of the Soviet establishment but changed sides rather than being insurgents. The insurgents pushed them along but did not assume the most senior roles until much later or even not at all, this survey shows.
Second, almost to a man – and there were few women among them – Tatarstan’s leaders, despite this Soviet background, were committed to remaining in the republic rather than seeking to make a career in Moscow. Those with Moscow-centric aspirations among the pre-1991 elite were the ones cast aside.
And third, since leaving office as most of them have, this generation has played the role of elder statesmen, appearing frequently in public and giving advice, blocking radicalization but remaining committed to the federalist arrangements they worked so hard to put in place and that the Kremlin in recent years has sought to destroy.
One hopes that what the Kazan journal has done will be repeated by other media outlets in other republics, both union and autonomous, because the role of Soviet holdovers as opposed to that of new comers after 1991 deserves more attention than it has been given up to now, both for historical reasons and as a guide to the way in which politics have evolved there.
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