Sakha Prepares to Rewrite Its Constitution for the 13th Time, but Others have Done So Even More Often

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 14 – In Soviet times, union republics sometimes amended their constitutions but rewrote them entirely only in lockstep after a new all-union basic law was adopted. But now, rewriting the constitutions of the non-Russian autonomous republics has become both more frequent and less coordinated.

            At the present time, the Sakha government is rewriting that enormous autonomous public’s constitution for the 13^th time since its original basic law was adopted; but as extreme as that may seem, other republics have done so even more frequently – the Komi Republic having done so 47 times and the Udmurt autonomy 31 times.

            Obviously, these changes haven’t come in lockstep either with each other or in every case with changes in the federal constitution; and thus they provide a window into the thinking of republic leaders as their situations both locally and within the Russian Federation have evolved (semnasem.org/articles/2025/10/14/konstituciya-yakutii).

            The Horizontal Russia portal points to this diversity but suggests that there are two dominant trends: the loss of republic authority to Moscow and the loss of popular rights to the Kremlin-appointed heads of these federal subjects. That is certainly the case, but the rewriting of such republic constitutions points to two other general conclusions as well.

            On the one hand, the republic leaderships are making more choices on their own about such issues, sometimes simply going along with Moscow but more frequently bringing their republic basic laws into conformity with that of the center’s at their own pace and discretion, an indication that in this area at least, they have more flexibility than is often acknowledged.

            And on the other, Moscow is prepared to tolerate this at least so far, something that means the republic constitutions often dismissed as meaningless may provide significant insights about the nature of politics in the republics and about how these republics might behave if they gain greater autonomy or even independence.