Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 13 – If Moscow
extends the Russian-Tatarstan power-sharing treaty beyond its expiration date
this summer, Ruslan Gorevoy says, not only will almost all the non-Russian
republics demand the same but so too will many predominantly ethnic Russian
ones like Kaliningrad and Primorsky kray.
And the result will “a domino effect”
that will rival or even exceed the parade of sovereignties that so threatened
the Russian Federation 25 years ago and that could, the Moscow commentator say,
lead to the disintegration of the country in the near future (versia.ru/tatarstan-mozhet-sprovocirovat-rossijskie-regiony-na-novyj-parad-suverenitetov).
Gorevoy’s article is significant for
three reasons. First, it is an indication of just how much politicking is going
on behind the scenes between Moscow and Kazan over the extension of the 2007
accord that was adopted to replace one developed in the immediate aftermath of
the demise of the USSR.
Second, it suggests just how nervous
some in Moscow are that other non-Russian republics are watching what happens
with this accord and may be preparing to demand similar arrangements if
Tatarstan wins through to promote their agendas such as declaring their titular
nationality the “state-forming” people of the republic.
And third, his article represents a
rare but important acknowledgement by someone in Moscow that the threat of
separatism and disintegration is not confined to non-Russian republics but
emanates as well from predominantly Russian ones and that the latter are now
likely to follow the former in pursuing greater autonomy or even independence
when they can.
Gorevoy writes that everyone except
people in the Kremlin understands that if you arrange dominos in a row and
knock over the first one, the others will fall. And that is just what will
happen, he suggests, is Moscow agrees to extend the power-sharing arrangement
with Tatarstan.
At present, Tatarstan is the only
republic to have such an agreement in force. Even Chechnya doesn’t have one.
But that is only “for the moment,” Gorevoy says. If the Moscow-Kazan accord is extended, then
not only non-Russian republics but many predominantly Russian oblasts and krays
will want the same thing.
And it is all too clear just why
Tatarstan wants this accord, Gorevy continues. When Vladimir Putin gave former
Tatarstan President Mintimir Shaymiyev a map of 17th century
Tataria, the Kremlin leader did so to make the point that Tatarstan has been an
integral part of Russia for a long time.
Shaymiyev may have taken Putin’s
message as intended. But back in Tatarstan, many read it “in their own
way. Rafael Khakimov, vice president of
the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, for instance, reacted to the gift by saying
that “Tatarstan today is small but at one time it was so big!”
Moreover, the former political
advisor to Shaymiyev added, “Tataris is the real basis on which the Russian
Empire arose.” And the presentation of this map shows that some in Moscow are
beginning “finally” to recognize this reality and even to think about a future
in which Tatarstan will be much more important than now.
That attitude is not new, Gorevoy
says. “In August 1990, the deputies of
the Supreme Soviet of the autonomous republic adopted a declaration about state
sovereignty” without any agreement with Moscow and in which there was no
mention of Tatarstan being a constituent part of the RSFSR or USSR.
Then in December 1991, he continues,
Kazan “adopted a declaration about the inclusion of Tatarstan in the CIS as one
of its creators,” an action that was followed by a referendum in which more
than 60 percent of the republic’s population voted for Tatarsstan to become a
self-standing subject of international law.
In March 1992, Kazan refused to sign
the federative agreement of the Russian Federaiton, and in May 1992, it proclaimed
Tatarstan a sovereign state. Two years later, it pulled back slightly and in
1994 signed an agreement with Russia as “an associated state with confederal
status.”
Only in April 2002 did Tatarstan’s
State Council adopt a new version of the republic’s constitution to bring it
into line with the Russian Federation Constitution. But “nevertheless,”
Gorvevoy points out, “in 2007, Moscow and Kazan extended the agreement about
the delimitation of authority” between the two.
Now, ten years later, Tatarstan’s “local
elites are insisting that the treaty be extended again with the preservation of
the post of [republic] president and a confederal status” for the republic with
the Russian Federation. But just as in
the 1990s, other republic and regional elites are watching what Moscow will do.
In Boris Yeltsin’s time, after the
signing of the Tatarstan treaty, more than 40 other such accords were signed
with 46 Russian subjects in the ensuing four years. This “bacchanalia,” Gorevoy
says, “ended when in July 1998, Vladimir Putin replaced Shakhray as deputy head
of the presidential administration.”
Since then, not a single new one has
been signed and except for Tatarstan all of these accords have either been
denounced or allowed to lapse. Russian
officials in 2007 explained their willingness to extend the accord with Kazan
by saying they didn’t want to make any dramatic moves. But the real reason was
to avoid problems before a presidential election.
In the years since, however, Moscow
has comforted itself with the idea that “the problem of regional separatism on
the whole has exhausted itself” and that it can ignore this threat. But that is
a mistake, the Moscow commentator says, as events in Sakha, Buryatia, and
Kaliningrad among others show.
The Sakha Republic has declared the
titular nationality there as the indigenous people. Buryatia has been bubbling
with nationalist aspirations. And Kaliningrad has become a hotbed of
regionalist and secessionist sentiment. But instead of taking a tough line,
Moscow has made concessions, as in Buryatia by putting an ethnic Buryat in as
republic head last week.
That makes Moscow’s decision on the
Tatarstan treaty especially important because if it prolongs the accord,
Gorevoy says, other non-Russian republics and then Russian regions will line up
to demand the same. And if that happens, the dominos will start falling,
something the center could avoid by taking a hard line now.
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