Treatment of Smaller Minorities by Larger Minorities in Russian Federation Now Subject of Debate

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 28 – Those who oppose ethnic minorities from gaining independence often argue that such minorities, because they have even smaller ethnic minorities among them, either are already mistreating those groups or would if they became local majorities and consequently, any gains for the larger minorities would be undercut by losses for the smaller ones within them.

    At the end of Soviet times, for example, many Russians argued against independence for the union republics by saying that the titular nationalities in those republics if they gained power would repress smaller groups. Now, some Russian liberals are making the same argument against the non-Russian autonomies within the Russian Federation.

    But they are not alone. Some members of larger minorities worry about how they currently treat the smaller minorities or would be likely to treat after gaining independence. Not surprisingly, many activists in the larger minorities view any expression of concern on that point as threatening their movements by creating an alliance with Russian liberals.

    Such debates have been at the margin of the political life of most republics, but they are now moving to the center in some of them because at least a few activists among the larger non-Russian nations are arguing that the decolonization that many now seek must begin close to home with the larger minorities worrying more about the smaller ones.

    Some of those within the larger non-Russian nationalities who are raising this issue have long been more committed to seeking genuine federalism within the current borders of the Russian Federation than seeking independence for their own nations, something that makes them suspect in the eyes of many nationalists.

    One such is Aleksandr Garmzhapova, a Buryat activist who now lives in the United States, and who is openly arguing that for the Buryats, de-colonization must begin at home with greater attention by the Buryats to the rights of the non-Buryats among them facebook.com/alexandra.garmazhapova/posts/pfbid0ddMwzQN1RMT6LYgFfpcammhm2JV1WyAntRG9ouugFd1cSx2H7YmdBH3yemcTgDxol).

     That has sparked a spirited rejoinder by Buryat nationalists and by other non-Russians who argue that those who want independence should seek it first and then go about ensuring that it means more rights not only for the nationalities who achieve it but also for those new minorities who will inevitably emerge (indigenous-russia.com/archives/43887).

    The position of the nationalists is understandable, but they may be making a mistake: Even those who want to escape from under Moscow’s rule rather than become part of a renewed federation will likely achieve more of their goals if they do worry about the rights of ethnic minorities among them and the creation of institutions to protect them.

    That is because those larger minorities who do will remove from the quiver of Russians and many in the West one of their most powerful arrows against independence and also discover that they will have more allies than they might otherwise acquire. And that will help them regardless of whether they come down in favor of expanded federalism or full independence.