A no-pain, actually very fub way to understand the Nationalities question especially in the Causasians is to read the Soviet-era stories of Fazil Iskander (Sandro from Chegem) -- he's Abkhazian, which is a tiny sliver nationality down there, and a verry interesting combination of Muslim, ambivalent Stalinist, skeptical nationalis. Funny as hell, extremely perceptive politically. Loads of good tales.
--- Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > So how'd the USSR keep things peaceful?
> >
> > Doug
>
> Several reasons. First off, it was never totally
> peaceful, but the media did not report on such
> things.
> For instance, a friend of mine did his military
> service in the Far East in the 70s and he said there
> were violent ethnic clashed between Russians and
> Koreans there. Second, I think it was a combination
> os
> the ideology, which stressed that "we are all
> together
> as Soviet peoples," the fact that it had a very
> effective police apparatus, and the economy hadn't
> gone all to hell. Also the USSR was not awash in
> guns,
> as the Caucasus is today.
>
> The instant after the USSR fell, look what you had
> --
> bloody smoldering hatred flaring up between
> Georgians,
> Ossetians and Abkhaz, Ingush and Ossetians,
> Romanians
> and Russians, Armenians and Ajerbaijanis...
>
> These things are deep. A former coworker, an ethnic
> Armenian, visted LA a few years ago. When she
> returned
> she said that there was a very nice Armenian
> community
> there, but also "a lot of fucking Ajerbaijanis!"
>
>
>
>
>
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