There was a really interesting, totally non-scholarly, article in the Moscow News a few years ago on some of the ideologies that developed in the Former Soviet Union back when nationalism/ethnotribalism was really in full bloom (i.e. the early and mid-90s). For instance, some intellectuals in Bashkortostan argued for a common origin for the Bashkirs and the English. Uzbeks were arguing that they saved Russia from Tamarlane (!). Chechens were claiming that Noah's Ark actually came to rest on a Chechen mountain. Ossetians demanded that Moscow recognize the Ossetians as being "the most oppressed nationality in history." Dudayev said that the Qu'ran must have been written by a Chechen, because Arabs weren't cultured enough. (I didn't know there even were any Chechens back then.)
It was pretty wild. At one point about 1,000 or so members of one Siberian tribe (I think a subgroup of the Chukchi) were demanding that they be given their own republic, because they didn't like the members of the other Siberian tribes they were living with.
--- John Bizwas <bizwas at lycos.com> wrote:
> This is so utterly fascinating (at least for Chris
> Doss). Emomali Rahmonov, President of Tajikistan,
> goes on the hajj and comes back convinced that
> Zarathustra is the religious basis of Tajik
> nationhood.
> Friedrich Nietzsche used Zarathustra to declare God
> dead. But could this be used to support my 'western
> nationalism evil meme' thesis over the 'wahibbism
> evil meme' thesis. Also, the guy reads like the
> back-to-nature Chechens ought to be talking to him.
>
>
http://www.ahura.homestead.com/files/IranZaminEight/Emomali_Rahmonov2.htm
>
> excerpt:
>
> >>My thoughts go back to Zarathushtra who created
> the immortal Avesta, the first prophet of the Tajiks
> whose trace on earth has not been erased by the dust
> of millennia and the ashes left by countless bloody
> wars.>>
>
>
http://www.internews.ru/ASIA-PLUS/bulletin_61/10.html
>
>
> F
>
>
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