Ethnic Conflicts in the Former USSR: The Use and Misuse of Typologies and Data

Author(s): Valery Tishkov

Source: Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 36, No. 5 (Sep., 1999), pp. 571-591
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W^^^^^^^RM

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? 1999Journalof PeaceResearch
vol.36, no. 5, 1999, pp. 571-591
SagePublications(London,Thousand
Oaks,CAand New Delhi)
[0022-3433 (199909) 365; 571-591; 009492]

Ethnic Conflicts in the Former USSR: The Use and

Misuse of Typologies and Data*
VALERY

TISHKOV

Institute of Ethnologyand Anthropology,Moscow e&International Peace Research

Institute, Oslo (PRIO)

This article summarizes research on ethnic conflict in the Former Soviet Union (FSU). Various
appealing but unsatisfactorytypologies have been proposed, focusing on the subjectsof the conflict
(actors, goals, motivations); on the environmentof the conflict (territory, language, socio-economy,
environment and resources;or on characteristics
of the conflict (scale, length, form of fighting, losses,
aftermath).Most conflict typologies reflect better the thinking and political agenda of the typologists
than the actual social panorama. Conflict theories and data presentationscontain strong prescriptive
elements and may even generate new conflict. For the conflicts in the Former Soviet Union, existing
typologies fail to grasp severalmajor factors, such as the strategiesand behavior of individuals, social
and political disorder, power and status aspirations, elite manipulations, and outside interventions.
This article discusses data on human and materiallosses in nine violent conflicts: Karabakh,Fergana,
Osh, South Ossetia, Transdniestria,Tajik, Abkhazia, Ingush-Ossetian, and Chechen. In conclusion, a
plea is made for writing 'between' theory and data, without sacrificingsensitive and self-reflectivenarration in order to produce new insights and new knowledge.

The Politics of Meta-Projects

It is difficult to accept as 'theories' many
widely acclaimed postulates in conflict
studies. Theories of'group risk' or 'basic
human needs', for example, barelymeet the
minimum requirement of being reasoned
suppositions put forwardto explain facts or
events. Attempts to use these approachesfor
regionalor case analysesrun into all kinds of
problems, although they continue to serveas
attractive constructions in academic exercises.

Potential clients abound for ambitious

academic or political enterprises,especially
* This article became possible with the support of the
Russian Fund for Humanities and PRIO's Ethnic and
NationalistStudiesProgram.I wish to thankSusanHuivik
at PRIO for her editorialwork.

in the field of international relations and

conflict research. Thus, the 'risk methodology' from the minorities debate (Gurr,
1993) evolved into the State FailureProject
(Esty et al., 1995, 1998) responding to the
euphoria felt by Western academicsand the
political bureaucracyat the liberal victory,
and their rush to 'remake' the post-Cold
War world. And indeed, the results seem
impressive:with a massive amount of data
(233 minority groups for the 'risk' project
and 2 million pieces of data for the 'state
failure' project) involving quantitativeoperations with dozens of indicatorsof risk, and
600 variables for failed states, the authors
have produced interesting observationsand
stimulated new questions for comparative
research. But simply by identifying
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mythopoetic 'basic human needs' or rather

random lists of 'minorities at risk', one
cannot pinpoint a place and a time where a
crisis will occur. That is why it is dangerous
and even conflict provoking to believe that
'people will aspire to meet their needs, one
way or another,even to extent that they may
be defined by others as "deviant"even as
"criminal"(e.g. terrorist)' (Sandole, 1992:
13).
The basic methodological weakness of
such theories of conflict analysislies in their
vision of groups as collective bodies with
needs and universal motivations - not as
situations, feelings, or acts of speech.
Attempts to rescue, for example, Burton's
(1987) needs-basedtheory of conflict resolution by modifying needs into 'types' fail to
yield serious insights into understanding
concrete cases - witness Michael Salla's
article on the East Timor conflict (Salla,
1997: 458-462). Instead of producing new
knowledge, such meta-approachesattempt
to formulate prescriptionsand predictions.
Predictivepower is viewed as a test of good
research and even as a major mission of
social science. Yet, this vision representsa
gravepredicamentfor social science because
it ignores uncertaintyand creativity,the role
of human projects, and their rational and
irrational strategies. Even worse are the
massiveresourcesinvested and the attendant
expectations to prove the predictions and,
thus, the creditability of costly researchas
well. In the State Failure Project in 199293, the Russian Federation was ranked
among states 'with high risk of disintegration', a prediction which so far has not
proven very useful.
Predictions may be used not only to
prove but also to enforce realization.
Western academicsand politicians provided
wide support for the scenarioenvisagingthe
next round of disintegration after the
breakup of the USSR - this time involving
Russia as a 'Mini-Empire' peopled with

volume36/ number5 / september1999

'non-statusnations' or with 'nationswithout
states' which did not gain independence
'simply because of bad luck or a quirk of
fate, but not because they are any less
deserving' (Carley, 1996: 15; see also
Bremmer& Taras, 1993; Brzezinski,1994).
Many academics have come to be selfappointed advocates speaking on behalf of
what they see as oppressedgroups.l Politics
and research become interdependent,
especially when efforts such as the State
FailureProjectaresurroundedwith a mighty
institutional aura like that of the CIA, and
when politicians recruit major academic
names.
General conclusions drawn from rich
and reliable empiricism frequently fail to
work outside of the original data. For
example, researchershave had difficulties
identifying groups at risk beyond the original list (Tishkov, 1997a: 134-136).
Nonetheless, it is rareto find the theory and
data of such grand projects questioned by
experts on a particularregion, country, or
conflict. Quantitativetheorieslive their own
lives without mundane testing. In the scholarly literaturewe can find such statements
such as 'minorities at risk constitute one
sixth of the world's population. There are at
least 47 violent conflicts in progress,generating about 50 million refugees' (Carment
& James, 1997: 206). Such statements are
pronounced as self-evident truths, with no
' The problem of irresponsible'sympathetic anthropology' has been rightly pointed out by FredrikBarth
(1994: 24): Anthropologists'regularlyoperate too narrowly as (self-appointed)advocates and apologists for
ethnic groups and their grievances.They have neglected
the closer analysis of processes of collective decision
makingthat emergeon the medianlevel [forBarth,a level
of group mobilization for diverse purposes by diverse
means, the field of entrepreneurship,leadership, and
rhetoric]and how theymayproducepoliciesand actionsat
odds with the popular will and the shared interestsof
people in the populations affected'. This observation
should also be extendedto many other outside advocacy
groups who often destabilizethe situation and existing
local balances in intergrouprelations through giving a
voice to elitist ethnic entrepreneurs,often without local
supportor legitimization.

Valery Tishkov

ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN THE FORMER USSR

chance to ask who actually tallied up the

number of minority groups in the world,
not to mention the number of'endangered'
minorities (are there no majorities at
risk?) - and why is this 'one sixth of the
world's population' so direcdtly
connected to
violent conflict? Many conflicts have been
initiated and executed by minorities against
majorities, or by minorities against minorities (for example, in the Former Soviet
Union, KarabakhArmenians against Azeris
and vice versa, Abkhazians against Georgians, Transdniestrians against Moldovans,
Ossets against Ingush).
Such global data generalizationsexhibit a
dangerously disarming simplicity. Even if
never proven by history (even if all failing
states manage to survive) this mental construct may persist for some time in the
public debate. Even worse, some theoriesdo
not bother to establishan empirical basis at
all. Instead, they reach their wide audience
by an attractiveglobal scheme, with a dash
of provocativeparadoxesand piquant quotations. In the field of peace and conflict
studies we find all kinds of 'civilizational'
models (see, for example, Galtung, 1996;
Huntington, 1996) full of deep historical
journeys and of cultural citations called to
explain the present and even suggest in
graphic form 'peace policies for the 21st
century' (Galtung, 1996: 3). However, any
vision of the world structure as 'multicivilizational'at the broadestlevel and as 'multinational' (in the cultural/ethnic sense) is a
vision based on the conflict-generating
assumption that one global struggle follows
another. Thus, after the liberal victory over
Communism new 'fighting' agendasappear,
in order to secure the dominance of the
West (Huntington) or to remake the world
through global confederalizationand parallel
'united ethno-nations' (Galtung). But prophetic didactics and the power of narration
are poor substitutes for the need to prove
argumentsand to respond to incompatibili-

ties. What we get is a shamanistic style of

theory. That is precisely what Soviet social
science practicedfor decades;perhapsthis is
why that kind of theoryhas been so enthusiastically received among scholars in Russia
and in the other post-Soviet states.
A second problem is that data are often
selected and processedso as to produce the
expected answers.Where are the inventories
of minorities not at risk, and groups with
safely ensuredbasic needs? Where are the
essayson the 'friendshipof civilizations'?
Data may be deliberatelyorganizedso as
to deliver a certain political message - like
omitting 'Russia' from a list of countries
with ongoing violent conflicts and replacing
it with 'Chechnya' and 'Daghestan', which
are entered on a par with Georgia, India,
Mexico, or Great Britain (Jongman &
Schmid, 1996). By presentingRussia as territoria nullis, the PIOOM's World Conflict
Map sends a message probably more
powerful than all those 400 indicators
worked out by this 'non-partisan'organization for earlywarning and conflict prevention.
The third problem involves the intellectual desertsurroundingthe interpretationof
the data. Tables and equations are preceded
and followed by hypothesesand conclusions
called 'theory',with only rareexpressionsof
doubt (see, for example, Rummel, 1997).
Storytelling is rejected by hard quantifiers,
who treat everything outside their chosen
theory as deviations and anomalies- if they
do not simply ignore it. Uncertainties and
complexitiesas well as internaldynamics are
not thinkable, and are certainly not to be
counted. For example, there may be an
equally long list of in-group or between-kin
group clashes as well as extensive cultural
dialogue and easy crossing of cultural
borders:this may not be mentioned at all if
it does not fit the chosen agenda. Nobody
talks of the Sarajevo that was a peaceful
meeting place for many cultures over the

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sions, and as falling into two major categories - conflicts of ideological doctrines,
and conflicts of political institutions (Payin,
1996; Payin & Popov, 1990; Popov, 1997).
Another extreme is expressedin the 'clashof
civilizations'paradigm,which sees an ethnic
conflict as the incompatible encounter
between the 'pre-modern'(e.g. Ingush) and
'modern' (e.g. Ossets) peoples (Skakunov,
1996). Russian 'conflictologists' have contributed theoretical/typological constructions, but very few have presented case
analyses (e.g. Ivanov & Smolaynsky, 1994;
Kremenyuk,1994; Zdravomyslov,1997).
What, then, is an ethnic conflict?
Yamskov (1997: 206) has defined it as
'dynamically changing sociopolitical situation caused by rejection of existing status
Definitions and Typologies
quoon a partof significantnumberof people
What is 'ethnic conflict'? Most attempts at representing one or several local ethnic
theories of ethnic conflict (Carment & groups'.This rejectioncan take the form of:
James, 1997) simply sidestep the problem of *
ethnicallyselectiveexodus from a region;
definition. In Russia, the term 'ethnic con- *
emerging national or cultural political
flict' came into use late, because the word
organizationsdemandinga change in the
'conflict' was usually replaced by the
situation in the interests of a certain
euphemism 'contradictions'. In fact the
ethnic group;
Soviet Union was a place of relative ethnic *
protest actions against violations of
peace despite the state'scontradictorypolicy
group interestsby other groups or by the
of repression and pandering towards nonstate.
Russian nationalities (Bromley, 1977;
Drobizheva, 1981; Karklins, 1986; Kozlov, Yamskov (1997: 206-207) sees ethnic con1988; Suny, 1993; Tishkov, 1997a). The flict as an organized political process when
first ethnically-tinged civic clashes under 'national movements (or parties) struggling
Gorbachev (the Sumgait and Fergana for the "national interests" of the people
pogroms againstArmeniansand Turks)were acquirea certaininfluence and try to change
dismissed by experts as 'incidents', 'events', cultural/linguistic, socio-economic, or poletc. Until the Ingush-Ossetian conflict and itical statuses'(Table I).
Such typologiesarenot simple to apply to
the Chechen War eruptedon the territoryof
Russia itself, the term 'ethnic conflict' was concrete research purposes. It is certainly
seen as an inadequateand humiliating term impossible to place any known conflict in
to describepeople who do not normallyhate the Former Soviet Union into a single cell.
and fight each other. Ethnic entities, it was Even the Karabakhconflict studied in detail
held, are deliberatelydriven into conflict by by Yamskov (1991), contains all the
in-group agitatorsor by outside conspiracies. elements of the typology.
Another scheme for the analysis of soConflicts were viewed as carrying political,
territorial, criminal, or economic dimen- called ethno-territorial conflicts has been

centuries- researcherspreferto focus on evidence of historic fights and cultural differences. The same may be said of Kazansince
the 17th century and Grozny in 1960-80
with their peacefulmulti-ethnicities.Experts
find it easier to parrot the YeltsinMaskhadov political absurdityof the '300year war between Russia and Chechnya'
which ended with the signing of a treaty in
May 1997. Very few pay any attention to
historicaldocuments that disprovethis myth
(see, for example, Kusheva, 1997).
None of this is meant to question the
need for theory and data, as I hope to
illustrate, using an area from my own
research.

Valery Tishkov

ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN THE FORMER USSR

Table I. A Typologyof Ethnic Conflict

stable)
Long-term(potentially

Short-term(self-destroying)

Nonviolent

Violent

Nonviolent

Violent

Pogroms,terror,
disorders,
guerrilla

Emigration

Deportation,
genocide

Formsof manifestation Parties,rallies,

clubs, meetings,
movements

Source:Yamskov(1997: 213); cf. also Coakley(1992: 6-7).

suggested by Strelezkii(1997), who has collected data on conflicts in the USSR since
1991. By definition, ethno-territorialconflicts involve disputes, claims, and open conflicts over territorial issues, which include
state (administrative)sovereigntyover territories, borders, and rights of groups to live
on territoriesand to control them. The territorialization of ethnicity is one of the
Soviet legacieswhich laid the foundation for
ethno-nationalism. Indeed, the USSR was
the only state in the world besides
Yugoslavia whose internal structure was
built on ethnic principles. All major nonRussiangroups had their 'own' autonomous
territories.

Strelezkii rightly points out that practically all territorialissues in intergroup and
interstate levels on the territory of the
Former Soviet Union acquire an 'ethnic'
form because even newly emerged states
preach an exclusivist ideology - 'Latviafor
the Latvians'or 'Georgiafor the Georgians'.
However, Strelezkii'sown vision of ethnicity
is not radically different from those who
built the USSR and those who constructed
the 'Soviet theory' of ethnos (see Skalnik,
1988; Slezkine, 1994; Tishkov, 1997a:
1-23). This methodological position is
made clear in Strelezkii's classification of
subjectsof ethno-territorialclaims:
*

ethnoseswith their own national statehood: titular groups in former Soviet

Union republics;
* ethnoseswith elements of statehood in

the form of national formations within

sovereignstates;
* ethnoseswhich did not have their own
national-territorial formations in the
USSR and which have now put forward
such claims;
* groups of people living in Diaspora
outside their own national formations
(about 65 million, including 25 million
ethnic Russians and Ukrainians)
(Strelezkii,1997: 233-234).
Here I have deliberatelyretained the deeply
rooted Soviet phraseology for describing
ethnic issues, a clear case when mental constructsor speech acts producesocial realities.
In another academic tradition or political
context these groupings would be categorized simply as 'minorities', 'ethnic communities', 'ethnie', etc. There are no basic
differencesbetween the Irish in the UK, the
Quebecois in Canada, the Swedes in
Finland, the Hungarians in Romania, the
Chinese in the USA, the Turks in Bulgaria,
the Serbs in Croatia, the Ukrainians in
Russia, or the Russiansin Ukraine: they are
all membersof multi-ethnic political nations
with group-culturalaspirations.The Soviet
(and wider East European)traditionof using
the term 'nation' and 'national' in the
exclusivelyethnic sense implied a propagandist formula for the solution of the 'national
question' - first anti-imperial,social democratic (Austro-Marxism), then Bolshevik
(revolutionary Communism) (Brubaker,
1996; Suny, 1993.) Today there lurks a

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hidden political agenda behind this ethnonationalist rhetoric, in the assumption that
in the post-Cold War world nations have
emergedwhich have not fully accomplished
the process of nation-building, i.e. 'quasisovereign states'(Carment & James, 1997:
205).
Western academics and policymakers
have easily absorbedan ambivalentlanguage
for the FSU area - a language they would
never use for describing the same realities
elsewhere. A speech construct of'national
minorities' (in other similarcontexts, it may
be 'linguistic', 'ethnic', etc.) has come into
Realpolitik, including the institution of the
OSCE High Commissioner for National
Minorities. Terms like 'nations without
states', 'non-represented nations', 'nonstatus nations' have emerged as labels for
ethnic communities in countries where
'remaking'is in the cards, especiallyif their
state and administrative borders are contested and not congruentwith ethnic or cultural borders.
Strelezkii (1997: 237-244) identifies
the following types of ethno-territorialconflict:
* conflicts over disputed territories with
demands that interstate or internal
administrativebordersbe changed;
* disputes about the administrativestatus
of a territory expressed in ethnically
defined claims for independent states
and for new autonomies, or for their
abolition;
* conflicts over the status of existing
national formations;
* conflicts over claims for the federalization of existing unitarypolities;
* exclusion of population and cleansing of
territories;

repatriation, or post-deportation 'territorial rehabilitation'.

This classificationmixes two ratherdifferent

types of disputes - over territory,and over

power.2The unclearformulasfor these types

makes it possible to place conflicts like those
in Abkhazia, Chechnya, and NagornoKarabakhin all six categories at the same
time.

Mapping and Labeling Conflicts

My own definition of ethnic conflict is as
follows: any forms of civic clash within or
acrossstateboundarieswhen at leastone of the
warringparties is mobilized and organized
along ethnic lines or on behalf of a certain
ethnicgroup.On this basis, I have identified
six violent conflictsof considerableduration,
with organized front lines, with participation of regular troops and paramilitary
formations, and with the use of heavy
(Nagorno-Karabakh, South
weapons
Ossetia, Transdniestria, Tajikistan, Abkhazia, Chechnya). There were four violent
clashes(or riots) of short duration and with
non-organized parties and mob violence
(Sumgait and Baku, Fergana, Osh,
Ingush-Ossetian). Finally, there were ten
nonviolent conflicts with political, ethnic,
religious, and clan tensions and confrontations (Yakutia,Tatarstan,Tuva, KabardinoBalkaria,Karachevo-Cherkessia,Daghestan
in Russia;Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan;Crimea
in Ukraine; Gagauzia in Moldova;
Dushanbe in Tajikistan). All of these have
occurred since the late 1980s. Here, I will
comment on nine violent cases,omitting the
Sumgait porgoms of 1988.3
The distinctionbetween'territory'and 'government'as
the basisfor conflict,also rathersimplistic,is used by the
Conflict Projectat UppsalaUniversity(see, for example,
Wallensteen & Sollenberg, 1998). The territorialtype
includes all armed conflict in the FormerSoviet Union
exceptTajikistan.
3 Three of these cases(Chechnya,Ingush-Ossetian,Osh)
I have analyzedmyself (Tishkov, 1997a). For the other
cases, I have relied on my colleagues'research,especially
the resultsof the Moscow CarnegieCenterseminarwhere
I servedas academicconsultant(see Olcott et al., 1997).
An articleby Mukomel (1997) on human losses and the
economic and social implicationsof violent conflictshas
been particularlyhelpful.

Valery Tishkov

ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN THE FORMER USSR

Even the listing of conflicts is in itself

controversial. The project on ethno-territorial conflicts startedin 1991 when a group
of young researchers at the Institute of
Geography, USSR Academy of Sciences,
began collecting data on ethno-territorial
claims in the FSU area. 'Politicalgeography'
of that kind had been practicallynon-existent in Soviet research. Members of the
group had approachedthe doyen of ethnodemographic studies, the now-deceased
Professor Solomon Brook, a long-time
Deputy-Director of the Institute of
Ethnography, USSR Academy of Sciences.
For two hours ProfessorBrook regaledthem
with the stories of borderand status changes
in

ethno-territorial

autonomies

in

the

USSR, especially as the results of Stalin's

mass repressionand deportations.Not many
days later, he came into my office - I was
then the Director of the Institute - worriedly brandishingthe latest issue of Moscow
News (17 March 1991): 'Look, these young
people made a map of what I was telling
them about!'This was a double-pagemap on
which the authorshad located 76 ethno-territorialdisputesin the USSR. One yearlater,
a similar map published in the same newspaper (29 March 1992) showed 180 conflicts!This issue of MoscowNews (published
in Russian and English) attracted wide
attention in the country and abroad. The
group received enthusiastic encouragement
from Western academics and funding institutions, and its members were among the
first whose writings on conflicts were translated and published in the West (Glezer &
Strelezkii, 1991; Kolossov et al., 1992;
Petrov, 1994; Strelezkii, 1995). For the
period 1988-96 this group accumulated
information on about 300 territorial conflicts (Strelezkii,1997: 226).
Beside the stories related by Brook, the
group mainly collected press clippings on
everything that could qualify as territorial
disputes or claims, together with bits and

pieces from history texts and archives.There

was no division between the past and the
present (everythingwas consideredrelevant);
nor were there any criteriafor selectingcases.
The mere fact of being mentioned in any
printed text or in public meeting was
enough to put a 'conflict' on the map. The
authorscharacterizedmore than half of these
cases as 'dormant' conflicts - for the past
three years there had been no information
on them (Strelezkii,1997: 227).
Eventually, many political leaders and
experts began to discover 'conflicts' in their
regionsbasedon informationfrom Moscowbased political geographers and from the
press, rather than from the challenges of
local reality.When I was FederalMinister of
Nationalities in 1992, Viktor Stepanov, the
President of the Karelian Republic, complained to me that placing his territory
within the categoryof'conflict zone' gave a
powerfiulstimulus to marginal activists to
advocatetheir political disagreementsand to
strengthen the rhetoric of complains. 'They
showed me this Moscow News paper and
blamed me for not wanting to notice this
conflict', said President Stepanov.4 The
research enthusiasm of neophytes, responding to political requests, started with
two newspaper pages. A few years later a
Western expert was to do it in the form of
660-page book based on the same 'data'
bank (Stadelbauer, 1996). Using such
'methodology', one could write volumes on
'territorialconflicts' in post-FrancoSpain or
in Switzerlandwith its currentdebate on the
newly emergedJuracantons.
Mapping conflicts is difficult. The idea
that there are many potential, dormant conflicts hidden behind the veil of our ignorance
or deliberately camouflaged by interested
actors, is not very helpful. Such discoveries
often have shaky empirical foundations.
Since the word 'conflict'evokes the idea of
4 Personalnotes, 5 May 1992.

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danger, it acquires political meaning. But

how many such dormant conflicts did not
happen, because they were never subjected
to 'fact-finding' missions or the zeal of
researchers?
For the territory of the Former Soviet
Union there is little disagreementon the list
of violent events. The nine cases listed in
Table II exhaust the tally, although there
have also been violent political clashes in
Baku, Tbilisi, Vilnius, and Moscow under
Gorbachev and Yeltsin. As to mapping
violent and other conflicts, the issue
becomes more complex, even though the
warringpartiesmay have defined front-lines
and the area of battlefieldsis basicallywellknown. In conflict drawing, the logic of
experts tends to follow administrative/state
borders.On world-scalemaps of conflicts it
is the country that receivesthe color assigned
for conflict cases (Smith, 1997). This principle is simple but appealing to the lay
reader,who can see how vast segmentsof the
globe called 'Russia', 'India', 'China' are all
painted with the colors of conflict. And yet
Chechnya, for example, comprises only
0.5% of the territoryof Russia.
One noteworthy exampleof the non-sensitive use of mapping is the now widely cited
map of Stalin's deportations. The brutality
of the mass deportations along ethnic lines
provided a powerful argument for consider-

able political rhetoric and activity since the

beginnings of Soviet perestroika. Huge
amounts of archivaldata were released,and
many books were written or translatedinto
Russian from Western languages. The
metaphor of'rehabilitation' became transformed into one of the most controversial
laws, 'On the rehabilitation of repressed
peoples', passed by Yeltsin'sSupreme Soviet
in April 1991. The undeniable trauma of
sufferersled to efforts to redressthe past by
committing new injustices by changing the
borders and administrativestatus of territorieswith new demographicand politicalprofiles. The two violent conflicts in Russia
(North Ossetia and Chechnya)can be attributed to some extent to the poor management of this problem by the state, and to the
manipulationsof ethnic entrepreneurs.
There were numerousinstancesof border
redesigns executed quite arbitrarilyby the
Soviet state from above or under local
pressure. A map of deportations showing
directions and numbers of deportees of
about a dozen Soviet nationalities became
one of the focal documents at the 1996 CIS
conferenceon the problemsof refugees.The
average reader may perceive this map in a
literal sense, as showing how severalmillion
sufferingpeople need to be returnedto their
homes. This could serve as an invitation to
mass resettlementin a situation of instability

Table II. Casualtiesin FSU Conflicts,1989-97 (in thousands)

Conjflict

1989

Nagorno-Karabakh
Fergana pogroms
Osh conflict
South Ossetia
Transdniestria
TajikistanAbkhazianIngush-Ossetian
Chechen War

0.1
0.1
-

Total
n.d., not data.

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997 Total

0.4

0.5

7.0

2.0

1.5
8.0
0.2

0.9
0.2
4.0

0.6

n.d.

0.5

0.3
-

25.0

6.0

24.0
0.1
0.3
1.1
0.8
23.5
12.0
1.0
35.0

0.2

0.8

1.1

7.1

25.6

6.0

0.5

97.9

0.6
-

0.5
0.8
20.0
3.8
0.8
-

32.9

14.0

23.7

Valery Tishkov

ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN THE FORMER USSR

and painful socio-economic transformation.

The real irony is that this was adopted by a
highly respected international body concerned with the challenge of forced migrations. UNHCR bureaucrats could not
withstand the powerful pressurefrom ideologically engaged academics and politicians
who had become enmeshed in new geopolitical rivalries.
It is questionable whether the map of
deportations belongs anywhere but in
history books on World War II and the
Stalin era. Publicizing victimization may
provoke revengeand frustrationamong generations who did not themselves suffer the
trauma but who have received it solely
through storytelling. Some 90% of the
deporteesdid in fact returnhome soon after
Stalin's death, whereasthose who stayed on
had become locally integrated.For the new
generation, Siberiaand Kazakhstanwere the
only native lands they had known personally. Thanks to the inflamed agitation of
leaders and wide political attention, many
people found themselves moved to 'historic
motherlands'ratherby the logic of collective
behavior, as happened to Crimean Tatars,
ethnic Russiansin Kazakhstan,and to Volga
Germansin Kazakhstanand in Russia.
The metaphor of rehabilitation and
return was particulary powerful for those
groups which located their motherland in
countries with higher material standards,
such as Germany, Greece, or South Korea.
This was actually a sophisticated form of
economic emigration for people who were
culturally mainly Russian but who could
claim deep roots in other states. 'Former
deportees' were forced to follow a totalitarian collective logic and the nostalgia of
older generations.
There is a tendency to extend the spatial
boundaries of an intergroup conflict to the
corresponding administrative units. The
term 'Ingush-Ossetian conflict' constructed
a powerful image of a conflict between two

republics in the Russian Federation.5This

conflict took place on the territoryof North
Ossetia and included ethnic cleansingof the
local Ingush minority. Long and unproductive negotiations ensued between the authorities of the two republics.This caused the
alienation to spread to the general population of both republics.The conflict could
have been more accuratelynamed the North
Ossetian conflictor the Prigorodnyconflict;
and the conflict resolution process would
have gained a lot of momentum if the North
Ossetian government had been induced to
accept the return of its expelled citizens and
the provision of post-conflict remedies.
How does a conflict acquirea label which
is then listed in yearbooks,atlases, and political documents?The firstreportson violent
Uzbek-Kirgiz clashes in the cities of Osh
and Uzgen and some villages of Kirgiziain
1991 were not categorized as the
Uzbek-Kirgizconflictbut rather as the Osh
conflict (Tishkov, 1995). This played an
importantrole since it avoided the construction of a conflict between the dominant
population groups in two Central Asian
states. As a non-constructive contrast, in
North Ossetia the conflict was labeled an
'intergroup ethnic conflict'. Interestingly,
the first reports reffered to the 'events' in
Prigorodnyi raion' (the disputed part of
North Ossetian territory with the Ingush
minority). When the term 'Ingush-Ossetian
conflict' started to gain currency in the
public debate, I was asked by Ingush leaders
not to use it in my own writing because it
influenced the political vocabulary.'Why is
'Ingush' and not 'Ossetian' placed first,
implicitly indicating that we are the ones
5 Numerous reportsof the conflict producedby influen-

tial Ossetian intellectualsand by Moscow-basedexperts

and journalistsintroducedcliches like 'Ingushetia'sterritorialclaims','Ingushaggression','frontlineof Ingushetia',
thus making this republic into one of the conflicting
parties. Incidentally, two leading journalistsof Nezavisimaya gazeta - AsIan Aliev and Ruslan Pliev happento be of Ossetianethnic origin.

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of PEACE RESEARCH

who initiated the conflict?',askedthe Ingush

social scientist Bagaudin Toriev.6 At the
time I did not heed this appeal, and gave a
chapter in my book the title 'The Anatomy
of Ethnic Cleansing: the Ingush-Ossetian
conflict' (Tishkov, 1997a: 155-183). The
reference to ethnic cleansing seemed more
important in this context; I also felt that
changing the wording to 'Ossetino-Ingush
conflict' sounded awkward in English.
Today I feel that I missed a historic chance
to register this conflict under an ethnically
neutral label. Later, this became much
harderto do.
Chechnya is another case in point. All
over the world this conflict is labeled with
this one word. But the naming reflectedthe
dynamics of the conflict and the politics surrounding it. Around the tme when the conflict broke out in December 1994 between
the self-proclaimed independent state and
the federalauthorities,many expertsreferred
to it as the 'Chechen crisis'or 'Chechen conflict' (see, for example, Petrov, 1994, 1995;
Tishkov et al., 1995). After massivemilitary
escalation, this term startedto look too soft,
and two short-lived extreme formulas
emerged. The term from Russian officialdom was 'enforcement of constitutional
order', whereas Western experts and the
EuropeanUnion spoke of'Russian intervention in Caucasus'.Both reflectedideological
stances.

Writing my own analysis in 1995-96, I

opted for the term 'Chechen War', which
was rather unusual at the time and even
unacceptableto that part of the Russianpolitical spectrum close to the government.
Later on, it became a routine definition,
even used by top officials. The warring
parties avoided using the term 'RussianChechen conflict', because of the undesirable ethnic connotations. There was no
direct clash between ethnic Chechens and
6 Personalnotes, 12 February1993.

volume36/ number5 / september1999

ethnic Russians- indeed, Chechen combatants preferredto call their enemy thefederals.
According to academic criteria the conflict
can be categorizedas 'ethnic', but for political and ideological reasons this probably
should not be done. After the federal military failureand the peace agreementof May
1997, Chechens have startedto speak of the
'Russian-Chechen War' or 'Second
Russian-Chechen War'. This implies a fight
between two sovereign polities, as an ordinary interstate war, and refers to the
Caucasus war led by Imam Shamil in the
19th century against the Russian Empire as
the 'first'war of Chechnya for independent
statehood.
Counting Deaths in Conflict
The major indicatorof the severityof a conflict is the number of battle-deaths. For
example, 1,000 battle-deathsis the threshold
for a violent conflict to be classifiedas a war
in the Correlatesof War dataset (Small &
Singer, 1982). Wallensteen & Sollenberg
(1998) use the same limit to distinguish
between major and minor conflict.
However, such estimatesare extremelyspeculative in view of the nature of the fighting
where it is difficult even to establish the
number of combatants involved, and
because of the emotional and political significance of these figures for the warring
parties. It is common internationalpractice
to provide a range of estimates, e.g.
40,000-100,000 for Chechnya, or to calculate an average. Exaggeration for political
purposes is widespread. In 1994, Nikolai
Ryzhkov (formerHead of the Soviet government under Gorbachev) stated: 'as a result
of military conflicts on the territory of
the former USSR hundreds of thousands
of people were killed' (Postfactum Humanitarian News, 18 June 1994). Two
months later, the President of Kazakhstan,
Nursultan Nazarbayev, repeated that in

Valery Tishkov

ETHNIC

these conflicts and wars 'ten times more

people were killed than in the Afghan
war - about 150,000 people' (Interfax,
Vestnik,24 August 1994). Even more catastrophic figureshave been cited by leadersof
the anti-Yeltsin opposition, especially
Communist leaders: Viktor Ilukhin,
chairmanof the State Duma Committee on
SecurityIssues,has said that 600,000 people
have been killed in inter-ethnic conflicts
over the past five years;at a public meeting a
representativeof the Russian Communist
Party announced that 1.5 million lives had
been lost (Interfax, 8 December 1995; 7
May 1996).
In fact, the overallnumber of losses in all
these conflicts is about 100,000 people, as
shown in Table II, with an additional
500,000 injured. For a territory which
experienced relatively peaceful times after
World War II, these figures are in themselves tremendously large, and need no
embellishment. Yet there is a demand for
inflated figures. The initial figures are
usually the highest because they originate at
a moment of chaos and lack of accurate
information. Rumors and imagination are
the main sources, sometimes even deliberate
forgery. In October 1995, while visiting
Grozny in the morning after night-time
shootings, I was informed by 'Cossack Ivan
Grigoriev', who was accompanying us, of
'terrible night fights' after which 'the dead
bodies are now being removed from the
streets'.A little later, however, more reliable
information threw doubts on the night-time
casualties,and even the very fact of a fight.
'Young soldiers have just been shooting in
the air to feel more confident and safe',
remarkedGeneral Andrei Chernenko, who
was responsiblefor our security.
Initial data on the Tajikistanwar of 1992
cited 50,000-100,000 killed. Tajik officials
stuck to the highest figure not only out of
ignorance, but also because of the political
wish to attractworld attention to the scale of

CONFLICTS

IN THE FORMER USSR

this human tragedy. It was later established

(and also recognized by Tajik authorities)
that a more accurate casualty figure was a
little over 20,000. Among outside sources,
the Uppsala Universityconflict projectcame
closest to this figure (Wallensteen & Axell,
1994; see also Baranovsky,1994).
In the Karabakhconflict, the main source
of information was the Azerbaijani
side - not only because the fighting took
place on its territory, but also because
Azerbaijanregarded itself as the subject of
Armenian aggressionand wanted to display
the sufferingof the victims to the world. At
the same time, the authoritieswere afraidto
disclose to the public the whole truth about
their military failures, so they tended to
downplay their losses. Then, after Aliev
came power and began legal prosecution of
political and military leaders guilty of poor
military performancearound Karabakh,the
figure started to grow, from 16,000 all the
way to 40,000. Aliev's Ministry of Defense
announced this figure when the President
was strengthening his unchallenged status
and eradicatingopposition leaders(Interfax,
25 April 1995). Speaking at the OSCE
summit meeting in Lisbon in December
1996, however, President Aliev used the
figure 20,000 citizens of Azerbaijan.If we
include the Armeniancasualties,we estimate
the overall losses at 24,000 at most
(Mukomel, 1997). The figure provided by
the Russian Ministry of Defense
(13-15,000, in Segodnya,3 and 19 February
1994) cannot be discarded,or even the most
conservativeestimates (4,000-10,000) from
the Uppsala conflict project (Wallensteen&
Axell, 1994; Baranovsky,1994).
In the Chechen War, the Chechens
sought to maximize losses whereas the
federal Russian side desperately tried to
cover up the real figures and failed to
count properlyeven its own military losses.
First, Chechen propagandahad announced
that, up until February 1995, some

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volume
5 / september
1999
36/ number

of PEACE RESEARCH

43,000-45,000
people were killed,
including 18,000-20,000 Russian military
personnel (Interfax, 9 March 1995).
According to Chechen leader Yandarbiev,
there were about 100,000 killed and 45,000
wounded (Izvestia, 12 October 1996). This
defies belief, since the usual ratio between
wounded and killed in military operations
(3-5 wounded for each casualty) would
yield a casualty figure of around
10,000-15,000. Nevertheless, the Moscow
opposition used the same figures: Grigorii
Yavlinskii spoke of 100,000 casualties,
Dmitrii Rogozin about 150,000 (Nevavisimayagazeta, 5 October 1996). The most
exaggerated statements came from the
former Secretary of the Security Council,
General Alexander Lebed. He had played a
crucial role in ending the war in the fall of
1996 and was interested in ensuring a most
dramatic presentation of this achievement.
Lebed spoke of 80,000 killed and 240,000
wounded (Izvestia, 5 September 1996).
Chechen propagandists simply added
another 20,000 to the casualty figure. This
dubious information immediately became
widely cited.
Becauseof the chaos and poor accounting
even among federal regulars,precise figures
can never be establishedwith any accuracy.
The estimatesprovidedby Mukomel (1997:
305) are probably the best: Some 35,000
people were killed, including 4,300 federal
troops, about 3,000 Chechen combatants,
and between 25,000 and 30,000 civilians,
up to 60% of whom could be ethnic
Russiansliving in Grozny. This is still a high
figure,combining data from militarysources
and data collected by the leading Russian
human rights organization 'Memorial' on
civilian casualties in Grozny. The Russian
Ministry of InternalAffairsestimatesoverall
losses in the Chechen War at about 18,500
people.
Even when there is agrementon the data,
they can be subjected to differing interpret-

ations. For example, Chechens cite 100,000

losses as the price paid for their independence, while Russian emphasize that about
70% of those killed in Chechnyawere ethnic
Russians.Losseswill also be rememberedby
societies in differentways. A low opinion on
the value of human life is a general legacy
from the Soviet regime. Within the Former
Soviet Union there are probably different
tolerancelevels as to loss of life, determined
by modernization,religious beliefs, and historical experience. The phenomenon of
'death without weeping' (Scheper-Hughes,
1992) may be more widespread among
Central Asian and Muslim communities
than, say, among Armeniansand Georgians.
Several dozen graves in a schoolyard in the
South Ossetian capital of Zkhinvali can be
equivalent in political power to thousands
killed in Tajik clashes. In one of the rounds
in the Russian-Chechen negotiations,Asian
Maskhadov said, in a deeply emotional
move: 'We Chechens, by virtue of our soul,
can overcome tragic memories and we can
start a new life as nothing had happened
between our two peoples'.7 This is not an
excuse for atrocities, but a reminder that
casualty figures cannot provide a sufficient
basis for judging what is a deep-rooted or
intractableconflict. Depending on the attitudes to death, conflictswith huge losses and
destruction may be negotiated and resolved
more easily than conflicts that are relatively
minor in terms of actual human losses. The
same point applies to material destruction,
although such figuresare rarelypublished by
the major researchprojectson conflict.

Forced Movements of People

Becauseof the intense internationalinvolvement of the UNHCR, as well as the growing
concern and effortsundertakenby emerging
forced-migration services in post-Soviet
7 Reportedby VyacheslavMikhailovto author, summer

1996.

Valery Tishkov

ETHNIC

countries,data on forced migrantsand internally displaced persons are increasingly

becoming available(see UNHCR, 1998a,b;
Tishkov, 1996, 1997c). The major methodological and political problem is this: how to
distinguish between economically or culturally motivated movements of people in relatively peaceful times, and forced migrations
relatedto direct violence or potential danger
of violence?
There was always extensive internal
migrationwithin the USSR Despite the residence permit system and restrictions on
moving into a few majorcities, Soviet citizens
moved a lot within the country - to ethnic
periphery areas, as well as to cities like
Moscow. Most of these internalmigrantswere
driven by economic motivation, sometimes

camouflagedby the ideologicalrhetoricwhich

accompaniedhuge projectsin Siberiaand in
the CentralAsian and Baltic republics.In the
post-Stalinistperiodtherewereno massforced
relocations(exceptfor restrictedterritoriesfor
military or space programs),and by the late
1950s most of the formerlydeportedpeoples
had returned to their homelands. Some,
especially among the Volga Germans, the
Crimean Tatars, and the Koreans,opted to
stay on in the placeswhere they had already
been living for at least one generationand to
which they had adopted economically and
culturally. Some did not want to return
becausetheir group had been denied the restorationof formerautonomies,or becauseof
restrictionson moving to their home places
(Turks, Crimean Tatars, Ingush). Thus, the
overall figureson the recent flows of people
within the FormerSoviet Union (about9-10
million) cannot be ascribedsolely to conflict
and indirect violence. The average annual
figure for population exchange between
republicsof the Soviet Union was about 5-6
million in the 1970s and 1980s. Therefore,at
leasthalfof the recentmigrationswould probablyhavehappenedeven without the breakup
of the USSR

CONFLICTS

IN THE FORMER USSR

Many people who take the majordecision

to move to an environment which they
regardas economically better off and culturally more friendlywill be inclined to dramatize

their

situation,

presenting

it

as

intolerablein order to elicit sympathy or to

be eligible for the support and privileges
assignedto forced migrants.The interplayof
personalstrategiesfor improving social conditions and of'push-out' factorsis a complex
issue. Mass-media propaganda and grassroots rumors may provoke an exodus of
people, especially where there is a large
potential pool of economic migrants - as
was the case with the exodus of Bulgarian
Turks in 1989, with Albaniansduring recent
civic disorders,and with many Russians in
Azerbaijan,Kirgizia,and Uzbekistan.
For the territoryof the FSU, the number
of those fleeing armed conflicts within this
areais probablysome 2 million, only a small
part of whom have now returned to their
former homes. The major area producing
refugees is Transcaucasus. The conflict
around Nagorno-Karabakh caused the
highest numbers of forced migrants. In
Azerbaijan,there are 185,000 refugeesfrom
Armenia; some 600,000 had to leave
Karabakhand other regions controlled by
Armenians in Azerbaijan(by now approximately 60,000 have returned to their
homes). There are about 50,000 Meskhetian
Turks in Azerbaijanwho were expelled from
Uzbekistan in 1990. In Armenia, there are
340,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan. In
Georgia, there are 200,000 internally displaced people from Abkhazia and from
South Ossetia, and a small number of
Abkhazians in Abkhazia who have come
from the rest of Georgia.
CentralAsia is another region with many
refugees.In 1992-93, the war in Tajikistan
had resulted in 60,000 internally displaced
persons and over 100,000 who fled to
Afghanistan, to other Central Asian countries, and to Russia. Most of the IDPs and

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refugees in Afghanistan have now returned
home; refugeesto the CIS countries remain
refugees (30,000 in Uzbekistan, 20,000 in
Russia, 20,000 in Turkmenistan, 15,000 in
Kirgizia).There are about 10,000 Chechen
refugees in Kazakhstanand Kirgizia, and a
small number of Armeniansfrom Azerbaijan
who fled to Turkmenistan.
The Russian Federation has become a
hub of population movements. Despite political instability and economic crisis, Russia
has been receivinglargenumbersof migrants
of all kinds - labor migrants, refugees,
asylum-seekers,repatriates,illegal migrants,
and others. The Russian Federal Migration
Service registered 1,224,764 refulgeesas of
January 1997; according to my estimates
there are another 1.5 million non-registered
forced migrants from other post-Soviet
states (mainly Tajikistan, Georgia, and
Azerbaijan) and involuntarily relocated
persons, mainly as a result of the
Ingush-Ossetian conflict and the Chechen
War. Most of these migrants do not go
through the bureaucraticprocedureof registration, with scant prospectsof receivingany
sizeable material compensation and proper
civic status. Many carriersof former Soviet
passports arriving in Russia are satisfied if
they can find a job and a place to live.
Sometimes they are refusedrefugeestatus or
they are afraid to announce themselves and
to apply for assistance.In summer 1992, the
number of registered South Ossetian
refugees from Georgia to North Ossetia
started to increase dramaticallybecause of
the impending procedureof issuing Russian
privatization checks. Soon after, with
rumorsof an expected resettlementprogram
to South Ossetia, numbers began to fall

volume36/ number5 /september1999

non-Chechens were forced to move to other
parts of the country. The war produced a
mass exodus of city dwellers from Grozny,
Gudermes, and other damaged settlements
(about 300,000 people). After the war
ended, another 100,000, mainly ethnic
Chechens, left the republic. Their return is
progressing slowly. Various arbitrary
measurestaken by the authorities in neigh(Kabardino-Balkaria,
boring
regions
Daghestan, North Ossetia, Stavropol krai)
to induce Chechens to return home have
proven unsuccessful. Under the existing
post-conflict situation, most of them prefer
to stay away, despite appeals from Grozny
government to join in the restorationeffort
and in building up an independent state.
None of the majoractorsare interestedin
publicizing the fact that half of Chechnya's
population are emigres: for Grozny, this
means an admission of poor legitimacy and
of the weak attraction of the secession
project;for the federalauthorities, it means
the recognition of a large-scalehumanitarian
problem demanding material resources;for
the international community, it means
unwilling disillusionment with the myth of
the oppressed Chechen nation fighting for
its independence.Without the returnof the
Chechen elite elements (managers,intellectuals, educationalists,business people), true
post-conflict restorationin Chechnyawill be
impossible (Tishkov, 1997b).
Sociocultural Damage and a Learning
Curve

There are no establishedquantitativecriteria

for measuringthe socioculturaland psychological damages resulting from violent conflict. Analyses of peacemaking and
again.
The drama and chaos of the Chechen humanitarianinterventionsin conflict zones
War caused the greatest number of forced in the Former Soviet Union have been
migrants. Many local residents had left modest and at times biased. One factor that
Chechnya in the years 1991-94. Over stands out as particularlyimportant is mili100,000 mainly ethnic Russians and other tarization through illegal paramilitaryfor-

Valery Tishkov

ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN THE FORMER USSR

mations or 'armies', 'national guards', or

'defense battalions',which leads to a profusion of small weapons among civilians. The
post-Soviet world is a striking example of
how a highly militarized society that once
exercisedstrict control of access to arms has
lost this control, mainly because of disintegration, weakening order, and corruption
among the military. Huge army arsenals
became available for the entrepreneursof
violence and all kinds of fighters for a 'just
cause'. The availability of arms, their
ensuing spread,and questions of control can
be important indicators for the early
warning of conflict as well as for assessing
the possibilities of conflict resolution:
without arms, one cannot organize a war.
One of the tragic mistakes made with the
breakupof the Soviet Union was to enable
the arming of new actors leaving the old
state in order to safeguardtheir new security
and sovereignty. In particular,Moscow was
too lenient about arming groups and forces,
promising to combat anti-Russian politics
and radicalgeopolitical reorientation,as was
the case with Abkhazian separatists
demanding to rejoin Russia after winning
independence from Georgia .
The Georgian governments under
Gamsakhurdia and Shevardnadze would
never have been able to unleash a violent
movement against local minorities (South
Ossetians and Abkhazians)if the new state
had not acquired a large proportion of the
Soviet Army arsenal. This enabled Georgia
to build up an army more reminiscent of a
mob, led by uneducated, ambitious, and
irresponsiblemen. In turn, the Ossets and
Abkhaziansorganizedarmed resistancewith
weapons smuggled from Russian military
garrisonsand other outside sources. During
the war in Abkhazia, the Abkhazian side
used no less than 1,000 railway carriage
loads of arms and ammunition, mainly from
Russianarsenals.
Easy, large-scale access to sophisticated

modern weapons became a decisive factor

for enthusiastsof the Chechen 'nationalrevolution', who had in fact initially not
planned an armedresistance.Such a scenario
became possible after the RussianArmy had
withdrawn,leaving behind 226 airplanes,42
tanks, 36 armored personnel carriers, and
29,000 machine-guns.The Chechen leadership decided to arm the male population,
mainly from the ruralmountain areas,who
had lost their former sources of income
derived from seasonal work elsewhere in
Russia.A Kalashnikovgave them the chance
to 'restore justice' - which they set about
doing by seizing the apartmentsand other
property of mainly ethnic Russian citydwellerswho lacked kinship protection.
The glorificationof physicalforce and of
fighting skills has remained an element of
culture, from ancient mythology to
Hollywood productions.In Chechnya,emotional preparationfor fighting preceded real
battles. In 1991-92, the Chechen publisher
'Groznenskii rabochii' (Grozny worker)
printed 100,000 copies of two war-romantic
booklets: Ten Months of Prison in Chechnya
and Sables of Paradise: Mountaineers'
Weapons in the Caucasian War. Leo
Tolstoy's story 'Khadzhi Murat', with its
myth of the noble savage, has also been
reprintedfrequently.
Heavy arming of a considerableproportion of the male civilian population is a prerequisite of conflict in all its stages. Today,
with practicallyall violent conflicts on the
territoryof the FSU in abeyance,weapons in
civilian hands remain the major obstacle to
the restorationof true peace. The number of
armed Chechen combatants has increased
several times after they seized Grozny and
federal troops left Chechnya in autumn
1996: from 5,000-7,000 during the war to
30,000 after the January1997 elections and
the formation of Maskhadov'sgovernment,
up to 50,000-60,000 by the end of 1997,
some 10% of the population.

585

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journal of PEACE RESEARCH

Militarization, from propaganda to the
real arming of civilians, is a majorparameter
of these conflicts. It producesa 'Kalashnikov
culture' highly detrimental to reconstruction, especially for organizing the return of
young men to peaceful ways of earning a
livelihood. Other types of sociocultural
damageinclude unemployment, lack of education, deterioration of medical treatment,
rupturedcommunal ties, and blood feuds.
Another important characteristicof conflicts in the territoriesof the Former Soviet
Union is the rapid change in the demographicsituation, including the ethnic composition of the population. Ethnic cleansing
makes a territory more homogeneous and
potentially less vulnerable to inter-ethnic
clashes. This could even be interpretedas a
nasty but effective way of avoiding future
conflict, if no other forms of pacificationare
availableto the warringparties.But partition
along the ethnic or religious lines cannot
provide a tidy answer: it brings new problems and sows the seeds of new conflict.
Homogenization does not mean bringing
harmony and peace for the group in the
absenceof'outside elements'. In-group contradictions and cleavagescan prove no less
severe, once the outsiders ('aliens', 'colonizers','occupants')have disappeared.Often
these 'outsiders' have served to keep the
group together;indeed, the group may have
existed precisely because it could find
cohesion and identify itself through the
opposition with another group or social
coalition. For example, the strong presence
of Russian populations in former Soviet
peripheryareasplayed an important role for
ethno-national consolidation of major nonRussian groups. As soon as the Russians
started to leave Kirgizia and Kazakhstanin
CentralAsia, and Georgia and Chechnya in
the Caucasus, cleavages and rivalriesbased
on regional, religious, kinship, and other
markersemerged among local groups which
had seemed quite coherent until then. It was

volume36/ number5 / september1999

outside intervention that made Chechens
more united and helped to overcome the
violent internal clashes in 1993-94 that
promised speedy failure for the regime of
Dzokhar Dudaev. The conflict in Abkhazia
helped to keep the Georgians consolidated
in the face of growing regional,cultural,and
religiouscleavages.
The mere movement of people beyond
borders does not make them spatially distanced. Those who have been removed or
expelled tend to remain within close reach,
nurturing their hatred towards enemies,
mixed with nostalgia and grief over lost
homes and property.Revenge mentality and
activities become the inevitable result of
population exchange and ethnic cleansing.
This can be observed among expelled
Georgians currently involved in underground fighting and terroristacts in the Gali
region of Abkhazia, among Azeris expelled
from Karabakh and surrounding areas,
among Ingush expelled from Prigorodnyi
raion, among Russians in Stavropol krai
expelled from Chechnya. Non-returnees are
explosive fuel for the next cycle of violence.
Internal violent conflicts and wars seriously
affect adjacent regions. The Chechen War
spilled over the administrative borders of
that republic; federal military headquarters
and other installations, including detainment camps for Chechens, were placed on
the territory of North Ossetia, Stavropol,
Ingushetia, and Daghestan. Two major
clashes caused by terroristacts took place in
Stavropol krai (Buddennovsk) and in
Daghestan (Pervomaisk). The war behind
no bordersgave rise to a specific emotional
climate and political behaviorwhich can be
qualified as 'near frontline'. Even with a
ceasefire and top-level peace agreement,
armed conflict tends to spreadviolence and
political instability over a larger territory - especiallybecause there will be those
combatants who remain armed, as well as
those who do not accept the agreementsand

Valery Tishkov

ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN THE FORMER USSR

who still can live on the business of war and

arms. Hostage-taking for ransom, seizing
property, and other violent manifestations
have now escalatedto the point of new crises
in Daghestan and Stavropolafter the end of
war in Chechnya.The generalconclusion on
world patternsof armedconflicts reachedby
Sollenberg & Wallensteen (1997: 22) is relevant here:
Anotherphenomenonwasthatnot onlywere
armedconflictsspreadingoverlargerterritoriesandgivingriseto newconflictsbut so was
general social and political instability,
pointing to a lack of state legitimacy.The
causallinks obviouslygo both ways:armed
conflict leads to instabilityand instability
leads to armed conflict. Thus, a region
becomeslockedinto a viciousspiral,in some
cases towardscomplete state failure,as in
SomaliaandZaire.
The next important issue concerns the
changing balance and sociocultural climate
in areas receiving refugees and displaced
persons during and after the conflict. In
1992, wishful thinking prevailed among
some membersof Gaidar'sgovernment,that
the ethnic Russians and other 'Europeans'
forced to leave Central Asia and
Transcaucasus after the breakup of the
USSR would be settled in underdeveloped
regions of the Russian heartland and thus
contribute greatly to the economic rise of
Russia'proper'.The number of'resettlers'to
the 'historic motherland' was expected to
between 5 and 7 million, out of 25 million
ethnic Russiansabroad. Similar false expectations for ethnic homogenization led the
Latvianand Estonian authoritiesto choose a
policy of exclusion for local residents with
non-titular ethnic backgrounds. These
expectations also proved wrong. Research
and policy were permeated with the theoretically untenable assumption that people
have some kind of deep-rooted, historical
bonds to their eponym countries, and they
must 'return home' or be repatriated
(Kolstoe, 1995; Lebedeva, 1996). Political

correctnessdid not permit the inclusion of

more powerful factors than largelyinvented
symbolic 'needs' - private human strategies
motivated by material and climatic living
conditions, professional and even cultural
attachments developed among native 'nonnatives' and old settlers of different parts of
the USSR. Incorrect theory and wishful
politics have caused tension and violence in
the area of the FSU even though ethnic
Russianshave not become a warringpartyin
any of the conflicts - except for the federal
troops in Chechnya, and here the majority
were soldiers and officers of ethnic Russian
background.
Since the late 1980s, perhaps 2 million
ethnic Russians have moved from other
post-Soviet states to Russia.But this has not
been a process of 'return'or restorationof a
'historic norm': it has mainly been economically motivated or otherwise forced
migration. Moreover, it can be expected in
the future as well - especially if economic
performanceand stability in Russiaimprove
compared to other countries of the CIS or
the Baltic region. Whether it will improve
the situation in the FSU area in terms of
conflict prevention is more controversial.
The 'back to "historicnormality"'paradigm
overlooks the likelihood of new tensions
caused by weakening important humanitarian links between new states and by tensions between locals and newcomers even if
they are of the same ethnic stock.
What to outsidersmay look like a 'return'
is for each individual involved more of an
exodus. This trauma brings alienation
towardsthose who can be seen as guilty. The
anti-Caucasian syndrome among Russia's
population was seriously influenced by the
forced move of most non-titular groups
from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, and
some parts of the North Caucasus. The
decisive support of local Russians for
Abkhazianseparatismhas also come about as
a reaction to the exclusivist policy of the

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volume36/ number5 / september1999

nationalist Georgian government. This is be cynical manipulators.Either way: theory

one fatal inconsistency between theorizing and outsider prescriptions can construct
on groups' 'basic needs' such as 'unification' reality - but they can also destroy it.
or 'homogeneity and integrity', and the
social panoramamotivatedmainly by private
A Non-Conclusion
interests,expectations,and goals.
A similarlyconflict-generatingelement of In lieu of a conclusion, let me relatethe story
the same theory should be recognizedin the of one person whom I interviewedin 1995
non-negotiable stance of groups going into in Nazran, the small capital of the Republic
conflict when their basic need for collective of Ingushetia. 'B' was born to an Ingush
worth (pride) is violated and when the integ- family in North Ossetia.As a young child he
rity of the group is endangered.The weak- was deported in 1944 to Kirgizia,where he
ness of this thesis is that its one-sided politics went on to study construction engineering.
has been aimed exclusively at small-group With tensions growing, he moved and lived
units. The whole theory presupposes - quietly with his own family in Khakasia(in
without explicitly stating this - that large south Siberia),while his father and mother,
and often dominant groups will not have together with other now-adult children in
basic needs. And yet, recognitionmust mean the family, returned from deportation in
recognizing basic needs for all groups. That 1957. In 1988, he moved to Chechenocan lead to conflicts, ratherthan preventing Ingushetia to rejoin his aged parents, to
them. In the FSU, the prime candidate for finish building a large house after his
restoration of lost worth (or pride) and younger brother, who had been taking care
integrity - territorial,as well as titular self- of the parents, was killed in a car accident.
determination- would be a divided people: After the split of Chechnya and Ingushetia
the ethnic Russians. Indeed, these are pre- under Dudaev, 'B' started to work for the
cisely the arguments used by Russian ultra- local government and founded his own
nationalistswho cry out against humiliation cooperative, earning a relatively good
and the tragedyof a great people. There are income. After the Ingush-Ossetian conflict
many more potential candidates for 'basic he managed to registerhis parentsas 'involneeds', even though the price has already untarily relocated persons', which meant
been paid by those on whose behalf new that they could qualify for materialcompenconflict projects are engineered by acade- sation for the house they had lost in
mics-turned-politicians(like Gamsakhurdia Prigorodny raion. He sent his older son to
and Ardzinba in Georgia), by high-ranking Moscow Institute of Technology, to get an
Soviet military officers-turned-presidents education as well as 'to keep him away from
(like Dudaev and Maskhadovin Russia), or the fighting'. 'B' could be described as a
by ambitious and poorly advised govern- moderate believer in Islam, and has a dual
ment officers (a long list, starting with the loyalty - to his own culture and people, and
RussianPresident).Holistic and quantitative to the country of Russia.
At the end of my stay in his house and
analysisof conflict sidesteps the crucial role
many long talks, it was he who asked
or
circles
after
small
elite
of the individuals
capable of making groups and whole coun- me the most profound question:' Whyarewe
tries hostage to what is explained (from living an everydaylife herewhichis so verydifoutside) as their 'basic needs'. They may be ferentfrom what is said about us?. This came
deep believers in what they have read in from an individual who had personally
books and have been taught - or they may experiencedthree of the conflicts considered

Valery

Tishkov

ETHNIC

in this article. What are the chances that his

voice can be heard amongst the mass of
untenable abstractions?
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