Territories of ‘Special Status’ in Russia: The Ethnic Dimension

Abstract

The practical significance of creating ‘ethnic territorial units’ within the Russian federation remains unclear. Since 2003 the Russian Government has implemented a policy of merging ethnically defined autonomous okrugs (districts) into larger units. The former okrugs have been replaced by the territories of a ‘special’ status. Some new legal provisions refer to these units’ ‘ethnic’ character. However, examination of the new legislation reveals that issues of ethnicity, the protection and promotion of minority languages, and the cultural heritage of the okrugs have largely been neglected. All the legal acts adopted to date are very general in nature and do not provide details of the guarantees and obligations necessary to put such policies into practice.

Notes

Ten administrative districts (raions) and 41 settlements in Russia are officially recognized as ‘national districts’ (natstional'nye raiony)/‘national settlements’ (natsional'nye poseleniya) – ethnic local administrative or municipal units in places where ethnic minorities reside in compact formations. Among the examples are the three Karelian raions in Karelia, the German national district in Altai krai, the Kuiskoe Vepsian ‘nationality’ settlement in Vologda oblast’. Some of the ‘nationality’ districts and settlements are named after significant, but not necessarily majority, ethnic groups residing in their territories: for example, the name of the Baunty-Evenk raion (Bauntovskii Evenkiiskii munitsipal'nyi raion) in Buryatia celebrates a concentration in 2001 of 612 Evenks, comprising a mere 5.4 per cent of the district's population, against 76.8 per cent Russians and 14.7 per cent Russians: see the official web site at <http://egov-buryatia.ru/index.php?id=454,> accessed 6 Feb. 2010.

Fifteen republics (Bashkortostan, Buryatia, Chuvashia, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Kalmykia, Karelia, Komi, Mari El, Mordovia, North Ossetiya-Alania, Tatarstan, Tuva, Udmurtia and Sakha-Yakutia) are former Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSR) that existed within the RSFSR. Four republics (Adygeya, Altai, Karachaevo-Cherkessia, and Khakasia) appeared following upgrading of their status from autonomous oblast’. Two republics (Chechnya and Ingushetia) are the result of the break-up of a former Chechen-Ingush ASSR.

Gordon Hahn, ‘Reforming the Federation’, in Stephen White, Zvi Gitelman and Richard Sakwa (eds.), Development in Russian Politics 6 (Basingstoke: Palgrave–Macmillan, 2005), pp.148–67 (p.148).

The seven federal districts were created by a presidential decree on 13 May 2000; each federal district unites several provinces and is headed by a presidential representative.

Igor Kosikov, ‘Ischezayushie sub”ekty federatsii: Rossiiskie avtonomii v kontekste federativnoi reformy’ [Disappearing subjects of the federation: Russian autonomies in the context of federal reform], Rossiya i sovremenny mir, 2007, No.2, pp.125–41 (pp.135, 141).

Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1994), p.1426.

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Alexander Shtromas, ‘Legal Position of Soviet Nationalities and their Territorial Units According to the 1977 Constitution of the USSR’, Russian Review, Vol.37, No.3 (1978), pp. 265–72 (pp.266, 269).

Bremmer, ‘Reassessing Soviet Nationalities Theory’, pp.5–6, 13–17; Philip Roeder, ‘Soviet Federalism and Ethnic Mobilization’, World Politics, Vol.43, No.2 (1991), pp.204–8.

Bremmer and Taras (eds.), Nations and Politics; Henry Huttenbach (ed.), Soviet Nationality Policies: Ruling Ethnic Groups in the USSR (London and New York: Mansell, 1990); David Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998).

For example, in the Federal law ‘On the General Principles of Organization of the Legislative (Representative) and Executive Organs of the State Power in the Constituent Regions of the Russian Federation’ (No.184-FZ) of 6 Oct. 1999, and the Federal Constitutional Law, ‘On the Process of Accession to the Russian Federation and Foundation of a New Constituent Unit of the Russian Federation’ (No.6) of 17 Dec. 2001.

Basically, the compromise approach towards defining the ethnic character of republic statehood has not changed throughout the 1990s and the following decade, but some constitutions of the early 1990s contained a number of radical provisions that were deleted after Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000. For more on the early versions of republican constitutions, see Mikhail Guboglo, Mozhet li dvuglavy orël letet's odnim krylom? Razmyshleniya o zakonotvorchestve v sfere etnogosudarstvennyh otnoshenii [Can the two-headed eagle fly with one wing? Thoughts on law-making in the sphere of ethno-state relations] (Moscow: TsIMO, 2000), pp.154–64.

Constitution of the Republic of Tatarstan, available at: <http://www.tatar.ru/?DNSID=a626156220175707de5da5c04fb14e4d&node_id=1384>, accessed 24 Oct. 2009; official translation; emplasis added.

Konstitutsiya (Osnovnoi zakon) Respubliki Sakha (Yakutiya) [Constitution (Fundamental law) of the Republic of Sakha-Yakutia], available at <http://www.sakha.gov.ru/main.asp?c=1636>, accessed 24 Oct. 2009; authors’ translation.

Ustav Pskovskoi oblasti [Charter of Pskov province], available at <http://www.constitution.garant.ru/DOC_16603701.htm>, accessed 24 Oct. 2009; authors’ translation.

Setu is an Orthodox Christian group speaking Estonian and living on both sides of the Russian–Estonian border.

For an overview see <http://www.constitution.garant.ru/DOC_7000.htm>, accessed 24 Oct. 2009.

The constitution of Dagestan declared as state languages alongside Russian the languages of unspecified ‘peoples of Dagestan’.

Il'dar Gabdrafikov, ‘Etnicheskie i obshchegrazhdanskie aspekty natsional'noi politiki v respublikah sovremennoi Rossii (po materialam respubliki Bashkortostan)’ [Ethnic and civic aspects of nationalities policy in the republics of contemporary Russia: based on materials from the republic of Bashkortostan], in Prostranstvo vlasti: Istoricheskii opyt Rossii i vyzovy sovremennosti [The extent of power: Russia's historical experience and the challenges of the present] (Moscow: MONF, 2001), pp.426–45.

Rushan Gall'amov, ‘Postperestroechnaya evolutsiya politicheskikh elit Rossiiskikh Respublik: Etnicheskii aspekt’ [The post-perestroika evolution of political elites of republics of Russia: The ethnic aspect], Etnopanorama, Vol.2, No.1 (2000), pp.22–4 (p.24).

Valery Tishkov, ‘Pro et Contra ethnicheskogo federalisma v Rossii’ [The pros and contras of ethnic federalism in Russia], in Rafael Khakimov (ed.) Federalism v Rossii [Federalism in Russia] (Kazan: Institute of History, Academy of Sciences of Tatarstan, and the Kazan Institute of Federalism, 2001), pp.29–41 (pp.30–5).

Leokadiya Drobizheva, Sotsial'noe neravenstvo etnicheskih grupp: Predstavleniya i realnost’ [Social inequality of ethnic groups: Conceptions and reality] (Moscow: Academiya, 2002), pp.14–118.

Nikolay Petrov, ‘O regionalisme i geograficheskom kretinisme’ [Regionalism and geographical cretinism], Polit.ru, 13 Feb. 2006, available at <http://www.polit.ru/lectures/2006/02/13/petrov.html>, accessed 4 Jan. 2010.

Rossiskaya gazeta, 19 April 2005, available at <http://www.rg.ru/2005/04/19/sibir-referendum.html>, accessed 6 Feb. 2010.

Transcript of press conference with the Russian and foreign media 1 Feb. 2007, the Kremlin, Moscow, available at <http://president.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2007/02/01/1309_type82915type82917_117609.shtml>, accessed 21 Dec. 2009.

Ibid.

‘Torshin khochet uprazdnit’ natsional’no-territorial’noe delenie Rossii’ [Torshin wants to suppress Russia's national-territorial division], 12 March 2008, available at: <http://www.mari.ee/rus/articles/polit/2008/03/03.html>, accessed 8 Jan. 2010.

Anna Madyarova, ‘Problema statusa avtonomnogo okruga pri soedinenii s kraem, oblastyu’ [The problem of the status of an autonomous district on amalgamation with a territory or province], in Aktual'nye problemy konstitutsionnogo i mezhdunarodnogo prava [Topical problems of constitutional and international law] (Moscow: Russian Academy of Law, 2007), pp.107–19 (pp.107–8).

Ustav Irkutskoi oblasti. Zakon Irkutskoi oblasti No.1 [Charter of Irkutsk oblast’. Irkutsk oblast’ Law No.1], 17 April 2009, available at <http://irk.gov.ru/index.php?IdAction=docs&amp;Event=section&amp;id=15>, accessed 19 Oct. 2009.

Madyarova, ‘Problema statusa avtonomnogo okruga’, p.113.

Ibid, pp.111–12.

Article 5, part 1 of the federal constitutional law No.6, ‘On the establishment of a new subject of the Russian Federation as a result of the amalgamation of the Krasnoyarsk krai, the Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets) autonomous okrug and the Evenk autonomous okrug’, 14 Oct. 2005.

Anton Uvachan, ‘Osoby status tol’ko na bumage’ [Special status only on paper], Krasnoyarskii rabochii, 7 Oct. 2009, available at <http://www.krasrab.com/archive/2009/10/07/09/view_article>, accessed 3 Jan. 2010).

Vladimir Kryazhkov, ‘Pravo korennyh malochislennyh narodov severa na natsionalno-territorial'noe obrazovanie’ [The right of small indigenous peoples of the north to a national-territorial formation], Gosudarstvo i pravo, Vol.81, No.3 (2007), pp.26–33; Andrei Vasetski and Natalia Pryadko, ‘Avtonomnye okruga v sisteme federativnyh otnoshenii polietnichnoi Rossii’ [Autonomous districts in the system of federal relations in multi-ethnic Russia], Lichnost’, Kul’tura, Obshchestvo, Vol.10, No.1 (2008), pp.361–70 (p.362); Pavel Ulyanishev, ‘Osobennosti sovremennoi rossiiskoi avtonomii: problemny analyz’ [Peculiarities of the contemporary Russian autonomous unit: analysis of problems], Pravo i politika, Vol.9, No.8 (2008), pp.1886–91 (p.1889).

Yevgeny Trifonov, ‘Administrativnaya kroika i natsional'noe shit’ë’ [Administrative cutting and national sewing together], Novoe vremya, 2006, No.22, p.12.

Vladimir Leksin, ‘Prostranstvo vlasti i mir cheloveka’ [The reach of power and the world of Man], Mir Rossii, Vol.XIV, No.1 (2005), pp.3–61 (p.38); Natal'ya Gorodetskaya, Mikhail Yanchevskii, Marina Il'yushchenko and Vitalii Vodop'yanov, ‘Regiony pred”yavlyayut ukrupnenny schët’ [Regions present an enlarged claim], Kommersant, 25 Nov. 2008; Irina Ruzhnikova, ‘Status dlya Ust’-Ordy’ [A status for Ust’-Orda], Baikalskie vesti, 9 July 2009, available at <http://politirkutsk.ru/view.php/500/1.php>, accessed 3 Jan. 2010; Aleksandr Kynev, ‘Slishkom raznyi status’ [A too different status], Nezavisimaya gazeta, 16 May 2008.

See, for example, a similar statement made by Nikalai Maimago, the President of the Taimyr Association of Small Indigenous Peoples, in Gorodetskaya et al., ‘Regiony pred”yavlyayut’.

Alexei Nesterov, ‘Uchrezhdeniya kul’tury Komi-Permyatskogo okruga mogut poteryat’ svoyu samostoyatelnost’ [Cultural institutions of Komi-Permyak district could lose their independence’, The Perm’ Broadcasting Company, 1 April 2009, available at <http://perm.rfn.ru/rnews.html?id=36615>, accessed 24 Oct. 2009.

Arkadii Bykov, ‘Komi vpadaet v komu’ [Komi falls into a coma], Perm'skii obozrevatel’, 16 March 2009, available at <http://www.permoboz.ru/txt.php?n=6652>, accessed 24 Oct. 2009.

Uvachan, ‘Osoby status tol’ko na bumage’.

See Gorodetskaya et al., ‘Regiony pred”yavlyayut’; Uvachan and Ruzhnikova, ‘Status dlya Ust’-Ordy’.

Natal'ya Zubarevich interview, ‘Rossiiskaya ekonomika poka slaba dlya provedeniya politiki ekonomicheskogo vyravnivaniya regionov’ [Russian economy still too weak to follow a policy of economic equalization of regions], 22 July 2008, available at <http://club-rf.ru/expert/1717/>, accessed 3 Jan. 2010; see also Uvachan, ‘Osoby status tol’ko na bumage’; Gorodetskaya et al.,‘Regiony pred”yavlyayut’.

Cited in Gorodetskaya et al., ‘Regiony pred”yavlyayut’.

Kynev, ‘Slishkom raznyi status’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Oksana Oracheva

Oksana Oracheva is Program Director at the Institute of International Education Moscow representative office and Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, Russian Academy of Civil Service under the President of the Russian Federation. She was the editor of the Russian regional bulletin published by the Moscow centre of the East–West Institute and has published on federalism in both Russia and the West.

Alexander Osipov

Alexander Osipov is an affiliated research fellow of the Centre for Independent Social Research, St. Petersburg, a doctoral candidate at the Institute of social in the Russian Academy of Sciences, and a programme co-ordinator at the Human Rights Centre ‘Memorial’, Moscow, one of the leading Russian non-governmental human rights organizations. His research activities primarily focus on ethnicity, minority protection and racial discrimination.