Nested Nationalism: Making and Unmaking Nations in the Soviet Caucasus

by Krista A. Goff

Overview

Nested Nationalism is a study of the politics and practices of managing national minority identifications, rights, and communities in the Soviet Union and the personal and political consequences of such efforts. Titular nationalities that had republics named after them in the USSR were comparatively privileged within the boundaries of "their" republics, but they still often chafed both at Moscow's influence over republican affairs and at broader Russian hegemony across the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, members of nontitular communities frequently complained that nationalist republican leaders sought to build titular nations on the back of minority assimilation and erasure. Drawing on extensive archival and oral history research conducted in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Dagestan, Georgia, and Moscow, Krista A. Goff argues that Soviet nationality policies produced recursive, nested relationships between majority and minority nationalisms and national identifications in the USSR.

Goff pays particular attention to how these asymmetries of power played out in minority communities, following them from Azerbaijan to Georgia, Dagestan, and Iran in pursuit of the national ideas, identifications, and histories that were layered across internal and international borders. What mechanisms supported cultural development and minority identifications in communities subjected to assimilationist politics? How did separatist movements coalesce among nontitular minority activists? And how does this historicization help us to understand the tenuous space occupied by minorities in nationalizing states across contemporary Eurasia? Ranging from the early days of Soviet power to post-Soviet ethnic conflicts, Nested Nationalism explains how Soviet-era experiences and policies continue to shape interethnic relationships and expectations today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501753275
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	01/15/2021
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.12(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Krista A. Goff is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Miami and coeditor of Empire and Belonging in the Eurasian Borderlands. Follow her on X @krista_goff8.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Making Minorities and National Hierarchies
2. Territory, War, and Nation-Building in the South Caucasus
Interlude: After Stalin: Reform and Revenge
3. Defining the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic
4. The Vanishing Minority: Scholars, Politicians, and the Production of Soviet Assimilation Narratives
5. Minority Activism and Citizenship after Stalin
Conclusion

What People are Saying About This

Francine Hirsch

Nested Nationalism is a rich and original history of the making of Soviet Azerbaijan with important implications for thinking about inter-ethnic relations in the Soviet Union. Krista Goff is a fearless researcher who has combined archival research in Moscow and the South Caucasus with oral history to piece together a powerful and at times deeply affecting story about the erasure of nationalities and the politics of belonging. The book is filled with insights about Soviet nationality policy, the "masking tendencies" of the archives, and the writing of history.

Ronald Grigor Suny

Krista Goff has written a ground-breaking account of the effects of Soviet policies on non-Russian peoples, programs that both created and undermined nations within the USSR. From archives and interviews, Goff has woven a story that government spokesmen did not want told. For the first time we have a look deep below the surface of government actions and the dominant nations to see what minorities in a nationalizing empire experienced.

Brigid O'Keeffe

Nested Nationalism is a thoughtfully conceived book that shows how nontitular nationalities had a lot to lose in the drive to assimilate them not only to Sovietness but also to the titular nationality of the larger Soviet socialist republics to which they belonged.

Adeeb Khalid

In this methodologically innovative book, Krista Goff combines deep archival research with oral histories to show us the multinational Soviet Union from the perspective of its nontitular nationalities. Nested Nationalism offers copious new insights into the history Soviet nationalities policies and practices. A remarkable achievement.

Fiona Hill

Nested Nationalism provides a deeply-informed account of how Soviet nationality policies shaped interethnic relationships and national identifications for future generations across the Caucasus. It is an invaluable book for anyone trying to understand the troubling experiences of minority communities in the Soviet Union and their continued quest for belonging long after its collapse. The 2020 resumption of war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh is a stark reminder of the Soviet legacy and the asymmetries of power Krista Goff lays out in the book.

Editorial Reviews

This is a meticulous study of Soviet nationality policy, focusing on Azerbaijan, based on extensive archival research and oral history from 120 interviews.

Choice

Across this book, Goff juggles a laudable range of detail with clarity and persuasion, reminding at each turn how much further one could go.

Slavonic and East European Review

[A] pioneering study, illuminating a hitherto unknown perspective on the history of the Soviet nationality policy, and the USSR generally. Moreover, it will serve future generations as an essential reference work on the history of Soviet Azerbaijan and the development of Soviet Azeri national consciousness, surpassing all other previous works on this subject. Enriched by lively and engaging prose, and a first-rate source base of archival materials and interviews, it makes for insightful and dynamic reading. A new classic in the field, it is a highly recommended work!

The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review

In this impressive first monograph, Krista Goff offers new insight into Soviet nation-building in the non-Russian republics, particularly in the Southern Caucasus. [T]he book offers rich, archivally grounded detail on a range of complex issues in the South Caucasus. Written in accessible prose and with clear argument, it will prove to be essential reading for scholars of Soviet nation-building and the South Caucasus.

The Russian Review

A core value of the book lies not only in the originality of its thesis but also in the utilization of archival and oral history sources that are presented to us for the first time. It is a testament to Goff's investigative tenacity that the final product is an empirically rich and cogent work of scholarship.

Canadian-American Slavic Studies

To find out how things worked in the republics, you have to go to Krista Goff's fascinating story of the Caucasus, the product of dauntingly difficult research in recalcitrant archives and with oral history informants inclined to look anxiously over their shoulders.

London Review of Books

Krista A. Goff produces a groundbreaking work of historiography that examines Soviet nationality politics in the context of the "nontitular" ethnicities of the Caucasus, with particular attention given to minority groups in the Azerbaijan SSR. Nested Nationalism is an achievement in its own right.

Ab Imperio

"To find out how things worked in the republics, you have to go to Krista Goff's fascinating story of the Caucasus, the product of dauntingly difficult research in recalcitrant archives and with oral history informants inclined to look anxiously over their shoulders."

Nested Nationalism

"Across this book, Goff juggles a laudable range of detail with clarity and persuasion, reminding at each turn how much further one could go."

SLAVONIC AND EAST EUROPEAN REVIEW