APPROACHING ETHNIC CONFLICT

Preamble

           The approaches and varying methodologies of different social sciences to the phenomenon of ethnicity lead to a wide spectrum of interpretations of ethnic conflicts. The problem is that investigators often categorize as ethnic conflicts, situations which may have a more complex nature. For example, Western and Russian experts considered the national movements for independence in the Baltic region as ethnic conflicts developed in the former USSR.( Clemens 1992; Prazauskas 1993) In reality, the decisive factor in these events was political rather than ethnic: they were movements of three Baltic polities comprised of ethnically mixed populations for state sovereignty which they felt they lacked, or which had been lost in the past.

            Undeniably, the majority of people in these republics consist of three distinct ethnic groups, who formulated the concept and program of ethno-nationalism. An overwhelming majority of the population, including non-Balts, was mobilized around this program. About the third of the ethnic Russians living in these republics openly supported and participated in national movements for independence, which in their nature resembled anti-colonial movements for self-determination. That is, they represented political battles for an independent statehood. In contrast to leaders of national liberation movements in the "Third World" (Nehru, Mugabe, Nkruma, etc.), who resolutely opposed ethnic and tribal separatism, Baltic leaders constantly manoeuvered between two political formulas of national self-definition: one based on citizenship and one on ethnicity. Only in Lithuania did the movement's leader, and subsequent Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, Vitaus Landbergis, emphasized a break with the doctrine of ethno-nationalism, when he defined the Lithuanian nation as a multiethnic co-citizenship, including all citizens of Lithuania (Landbergis, 1991). In Latvia and Estonia, after the decisive victory over the union center, nationalist leaders took a more resolute position in favor of the creation of an ethnic state and open discrimination towards the non-titular population, through the loss of citizenship rights (during the parliamentary elections in Estonia, June 1992, over 1/3 of the population was disenfranchised). At this moment a clearly expressed inter-ethnic parameter of the situation appeared, but it undoubtedly was present earlier as well, since a part of the 'Russian-speaking' (non-titular) population of the Baltic republics associated itself with the center and its state structures and institutions, thus appearing as opponents of secession.

            Equally, it is not entirely correct to treat as ethnic conflicts, the struggles for sovereignty and autonomy taking place in the Russian Federation and other states of the former Soviet Union under the flag of national movements. In reality, they represent a move to complete the decentralization of new political formations. An ethnic parpameter is also in effect, as the leaders and supporters of movements in the Russian autonomies for sovereignty up to complete secession are primarily members of the titular groups. It is precisely this part of the republic's population which demands a change in their status within the Russian Federation or a complete exit from the Federation. Meanwhile, there is not enough ground to speak about Russian-Tatar and Russian-Chechen inter-ethnic conflicts in connection with the political strategies of the Tatarstan and Chechen republics. The more so as in the leadership of Tatarstan not only ethnic Tatars support independence. On the federal level opponents of separatism include representatives of various nationalities, including Tatars, Chechens, Ukrainians, Dagestanis and Tuvinians, that are most seccessionist groups. Enough to recall well-known names of such top political figures as Khasbulatov, Shumeiko, Abdulatipov, Shoigu and many others. Similar reservations apply to the interpretation of the movement for the Crimean autonomization or independence as a Ukrainian-Russian conflict. Behind this movement is not only the Crimean population's desire for independence, but also the Russian majority's concerns regarding its status in the new geo-political situation which appeared when the Ukraine became an independent state and kept the territory of the peninsula, transferred from Russian control in 1954, under its jurisdiction.

            Because of the multi-ethnic composition of almost all major areas of the former USSR (the only exception is Armenia after the exodus of the Azeris from this territory), practically all inner conflicts - social-economic or political - immediately acquire an ethnic manifestation and flavor. This gives these conflicts and contradictions a deeper, more complex,  manifest and often irreconciliable character. On the other hand, the social, political and cultural hierarchies of ethnic groups, as well as the list of the previous regime's crimes against ethnic groups is so long, that there are more than sufficient grounds for inter-ethnic tensions on both individual and group levels. Thus the ethnic factor generates, in its turn, many of the crisis situations which arise in the realm of economics and politics, inter-community contacts, and federal-provincial relations.

            Precisely for these reasons, bounderies between economic, socio-political and ethnic conflicts on the territory of the former Soviet Union and in new Russia are fluid and difficult to determine. The conflicts themselves have varying natures: one form is enclosed in other, or is unpredictably camouflaged. We can find an example of such ethnic camouflage in the political struggle posing as 'national self-determination' in the case of the Northern native people. This struggle, led by authorities of the Russian autonomous okrugs, actually defends the interests of the dominant non-native population against the federal center and other higher organs of power. The tone is determined by an influential elite of buseness manafers who dream of crearing their own Eldorado through exploitation of the rich natural resources. A typical example is the "national self-definition" in 1992 of the Chukchi Republic, which has no real implication for the fate of the 12,000 Chukchi, who comprise only 7% of the republic's population.

     We can trace an opposite example, in which an ethnic conflict is camouflaged as a political one, in the fight of Moldovan nationalists against 'pro-Communist bastions' in Dniestr and Gagauz areas. This in reality is a serious conflict over the status of the Russian-Ukrainian and Gaugauz minorities in the newly independent state -- particularly in view of the real possibility of unification with Romania. The competition between Tadzhik sub-ethnic groupings and the conflict between the ethnic groups of Badakhshan and the dominant Tadzhiks was behind the bloody events of spring and summer 1992 in Tadjikistan, although its external rhetoric contained the same formula: "Islamic democratic opposition" against the "conservative, corrupt, partocratic" ruling elite.

Post-Soviet ethnic systems

            The difficulty of defining the notion of "ethnic conflict" in the former Soviet Union lies in the diversity of its ethnic systems, which formerly existed within its borders and are now exist within the framework of 15 new states. Donald Horowitz (1985) defined two forms of ethnic systems, 'centralized' and 'dispersed'. The first describes a situation in which some of the ethnic groups constituting the state's population are so large that the problems of their interactions are constantly present in the center of social-political life. In these complex societies is the greatest potential for conflict, bacause the dominant groups more often formulate demands for control and even exclusive possession of state institutions. These unacceptable demands become the cause of polarization of societies along racial or ethnic lines as in South Africa or Sri Lanka.  

            To a 'dispersed" ethnic system belong states with a population comprised of a large number of ethnic groups, each of them so small and weak that they are unable to control the center. Such systems, according to Horowitz, are more prone to inter-ethnic harmony. As such, could probably be categorized Nigeria and India, which until the most recent period successfully controlled these contradictions. Even bloody events of Aiodhe in India in 1992 were overcomed by state force and by local cooperation.

            It is difficult to categorize the former Soviet Union and the new states by this scheme. Its ethnic system was more an asymmetric imperial type. Thier formal structure and status were constructed by ideological and political doctrine as "national states", based on the following postulates: a) those parts of ethnic groups which lived within a republic bearing the name of "their" group were recognized as "nations" (we call them "titular nationalities") and b) these ethno-nations were officially qualified as possessors of their "own" state ("indigenous nations"), c) the remaining population of these "national states" were classified as "non-indigenous", "Russian-speaking", or "minority" living on the territory of a state not their "own".

            The a priori dominant status for titular groups in this case was founded on a distorted interpretation of international documents concerning the right of peoples or nations to self-determination, adapted to an official doctrine, according to which the understandings "nation" and "people" are synonyms for an ethnic entity or "ethnos." According to this understanding, members of the Kazakh nation are understood not persons living on the territory of Kazakhstan, but only ethnic Kazakhs. Likewise in Latvia, Georgia, Azerbaijian and other post-Soviet states. Only ethnic Latvians, Georgians, Azerbaijianis, etc are considered members of these nations. The Georgians recently had to make a small concession from this doctrine and officially announced that Georgia is "a national state of Georgians and Abkhazians". This concession in favor of the Abkhazians was dictated by the powerful status of the Abkhazian autonomy successfully defended by military resistance. Other groups, equally autochtonous for Georgia (Ossetians, Armenians, Meskhetian Turks, and others), are viewed as "non-indigenous populations"). Georgian leaders used this to justify a veto against the return of Meskhetian Turks to Southern Georgia, from which they were deported, as well as repression toward South Ossetian autonomy, lead to a destructive 3-year ethnic conflict. In turn, another cause for the Georgian-Ossetian conflict was the analogous demand of the Southern Ossetians autonomist movement for their own "national state", although no fewer Ossetians lived outside South Ossetia in other parts of Georgia.

      The same system of national (ethnic) states is reproduced on the territory of the Russian Federation, where the titular nationalities, which do not make up a majority (15 out of 21 republics), have the status of "indigenous nations", leaving remaining groups in the position of citizens, living on the territory of a state not "their own." Thus, if according to demographic structures many of the states of the former USSR, as well as the Russian Federation's republics could be considered 'centralized' ethnic systems with approximately equal titular and non-titular groups (Kazakhs and Russians in Kazakhstan, Latvians and Russians in Latvia, Bashkirs, Tatars and Russians in Bashkiria, Russians and Tatars in Tatarstan, Russians and Yakuts in Yakutia, Buryats and Russians in Buryatia, etc,), then the very doctrine of national state, having acquired during the Soviet period a powerful emotional and practical legitimacy, excludes or limits the claims for dominant or even equal status, on the part of non-titular parts of the population. It is important, however, to remember that until the end of the 1980s actual power in the union and autonomous republics was strictly controlled from the Kremlin which was, in turn, controlled by representatives of the largest nationality - the Russians.

            Until recently it was possible, more or less conditionally, to consider the Republic of Dagestan as an example of a "dispersed" ethnic system. It was the only of the republics of the Russian Federation in which no one group was assigned titular status. But even here, the unofficial domination by the largest groups, Avars and Dargins, recently led to protest from other groups (Kumyks, Nogai, Laks, Lezgins), who formulated the slogans of making their "own states". This became the primary cause for the interethnic conflicts which started in the spring of 1992 in this region of Russia, and the disintegration of Dagestan into still smaller "national states" became of the possibilities.

            Another remarkable characteristic of the experience of the former Soviet Union, making its ethnic systems assymetric, - is the status of the dominant ethnic group, the Russians, who comprised 51% of the Union's and now 82% of the Russian Federation's population. Officially, there was no 'national state' for the Russians, and they didn't have their 'own' territory either before the collapse of the Soviet Union, nor in the present-day Russian Federation. In reality however, this group was, and remains politically and culturally dominant. Russians control the power structures of the federal center, administrative oblasts, and autonomous okrugs officially created for the small nations of the North and Siberia. Russian culture, and primarily language, serve as a referent culture for the entire federation and retain dominant positions in the Russian republics.

            For a long time this status was so obvious and unchallenged, that there was no need to fix it through the doctrine of "national self-determination" and the creation of ethnic Russian state. The Russians felt quite comfortable in all regions of the former Soviet Union, and because of an educational level and higher professional status, enjoyed a high-degree of mobility (as did Ukrainians, Armenians, and Azerbaijianis). However, Russians had no advantage in access to political power in republics. In Russia itself their living standards were no higher than that of other ethnic groups and notably lower than living standards of the titular groups in the majority of former union republics (Arutunyan 1992).  

            The process of the disintegration of the USSR and the analogous tendencies in the Russian Federation, have made the problem of interrelations between Russians and other nationalities, the question of the status of Russians in countries of the former USSR and in Russia itself, a focal point of inter-ethnic relations in the former Soviet Union. In spite of the fact that Russians have not become the subjects of direct violence or participants in the opened ethnic conflicts,  anti-Russian sentiments and politics in such regions as the Baltics, Central Asia, and the Transcaucasus became wide-spread and even an element of official state policies, particularly in relation to citizenship, ownership and political rights. The growing emigration of Russians to Russia is one of the more evident of reactions to these negative factors. In Russia itself, the loss of their former status has generated a powerful syndrome of injured sence of collective worth and various patriotic and chauvinistic movements (Szporluk 1989; Drobizheva 1992).

            The fear of "losing" Russia, that she will turn into "tiny principalities" due to the further disintegration became particularly sharp after the declarations of sovereignty of two large republics - Tatarstan in the Volga area and Chechen in the Northern Caucasus. The Russians' political and moral disorientation,  the projection onto them of all the misfortunes and injustices carried out by the political system creates a potential for large-scale conflicts in all states formed from the disintegration of the Soviet Union, including Russian itself.

            Noting the specifics and systematic uniqueness of the Soviet experience,  we nonetheless do not move away from the generally accepted understanding of the phenomenon of ethnic conflict (Stavenhagen 1991; Rupesinghe 1992). By this we mean organized political actions, social movements, mass disorder, separatist movements and even civil wars in which the oppositions are divided along ethnic lines. As a rule, these are conflicts between a minority and a dominant ethnic group which controls power and resources within the state. Thus, the minorities can call into question the state and its political structures. The absence of civic norms, social institutions and of political tools regulating relations between participants in a conflict leads to violence and its escalation.

Explanatory models

     There are several disciplinary approaches to the analysis of ethnic conflicts which have been formulated from the experience of various parts of the world. Many attempts have been made in sociological and political science literature to explain the situation in the Soviet Union after 1985 and after its collapse, but no detailed investigations have been completed. The genre of enlightened journalism and case studies have predominated (Guseinov and Dragunski 1990; Yamskov 1991; Pain 1993). One of the dominant approaches is sociological, according to which conflicts are explained by an analysis of ethnic parameters of the social groupings (class, professional groups, etc.). Sociologists treat the trivial phenomenon of the correlation of social stratification and the division of labor with the ethnic characteristics of the population as a major discovery and one of the primary explanations of conflicts (Ivanov 1991). The phenomena of the usurpation of certain privileged social niches by members of one ethnic group at the expense of others as well as social discrimination based on ethnic and racial characteristics are well known. It is reasonably considered as a basic and provocative motive for inter-ethnic tension and open conflicts, as has been shown by case studies for different regions of the world (Montville 1990; Rupesinghe 1992).

     As for the Soviet case, specialists have often focussed attention on the serious ethnic disproportions between urban and rural populations. In many regions (the Baltics, Central Asia and Kazakhstan, Moldova, and some of the Russian Federation's autonomies) the proportion of Russians and Ukrainians among highly skilled industrial personnel, engineering-technical personnel, management staff, health workers and educators was and remains considerably higher than among the indigenous population. Russians and Ukrainians are also widely represented among agricultural specialists. The causes of this phenomenon are quite obvious: the Center often not only initiated, but implemented the most large-scale industrial projects, military-industrial complex installations, and programmes of educational policy. Russians were a majority, or significant part of the populations in the capitals of the former republics (Alma-Ata, Riga, Tashkent, Minsk, Tallinn, Baku) and a consistent majority in almost all of the republic capitals of the Russian Federation (Guboglo 1991).

            Meanwhile, the correlation between social stratification with the ethnic structure of the population, and ethnic disproportion along urban-rural lines, in spite of its  conflict-generating potential, cannot be interpreted as the main reason for interethnic conflicts. In any case, there is no serious investigative data which could prove this theory. Nor do daily observations provide a foundation for such conclusions. Moreover, in the Nagorny-Karabakh conflict, for example, we have a case, in which  the social status of the Armenians in this enclave was higher than that of that Azeris in and outside the territory (Yamskov 1991). Nonetheless, this did not prevented the Karabakh movement. In the republics of Central Asia there was a high level of tolerance for Russians and Ukrainians but ethno-social disparities were very explicit. The efforts by the local authorities to prevent the exodus of Russians is explained by their understanding of the importance of the high social roles they play in local societies, particularly in the functioning of complex industrial production and management structures (Tishkov 1993).

            What provides serious interest in sociological approach, is the analysis of the phenomenon of economic mediation, particularly in the role of trade. There is a tendency in multi-ethnic societies for members of a particular group, or emigres from a particular region to control trade. This tends to elicit dissatisfaction on the rest part of the population, which projects its negative reactions onto the traders through direct and daily contacts. The series of pogroms of food markets in Russian cities against "faces of Caucasus nationality" (a summary stereotype of natives of the Caucasus) and the events in the city of Uzen (Kirgizia) were exmples of such actions against alien minorities controlling trade or, in street terms, "speculators". Clearly, analogous factors of enmity towards the successful status of traders served as a foundation for the mobilization of participants in June 1989 pogroms against Meskhetian Turk communities in Uzbekistan.

            Nonetheless there are plenty of examples in which rural as well as urban groups, positively accept mutually beneficial economic roles and are inclined to overcome negative feelings towards more successful ethnic aliens, with whom they come into contact, who serve as trade mediators, and supply goods and essential services. In Moscow and other Russia's large urban centers, for example, it would be a complete disaster of fruit and vegetable supplies if Azerbaidjanis and other "southerners" stop their presence and activities. The locals understand this situation and in spite of rhetoric grievances and sporadic clashes, basically accept it.

            Throughout Central Asia and Kazakhstan, ethnic Uzbeks traditionally play the role of skillful traders among Kazakh, Kirgiz, and Turkmen population (Polyakov 1989). For decades traders from the Trans-Caucasus controlled a significant part of the trade in fruit and flowers throughout the former Soviet Union, thus providing for themselves higher standards of living. However, there were no serious conflicts, although in the mass consciousness of residents of the Russian Federation, particularly native Russians, the negative stereotypes toward "southern traders" accumulated. These stereotypes were reflected even in literature, including the novels by Victor Astafiev, which elicited at the time the painful reactions of the Georgian intelligentsia. Recently negative attidudes to trader-mediators of a non-native origin have acquired a mass and powerful character. In 1991, in a sociological survey, 72% of Moscovites expressed negative attitudes towards "traders from southern republics", although use of their services is still wide-spread.

            In this case a powerful and entirely recognisable movement of regional economic structures for independence and liberation from the dictates of Moscow governmental institutions, which controlled the entire territory of the former USSR, including the administrative regions and oblast's of Russia, is too simplistically treated exclusively in the context of ethno-national movements. Irony lies in the fact that the "reproduction of ethnos" through economic independence (Perepelkin and Shkaratan 1989) is nothing more than a myth, for the economies of many republics are based on large-scale industry in which the non-native, primarily Russian, population works. Energy production in Estonia, electronics in Latvia, metallurgy in Kirgizia and Kazakhstan, automobile production and oil in Tatarstan, which define the economic basis of these republics, are provided by the labor of primarily non-titular employees.

            As is testified by world experience, as well as by the situation after the Soviet Union, secession and the relization of separatist programs most often brings its initiators economic damage, rather than advantage. This is the case even when the economic aspects of separatism include a desire to keep a relatively higher standard of living and not share the burden of developing the territories of other ethnic groups. Examples could be seen in movements of Eritrea to secede from Ethiopia, Biafra from Nigeria, Katanga from the Congo, the Basques country from Spain, and finally, the Baltic states from the destitute Soviet Union. The Tatar nationalists provide analogous arguments of their disinclination to "feed destitute Russia". The conclusion can be made, that ethnic separatism affirms itself, and the choice for it is made against economic calculations. Clearly, more power factors are at work.

            Political science approaches and theoretical constructions occupy an important place in the explanations of ethnic conflicts. One of the most wide-spread is the analysis of the role of elites, primarily intellectual and political, in the mobilization of ethnic feelings, interethnic tensions, and their escalation to open conflict.            Unfortunately, this approach has not been applied to Soviet and post-Soviet realities because of the inertia of old methodologies and the inhereted limitation of scholarly interest in the phenomenon of power. However, from our view, the question of power and the hedonistic predisposition to rule and of its ties to material rewards in the form of guaranteed access to resources and privileges, are key for understanding the causes of the growth of ethnic nationalism and conflicts in this part of the world.

            For many decades access to power was strictly controlled through the system of party nomenklatura. The ruling elite in the center, especially on the level of high party apparatus and the government, including representatives of different ethnic groups, was unconditionally loyal to imperial type of rule. Special seats were reserved in the Politburo for party leaders of the largest republics, and a nomenklatura system of calculation guaranteed an ethnic mosaic in party membership and the deputies of the Soviets. However, the Central Committee of the CPSU and its apparatus, prestigious government institutes, and the means of ideological control, were ruled by Russians or fully assimilated Moscovites of other ethnic backgrounds (Ukrainians, Armenians, etc.), excluding others who suppose could be "unloyal". For example, in the spring of 1991, after few years of democratic reform, the apparatus of the Central Committee did not include a single Jew (Tishkov 1991). The army officers and diplomatic corps were comprised mainly of Russians and some Ukrainians.

            Even after the demise of the USSR, despite the danger of further disintegration, no radical changes took place in the power structures of the Russian Federation with the rare exclusion of a slightly wider representation of Jews after open discussion of anti-Semitic practices. As before, there is no proper representation of such large ethnic groups as Tatars, Bashkirs, Buryats, and nationalities of the northern Caucasus in federal power structures and prestigious istitutions. At the same time, powerful and educated ethnic elites were formed among non-Russian titular nationalities in union republics and Russian autonomies. From the politics of 'nativization' of the 1920s up until the mid 1980s concentrated efforts were put into a system of preferences in the preparation of "national cadres" in all spheres, from party functioners to scientists and cultural figures. In the republics, the reproduction of intellectual and bureaucratic elites acquired unprecedently wide scales. The high education's diploma and Ph.D's degrees became a symbol of prestige. In Armenia in 1989 of 1000 people more than 300 had a higher education, and in the central Russia's Ryzan oblast -  approximately 80. In Buryatia, the percentage of Buryats with a high education was two times higher than among local Russians (Census 1989).

            To support prestigious symbols of national statehood, immense resources were poured into local institutions such as Academies of Sciences, professional unions for writers, composers, cinematographers, actors, athletes etc. In 1976 there were listed about 8000 professional writers in the USSR, of whom 60% were members of the republican unions.At the same time, in recent decades a powerful strata of local bureaucracy took shape inthe republics and autonomies, including members of the party apparatus, KGB and militia.

            Intellectuals and local party leaders were among those who gave the essential emotional meaning and argumentation for participants in mass inter-ethnic clashes, beginning with the Karabakh movement, conflicts in Moldova and Central Asia up to the events in North Ossetia and the war in Abkhazia. However, it would be a mistake to exaggerate the generative and organizing role of elites. This alone cannot explain the causes of conflicts. This approach cannot fully explain the phenomenon of mass mobilization, the degree of intensivity in the emotions of the participants, the primary desire for autonomy, and a willingness to use the most violent methods of force. An attempt to examine interethnic conflicts in the former USSR through the theory of the logic of collective behavior developed in political science theories (Hugh 1991) provides a partial answer to these questions.

            It seems that the aspect of behavioral psychological and socio-psychological mechanisms of ethnic conflicts play a much more significant role than traditional interpretations would suggest. Sufficient evidence shows that groups with diminished status who are discriminated against in the ruling structures, often express fear for their very existence, even when demographic, political and cultural conditions are not at all that extreme. This, "reaction of concern" flows from extremely exaggerated feelins of anxiety and generates "extreme actions in response to rather moderate dangers" (Horowitz 1985:   ).

            In support of this thesis the colorful and exalted rhetoric against the Soviet regime, which lamented the "dying out" of nations, cultures, languages, etc. can be shown. An analysis of the demographic and socio-cultural data for most ethnic groups of the former Soviet Union do not support the arguments of nationalist activists. Despite the crimes of the past regime, not a single ethnic culture has disappeared from the map of the Soviet Union. Some relatively small cultures, such as the Baltic ones, can be considered as flourishing even by European standards. It would be difficult to find in Europe a single nation of less that a million people which had such highly developed institutions of national culture (theatre, literature, music, science, education) as in Estonia and Latvia. This is not even to mention the larger nationalities.

            And nonetheless, the irrational fear of losing group integrity (and thus identity), became a powerful means of mobilization and a part of political reality. This helps to explain the severity of prejudices, extremity of ethnic demands, and the power of motives to draw wide masses into the struggle.            Similarly exaggerated reactions to often hypothetical threats (for example, rumors of the division of land plots or providing apartments to non-natives) can be traced in the development of conflicts in the Central Asian republics (events in Osh and Dushanbe).

            Feelings of "historical injustices" and a loss of "collective worth" and "historical injustices" can also be added to the socio-psychological causes of inter-ethnic conflicts and nationality movements. The importance of ethnicity in its extreme, manifest forms often serves as a sort of therapy for an immense trauma to national pride of many nationalities -- or more accuarately all, without exception, from the Russians to the small peoples of the North. At the boundary between socio-psychological and political interpretations is the problem of group legitimacy, which is connected with the collective identity and the fact of an existing political entity in the form of a state. Ethnic groups formulate the concept, and from this a political program, that a state is both attribute and guarantor of group integrity. This means that the state (territory, social structure, and power institutions) must have an ethno-national character. It must be both an element and the framework of a certain cultural system, from the granting of official status to the referent group's language and cultural traditions. These concepts and claims serve as moral grounds to demand exclusive control of the state by one ethnic entity, even if its representatives are not a majority in the state, or the majority of members of this entity live beyond the borders of the given state.

            As a rule, arguments for such an arrangement are usually taken from history -- relying on those periods which are more advantageous in terms of borders and status of the "national" state. These arguments and based on them the political strategies include the potential motivating force for mass ethnic conflict. In this case, claims for their "own" state or for exclusive political and cultural status of a part of its population need not be only a means of ensuring material or hedonistic aadvantages for the ethnic elite for itself or the group as a whole. The struggle to create their own state may be a mean in itself, as affirmation of status and very existence of the group, as well as a guarantee from real and hypothetical threats of domination by other groups of their physical and cultural environment. This fear of domination may be stronger than any material calculations. Reactions to this fear include efforts to form certain symbols of collective legitimacy and protection. Territory most frequently serves as such a symbol. In this case it is viewed not simply as a source of subsistence, the more so under contemporary conditions, in which the market economy operates across ethnic and state boundaries. The battle of Armenians and Azeris for Karabakh, the Japanese demands for the return of "their northern territories", the feelings of Russians about the loss of the Crimea, etc, undeniably include a great deal of symbolic, and not simply pragmatic interest. This symbolic aspect of the question can possess a very real strength. The behavior of states, or rather of the leaders acting in their names, towards territorial problems is often striking in its irrationality: states are more willing to lose their own citizens as victims of violence and as emigrants, than to make territorial concessions.

            A similar symbolic meaning operates in language problems. It is no coincidence that in the programs of national movements the struggle for the dissemination and strengthening of the status of the native language is presented not only as a part of general cultural politics for the widening of possibilities for representatives of the given nationality in the fields of education and work relations. The efforts of ethnic groups to provide its own language with official (state) status also became a means of affirming their newly reacquired group integrity and its greater legitimacy compared with members of other groups. Thus, language becomes one of the symbols of dominance. However, on the individual level, for many Soviet nationalities the official enforcement of the language introduces serious problems. A significant part of the non-Russian population of the former Soviet Union either does not know, or poorly knows, their native languages. For example, in January of 1993, the new Constitution of Kazakhstan was adopted with the requirement that the president of the country must speak perfect Kazakh. With this act, the parliament of Kazakhstan immediately eliminated 50% of the population as potential candidates. It also includes 40% of ethnic Kazakhs - the approximate percentage who now speak Russian as their first language.

            Symbolic interests in a system of inter-ethnic relations are not a mere illusion by which elites manipulate the masses to achieve more pragmatic goals. The control of prestigious symbols is a fully real and rational subject for ethnic conflict. The prestige of the ethnic group itself depends on a higher amd more respected status for each of the members of this group, which finds daily affirmation in personal contacts among speakers of various languages. Knowledge of the official language is one of the markers of affiliation with the titualar group. Problems of prestige and symbols, as opposed to material interests, which most often lie at heart of social conflicts, are for more difficult to resolve, for symbolic demands are not open to redistribution or compromise. They are expressed in terms of moral and emotional categories and are not subject to quantitative characteristics. For this reason, ethnic conflicts contain almost irreconciliable irrationalism and often acquire an extremely destructive and bloody character.