At the beginning of the 1990s, when the former Soviet republics declared sovereignty, the questions of their national histories, long neglected in the Soviet period, once again became important. In taking up the national and cultural traditions of the pre-Soviet era, as well as a literary language that had been reduced to folklore, the post-Soviet national intelligentsias began to develop their own versions of the Belarusian past. As the old Soviet empire declined, new “historical” nations developed against a background of diverse ethnicity and political struggles for power. Western scholars have discussed in detail the changes in historical writing since the emergence of glasnost'. The post-Soviet intelligentsia not only faced a crisis in historical writing and history generally within the late Soviet Union, but were confronted with what Aaron Gurevich has called a “vacuum of historical vision.”

The study analyzed whether the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the establishment of succeeding mono-national states was the expression of “longing” of mass proportions on the part of the nationalities within respective federal units. Using the data from two pan-Yugoslav surveys from the period preceding the dissolution, results were obtained that indicated a very limited support for this hypothesis. More specifically, results indicated that support for emancipation was rather weak, among youth in 1986 and even among the adult population in 1990, although some significant mean differences between the federal units and between major nationalities within them were evident. Specifically, opinions favoring independence were detected among Kosovo Albanians and later among Slovenians in Slovenia. In addition, findings also indicated that those with higher socioeconomic status were not more inclined toward independence. Results thus pointed more towards the idea that the dissolution was indeed instigated by a small group of “political entrepreneurs” not captured by the survey data.

Although the 2008 Russian-Georgian war was a military defeat for Georgia, it has only reinforced Georgia's westward trajectory. One noteworthy difference from Georgia's pre-war policy is a new regional strategy — the North Caucasus Initiative — that seeks to create a soft power alternative to Russia's military dominance in the region. We suggest that this approach is rational rather than reckless, as some critics have claimed. It represents a carefully calculated strategy that is already benefiting Georgia and from which all concerned parties, including Russia, stand to gain. If the South and North Caucasus were more open and less divided — a direction in which this new initiative appears to point — the Caucasus could become more prosperous and more stable. That would serve Russia's long-term interest by significantly reducing the cost of subsidies to sustain and stabilize the volatile region.

In my paper I will present and discuss the theoretical concept of elitocide (a systematic elimination of leading figures of a society or a group) and its impact on the crime of genocide on the example of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992-1995. A systematization and scientific classification of elitocide as a sociological phenomenon bears great importance to the field of study on genocide, mass murder and human rights abuses. The scientific elaboration of new or hitherto neglected occurrences of organized violence has a significant impact on the understanding of the phenomenon of systematic war crimes and mass atrocities in modern war conflicts. In order to better understand how genocide or potentially genocidal mass murders emerge and how they can be prevented, it is necessary to modify and redevelop their conventional theoretical framework. Since the premises of modern war have changed, the science is obliged to adapt its approach to this new reality. This paper is a contribution to making the causes and consequences of mass atrocities practically cognizable and theoretically comprehensive.

This essay in political historiography aims to show how Professor Richard Pipes's monumental work on Soviet nationalities has been received by Soviet publications. It is more limited in scope than the main title connotes, since it does not deal with Soviet reactions to the totality of Pipes's scholarly work, only to an early but important part of his opus; nor is it concerned with Soviet attacks on Pipes's government service. The printed media surveyed include mostly articles in professional journals and books. Working through the Current Digest of the Soviet Press, this writer has tried to locate Soviet newspaper articles dealing with Pipes's work on nationalities, but has had no success. This is less of a shortcoming than it first appears, because even articles in Soviet scholarly journals, even books undergirded with an impressive scholarly apparatus, insofar as they deal with such a sensitive topic as the partial failure to solve the nationality problem, cannot but follow the party's policies of the moment. Apolitical historiography in the Soviet Union simply does not exist.

George Y. Shevelov, known as a capable Slavist, is also praised as a very influential critic of modern Ukrainian literature. In this paper, however, we shall concern ourselves with Shevelov's linguistic interest only, and in particular with his contributions to the prehistory of Slavic: the historical phonology of Common Slavic.

At the core of the debate in Ukraine about Babi Yar lies the Holocaust. Between 1941 and 1943 1.5 million Jews perished in Ukraine, yet a full understanding of that tragedy has been suppressed consistently by ideologies and interpretations of history that minimize or ignore this tragedy. For Soviet ideologues, admitting to the existence of the Holocaust would have been against the tenet of a “Soviet people” and the aggressive strategy of eliminating national and religious identities. A similar logic of oneness is being applied now in the ideological formation of an independent Ukraine. However, rather than one Soviet people, now there is one Ukrainian people under which numerous historical tragedies are being subsumed, and the unique national tragedies of other peoples on the territory of Ukraine, such as the massive destruction of Jews, is again being suppressed. According to this political idea assiduously advocated most recently during the Yushchenko presidency, the twentieth century in Ukraine was a battle for liberation. Within this new, exclusive history, the Holocaust, again, has found no real place. The author reviews the complicated history regarding the memorialization of the Jewish tragedy in Babi Yar through three broad chronological periods: 1943-1960, 1961-1991, and 1992-2009.

Clearly, what we have in the Soviet Union is a condition of continuity and change. We have radicals who see the Communist Party as an overwhelmingly dominant force, even omnipotent. We have former Communists, like Yeltsin, decrying the Communist Party as an “enemy within” to be overcome. At the same time, Yeltsin has recently joined with Gorbachev because he sees other enemies even more powerful. On the other hand, we have conservatives who have taken the place of reformers (at Gorbachev's initiative) at the Center, who, as they have regained power and influence at the Center, have become not appeased, but increasingly dissatisfied; who have decried what they feel is the loss of power by the Communist Party; who have denounced Gorbachev's leadership virulently. And yet, they too, at the last minute, decided to make common cause and refused to accept his resignation, even though many of them, like the radicals, had called for just that. What is going on? Is the Party integrating the system or not?