Despite the escalating terrorist actions, there is no polarized constellation in the Islamic politics of Dagestan. Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) officers regard the corrupt Dagestan authorities to be significantly responsible for the massive conversion of youths to terrorism, and began to contact with moderate Salafis to isolate the “forest brothers” (armed Salafis) in 2010. Exploiting the FSB's soft strategy, secular intellectuals requested to reform the Muslim Spiritual Board of Dagestan by electing a legitimate mufti. Having seen the incompetence of intra-Sufi opposition (non-Avar sheikhs) in the War on Terror, the Spiritual Board jumped on the bandwagon of dialog strategy in 2012. The secular authorities of Dagestan, indifferent to intra-Muslim politics, limit their activities to the call for dialog between the secular authorities and the forest brothers. In this way, political actors hijack the master narrative of the “War on Terror” and these narratives are imported to local politics.

In the past decade we have witnessed increased interest on the part of psychologists and educators in developmental and preschool psychology, as well as in the application of psychological findings to the problems of learning disorders. The realization that cognitive development depends upon continuous interaction between the developing organism and the environment gave impetus to the current research on preschool children.

Even a superficial review of psychological literature will reveal worldwide interest in developmental and preschool psychology. Names like Piaget and Inhalder in Switzerland, as well as Bruner and Kagan in the USA, are internationally recognized. Very few Western psychologists, however, will recognize Kostiuk, Zaporozhets or Zinchenko as Ukrainian psychologists. Among Western psychologists they are simply recognized as “Soviet” psychologists. While most Western psychologists recognize that the Soviet Union as a political entity is not identical with Russia, some unfortunately identify psychologists in the Soviet Union as Russian psychologists.

Ten years ago, the destruction of totalitarian Soviet society led many to fear that in a country with little experience of democracy, another totalitarian regime would supersede the old one. But which regime, and in what form? The national conflicts that accompanied the disintegration of the Soviet Union suggested a feasible answer right away, namely, a national dictatorship of the fascist sort, composed of nationalistic ideology and a totalitarian social structure. No such dictatorship has occurred in contemporary Russia and none is anticipated in the near future. The “Weimar Russia” scenario, which the political science expert Alexander Ianov developed in such great detail, has not materialized.

When we met last year, the situation in the Soviet Union, although fluid, was still hopeful. One year later, things seem to have become immeasurably worse. Some will, perhaps, dispute this assessment and argue that the situation is even more hopeful than it was in the past. Such arguments remind me of socialists who think that now is the time to build socialism in Eastern Europe. Clearly, the situation in Armenia and Azerbaijan is out of control. I need not remind you of the Lithuanian “events,” to use that memorable Soviet term, the miners' strikes in mid-1989, and last, but not least, the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, which is the decisive event of that year and, perhaps, of the second half of the twentieth century. Communism's demise obviously casts a totally different light on the nationality question in general and on the dynamics of the Soviet empire in particular.

I would like to thank you for this invitation. I share Professor Sadomskaya's views about the revolution that is definitely going on in the Soviet Union. But I would like to mention that revolutions are not accomplished overnight. Usually, they are a long and painful process. Perhaps there can be an overnight revolution in politics or in economics, but not in the minds of people.

If Lenin were alive today and to find himself in Stalin's hands, without any doubt, he would have confessed being a German spy – and, maybe, with some more justification [than others who had done so in 1937-1938]. (Georgii Fedotov after the third show trial (as quoted in Liuks [Luks], Istoriia Rossii i Sovetskogo Soiuza 258)).

Translating and publishing of Baltic drama in an organized fashion has been going on since the fall of 1973 at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale (SIU-C) under the auspices of the Baltic Theatre project. A group of some twenty individuals of Baltic descent consisting of university professors, graduate students, and volunteers from other walks of life have translated more than sixty Baltic plays. Three of the translated plays have been produced by the Theatre Department of SIU-C and four others by either profesional American theatres, universities, or amateur groups. The first volume of a Baltic-drama anthology, Confrontations with Tyranny, has been published recently.

In bringing together this wealth of information on Russia's republics and regions, Orttung and his associates at the EastWest Institute have done the field a tremendous service. Spanning almost 700 pages, this weighty tome includes all of the basic information on each of Russia's subjects of the federation in one easily accessible volume. The fact that this is the only place much of this information can be accessed in English also makes it extremely useful as a teaching resource, given the limited number of students with adequate Russian-language skills.

The basis of a civil nation is common goals, common values, trust in the government, and the understanding that the government serves us. The main task of the people [now] is to avoid military service, taxes, and the authorities in general. Under such conditions, it is impossible to form a civil political nation.

The year 1995 was momentous for the Gagauz people located primarily in the towns and villages of southern Moldova in the area known as Gagauzia. The Gagauz leadership in Comrat and the Moldovan government in Chişinău reached agreement in December 1994 on autonomy for Gagauzia, ending a five-year secessionist movement involving both a war of words and sporadic conflict. For Chişinău, this agreement settled the lesser, but nonetheless important, of two secessionist movements that threatened the Moldovan state's viability. For Gagauzia, the agreement set the terms for extensive cultural, political, and social autonomy within Moldova. For Europe, this agreement broke new ground in granting a small nation control of its affairs within a larger state.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent independence of Latvia, a minority group became a majority and a majority group became a minority. This has been the situation for Latvians and Russians after August 1991. The Baltic States led the way towards first autonomy and then independence. The nationalist movement in the Latvian SSR was primarily a minority nationalist movement. Why do minorities mobilise? Gurr finds that minorities rebel for two reasons: relative deprivation and group mobilisation. Relative deprivation answers the question of why and it characterizes the status of the Latvian language and culture vis-à-vis that of Russia during the Soviet period. While relative deprivation has come under considerable criticism because of its inability to explain when a group will mobilise, the notion can be found in the nationalist rhetoric before and since the restoration of Latvian independence. Group mobilisation goes further in explaining when minorities may assert political claims. Considered in terms of changes in the political opportunity structure, the changing politics of glasnost allowed the nationalist movements to mobilise in the Baltic States.