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178 
 
The major disturbances started first in Union Republics, especially in Baltic 
Republics and Ukraine in 1987 and spread to the Transcaucasus in February 1988. 
Rather than formulating a coherent policy, Gorbachev’s approach to the 
nationalities question was to respond to each new ethnic crisis as it arose. This 
resulted in a tendency to treat each as a distraction from the central tasks of 
economic restructuring, glasnost’ and democratization, through which ethnic unrest 
could be largely resolved. 
The Caucasus was not an exception and, the catastrophic results of the 
aforementioned administrative set up could be seen explicitly. During the last days 
of the Soviet Union, the region was divided into four Union Republics: the 
Armenian SSR, the Georgian SSR, the Azerbaijani SSR, and the Russian Soviet 
Federal Socialist Republic (RSFSR). In the last three, there were seven 
Autonomous Republics (ASSRs)
458
 and four Autonomous Oblasts (AOs)
459
. In 
addition to this, parts of the region belonged to the two big Krais within the 
RSFSR: Stavropol and Krasnodar. The peoples of the North Caucasus were living 
within the borders of these entities, except Armenia. The nominal nationalities of 
eight of which (5 ASSRs and 3 AOs) were ethnic groups of the North Caucasus.
460
 
This complex structure and the policies of perestroika and democratization 
made the Caucasus in general, and more specifically the North Caucasus more 
prone to ethnically based conflicts. The re-emergence of nationalist movements 
within the union republics, their feigned blindness towards the existence of other 
                                                 
458
 Abkhaz, Kabardino-Balkar, North Osetian, Chechen-Ingush, Dagestan, Adzhar, and Nakhchivan 
ASSRs. 
459
 Adyge, Karachay-Cherkess, South Osetian, and Mountain-Karabagh AOs. 
460
 Abkhaz, Kabardino-Balkar, North Osetian, Chechen-Ingush and Dagestan ASSRs and Adyge, 
Karachay-Cherkess, South Osetian AOs. 

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179 
 
small nationalities, and moreover, the possibility of breaking inaccessibly away 
from each other within the separate sovereign entities forced the peoples of the 
North Caucasus to become more reactionary. 
By 1988, peoples of the North Caucasus started to see their demands for 
national sovereignty and enhanced republican status as an expression of cultural 
anxiety and cultural sovereignty.
461
 As a result, the opportunity to form regional 
and national organizations was used to embark on a revival of the national cultures, 
languages, and national identities by the peoples of the North Caucasus. Ethnically 
based, homogenized socio-political organizations sprang up in the whole territory 
of the North Caucasus.
462
 These organizations, in those days, fulfilled a dual 
function: to put ethnic groups’ demands on the government agenda, and to serve as 
a platform for emerging leaders.
463
 In the last years of Soviet power, North 
Caucasus elites developed and presented images of nationhood within the spheres 
of these organizations. In the beginning, in almost all these organizations, the main 
concern was national-cultural development and basic rights for their peoples within 
the Soviet Union, in compliance with the basic tenets of perestroika and 
democratization. 
                                                 
461
 Jane Ormrod, 1998. “The North Caucasus: confederation in conflict,” in Ian Bremmer and Roy 
Taras, eds., New States New Politics: Building the Post Soviet Nations. Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press, 99-100. 
462
 Most of these front movements or organizations were established in 1988 and 1989: Chechen’s 
Bart (Unification) in July 1989, South Osetian Popular Front, Ademon Nykhas (Popular Shrine) in 
spring 1989, Ingush Niiskho (Justice) in 1988, the Karachay national movement Jamagat in 1988, 
Abkhazian Aydyglara, Cherkess Adygey-Khase, the Kumyk People’s movement Tenglik (Justice) in 
1989. The others were founded in 1990; Avar People’s National Movement Imam Shamil Front and 
Avar People’s movement, Lezgin National Movement Sadval (Unity), Nogay National Movement 
Birlik (Unification), the Lak People’s Movement Tsubarz, and Dargin’s Tsadesh (Unity). 
463
 Anna Matveeva, 1999. The North Caucasus: Russia's fragile borderland, London: Royal 
Institute of International Affairs: 11. 

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180 
 
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the discourse of national and ethnic 
identity among the peoples of the Caucasus diverted its path. The North Caucasian 
peoples’ demands of the post-Soviet period broadened to include demands for 
increased economic and legislative autonomy and even the concepts of the nation 
state, whether fully sovereign or, as part of a republican structure. 
Consequently, in the early 1990s, the peoples of the North Caucasus issued 
declarations, one after another, upgrading the administrative status of their 
territories. This general tendency to establish sovereign entities caused the 
emergence of discord among the peoples in question. The already existing ‘land 
question’ arose as a basic reason for possible armed clashes among the peoples 
who had to live together as result of Soviet policies over the past century. 
In this context, the peoples of the North Caucasus had to face the legacy of 
the Soviet divide-and-rule policy and of deportations. While the discontented 
peoples were looking for the restitution of their ancestral lands, the forcibly settled 
peoples in turn were seeking to retain their existing status. At the same time, Turkic 
groups (Karachays and Balkars) were demanding their own sovereign union 
republics, while smaller entities like Shapsugs and the nationalities of Dagestan 
were in pursuit of reconstituting their autonomous administrative structures. 
Likewise, while Russian nationalism had not yet gained momentum in the 
region, Georgian nationalism, choosing the Osetians and Abkhaz as its target, 
already started to demonstrate its strength. The existence of this kind of nationalist 
threat gave rise to solidarity between the peoples of the North Caucasus. While 
each group has been establishing their own national organizations, the necessity for  
 

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