5.2 The Geographic Setting

What Makes Russia and the Post-Soviet States a Region?

Russia and the post-Soviet states are today associated as a region primarily because of their history from the nineteenth century onward. Imperial Russia underwent a convulsive revolution in 1917 that resulted in a new political and economic experiment with socialism that lasted until 1991. The leaders of this revolution continued with the imperial practice of territorial expansion that ultimately enveloped countries from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific and from the Arctic Sea to the mountains of Caucasia and southern Central Asia (see the Figure 5.1 map). Control of the economic and political systems of what eventually became known as the Soviet Union was maintained through authoritarian control reinforced with militarism. After 1991, central control was relaxed and the region is presently undergoing realignment. The Baltic republics have joined the European Union, and the Central Asian republics are seeking a redefinition of their association with Russia (see Figure 5.4).

Terms in This Chapter

There is no entirely satisfactory new name for the former Soviet Union. In this chapter we use Russia and the post-Soviet states. One reason is that economic, political, and social developments from the Soviet days still shape these countries today. Russia continues to be closely associated with these states economically, but they are independent countries, and their governments are legally separate from Russia’s. Russia itself is formally known as the Russian Federation because it includes more than 21 (mostly) ethnic internal republics (also called semiautonomous regions)—such places as Chechnya, Ossetia, Tatarstan, and Buryatya—which all together constitute about one-tenth of the Federation’s territory and one-sixth of its population. Federation should not be taken to mean that the internal republics share power equally with the central Russian government in Moscow.