Korenizatsiia:Restructuring Soviet nationality policy in the 1920s

Being Indigenous in an Unlikely Place: Self-Determination in the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1920-1991)

“…Creation of the working class competent in Marxism-Leninism among Indigenous Peoples in order to cure the wounds of imperialism (Liber, 1991;Slezkine, 1992Slezkine, , 1994. The need to destruct the power of Indigenous bourgeoisie (kulaks) and shamans.…”

“…As head of government of Soviet Russia (1917Russia ( -1922 and then of the Soviet Union (1922)(1923)(1924), Lenin proposed the "Great Compromise" with non-Russian groups that would deliver their incorporation into the revolutionary regime (Liber, 1991). The first component of this project of popular political incorporation was to create an Indigenous intelligentsia by providing upward mobility to governing party members and by destroying the old cultural elite.…”

“…Korenizatsiia equated non-Russian languages and cultures with the Russian language and culture. Liber (1991) suggests that this policy provided a cover of legitimacy for the largely urban-based revolutionary movement in a mostly agricultural, multiethnic country. As the General Secretary of the re-named Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, declared in April 1923:…”

“…The second major component of Lenin's project of popular political incorporation was the creation of separate republics by dividing the country along ethnic national-territorial lines (Liber, 1991). The Soviet government declared that all ethnic majorities within non-Russian provinces were "titular," but that a hierarchy defined their administrative-territorial division.…”

Western Donors, Romani Organizations, and Uses of the Concept of Nation after 1989

“…As Stalin began his ascent to power in the USSR in the 1920s, a Leninist approach still was directed towards the diverse ethnicities/nationalities inhabiting Soviet territory, a legacy of the Korenizatsiya [11] policy. In short, this was a state effort to improve the lives of all ethnicities on Soviet territory, bringing them up to the same level as ethnic Russians, who were perceived as more evolved (Liber 1991;Marushiakova and Popov 2008). Such policies affected the life of Gypsy/Romani intelligentsia and activists at the time, who managed to form Gypsy co-operative farms (Gypsy kolkhozes), Gypsy co-operative artisans' workshops (Gypsy artels), develop Romani language and literature, textbooks, and a Romani theater called Romen -all with state aid (Martin 2001;Marushiakova and Popov 2008).…”