Legitimizing the Separatist Cause: Nation-building in the Eurasiande factoStates

Abstract

This article compares the nation-building processes in four well-established Eurasian de facto states. Although all four pursue a set of identity politics that would legitimize the separatist cause, comparing them reveals important differences in boundary-making strategies. While maintaining the image of the enemy parent-state and of an imminent external threat is a common endeavor, they face different challenges and thus have pursued different strategies of identity-building. Transnistria and Abkhazia are two ethnically heterogeneous entities while Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia are more homogeneous since (forced) displacements, mostly of non-titular ethnicities, took place. The Abkhazs, Ossetians, and Armenians claim titular status in their respective regions, but only the latter two have kin in neighboring countries with whom they want to unify. Meanwhile, the “Transnistrian people” is a newly invented construct. Despite their lack of international recognition, the article demonstrates that – apart from a special emphasis on cultivating the image of the “enemy parent-state” – the nation-building mechanisms in the de facto states do not substantially differ from the processes at work in other post-Soviet states presented in this Special Issue.

To be or not to be a state? The alignment behaviours of Abkhazia and South Ossetia with Russia

“…More recent censuses conducted in 2003 and 2011 found this to have increased to 43.8% and 50.7% respectively, although these are contested. 9 This had implications at the time in terms of inter-ethnic relations and power struggles, but these continue into the present day with relation to justice for recent and historical grievances and displacements. A further and hugely important differentiating factor relating to the ethnic makeup of both regions is that although the Abkhaz constituted a minority in Abkhazia before the breakup of the USSR, they largely remained within what became Georgia.…”

Thirty Years of Nation-Building in the Post-Soviet States

“…The break-up of the Soviet Union doubled the number of unrecognized, de facto states in the world. Abkhazia, Karabakh, South Ossetia, Transnistria, and the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics were added to the list (Dembinska 2022). While the de facto states face common challenges, there are important differences between them.…”