Who Gets the Past?: Competition for Ancestors Among Non-Russian Intellectuals in Russia

by Victor A. Shnirelman, Victor A. Shbirelman, V. A. Shnirel'man

Release Date: December, 1995

Edition: Hardcover

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Good book is overpriced

This slim volume examines the intellectual and political role of theories of "ethnogenesis" in nationalist ideology in the USSR and its successor states. The author opens with a lucid account of the general theory of ethnogenesis, as developed in the USSR, and proceeds to a case study involving two ethnic groups, now supposedly distinct, arguing over who is the true heir of posited ancestors. Shnirelman demonstrates that current ethnic movements in the former USSR are incomprehensible without an understanding of their development in the twentieth century.

His Orwellian account of Tatar historiography would be stronger with a longer discussion, but his account is worth reading. If issued as an inexpensive paperback, it would be a nice supplement to undergraduate and graduate classrooms.