The Post-Soviet Nations

by Alexander J. Motyl

How must Sovietology change as a result of the Soviet Union's collapse? Motyl and his colleagues suggest that the first step in reorientation of the field must involve recognizing the non-Russians and their republics as central to both Soviet politics and to the post-Soviet reality.

The authors, all leading Sovietologists, illustrate how nationality interacted with and shaped ideology, law, elite recruitment, political repression, modernization, participation, political economy, and class.

Each of the articles traces the relationship between nationality and aspects of the Soviet system up to the collapse of the USSR and the emergence in its stead of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The contributors not only provide a coherent interpretation of the demise of Soviet Communism, but they also sugest what dangers and opportunities lie in store for the Soviet Union's successor states.

321 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1992

About the author

Alexander J. Motyl (Олександр Мотиль) is professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark, as well as a writer and painter. He served as associate director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University from 1992 to 1998. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, he is the author of several political science books and articles.

Nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2008 and 2013, he is the author of six novels, Whiskey Priest, Who Killed Andrei Warhol, Flippancy, The Jew Who Was Ukrainian, My Orchidia, and The Taste of Snow.

He has done performances of his fiction and poetry at the Cornelia Street Café and the Bowery Poetry Club. Motyl’s artwork has been exhibited in solo and group shows in NYC, Philadelphia, and Toronto and is on display on the Internet gallery, www.artsicle.com. He teaches at Rutgers University-Newark and lives in NYC.