By the 1980s, citizens of the USSR no longer fully associated themselves with the overarching Soviet identity the state had promoted. From the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to the Caucasus and republics like Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, former Soviet “comrades” started to return to older ethnic identities. Even in the Russian republic, ethno-nationalist tensions increased behind the Soviet façade, similar to the rise of English nationalism in the UK.
