Abstract
In 1991, new political discourses emerged in the Soviet republics that had to reinvent themselves as independent states, redefining their national identity on several dimensions. This process matured ambiguous attitudes toward the former imperial center and different visions over the scopes, perspectives, and claims of a ‘Russian World’ in the former Soviet space, where Moscow still asserted an exclusive political and cultural sphere of influence. In this article, we will review the cases of Armenia and Uzbekistan with peculiar national projects and relationships with Moscow, reviewing their inclusion within the USSR, their path to independence, their post-Soviet relations with Moscow, and the changes during the turning points of 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
1. Introduction
In February 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine reopened old disputes and made us rethink the relationship between Moscow and its former peripheries. 1 Indeed, the Soviet system held together a multi-ethnic, multilingual, and multireligious state for over 70 years. Despite important exceptions and resistance from a part of the apparatus intent on saving the unity of the state at all costs, the dissolution of the USSR came to an essentially peaceful end. 2 However, this process left several questions open.
The 1991 compromise to dissolve the Soviet Union was precarious. At that time, new national discourses emerged to compensate for an ideological vacuum derived from the failure of communism and the internationalist component that had defined imperial balances in the former USSR. Since then, the Soviet republics had to reinvent themselves as independent states while redefining their national identity on several dimensions. This process matured ambiguous attitudes toward the former imperial center and different perspectives over the scopes, visions, and claims of a ‘Russian World’ in the former Soviet space, where Moscow still asserted an exclusive political and cultural sphere of influence. 3
In this article, we will review two different national projects recast during the Soviet period and their relationships with Moscow after 1991, following the transition in the years of independence and comparing the national elites’ attitudes towards Moscow in two emblematic peripheries of the former Soviet Union in the Caucasus and Central Asia: i.e., Armenia and Uzbekistan, two republics that to many extents represent two different national ideas, nationalist models and feelings towards the former center. Controversial relationships emerge, with one nation established but heavily dependent on external influences and one in the definition process and still feeling nostalgic for the Soviet past.
2. Sovietizing the ‘Armenian cause’
Armenia was one of the smallest and most nationally homogenous republics of the USSR - with 93.3 percent of the population claiming to be Armenian according to the last Soviet census of 1989 – with strong nationalist feelings. 4 However, the republic became an active part of the Soviet system due to several historical contingencies, turning its nationalism not against the center of the empire but against an external adversary.
The Armenian ethnonationalism, with its strong linguistic, religious, and cultural dimensions, had deep historical roots and represented the ideas of ‘Armenian cause’ (Hye Dat), ‘national awakening’, and ‘historic Armenia’, claiming irredentist unity of the historical Armenian lands, including Nakhchivan and parts of Eastern Turkey. These concepts were initially promoted by the Dashnaktsutyun (the Armenian Revolutionary Federation) in the late 19th century. They were deeply influenced by the promises of openness in the late Ottoman Empire, the trauma of repressions and massacres, and irreversibly by the 1915 genocide and the creation of the first Republic of Armenia in May 1918. 5 However, these claims of national freedom, unity, and independence were short-lived.
In the aftermath of WW1, the rapprochement between Lenin and Kemal, the escalation of conflicts in the former Transcaucasia, and the evolution of the Russian Civil War and the Turkish War of Independence defined a fundamental break for a new country like Armenia, isolated by Western allies and the newly formed League of Nations. 6 The 1920 Turkish-Armenian War resulted in the recognition of significant territorial losses to Turkey and ceded sovereignty to the 11th Red Army troops invading from the north. The situation culminated in December 1920, when Bolsheviks took control of the republic, and Armenia ceased to exist as an independent state. At that time, the Dashnaktsutyun was banned, and its leaders exiled, with some taking the path of armed struggle. 7 Soon after, the Bolsheviks declared the Socialist Soviet Republic of Armenia and confirmed with Turkey - with the 1921 treaties of Moscow and Kars - the territorial delimitations that established today’s Turkish-Armenian border. 8
These events polarized the Armenian nationalists between a side that kept fighting Turks 9 or supported the independence cause at all costs 10 and another that accepted Bolsheviks as a lesser evil. Indeed, communists had managed to gain significant support among the local elite and finally were able to sovietize Armenian nationalism, repressing the inner dissent, quietening disagreements with the Azeris, and establishing themselves as protectors of the Armenian people against further aggressions from ‘Turks’. In the 1920s, the nativization policies (korenizatsiya) empowered a first generation of Armenian elites within the Soviet system, promoting local communists within the nomenklatura while encouraging the Armenian language and culture in the republic. To improve the Soviet Union's relations with the diaspora, relations with the Armenian Apostolic Church were also eased. 11
The situation radically changed during Stalin’s great purges. At the end of the 1930s, hundreds of Armenian writers, artists, scientists, clerics, and intellectuals, and the top of the republic’s ruling class, often accused of ‘rabid nationalism’, were struck by mass terror, arrests, deportations, and murders, including the first secretary Aghasi Khanjian, the former prime minister Sahak Ter-Gabrielyan and the catholicos Khoren who were assassinated under Beria’s orders. 12
During the Second World War, Armenia became one of the inner fronts - providing food, workforce, and military material to the fatherland 13 - and the Soviet authorities permitted specific manifestations of nationalism by endorsing the publication of Armenian novels, the creation of films, and the relaxation of constraints on the church, resulting in the election of Gevorg VI as the new catholicos and the reopening of the spiritual capital Ejmiatsin. The interplay with Armenian nationalism was more evident in June 1945, when Moscow pushed Turkey – which did not have enough strength to fight a war against the emerging Soviet superpower – to regain the provinces of Kars, Ardahan, Artvin, and Surmalu. Nevertheless, such an attempt failed and brought Turkey closer to the West during the Cold War.
At that time, Stalin even promoted an open immigration policy in the republic, inviting the diaspora – based in Europe and the Middle East - to repatriate to Armenia (nergaght) and settle in its principal towns. However, the conditions of these ‘returnees’ were not easy, and many suffered property confiscation and marginalization, while those suspected of supporting Dashnaktsutyun were targeted for deportation to Central Asia in 1949. 14
Stalin’s death and the following destalinization corresponded with a partial relaxation of the Soviet system and greater decentralization in favor of the republics. At that time, the Soviet government – with the unique role of the first deputy premier of the USSR, Anastas Mikoyanv – promoted the revival of Armenian culture. The republic experienced a cultural rebirth, resulting in significant religious freedom, the revitalization of contacts with the diaspora, the republication of forbidden national literature, and the rehabilitation of many victims repressed during Stalin’s terror.
This process transformed the landscape of the Armenian capital itself with a series of places and monuments that celebrated the republic’s cultural heritage, including the important Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts (known as the ‘Matenadaran’) that was established in Erevan in 1959 as well as the monuments dedicated to the ancient military commander and saint Vardan Mamikonian, and the epic hero David of Sassoun.
Under Brezhnev - and his policy of ‘fusion’ (sliyanie) of nationalities and the development of a (Russified) Soviet people - there would be a more cautious attitude toward dissent and nationalism. Nevertheless, the Soviet regime did not impose new restrictions on the monumentalization of Armenian history and remarked on the autochthony of Armenians, sovietizing the national past, emphasizing its communist component - with dozens of monuments, books, and novels dedicated to the inclusion of the Armenian people within the Soviet grand project 15 - and even exploiting it against an external enemy.
Indeed, the Soviet Armenian discourse remained strongly anti-Turkish, narrating the opportunity to federate with the USSR as the main chance for salvation. Besides allowing massive rallies to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the 1915 genocide in 1965, a gigantic statue of Mother Armenia pointing directly at Mount Ararat was erected in 1967, and the memorial in honor of the victims of the genocide was completed at the Tsitsernakaberd hill above the Hrazdan gorge in Erevan. In 1968, the regime permitted the erection of monuments dedicated to commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the battles of Sardarapat and Bash Abaran, won by Armenians against Turks in 1918. 16 Evidently, Armenian nationalism differed from the Ukrainian, Baltic, Georgian, and Central Asian ones because it did not take Russia as the main adversary. However, Turkey, which had posed a direct threat and still, with the Cold War, became yet another matter of confrontation.
3. ‘Making Uzbekistan’
In Uzbekistan, the situation was different. From the linguistic, cultural, or ethnic point of view, Uzbekistan was one of the most heterogeneous republics of the Soviet Union, and Uzbeks – or people defining themselves as such according to the linguistic criteria – represented ‘only’ 71.4 percent of the republic’s population in 1989. 17 Despite the glories of the ancient past, the national building process was a recent phenomenon. In his famous book ‘Making Uzbekistan’, Adeeb Khalid argued how the definition of the Uzbek nation was mainly the product of the interaction between local Muslim intellectuals, Bolsheviks, and Moscow that was generated in the turbulent period between World War I and the Russian Civil War. 18
In Turkestan, the Bolsheviks could separate their enemies and crush the revolts. There, the Revolution was actually ‘turned upside down’, resulting in a ‘Russians’ revolution’ that restored the power of a Slavic settlers’ minority, reflecting the last purely colonial episode of Russian history. 19
At that time, resistance movements against Russian/Soviet rulers emerged within the Basmachi (literally ‘bandits’), who started a revolt in the Ferghana Valley and then expanded their actions to Khiva and Bukhara. Inspired by Islamic beliefs and supported by the former Ottoman commander Enver Pasha and then by the Uzbek leader Ibrahim Bek, Basmachi rebellions were crushed by the Red Army in 1924. 20
Bolsheviks sovietized the former colony of the Russian empire, turning alien populations into citizens and supporting the land reforms and other measures of ‘decolonization’ that were materially implemented through land expropriations, expulsions, and the deportation of some 40,000 non-native peasants while redistributing lands to local communities. Here, the Reds redefined administrative boundaries along ethnic lines under the supervision of the Commissar for Nationalities, Iosif Stalin. Hence, in October 1924 the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (UzSSR) was established. 21 It followed Soviet policy and became the central ‘cotton republic’ of the USSR, preserving its peculiarly rural dimension and causing dramatic consequences on the environment and society.
In the 1920s, korenizatsiya institutionalized a Sovietized version of national cultures and languages and promoted indigenous elites to hold prominent positions in the party, government, agriculture, and industry apparatus, thus preventing posts of power and responsibility from being held exclusively by Russians. Therefore, those who identified themselves as ‘Uzbeks’ were legitimized as Soviet citizens with the new privileged status of the titular nation – giving preferential treatment in terms of access to work, goods, and services – within their republic. This empowerment of a new class of indigenous cadres was tangible but proceeded selectively, affirming a first loyal generation of native Bolsheviks while limiting potential opponents such as the Muslim reformists (jadidi). 22
The imposition of Bolshevik modernity sovietized local languages, religions, traditions, cultures, and institutions, determining the formation of new hybrid cultures and societies. 23 Indeed, the regime initially acknowledged the freedom of religion and customs for Muslims, endorsing conciliatory tones during the civil war. However, in 1926, Moscow launched an aggressive cultural campaign aimed at secularizing the Soviet society: in response, the Communist Party of Uzbekistan (CPUz) promoted a wave of purges against the remaining jadidi and, in 1927, intensified an atheistic campaign against Islam, degenerating in attacks against religious institutions (such as mosques, madrasas, shrines, Sufi lodges, and charity institutions), the persecution of ulema, and the Hujum for unveiling women. 24
Problems of coexistence among different groups and accusations of chauvinism were evident during the Great Purge when several alleged nationalists were tried and executed, including the first prime minister of the UzSSR, Faizullah Khojaev, and the first secretary of the CPUz Akmal Ikramov, accused of being foreign spies and plotting for the republic’s independence. Since 1937, the Stalinist leader Usman Yusupov tightened up on national manifestations, leading a purge that even diminished the number of Uzbeks in the republican nomenklatura. 25 In fact, Moscow was slowing down korenizatsiya and promoting the Russification of the native elites that would last – in different tones, modes, and frequency – for the following decades.
The social equilibriums of the UzSSR inexorably changed during WWII, which symbolized the inclusion of the Uzbeks on the common antifascist front and even represented a dramatic episode of demographic reshuffle, exacerbating the divergences between native and foreign, traditional and modern, rural and urban populations. Indeed, the republic became at first the destination of thousands of ‘punished’ people, including some 74,500 Koreans (autumn 1937), 114,000 Poles (1941-42), and several thousands of people - from the Caucasus and the Black Sea regions - suspected of collaborationism with the Axis forces. These deportations had dramatic consequences, considering the non-priority of the exiles in the redistribution of food and other primary goods, the exceptionally high mortality during the travel, and the problematic adaptation and interactions with local populations. 26
Throughout the war, Uzbekistan even hosted hundreds of thousands of evacuees who arrived from the Western regions of the USSR in the expanding cities of the republic. Tashkent only welcomed 150,000 refugees —mainly from Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Kharkov, and Odessa. 27 Together with evacuees, 104 industrial complexes and dozens of military and civilian educational institutions, hospitals, scientific and propaganda organizations, and even whole departments of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR - that were initially located in European regions - were dismantled, reoriented to military production and repositioned to Uzbekistan. This evidently changed the demographic, social and economic balances of the republic. 28
Stalin’s death inexorably meant the beginning of a more peaceful and decentralized period for Uzbekistan. The atmosphere of thaw promoted by Khrushchev was internally marked by a power decentralization and the resumption of korenizatsiya that had been interrupted in wartime. This is clear under the long reign of the first secretary, Sharaf Rashidov (1959-1983), a war veteran and native intellectual who led the republic for almost a quarter of a century, becoming a typical product of the ‘trust in cadres’ policy while promoting the development of Uzbekistan and its cotton monoculture in the era of developed socialism. 29
In the aftermath of the Tashkent earthquake (1966), Rashidov welcomed the ‘battalions of fraternal peoples’ - thousands of workers and urban planners from other republics - who reached the Uzbek capital to support its reconstruction. The settlement of a part of them officially consolidated the international shape of the city, symbolizing the ‘friendship of peoples’ (druzhba narodov). 30 This Marxist concept – opposed to the idea of ‘bourgeois cosmopolitanism’—officially applied to some 130 national groups living in a republic that reproduced the USSR on a smaller scale. However, this move appeared as an outlet for the all-union problems of housing and social exclusion, reiterating the dynamics of settler colonialism. The social tensions between local communities and ‘Russians’ then degenerated in the tragic Pakhtakor incidents in 1969 when violent interethnic clashes against ‘Europeans’ erupted after soccer matches.
The situation remained complex regarding demographics and coexistence among different national groups. In the postwar period, the Uzbek population kept rising–while that of Russians proportionally decreased 31 –and korenizatsiya was taking its course within the nomenklatura. 32 However, the ‘Uzbekization’ of society and cadre was countertrend with a regime promoting cultural sovietization and linguistic russification. Rashidov himself, rather than promoting a national idea of ‘Uzbekness’ founded on language and cultural traits, endorsed a Soviet international and inclusive interpretation of the republic that reflected a compromise between nations and ethnolinguistic groups that accepted the role of Russian as a ‘language of friendship and brotherhood’.
In the late 1970s, Rashidov further advocated the use of Russian language in schools, universities, kolkhozes, and in the army, substantially acknowledging it as the primary condition to access the highest posts of the republic: this is a typical post-colonial paradox in which the national elite is supposed (or is accustomed) to use the vehicular colonial language. The engagement of Rashidov in promoting the Russian language was confirmed in May 1979 when he opened the All-Union scientific-theoretical conference on ‘The Russian Language—the Language of Friendship and Cooperation of the Peoples of the USSR’ held in Tashkent, and even in his political testament where he recognized the Russian primacy within the Union:
The role of the Russians in the fraternity of equal nations is determined in the first place by the fact that the Russian nation carried the brunt of the struggle against tsarism and the bourgeois-landowner system, the struggle for social progress and the happiness of mankind. The Russian people shed much blood and made many sacrifices for the common cause. The invaders who sought to destroy the freedom and sovereignty of our country were crushed by joint efforts of all nations, and first of all the Russian nation. The Russian people have provided the best examples of selfless aid to other nations big and small. They were the main force in the building of socialism in our country and are the main contributor to the building of communism. The Russian nation led by the Communist Party was the cementing force that consolidated the friendly family of all Soviet nations. It was Russia that made the groundwork of the united multinational state of a new type, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The unity of the peoples of our country, their indestructible friendship, is a major accomplishment of Soviet power, the Communist Party.
33
The elevation of a Soviet internationalist identity for Uzbekistan, the transformation of the former center of Russian colonialism into a modern Soviet-style city representing druzhba narodov, the appeasement with Islam, and the promotion of the republic as a modern and emancipated model of political, economic, social and cultural development for newly independent countries emerging from decolonization even served the Soviet international agenda for the Third World. 34
Apparently, the Armenian case represents an atypical ethnonationalism that ultimately accepted the Soviet center out of fear of a worse external evil. Conversely, the Uzbek case characterizes a civic nationalism that promoted the encounter with Moscow as the moment of emancipation of a former colony that, through the Soviet experience, found its modern dimension. How would these two national projects experience the Soviet collapse and their path toward independence?
4. Dealing with independence
At the end of the 1980s, the Soviet system faced the revival of national fronts. 35 Glasnost was now permitting freedom of speech and association and brought back to the public sensitive themes and debates related to the past of a country that for decades had been forged on state violence.
Armenia was experiencing a dramatic situation related to Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous oblast of Azerbaijan predominantly inhabited by Armenians. The issue became the focus of a new risorgimento. Since 1987, numerous demonstrations for Karabakh have taken place in Armenia, and the Miatsum movement, among others, evoked the cause of the reunification of this exclave with the Soviet republic of Armenia. Moreover, a significant part of the Karabakhi elite, with ideological and material support from Erevan, lamented Baku’s forced ‘azerification’ of the region and began mobilizing to reunite the oblast with the motherland.
After the Supreme Soviet of Nagorno Karabakh voted to reunite the region with Armenia in February 1988, violet clashes between Azeris and Armenians inflamed the area of Askeran, while a full-scale pogrom was unleashed against Armenians in Sumgait with dozens of victims. At that time, nationalist ferment in Erevan manifested itself in mass street demonstrations and grew into what became known as the Karabakh movement. In the fall of 1989, the interethnic violence increased, and Moscow gave the Azerbaijani authorities more extraordinary powers to restore order. In 1990, while the Armenian Supreme Soviet called for reunification with Nagorno Karabakh, Moscow even sent troops to suppress the Azerbaijan Popular Front - accused of supporting the creation of an Islamic republic - and installed Ayaz Mütallibov as first secretary. 36
At that time, a significant part of the Armenian elite criticized the Soviet involvement in restoring order with force, building an anti-Soviet political discourse (already inflamed by criticism over the mismanagement of Spitak earthquake relief and the shortcomings of the Soviet economy) that welcomed across-the-board support from communists, nationalists, and democrats of all kinds. As a result, the May 1990 elections for the Armenian Supreme Soviet resulted in the formation of a non-Communist government led by Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who was the head of the Pan-Armenian National Movement, which was established in 1988 to reunite Karabakh. The situation would not cool down but continued to inflame conflicts, pogroms, and mass exoduss on both sides. 37
On 23 August 1990, the Armenian Supreme Soviet approved the declaration of sovereignty, defining the supremacy of its law over Soviet law and thus beginning to build an independent state's institutions. Also, the Armenian government - along with the Baltics, Georgia, and Moldova - boycotted Gorbachev’s referendum on preserving the Soviet Union. In the spring of 1991, Soviet internal security forces (Russian and Azerbaijani OMONs) violently intervened in northern Karabakh and near the border between Azerbaijan and northern Armenia during the ‘Operation Ring’ to disarm the Armenian militias operating in these areas.
The situation became irreversible in the aftermath of the failed coup in Moscow in August 1991, which signaled the end of the Soviet system and left the republics with no choice but independence. Hence, on 21 September 1991, a referendum on the Armenian independence passed with 99,5 percent of votes in favor. As the Soviet forces themselves began to withdraw from the region in November, the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan voted to cancel autonomy to Nagorno Karabakh and renamed its capital Kankendi. However, the situation remained out of Baku's control and defined the extremes for a conflict that would inflame the region in the following years.
In January 1992, the Armenian rebels established the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh/Artsakh. The Azerbaijani military reaction against them ignited the first Nagorno Karabakh War (1992-1994), with the Baku side supported by Turkey and part of the Muslim world, while the Armenian side was partially supported by Russia and mainly by the Armenian diaspora, which contributed financially and with some elements which became frontrunners in the conflict. This tragic event caused more than 40,000 victims, intense devastations in the urban areas, ethnic cleansing, thousands of wounded, and almost a million refugees and internally displaced people. 38
The war ended with a cease-fire agreement reached on 5 May 1994. At that time, Armenians were occupying most of the former oblast - and seven adjacent districts to create a buffer zone – defining an oversized and hypermilitarized de facto state that was at the center of Armenians' concerns. Since then, Armenian political discourse revolved around the myth of invincibility, partly due to the supposed protection of the Russian ally in a possible large-scale war. Instead, in Baku, Heydar Aliev closed a conflict that at that time might have caused the collapse of the state, completed the ‘contract of the century’ by securing diplomatic support from the West in exchange for energy concessions, and started to invest in a pharaonic rearmament policy for a country that could benefit from the rich profits of oil and gas exports. 39
Peace negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh, under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group, the European Union and Council of Europe, and of Russian diplomacy itself, have been ongoing ever since but without substantial results. Erevan did not recognize the authorities in Stepanakert but provided material and military support to its cause. However, Armenia remained hostage to its geopolitical condition - with a frozen conflict in Karabakh, a closed border with Turkey, and complex relations with Georgia and Iran - and was forced by events to maintain close ties with Moscow.
In Uzbekistan, the situation was the opposite. The Rashidov era represented the maximum inclusion of the UzSSR into the Soviet system. However, the cotton deal – the raw material in exchange for autonomy - enforced a dependence bond that inexorably tied up the Uzbek local elites to Moscow. This compromise lasted until the Cotton Affair, an extended period of mass purges and criminal cases that overwhelmed the UzSSR establishment in 1983-1989.
This judicial and political imbroglio linking the falsification of cotton production data and corruption proceeded at different levels — the party, prokuratura, the police, and the KGB at the local and even at the central level — and involved some 58,000 party and state officials, 20,000 of whom were criminally charged. 40 Andropov and then Gorbachev’s moralizing campaign in Uzbekistan addressed the national party elites to eradicate the ‘negative phenomena’ and to denounce the culprits. However, the fire of the ‘witch hunt’ was alighted from above but fed from below by various factions involved in the struggle. 41 Tashkent agreed to extend the purges to the whole nomenklatura and, in 1986, even condemned Rashidov as the main culprit for the stagnant situation in the republic. The former leader symbolizing the Uzbek integration within the Soviet system was now judged to be a despotic and corrupt satrap and condemned to damnatio memoriae.
While enforcing this process of ‘derashidovization,’ the CPUz further welcomed the support of hundreds of ‘red paratroopers’ (krasnyi desant). These party reinforcements were sent from the CPSU Central Committee to Uzbekistan to treat the wounds of systemic corruption and assist the republic’s apparatus in this critical moment. Nevertheless, this move substantially replaced local cadres in crucial posts of the central committees, obkoms, soviets, ministries, unions, Komsomol, law enforcement organs, and economic agencies of Uzbekistan with mostly Slavic officials sent from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.
The reversal of the long process of korenizatsiya and the imposition of exogenous rulers among the highest ranks of the republic defined a sort of Moscow trust administration in the UzSSR, negating the principles of inclusion and autonomy that had characterized the previous decades. Toward a ruling class accused of collaborationism, a more ethnonationalist – and anti-Soviet - view came from those opposition movements born with claims of an official status for the Uzbek language. 42
The purges from above, the krasnyi desant, and the discredit toward the republic - accused during the Gdlyan Ivanov affair of being dominated by the mafiya - defined a situation that Uzbek nationalists perceived as the last colonial measure enforced by the center to control the republic. The situation exploded in June 1989 when mass violence erupted in the Ferghana Valley. The failure to quell inter-ethnic clashes and the massacre of Meskhetian Turks caused the dismissal of the CPUz's first secretary, Rafiq Nishanov. 43 In his place, the outsider Islam Karimov claimed to pacify the situation and represent Uzbek interests, mediating between Moscow and local elites during economic reforms, internal struggles, and institutional changes.
Karimov concluded the period of the Cotton Affair and broke the direct bond with the CPSU. To avoid problematic independence of Uzbekistan, in 1990, the newly nominated President of the UzSSR, Karimov, tried to renegotiate a more autonomous role of the republic within a renewed Union and was cautiously balancing national interests (also in terms of sales prices of cotton and other raw materials) with support for the Soviet cause. Nevertheless, such a critical discourse did not question the unity of the country, and this was also confirmed in March 1991 with 94.73 percent of votes in favor of the referendum on the future of the Soviet Union.
For a Central Asian ruling class that, nationalist or not, seemed wholly unprepared to handle independence, the August 1991 coup was greeted with not-so-hidden empathy. However, after its failure, the reluctant separation became inevitable. Even Karimov assumed harsher tones following the proclamation of independence of a republic that formally was still part of the Soviet Union. On 31 August 1991, at the Supreme Soviet, Karimov insisted on the exploitative nature of the USSR: Everything that was done to us, our people, Uzbekistan, differed little from the policy of the pre-revolutionary period, and the republic was not much more than a source of raw materials. […] We must say that this policy led Uzbekistan to the brink of collapse, with the lowest per capita income and a budget that had the character of a grant. And we were supposed to be ‘grateful’ for any meager ration we received from the center. By this moment, we had finally realized who our friends and who our enemies were, who wanted well-being and peace [for us] and who was hiding a stone behind his back.
44
This reformulation, which assumes anticolonial rhetorical tones, indicated that the Soviet experience was essentially over. Among the first measures was the amnesty of those indicted in the ‘cotton affairs’ and the rehabilitation of its ‘victims’ and Rashidov himself, who was now depicted as a symbol of resistance against the center. This a peculiar assessment for a politician who symbolized the climax of the Uzbek inclusion into the Soviet project, a representative of sovietization (and even cultural russification) who strengthened the extractive nature of the Uzbek economy while claiming to embody Soviet internationalism and condemning accusations of Soviet colonialism as products of the imperialist ideologists. 45
Promoting a postcolonial discourse in Uzbekistan was a post-Soviet phenomenon in which Karimov distracted the public from a political-economic crisis that created dissatisfaction and dissent against the new regime. Karimov built an anticolonial myth around the recent trauma of the Cotton Affair, and the contemporary political discourse narrated the last season of Soviet Uzbekistan ‘under the tutelage of Moscow and its local puppets’ and reported using terms such as ‘colonial,’ ‘repression,’ ‘purge,’ ‘terror,’ ‘new 1937,’ and even ‘genocide,’ in a republic that had once been considered one of the most loyal to the Soviet cause. Indeed, the episode became a crucial event for Karimov’s ideological shift from communism to Mustaqillik–the new national ideology based on the values of Uzbek independence–and a sensitive identity issue of revenge and resistance against former rulers, investing in a post-colonial trauma-based discourse that contributed to legitimizing the president’s regime, its relations with local power networks and the opposition.
Mustaqillik legitimized national mythologies, uzbekizing the glorious past and the symbols of the ‘Central Asian renaissance’, rewriting the historical narrative —through politically-directed historiography, literature, new textbooks, monuments, and museums—and reshaping memory to make a clear break with what was now being cast as an awkward past. It essentially combined a soft (and non-orthodox) nationalist folklore undergirded by the rhetoric of Uzbek victimhood at the hands of the Soviet colonizers to justify a break with a world that had given a modern form to the republic, with immense legacies and for which there was still a deep nostalgia in the society. 46
5. Looking beyond Moscow
In the mid-1990s, Russia seemed utterly traumatized by losing a foreign empire, the evident threats to its domestic one, and an unrecognized great power status. With Yevgeny Primakov leading the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then the government, Moscow seemed more skeptical of its equal participation within the Western club and proposed an international multipolar order based on spheres of influence on the political, economic, cultural, and military levels. 47 In this conception, Russia wanted to play a central role in a ‘Russian world’ identified as the post-Soviet space.
In the early 2000s, the idea of a Russkiy Mir (literally ‘Russian world’) based on the influence of language on thinking was discussed among political philosophy circles. This inspired the establishment of the government-sponsored Russkiy Mir Foundation in 2007, which thus became an instrument of Russian soft power and Putin’s revanchist idea of restoring Moscow’s influence to the former Soviet - or even imperial - borders. This move relaunched a series of initiatives on the international stage and maintained its forms of credibility until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. From then on, several post-Soviet countries traditionally friendly to Russia began seriously looking elsewhere, defining a loss of Moscow's influence in its former peripheries.
5.1. Overcoming nationalism and security dependence
In the 1990s, Armenia and Uzbekistan were influenced by the new course of a Russian foreign policy that was particularly proactive in consolidating Moscow's presence in the former Soviet space. Despite the solid national identity and precise determination for independence, in the 1990s, Armenia had no credible options other than remaining in a cooperation system dominated by Moscow. At the same time, the Russian language was still fundamental within a political and cultural elite formed in Soviet times. Undeniably, also after the independence, Erevan aligned with the former patron and its initiatives, becoming an active member of the intergovernmental organization created to harmonize relations between the former Soviet republics - namely the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) - and its military alliance called Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
The asymmetrical alliance between Erevan and Moscow was further enforced bilaterally with the 1997 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance. The Russian presence in Armenia was evident with the deployment of the 102nd Russian base in Gyumri – authorized until 2044 – and some 4500 border guards on the delimitations with Turkey and Iran. This association was even celebrated with the symbolic monument to Russian-Armenian friendship, erected in Erevan in December 2013 on the occasion of Putin’s visit to Armenia and the establishment of several commercial agreements.
At that time, Erevan was still dependent on that ultimate guarantor of its security and was unlikely to deviate from it. The Armenian ruling class remained hostage to a nationalist and securitizing political discourse, influenced by a frozen conflict that often degenerated into numerous violations of the ceasefire and clashes along the line of contact with Azerbaijani forces, risking escalating into a full-scale war. Out of friendship or necessity, such a pro-Russian attitude was also reaffirmed in the aftermath of the 2014 crisis, when Armenia defended Russia’s position on Crimea at the UN, renounced the Association Agreement with the European Union, and in October 2014 opted for Eurasian integration initiative of Customs Union promoted by Moscow, then becoming a full member of the Eurasian Economic Union in January 2015.
However, this new level of Armenia’s integration with the ‘Russian world’ interdepended on developments in the Karabakh frozen conflict. Indeed, in April 2016, an intense exchange of fire threatened to reopen the war and accelerated the creation of an Armenia-Russia joint air defense system and worked on creating joint Russian and Armenian military forces, while Armenia kept receiving crucial military assistance from Russia, including the Iskander-M ballistic missiles.
The real turning point came in the spring of 2018 with the Armenian ‘Velvet Revolution’ targeting the authoritarian president Serzh Sargsyan and the ruling Republican Party. 48 The event meant the end of a nationalist-militarist elite that emerged during the first Nagorno-Karabakh war and the rise of the moderate civic opposition represented by Nikol Pashinyan. The latter became prime minister and promoted a reformist agenda with a significant but cautious shift towards the European Union. This open-door policy with the West meant Armenia's more neutral approach in supporting Moscow’s positions, such as recognizing Russian sovereignty over Crimea.
This radical regime change inexorably soured relations with Moscow and placed the Russian government in a cost-benefit calculation concerning an alliance with weak and exposed Armenia. Indeed, assessing the implications of a front that, in addition to Azerbaijan, risked indirectly involving a NATO member such as Turkey, Russia did not support Armenia intervening in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh war. The conflict erupted on 27 September 2020 – while the world was at the height of the second COVID-19 pandemic wave - with a large-scale attack by Azerbaijani authorities. The war rekindled Armenian and Diaspora spirits, taking on the character of a ‘Patriotic War’. But given the overwhelming military superiority of Azerbaijan, it was soon understood as the ‘fight for survival’ (in Armenian goyamart). This Second Nagorno-Karabakh War – or ‘44 days war’ - redefined modern warfare with the intense use of drones and modern military tactics, and was catastrophic for the Armenian forces, prepared for a war that would no longer be fought in the trenches and with tanks. 49
At that time, Baku advanced in the reconquest of Nagorno-Karabakh and left a stump of territory to Artsakh authorities. Moscow intervened as a third party and, on 10 October, defined a ceasefire, which was disregarded by both sides. A new armistice was signed in Moscow on 9 November, and Russia installed some 2000 peacekeepers in the region, entering the only post-Soviet frozen conflict it was out of. This episode revealed the political limits of Moscow’s security guarantees and of an Armenian national political discourse that was a hostage of a revanchist nationalism and a reluctant ally.
In 2021, several ceasefire violations and blatant encroachments into Armenian territory showed a complex picture in which Baku acted with more leeway. Indeed, besides the problematic situation in Karabakh, the conflict shifted directly to Armenia. Aliyev more openly threatened its territorial integrity, promoting Azerbaijan’s claims on the so-called ‘Zangezur corridor’ - that through the Syunik region would directly connect the Nakhchivan exclave to the rest of the country – the left flank of the Sevan Lake and even the Armenian capital as part of the former Iravan Khanate. All of this defined a significant shortcoming in terms of security for Erevan, which feared the aggressiveness of its eastern neighbor and the isolation of its allies.
Then, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 changed the attitude towards Moscow. Indeed, most post-Soviet governments would not cut their ties with the West, preferring to reorientate their diplomacies elsewhere. From the beginning of the so-called ‘Special military operation’, Moscow was increasingly isolated and concentrated in a war that, contrary to the Russian leadership's belief, would not end in a few days. This would also spill over to those other fronts where Russia - besides the floods of its citizens escaping for the risk of mobilizations 50 - was losing its influence.
At that time, Erevan was embarrassed and did not condemn the aggression, and neither support the invasion; Baku perceived the isolation of Armenia and the distraction of a weaker Russia, now concentrated in Ukraine, to attempt an additional coup and even Moscow wanted to appease with Turkey and Iran (formally neutral concerning the Ukrainian conflict, but continuing to have strategic relations with Putin) and could sacrifice the minor Armenian ally. Then, in September 2022, new fighting, now directly threatening the territory of Armenia, inflamed the Southern Caucasus. At that time, Erevan tried to trigger Article 4 of the CSTO, demanding the allies' intervention against Baku’s aggression. This call was not followed up, and the Armenian confidence in Moscow was undermined, with nationalists accusing Russia of not fulfilling its duties. At the same time, mass mobilizations were calling for the government’s reorientation with the US, NATO, and the EU for normalizing relations with Turkey or personally against Putin during his visit to Armenia for the CSTO summit in November 2022.
Relations with Moscow remained tense for a country disillusioned by Russia and living a complex security choice. 51 In January 2023, Pashinyan criticized Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh for ‘becoming silent witnesses’ of the blockade that had been enforced by Azeri authorities since December, limiting the supply of food, fuel, and medicine for the Karabakh population. Then, he openly argued that ‘the Russian military presence in Armenia not only doesn’t guarantee Armenia’s security but, on the contrary, creates threats for Armenia’s security’. 52 As a result, Armenia started boycotting CSTO initiatives, including joint military exercises. The worsening of relations was also seen with an arrest warrant for Putin announced in March by the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose statute was also signed by Armenia, pledging to arrest the Russian president if he entered Armenian territory. In response, Moscow criticized the radical drifts of Pashinyan’s government and enacted a ban on imports of Armenian dairy products.
The Armenian disillusionment was also confirmed in a survey organized in spring 2023 by the International Republican Institute, showing how the perception of good relations with the ‘historical ally’ (Russia) was under 50 percent, while with the ‘historical enemy’ (Turkey) was rising to 23 percent. 53 At the same time, Pashinyan began an antinationalist discourse, preparing the Armenian public opinion for peace and normalization of relations with neighbors, which essentially meant losing Karabakh. In April, Pashinyan openly asked for peace conditions, the recognition of the Armenian SSR borders, and security and cultural rights guarantees for Karabakh residents. The nationalist opposition accused the government of betraying the national cause, saying that the deterioration of relations with Moscow was all Pashinyan's fault for not supporting Russia in recognition of Crimea or the Ukraine conflict.
While the situation in Karabakh was deteriorating with Azerbaijan authorities keeping the Lachin corridor closed and a humanitarian crisis that risked exploding into a social catastrophe, in May 2023, Pashinyan opened to the opportunity of the reintegration of Karabakh within Azerbaijan. Then, he even affirmed that Erevan could consider withdrawing from the CSTO due to the lack of support from Moscow and that Armenia was not an ally of Russia in the war in Ukraine. This was a turning point for a country hostage of its nationalism and its reluctant ally. In September 2023, Pashinyan further criticized the dependence on just one partner as ‘a strategic mistake’ and confirmed the government's will to diversify its security arrangements, most notably with the EU and the US, accusing the Russian peacekeepers of failing to uphold the ceasefire in Karabakh, while in the meantime the blockade continued to threaten the survival of some 120,000 Karabakhi residents.
The situation was unblocked with a new offensive launched by Azerbaijani forces on 19 September 2023. Then, a new wave of protests began in Armenia, targeting the Russian embassy and demanding the withdrawal from the CSTO. At that time, Russia blamed Pashinyan for his ‘dangerous policy’ and, ironically, reiterated the principle of territorial integrity, thus legitimizing Azerbaijani operations in Karabakh. This third war ended in a few hours with the total reconquest of Karabakh territory by Azerbaijani forces and the capitulation of Stepanakert authorities. They agreed to disband the Artsakh Defence Army and formally dissolve the Republic of Artsakh from 1 January 2024. But the most serious consequence was the de facto ethnic cleansing of the region, with the exodus of more than 100,000 residents who, fearing the worst, had no other options than moving to Armenia.
The dramatic epilogue of Nagorno-Karabakh closes an era, defining the failure of a militarist, nationalist, and hyper-securitizing political discourse that has limited Armenia's democratic and peaceful transition as well as prospects for cooperation with the West. At the same time, it confirmed the disillusionment of the Armenian ruling class and society towards Russia and the reorientation of a country that now seems to be looking elsewhere. Indeed, Armenia ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC, declined to participate in military exercises and the CIS summit in Kyrgyzstan in October 2023, and asked for Russian peacekeeping forces to return to Russia, while significant debates over the opportunity of keeping the Russian military base – with its 10,000 units - in Gyumri are ongoing.
As it was for De Gasperi in postwar Italy, Pashinyan has an arduous task ahead of him. Managing the consequences of a dramatic defeat may redefine a reformist course for future Armenia, overcoming the impositions of an often toxic nationalism that has limited its democratic and peaceful developments.
5.2. A multilateral approach to international relations
In Uzbekistan, the geopolitical circumstances remained tense, mainly due to disputes with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan over water issues and the exposure of Afghan instabilities. However, unlike its eastern neighbors, the republic preferred a cautious approach and did not delegate security to Russia. Mustaqillik had a strong influence in redefining a new political discourse and the relations of the Republic of Uzbekistan with the Russian Federation and the world. In cultural terms, the Russian influence in Uzbekistan is officially downplayed, defining the superiority of national culture. However, it is still significant and present in Uzbek society. At the same time, its forms of nationalism appeared ambiguous in presenting elements of cultural subalternity, orientalism, and hybridity in assessing the previous imperial experience. 54
After the Soviet collapse, Moscow and Tashkent kept cordial relations, and Russia remained an important destination for thousands of Uzbek migrant workers. 55 But despite joining the CIS and its free trade area, Uzbekistan did not participate in the most strategically relevant initiatives promoted by Russia. Indeed, Karimov was profoundly suspicious and, fearing political usurpation from Russia and economic intrusion from China, he kept a distance from both Moscow and Beijing while defending the idea of independence (and its post-colonial discourse), opting for a multilateral approach to international relations, and claiming a dimension in the Non-Aligned Movement.
This ambivalent attitude towards the redefinition of a ‘Russian world’ is evident with Uzbekistan joining the collective security treaty in 1994 but withdrawing in 1999, when Tashkent opted for the regional Organization for Democracy and Economic Development (GUAM) and initiated closer cooperation with the US. This was further strengthened during the military operations in Afghanistan after 9/11. However, the harsh Western criticism of the Andijan massacres in 2005 and the worsening of relations with the US defined a strategic reconsideration for the Central Asian republic. At that time, Tashkent demanded that the United States leave the base at Karshi-Khanabad, withdrew its participation from GUAM, signed a mutual cooperation agreement with Russia, became a member of the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC), and rejoined the CSTO in 2006 as a full member. However, such participation would also not be consolidated, and Tashkent left the EurAsEC in 2008 and the CSTO in 2012.
Indeed, Uzbekistan maintained a certain isolationism and detachment from Moscow. In the aftermath of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, the government – also worrying about possible tensions in Karakalpakstan - expressed concerns about such an initiative destabilizing the region and avoided taking sides. At that time, Moscow sought to recover relations with Tashkent and wrote off $890 million of the Uzbek debt to Russia in December. Yet things would change rapidly in 2016 with Karimov’s death and the rise of the former prime minister Shavkhat Mirziyoyev. The new president promoted a reformist course called ‘New Uzbekistan’ (Yangi Oʻzbekiston), keeping similar post-colonial narratives and claims but reinforcing an increasingly ethnonationalist discourse, even in promoting the public use of Uzbek language. At the same time, the new course of Uzbek politics started to open the country to new cooperation opportunities - with Moscow and other regional partners – to attract potential trade and investment partners from abroad.
At the international level, the end of isolationism meant normalizing tense relations with neighbors and reaffirming a regional dimension within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). This open-door policy also regarded Russia, with the resumption of Uzbek-Russian military exercises and a broader cooperation plan initiated in 2017 that even established an Economic Cooperation Program for 2019-2024. This strategy developed more opportunities for thousands of enterprises with Russian capital in Uzbekistan and further cooperation in the fields of trade, transports, tourism, culture, education, finance, investments, energy, automotive, and even the atomic sector for the construction of a nuclear power plant in the Jizzakh region. As a result, in 2015-2020, the Russia-Uzbekistan trade turnover doubled. Then, in December 2020, Uzbekistan became an observer of the Eurasian Union and started expanding energy cooperation on Uzbek gas with Russian companies. In the fall of 2021, 18 bilateral agreements between Moscow and Tashkent were signed, expanding collaboration even in information security.
However, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine decisively redefined Uzbek foreign policy. Indeed, Tashkent expressed deep concerns over the war and did not recognize the Russian annexations of the four disputed regions in southeast Ukraine, reaffirming that the republic recognized the independence and sovereignty of Kiyv. From that moment onward, the Uzbek government invested in more Central Asian formats, including Beijing. Indeed, despite maintaining essential trade relations with Moscow, 56 China was catching up with Russia in becoming the leading supplier of Uzbekistan.
The rapprochement between Tashkent and Beijing was evident. Already in August 2019, Uzbek Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov called China Uzbekistan’s ‘closest partner’, recognizing it as one of the most essential sources for imports and exports as well as investments and development loans. And China itself has begun to invest more in relations with a country that in Central Asia is a significant market - and a logistics hub for the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project, as well as a critical part of the Belt and Road Initiative. Unlike the third-party positions toward the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Tashkent more openly supported China in its claims, expressing its commitment to the ‘one China’ principle on the Taiwan issue and thus defining a regional policy without Moscow.
6. Conclusions
Armenia and Uzbekistan, with different national discourses and geopolitical conditions, found reasons for the opportunity to continue a partnership with Moscow also after the Soviet collapse. Armenia, whose ethnonationalism was mainly from an anti-Turkish perspective, maintained strong ties, especially on the military level, with the Russian Federation, which could be a guarantor of national security. Uzbekistan, whose nationalist discourse was officially post-colonial and highly critical of the Soviet experience, counted on maintaining cordial relations with Moscow, especially on the trade front. Both perspectives seemed to be temporary and due to contingency.
Not to mention the physiological reduction of Moscow's cultural influence in republics where the younger generation speaks less Russian and seems more attracted to a globalized world; the Russian invasion of Ukraine delegitimized a Russian wolrd that seems to have lost credibility in both countries. If the Armenian ruling class will overcome the Karabakh defeat and succeed in normalizing relations with its neighbors, the country will be free from a forced marriage imposed by a condition of necessity and be able to find its own European dimension. At the same time, if Uzbekistan – that by now seems to have overcome the trauma of unintentional divorce from the USSR - continues to pursue a policy of openness toward regional partners, it will have to counterbalance the risks of exclusive Russian or Chinese hyper-influence and find an identity that is now disentangling itself from the heavy Soviet legacy.
