Perestroika and the Ethnic Mosaic in Southern Siberia

Abstract

The Soviet policy of forging a unified “Soviet people” aimed at cultural homogenization, yet it also led to the “reassembly” of ethnic groups into micro-national models with new umbrella ethnonyms. During Perestroika, shifts in political rhetoric and the emergence of new resources for identity competition significantly complicated the ethnic map of the USSR and later Russia. Drawing on the author’s field research from the 1980s to early 1990s, this article examines these processes in the south of Western Siberia—specifically Kemerovo Oblast, Altai Krai, and the Gorno-Altai Autonomous Oblast (now the Republic of Altai). A detailed analysis of local ethnic mosaics reveals key directions in the “reassembly of nationalities,” a dynamic that extended beyond Perestroika into subsequent decades.