Who were the Soviet peoples?: A guide to materials on the non‐Russian Nationalities of the former USSR

Until very recently an immense USSR comprised fifteen republics. Now the three Baltic states are free of Moscow's direction, and an independent Ukraine has joined Belarus and the former Russian Soviet Federated Republic (RSFSR) as the hub in a commonwealth of former republics that have declared themselves independent or “sovereign,” but federated through agreements based on economics or defense considerations. Whether one concentrates on the story of Baltic freedom following the abortive 1991 coup, the subsequent dissolution of central governmental power, or the lasting enmities among some of the peoples in Central Asia and the Caucasus, the pivot around which this new interest or heightened curiosity turns is the recent great change within the late Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.