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Section: Policy
Two organizations in Ulan Ude
the Regional Union of Young Scholars
and the human rights organization
Erkhe are trying to raise
awareness of the campaign for the
rehabilitation of Buryat land that
was first purged in 1937 under
Stalin. This campaign is concerned
that a referendum that took place on
April 16, 2006 is illegal in the
eyes of the Russian constitution and
may prove fateful in the attempt to
preserve Buryat culture. Not only
that but this is just one example of
the Russian Governments attempt to
centralize power and lessen the
power of the autonomous republics
that reside within the Russian
Federation.
The Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous
Soviet Socialist Republic was formed
in 1923, and in 1937 was given the
official name of Buryatia, or Buryat
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
Due to a reorganization of the
administrative and territorial
structure of East Siberia in 1937,
the Buryat-Mongol Republic was
stripped of about half of its land,
including the west shore of Lake
Baikal, Olkhon Island, Ust-Orda, and
Aga. These last two regions were
made Buryat autonomous orkrugs,
similar to reservations, and Buryats
in surrounding Russian majority
areas were moved into these
territories. In Buryatia itself
Stalin brought in large numbers of
Russian settlers in order to dilute
the Mongolian majority. Mongolian
script was banned and all writing in
the Mongolian language was only
allowed in the Russian Cyrillic
script. Buryat religious buildings
and sites were largely destroyed and
Buddhist and shamanist artifacts
were either destroyed or placed in a
central storage area for use in the
creation of a "Museum of Atheism."
For more than 15 years
representatives of the Buryat public
have demanded territorial
rehabilitation for the Buryat people
by the reunion of the uniform
republic that existed before 1937
and the returning of the historical
name "Buryat-Mongolia". This is an
issue that is of great importance in
2006 as on April 16 of this year a
referendum that infringes a number
of the rights of the people of
Buryatia was passed. The referendum
has infringed upon the autonomy of
the existing Buryat Republic by
merging it with the Irkutsk and Ust
Orda regions.
According to the Russian
constitution, Buryatia is one of
twenty one republics in the Russian
Federation. These twenty one
republics represent areas of
non-Russian ethnicity and because of
its status as a republic Buryatia
differs from other federal subjects.
One such difference is Article 68
(2) and (3) of the Constitution
which allows republics to institute
their own state languages and that
the Russian Federation shall
guarantee all its people the right
to preserve their native language
and to create the conditions for its
study and development. The Buryat
Republic has incorporated the same
guarantee into its constitution as
stated in the Russian Federation
constitution, but the Buryat
Constitution also specifically
ensures freedom of development of
nations and creation of conditions
for the preservation and development
of their traditions (Article 4),
and the right to each people to
maintain and develop their native
language (Article 67).
In essence Buryatias status as a
republic allows the Buryat people to
develop national culture, to support
development of the native language
and to create tolerant and friendly
conditions of residing with other
people of Russia. The republic is
the heritage of the Buryat people
and realization of its right to
self-determination is, as the world
history shows, a unique way to
preserve its originality.
This referendum in April 2006 is
further proof of the attempt by
President Vladimir Putin to impose
the supremacy of the federal
constitution and to lessen the
autonomy of the twenty one republics
in the Russian Federation. The
unification of the Irkutsk, Ust Orda
and Buryat region (now to be known
as the Irkutsk Region) is the fourth
such merger after the creation of
the Perm, Krasnodar and Kamchatka
regions.
However this is essentially only
the beginning, as on the eve of the
Irkutsk, Ust Orda and Buryat
referendum, Chita Governor Ravil
Geniatulin called for a merger with
the Aginsk Buryatsky autonomous
district. Leonid Potanov, president
of the republic of Buryatia, put the
question even more broadly: He
proposed the creation of a Baikal
region that would include Buryatia,
Irkutsk, Chita and the two Buryatsky
autonomous regions that are enclaves
within them. The process that has
already taken place was essentially
a return to pre-1991 conditions. It
has eliminated the contradictions in
the Constitution by which autonomous
districts were both independent
constituent entities of the Russian
Federation and component parts of
other constituent entities.
These actions by the Russian
government appear to be a plan to
merge constituent entities of equal
size, dismantle elements of ethnic
governance and transform them into a
kind of ethnic and cultural autonomy.
The plans for Adygeya and the Altai
republic might be another example of
this transfer to a new stage of
consolidation. Taken with the law on
appointing governors and forming the
Duma on a purely proportional basis,
this seems to be a way of
eliminating the oppositional
political elites in the regions.
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