Assessment for Tuvinians in Russia

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Risk Assessment | Analytic Summary | References

Risk Assessment

Tuvinians are unlikely to engage in violent rebellion in the near future. Protest in the previous 10 years has been almost non-existent, and group members have demonstrated no signs of violence against the state or other ethnic groups. While the Tuva are territorially concentrated, constitute a majority of the republic’s population, and have a moderately strong identity, they nevertheless exhibit relatively low levels of group organization. The only noticeable protest of late occurred in 2002 over Russia's decision to deny the Dalai Lama a visa to enter the region, but the protests were small. The absence of any other significant political or cultural restrictions mean that protests will probably not escalate into mass protests. There is widespread poverty among the group, but Moscow provides substantial subsidies for the autonomous republic’s budget.

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Analytic Summary

Tuvinians are of mixed Turkic and Mongol descent whose homeland lies north of the Russian-Mongolian border. Tuva is within a strategic zone long contested by various empires and has been occupied by a succession of conquerors including Turks, Chinese, Uigurs, Kyrgyz, Mongols, and Russians.

Until the twentieth century, Chinese and Mongols posed greater threats to Tuva's security. It was not until 1914, while attempting to break away from a China weakened by revolution, civil war, and foreign intervention, that Tuva fell under Russia's control as a Tsarist protectorate. In the two decades after 1924 Tuva was nominally independent, and remained so until 1944 when Stalin benevolently granted Tuva's "petition" to accede to the USSR (AUTLOST = 2). Like the neighboring Buryat people, to whom they are ethnically and religiously linked, Tuvinians have been compelled to delicately balance competing pressures emanating from Russia, China, and Mongolia. Even under the USSR, Tuva maintained links with the pro-Soviet Mongolian Communist regime.

Over 96 percent of all Tuvinians live in the Tuva Republic (GROUPCON = 3), where they comprise approximately 77 percent of the population. The Republic of Tuva is economically dependent on the Russian government, and poverty is rampant (ECDIS06 = 1).

In the 1990s, Tuva was the scene of violent conflict: in mid-1990, Moscow-based media reported on the first organized anti-Russian attacks to be staged in the USSR in many years. Although these reports later proved exaggerations, in the post-Soviet era the republic witnessed serious ethnic tension, occasionally rising to the level of small-scale violence. In February 1995, the only Russian in charge of an administrative district was murdered by unknown assailants. Afterwards, authorities denied that ethnicity played a role in the killing, but that did little to quell fears of further assaults and an early exodus of ethnic Russians. The region calmed significantly in the late 1990s. There have been no recent reports of ethnic violence and levels of protest remain low (PROT98X = 1; PROT03-05 = 0, PROT06 = 1).

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Tuvinians have agitated for ecological clean-up, economic development and greater political autonomy, although there has been no evidence of such sentiment in recent years (POLGR04-06 = 0; ECGR04-06 = 0; CULGR04-06 = 0). Some Tuvinians also advocated political independence in the early post-Soviet years, but no evidence of such sentiment has been seen recently (SEPX06 = 3). Like other ethnic republics, Tuva originally sought to maintain a certain liberty of action in regard to Moscow, as when authorities protested against the deployment of Tuvinians in rebel Chechnya. However, the dire economic situation in the region makes it dependent on Moscow and gives Tuvinian authorities weaker leverage in bargaining with Moscow. Further, a gradual centralization of political power occurred under former President Vladimir Putin’s rule (2000-2008), leaving the Tuvan Republic’s political leadership heavily reliant politically and economically on Moscow.

Tuvinians are represented by few organizations (GOJPA02-06 = 2), which are primarily conventional political parties and cultural movements, such as the All Tuva party. However, politics are dominated by the major Russian political parties, primarily United Russia.

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References

BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, numerous stories, 1990-2006.

International Alert. Inter-Ethnic Relations in the Republic of Tuva. London: 1993.

Lexis-Nexis Academic (2004-2006)

Olson, James S. An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994.

Reuters World Service, numerous stories, 1990-1995.

RFE/RL, various reports, 2000-2006.

TASS, numerous stories, 1990-1995; 2004-2006.

Tishkov, Valery. The Principal Problems and Prospects of the Development of National-Territorial Entities in the Russian Federation. Cambridge: Harvard University .

Tuvan Republic’s official website (http://gov.tuva.ru/gosvo/predct_p.htm).

Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, n.d. [probably 1992].

Wixman, Ronald. The Peoples of the USSR: An Ethnographic Handbook. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1984.

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