The Soviet Union is a country consisting of roughly one hundred and eighty nationalities. Great Russians account for only about half the population. These nationalities are joined by a common fate: to more or less the same degree, they all have endured decades of communist dictatorship. In spite of this common fate, the peoples of the Soviet Union are quite dissimilar. They differ, often quite markedly, with respect to their languages, religions, histories, level of modernization, the degree to which their traditions have been preserved, and their conceptions of the future. Even the totalitarian government of the USSR has been unable to reduce the myriad of ethnic groups to a common denominator. In fact, the official elite of non-Russian peoples-not to mention their cultural elite, however weak it may be-have inevitably been gravitating toward greater autonomy and even separatism. (Here, one should make a distinction between issues concerning the preservation of ethnic identity and the nationality question which involves issues of political power, although issues of both kinds are usually closely related.) Outwardly this separatism expresses itself and is kept within the framework of the Soviet institutions and the lexicon of Soviet ideology. Only in the samizdut press are the limitations of “Newspeak” cast away, replaced with the language of traditional nationalism (and chauvinism) dating back to the 19th century. Such a samizdut press exists in the Ukraine, in the Baltic republics, in the Caucasus (especially Armenia), and also in Russia. In the sumizdut press the question of independence from the Soviet Union arises, a question which the Soviet elite has not taken seriously up to now. Despite the multitude of taboos in official Soviet culture, the taboo against serious discussion of the nationality question has always been, shall we say, “first among equals.” In the epoch ofglasnost andperestroiku-and even slightly earlier-the taboo has nonetheless started to crack. I will attempt to trace several of these events and their possible implications. The well-known Kirghiz writer Chingiz Aitmatov appeared in Literuturnuyu Guzetul with a statement that it is necessary to preserve linguistic diversity as long as possible; the disappearance of even one small people and language signifies the impoverishment of the world (here Aitmatov, incidentally, concurs with Solzhenitsyn). In the same article Aitmatov, although restrained, speaks unequivocally of Russilication, of mechanical borrowings from the Russian, of the inappropriate eulogies of Russia which for many have become almost a profession, and of careerist charges that the protectors of Kirghiz culture are nationalist and “narrow-minded.” The Baltic people are also speaking out (although the local languages and cultures in the Baltic region are in a significantly better position).*