Korenization

Korenizatsiya (Russian: ; IPA: [kərʲɪnʲɪˈzatsɨjə]), sometimes also called korenization, meaning "nativization" or "indigenization", literally "putting down roots", was the early Soviet nationalities policy promoted mostly in the 1920s but with a continuing legacy in later years. The primary policy consisted of promoting representatives of titular nations of Soviet republics and national minorities on lower levels of the administrative subdivision of the state, into local government, management, bureaucracy and nomenklatura in the corresponding national entities. The term derives from the Russian term "коренное население" (korennoye naseleniye, "root population") for indigenous nationals.

Among the stated goals of the policy were the addressing of the relative economic backwardness of certain regions of the former Russian Empire, undoing the forced russification of oppressed nations under the Russian empire, and harmonizing the relationship between the nations of the Soviet Union by carrying the national and ethnic policies that would appeal to the wide masses of the local people in the ethnically non-Russian areas. Korenization implied the introduction of the local languages into all spheres of public life and usage of the local languages to the widest possible extent, particularly, in education, publishing, culture, and, most importantly, government and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Not only was the local cadre of the titular nations to be promoted at all levels but the ethnic Russians who served in the local governments were encouraged (or required) to learn the local culture. In most cases korenizatsiya was preceded by the delimitation of nationality-based borders for administrative and political units within the Soviet Union.

The nationalities policy was formulated by the Bolshevik party in 1913, four years before they came to power in Russia. Vladimir Lenin sent a young Joseph Stalin (himself a Georgian and therefore an ethnic minority member) to Vienna, at the time a very ethnically diverse city (capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire). Stalin reported back to Moscow with the ideas for the policy. It was summarized in Stalin's pamphlet (his first scholarly publication), Marxism and the National Question (1913). Ironically Stalin would also be the major proponent of its eventual dismemberment and the reemergence of Russification.

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