the crackdown faded, however, a handful of opposition movements emerged trying to keep alive the spirit of 1968. The best-known of these groups was Charter 77, named for the January 1977 declaration signed by 250 dissidents, including playwright and future president Vaclav Havel.
The rise of Gorbachev in 1985 alarmed the CPCz. The hard-line communist leaders of Czechoslovakia did not embrace Gorbachev’s brand of new thinking. They stubbornly held onto their austere rule, while the economy began to skid. They had come to power in 1969 to block reform; they could hardly shift and embrace it now. Gorbachev’s first official visit to Czechoslovakia, in 1987, raised hopes-and fears-that he would call for a resurrection of the 1968 reforms, but instead he made rather bland comments that relieved the Czech leaders. They believed they now had Moscow’s blessing to ignore perestroika. Husak retired as First Secretary-but not President-in late 1987, apparently for personal reasons rather than on Moscow’s order. His replacement, Milos Jakes, was another hard-line communist with no penchant for reform.
Czechoslovakia was one of the last states to experience popular demonstrations and strikes in the cascading events of late 1989. The West German embassy in Prague was overrun by thousands of East Germans seeking to emigrate. When the other hard-line holdout, East Germany, collapsed in October, suddenly the end of communism in Czechoslovakia seemed possible. Unable to address popular demands, the Czechoslovak Politburo simply resigned en masse, after barely a week of demonstrations. Havel became president; Dubcek returned from internal exile to lead parliament.
The Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991 and the Czech Republic and Slovakia divorced on December 31, 1992. Initially, the new Czech state tilted westward, whereas Slovakia leaned toward Moscow, in part because its economy was still oriented in that direction. As the 1990s unfolded, both countries maintained proper ties with Moscow, but also joined NATO: the Czech Republic in 1999, Slovakia in 2002. See also: CZECHOSLOVAKIA, INVASION OF; WARSAW TREATY ORGANIZATION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brzezinski, Zbigniew K. (1967). The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gati, Charles. (1990). The Bloc That Failed: Soviet-East European Relations in Transition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Skilling, H. Gordon. (1976). Czechoslovakia’s Interrupted Revolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wolchik, Sharon L. (1991). Czechoslovakia in Transition: Politics, Economics, and Society. London: Pinter.
Dagestan, part of the ethnically diverse Caucasus region, is an especially rich area of ethnic and linguistic variety. An Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the RSFSR during the Soviet period, it has continued to be an autonomous republic of the Russian Federation since. There are twenty-six distinct languages in the Northeast Caucasian family. The majority of these languages’ speakers live in Dagestan. The largest of these are Avar, Dargin, and Lezgin. The total population of the Dagestan A.S.S.R. in 1989 was 1.77 million. Many other nationalities, such as Russians, also live in Dagestan.
The capital of Dagestan is Makhachkala, located on the Caspian Sea. The Terek River is the most important river in Dagestan, flowing from Chechnya and toward the Caspian Sea. There is a small coastal plain that gives rise quickly to the eastern portion of the main Caucasus range. The most intense ethno-linguistic diversity is found in the mountains as a result of the isolation that historically separated groups of people. The northern part of Dagestan connects with the Eurasian steppe.
Many of the people of Dagestan are descendents of the residents of the ancient Caucasian Albanian Kingdom. This kingdom was known for its multiplicity of languages and was Christian for many centuries, having close relations with the Armenian people and their Christian culture.
Dagestanis were traditionally Muslims peoples. Attempts in the post-Soviet period to incite Islam-based rebellion, however, have been generally unsuccessful. These rebellions have come from the direction of the troubled Republic of Chechnya, which is located west of Dagestan. The Islam of Dagestan was traditionally a Sufi-based Islam, one that is inimical to the sort of puritanical Sunni sectarianism that is exported from other parts of the Islamic world. Sufism in this part of the world is not without its militant expression; one of the most famous leaders, Shamil, was an Avar of Dagestan. His power base was mainly in the Central Caucasus among the Chechens.
Unlike many of their other neighbors in the Caucasus, the Dagestanis, for the most part, did not experience the exile and deportation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This makes the narrative of their people much less filled with the anger and alienation that characterizes Chechen, Abkhazian, and other histories. The ethnic fragmentation of
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Dagestan has also prevented a unified Dagestani national identity from being formed.
The Russian Empire appeared in this area in two different forms: by the Cossacks who lived at the periphery of the empire in the semiautonomous communities; and by means of the imperial army’s movement down the Volga River and to the western shore of the Caspian. Peter the Great captured territory in this area, but Dagestan was not fully brought into the Russian Empire until the mid-nineteenth century.
The Soviet period saw the creation of Cyrillic-based alphabets for the various languages of Dagestan. This strengthened the existence of the larger languages, and may have forestalled the extinction of some of the smallest of the languages. It also served to forestall the creation of a united Dages-tani national identity.
In the post-Soviet period, in addition to Islamic agitation from the west, there has also been a certain amount of ethnic conflict. The conflict is generally over who will control the politics and patronage of certain enclaves, while the larger groups jockey for position in the republic’s government. Some of the conflicts result from the ethnic mixing that was encouraged and sometimes forced during the Soviet period. See also: AVARS; CAUCASUS; DARGINS; ISLAM; LEZGINS; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hill, Fiona. (1995). “Russia’s Tinderbox: Conflict in the North Caucasus and Its Implication for the Future of the Russian Federation.” Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project. Karny, Yo’av. (2000). Highlander: A Journey to the Caucasus in Quest of Memory. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
(d. 1547), Metropolitan of Moscow, 1522-1539; leading Josephite and “Possessor.”
Daniel was a native of Ryazan with a powerful frame, an encyclopedic turn of mind, a preacher’s bent, and disciplined work habits. He was tonsured by Joseph of Volokolamsk (also known as Iosif or Joseph of Volotsk) around 1500 and designated to succeed him before his death in 1515, when he and his monastery were under virulent attack by Vass-ian Patrikeyev and out of favor at court.
As abbot, Daniel demonstrably enforced the rule of communal property, and the cloister continued its remarkable growth as a landowner and center of learning, training future prelates, and writing. He oversaw the completion of the extended redactions of Joseph’s Enlightener and Monastic Rule and masterminded the creation of the Nikon Chronicle with its milestone grand narrative, sacral-izing Rus history and granting Moscow the contested succession to Kiev.
Selected metropolitan by Basil III, Daniel issued a worthless writ of safe-conduct to a suspect appanage prince (1523) and permitted Basil’s controversial divorce and remarriage (1525), which resulted in the birth of the future Ivan IV (1530). In turn Daniel was able to organize synods against Maxim Greek (1525, 1531) and Vassian (1531), and canonize Joseph’s mentor Pafnuty of Borovsk. Daniel also placed an enterprising ally, Macarius, on the powerful, long vacant archepiscopal see of Novgorod (1526) and Iosifov trainees as bishops of Tver (1522), Kolomna (1525), and Smolensk (1536). Presiding over Basil III’s pre-death tonsure and the oaths to the three- year-old Ivan IV (1533), Daniel remained on his throne through the dowager Helen Glinsky’s regency (1533-1538), but could not exercise his designated supervisory role, prevent murderous infighting at top, or keep his post after
