Eurasia Twenty Years After

The volume focuses on Eurasia during the last two decades, which mark both the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the appearance of fifteen new independent states in the global arena. On the one hand, twenty years of the collapse of the Soviet Union generated debates over the causes and consequences of the collapse. On the other hand, there have been discussions on what the last two decades meant for the emerging states, the individual and the community. The ways in which the newly independent states perceive themselves-i.e. as sovereign entities or as cosmopolitan spaces with pan-Iranian/pan-Turkic/pan-Mongol linkages sharing several pasts-have also been re-evaluated. Similarly, the rhetoric invoking national sovereignty, both in terms of its continuities and discontinuities, is being reassessed in several ways. Here, one needs to take note of the fact that the memory of the Soviet past remains vivid within the region. The volume explores how experiences of independence have been both similar and dissimilar for the former Soviet republics. It addresses the ways in which relationships and identities have been reconfigured, structures have been institutionalized, while issues like ethnicity still remain important. The wide gamut of impressions about Eurasia in the volume indicates sensitivities about this region. It also reflects the visibility of this region in international affairs.