Formation of Autonomous Republics

Autonomous Republics. Chart. 1922

Original Source: Territorial'noe i administrativnoe delenie SSSR (Moscow, 1924).

Having considered the general background of the revolutionary philosophy of self-determination and of its application in administration, the numerous autonomous territories which have been created in Soviet Russia may be enumerated. The old divisions of Russia gave way to new ones in which it would appear that the Bolsheviks had intended to dig up history and revive a number of tribes and peoples of centuries past so that a present chart of Russia has a kind of nightmare resemblance to the historical-ethnographical map of primitive Russia. In some of these areas there is a Russian majority, but, omitting the element of political expediency, the reason for the administrative unit may have been not so much principles of nationality as customs and habits. A list is given here of the territorial divisions which have arisen. About half of the new formations are inhabited by Muslims. Of the autonomous republics, all are included as a part of the RSFSR with the following exceptions: Moldavia is included in the Ukraine, the Tadzhik republic in Uzbekistan, the Nakhichevan republic in Azerbaijan, and Adzharia and Abkhazia form a part of Georgia. The list is given below.

	Autonomous Republic	When Formed	Area in Sq. kilometers	Population (add 000)
1	Bashkir	March 23, 1919	145,380	2,691
2	Tatar	May 27, 1920	67,241	2,622
3	Kirghiz	August 26, 1920	2,009,303	6,491
4	Daghestan	Jan 20, 1921	55,272	788
5	Gorsk	Jan 20, 1921	.....	...
6	Abkhazia	March 4, 1921	8,172	199
7	Turkestan	April 11, 1921	.....	...
8	Adzharsk	June 16, 1921	1,329	129
9	Crimea	Oct 18, 1921	25,775	700
10	Yakutsk	April 27, 1922	4,023,407	279
11	Karelia	July 25, 1923	146,313	267
12	Buryat-Mongol	Sept 12, 1923	419,000	522
13	Nakhichevan	1923	6,524	104
14	German Volga	Feb. 20, 1924	27,423	571
15	Moldavia	Oct. 12, 1924	8,288	567
16	Tadzhik	Feb. 4, 1925	154,095	827
17	Chuvash	June 15, 1925	18,413	894
18	Kirghiz	April 30, 1927	195,171	997

The Kirghiz ASSR was renamed Kazak ASSR by virtue of a decree dated October 14, 1924 At the same time a Kara-Kirghiz autonomous region was formed out of the former republic. A decree dated May 27, 1925, changed the name to Kirghiz autonomous and finally On April 30, 1927, the transformation into the Kirghiz ASSR was effected.

By a decree dated November 30, 1922, the Gorsk ASSR was transformed into two autonomous regions on the basis of national characteristics: the Severno-Ossetiia and Ingushetiia. Part of the Gorsk ASSR was transferred to the Kabarda-Balkarsk region and to the Karachevo-Cherkess region.

Abkhazia is called a "treaty socialist soviet republic." ... Turkestan disappeared as such after the territorial redistribution of Central Asia in 1925 and the consequent formation of the Uzbek and Turkmen Socialist Soviet Republics.

Source: Walter Russell Batsell, Soviet Rule in Russia (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1929), p. 124.