Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics

An Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR, Russian: автономная советская социалистическая республика, АССР) was a type of administrative unit in the Soviet Union (USSR), created for certain ethnic groups to be the titular nations of. The ASSRs had a status lower than the constituent union republics of the USSR, but higher than the autonomous oblasts and the autonomous okrugs.

Map of the types of the subdivisions as of 1983, with ASSRs shown in orange.

In the Russian SFSR, for example, Chairmen of the Government of the ASSRs were officially members of the Government of the RSFSR. Unlike the union republics, the autonomous republics only had the right to disaffiliate themselves from the Union when the union republic containing them did so, as well as to choose to stay with the Union separately from them. The level of political, administrative and cultural autonomy they enjoyed varied with time—it was most substantial in the 1920s (Korenizatsiya), the 1950s after the death of Joseph Stalin, and in the Brezhnev Era.[1]

According to the constitution of the USSR, in case of a union republic voting on leaving the Soviet Union, autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts and autonomous okrugs had the right, by means of a referendum, to independently resolve whether they will stay in the USSR or leave with the seceding union republic, as well as to raise the issue of their state-legal status.[2]

Azerbaijan SSR

Georgian SSR

Russian SFSR

The 1978 Constitution of the RSFSR recognized sixteen autonomous republics within the RSFSR. Their status as of October 2007 within the Russian Federation is given in parentheses:

Gorno-Altai Autonomous Oblast (now Altai Republic), Adyghe Autonomous Oblast (now Republic of Adygea), Karachay–Cherkess Autonomous Oblast (now Karachay–Cherkess Republic) and Khakassian Autonomous Oblast (now Republic of Khakassia) were all promoted in status to that of an ASSR in 1991, in the last year of the Soviet Union. Only the Jewish Autonomous Oblast retained its autonomous oblast status in Russia.

Other autonomous republics also existed within RSFSR at earlier points of the Soviet history:

Ukrainian SSR

Uzbek SSR

See also

References
  1. Cornell, Svante E., Autonomy and Conflict: Ethnoterritoriality and Separatism in the South Caucasus – Case in Georgia Archived 2007-06-30 at the Wayback Machine. Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Report No. 61. p. 89-90. University of Uppsala, ISBN 91-506-1600-5.
  2. "СОЮЗ СОВЕТСКИХ СОЦИАЛИСТИЧЕСКИХ РЕСПУБЛИК. ЗАКОН О порядке решения вопросов, связанных с выходом союзной республики из СССР" (in Russian). Archived from the original on 12 September 2016. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
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