Abstract

Unlike the bloody beginning of the Soviet Union, its end has been amazingly peaceful. Mikhail Gorbachev has been eulogized for accomplishing this “velvet” revolution from above. From the standpoint of the peoples of Transcaucasia, Moldavia and much of Central Asia, however, things look rather different. There events have been no more “velvet” than in Albania and Yugoslavia. There is a temptation to see all this as a historical reversal. Cities and places such as Sebastopol, Sarajevo and the Caucasus, associated with old battles described in musty monographs of 19th and early 20th century history, as well as Turkestan, which has not been in the headlines since the Crimean War, are once again in the news.