1963–
The historian who redefined the USSR as an 'affirmative action empire' rather than a 'prison of nations'
The 15 countries that emerged from the USSR largely didn't exist in 1917; they were a consequence of the Soviet organization of the country on national principles.
A Canadian-born historian who reshaped the study of Soviet nationality policy. His 2001 book The Affirmative Action Empire recast the early USSR not as a 'prison of nations' that suppressed its minorities, as the Pipes school had argued, but as the world's first state to systematically practice mass affirmative action for non-Russian peoples: a thesis that has become the most influential English-language framework on the subject. The George F. Baker III Professor of Russian Studies at Harvard, he also directs the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI).
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1985A.B. in History and Literature, Harvard College
- 1996Ph.D. in History, University of Chicago
- 2001Published The Affirmative Action Empire (Cornell UP)
- 2001Co-edited A State of Nations with Ronald Suny (Oxford UP)
- 2006Tenured as Professor of History, Harvard University
- 현재George F. Baker III Professor of Russian Studies; Director, HURI
Related historical events
Analyzing the contradictions of early Soviet nationality policy
In The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939, Martin analyzes early Soviet nationality policy as a historical experiment in governing a multiethnic state. As he presents it, in the 1920s the Bolshevik government sought to defuse nationalism by creating tens of thousands of national territories, training new national leaders, establishing national languages, and financing cultural production in those languages. The policy fostered minority national consciousness and built institutional forms associated with modern nation-states, while also seeking to dictate the content of those cultures. It likewise supported national liberation movements in neighboring countries while trying to exclude foreign influence from diaspora nationalities within the Soviet Union.
Martin also traces the turn in the 1930s within this analytical framework. In response to a perceived threat to Soviet unity, policy moved toward restoring Russians as the state's leading nationality, while numerous national groups were designated enemies and deported. His study thus follows both the early institutional promotion of national identities under central control and the subsequent reordering of national hierarchy and repression. Cornell University Press describes the book as an interpretation of Soviet management of the nationality question and the contradictions of that policy, based on archival sources that had newly become available.