ABSTRACT
The break-up of the USSR in 1991 sparked a massive movement of peoples within and among the successor states of the former Soviet Union (FSU) as well as between the FSU and the rest of the world. Migratory flows set off by the break-up of the Soviet Union have compounded the social instability and economic hardships these states face as they embark on transitions away from centrally planned economies and engage in the process of state formation and nation-building. A majority, but certainly not all, of the migration flows in the post-Soviet space can be attributed to diaspora migration. The USSR was a country of almost unparalleled ethnic complexity. It was also a nearly selfcontained migration space with movements in and out greatly restricted. Though controlled to an extent, there were considerable migratory movements within the Soviet Union during the three-quarters of a century it existed and during the Tsarist era that proceeded it. As a result, most of the successor states found themselves with significant ethnic minority populations at the time of independence. In this chapter, data are compiled and analysed on the nationality composition of migration among the post-Soviet successor states during the turbulent decade from the 1989 census to the beginning of 1999, along with the impact of this migration on the nationality composition of the successor states during their first years of independence.
