No, goldsnow, Ivan Kalita was Grand Prince of Moscow from 1325-41. As for Ivan the Terrible's chief oprichnik, you must be thinking of Maliuta Skuratov.
As for the proportion of ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan, as of 1995 they comprised about 38% of the total population(as against 40% for the Kazakhs, and 22% for "others" -- Uzbeks, Uighurs, etc.). You are thinking, no doubt, of Northern Kazakhstan, where the overwhelming majority or the population is indeed Russian, thanks largely to Khrushchev's "virgin lands" campaign
Kazakhstan did not "gain" independence. Independence was more or less forced on it, after the bosses of Russia, Ukraine, and Belorussia got together and announced that the Soviet Union no longer existed. (Now THAT was a real "revolution from above.") At that time, the Russian leadership felt that the other republics were really nothing more than an economic drag, and quite sincerely wanted them all to go away. Well, in the years since, Yeltsin has taken a lot of heat for "destroying the USSR," and he has responded by making himself a more-Catholic-than-the-Pope defender of RUSSIA's territorial integrity (to compensate for his lack of concern for the USSR's territorial integrity).
I brought in the American Indians only because Russians do. I did not say their argument was valid or even rational; only that they make it. |
