Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, March 09, 2007

Confusion of names

In the face of the confusing names for sub-national units of government in Russia, Rebecca Small asked perfectly logical questions: What is the difference between a republic, an oblast, and a krai? What is an okrug? What is the autonomous oblast?

I answered with the help of the anonymous Wikipedia authors (who we will consider as conditional authorities - correct them if they're wrong).

These are all various types of sub-national units of government in Russia. Some of them have Medieval origins; others are Soviet; still others have even older origins. There may be differences in the organization of the local government, but they are basically synonyms for "republic." (Local residents might rightly insist that their home "republic" is not like all the others, but political scientists have to deal with generalizations as well as technical specifics.)

Wikipedia says (I don't recognize any mistakes or biases in these entries, but that doesn't mean they are Right):

Oblast refers to a type of administrative division in Slavic countries and in some countries of the former Soviet Union. [It] ... is often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region".
Krai or kray (Russian: край) is a term used to refer to seven of Russia's 86 federal subjects. The term is often translated as territory, province, or region.

In Russia, krais were historically vast territories located along the periphery of the country. Currently, however, the usage of the term is mostly traditional as some oblasts also fit this description and there is no difference in legal status between the krais and the oblasts.
Okrug is a term to denote a subnational entity in some Eastern European Slavic states. Etymologically, the word is a calque of the German word Bezirk ("district"). Both okrug and Bezirk refer to something literally "encircled".
Main article: "Subdivisions of Russia"

In the present-day Russian Federation, the term okrug is... translated as "district..." and is used to describe the following types of divisions:
- Federal Districts (federalny okrug), such as the Siberian Federal District;
- Autonomous okrugs (avtonomny okrug), such as Koryak Autonomous Okrug;
- Komi-Permyak Okrug, a territory with special status within Perm Krai.
Okrug is also used to describe the administrative divisions of the two "federal cities" in Russia:
- the administrative okrugs of Moscow are an upper-level administrative division.
- the municipal okrugs of St. Petersburg are a lower-level administrative division.
Furthermore, the designation okrug denotes several... administrative divisions:
- okrugs, such as okrugs of Samara Oblast.
- rural okrugs (selsky okrug), such as the rural okrugs of Adygea.
- rural territorial okrugs (selsky territorialny okrug), such as the rural territorial okrugs of Murmansk Oblast.
- stanitsa okrugs (stanichny okrug), such as the stanitsa okrugs of Krasnodar Krai.