The experience of implementing Soviet policies of assimilation of national minorities: application in contemporary public administration

The study provides an analysis of the Russian system of state governance of national policy, using the example of the Roma population, who are indigenous to Russia. The author argues that the prevailing negative stereotype of this people does not correspond to the real situation. The problem of social integration of the Roma population in the Russian Federation has been covered in research literature. However, the potential for transferring Soviet experience to the modern system of managing the social integration of national minorities has not been analyzed by the scholarly community. The aim of the research is to analyze and evaluate the positive experience of state governance of national policy in the early USSR and its application to managing the social integration of compact Roma settlements. The mechanisms of the “korenizatsiya” (indigenization) program for ethnic groups and some outcomes of this policy in the areas of education and social integration of Roma citizens are analyzed. The primary sources for the study include archival materials from the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, statistical data, academic articles, and current documents. The author introduces some previously unpublished archival documents into scholarly discourse. Using methods of comparison, analysis, and synthesis of sources and statistics, as well as interview methods conducted between 1979 and 2015, the historical experience is revealed and its application within the modern system of state governance is considered. The author analyzes common stereotypes regarding citizens of Roma ethnicity. The reasons for the loss of the positive outcomes of the Soviet experience are also revealed, contemporary mechanisms and problems of social integration in Roma settlements are examined, and effective mechanisms from Soviet practice are selected and proposed for use in the modern system of state governance of social integration for national minorities. The research results can be applied in federal and regional programs for working with compact Roma settlements.