death of an empire.

Quite often you hear or read that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was relatively peaceful. Indeed, compared to the end of the Habsburg, Ottoman, Russian, and also Western colonial empires - and especially in relation to Yugoslavia falling apart, the Soviet end could have been way bloodier. But saying that it was peaceful is just a gross misrepresentation. I mean, just take into consideration: 

Kazakhstan (Jeltoqsan Riots, 1986): 168-200

Georgia (Tbilisi Massacre, 1989): 20

Georgia (South Ossetia, 1988-92): 1.000-3.000

Azerbaijan (Nagorno-Karabakh, 1988-94): 4.623-44.306

Azerbaijan (Black Saturday or January Massacre, riots and pogroms of Armenians, 1990): 133-137

Armenia (clashes with Soviet troops, 1990): 31

Kyrgyzstan (Osh Riots, between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, 1990): 300-1.000

Lithuania (January Events, Soviets troops attacking the Vilnius TV Tower, 1991): 14 

Lithuania (Medininkai Massacre, Soviet troops killing Lithuanian border guards at the Belarussian border): 7

Georgia (civil war 1991-3):  1.000-2.439

Moldova (Transnistria,  1992): 316-1.000

Georgia (Abkhazia, 1992-3): 12.000-22.000

Tajikistan (civil war, 1992-8): 6.834-100.000

Russian Federation (Constitutional Crisis, storming of the parliament, 1993): 187

Russian Federation (Chechnya, 1994-6): 5.732-40.000

We all know that the truth is the first victim in every war. It's quite hard to get reliable numbers on casualties. Anyway, aforementioned brings the amount of violent life losses related to the end of the Soviet Union somewhere in between 32.362 and 214.341 deaths. Ethnographer Valery Tishkov puts the total at 63.000 casualties - without the Chechen Wars. Therefore, somewhere halfway at around 120.000 might be an educated guess.

It's true that the actual end of the USSR was peaceful. In the Belarussian forests of Belavezha Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Belarussian parliament chairman Stanislau Shushkevich and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk signed the Accords that means the end of the USSR (and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States). Moreover, the Slavic 'core states' involved here didn't experience violence themselves (except of Russia to some extend, taking Chechnya apart). Western Sovietologists might have expected violence in the centre, and in the Crimea, moreover. They were wrong, as usual, and moreover, they neglected the periphery. 

So therefore, four days after April 9, I do want to commemorate the more than 120.000 people the Soviet Union took with in its fall.