Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR). A territory that was part of a Union republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and was settled by a national minority and had Soviet autonomy (mainly the right to use the minority language). Within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic the Moldavian ASSR was such a republic in 1924–40, and within the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic the Crimean ASSR was such a republic in 1920–46. There was an autonomous republic on the Ukrainian ethnic border in Subcaucasia—the Kabardino-Balkar ASSR.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]