The NKAO is created inside Soviet Azerbaijan (1923); Abkhazia's status is stepped down from treaty republic to autonomous republic inside Georgia (1931); South Ossetia becomes an autonomous oblast inside Georgia, mirrored by North Ossetia inside Russia; the North Caucasus is divided into national autonomies. The 1936 constitution fixes the hierarchy.
Why it mattersSoviet autonomy was a storage system for national questions — each grievance got an institutional address, a titular elite and a boundary. When the centre weakened in the 1980s, every autonomy was a ready-made state project, and every internal boundary a potential front line.