I though of the republics as used in Soviet Union They are related, the Soviet Union had a 'top level' administrative division, the (eventually) 15 'Soviet R

I though of the republics as used in Soviet Union They are related, the Soviet Union had a 'top level' administrative division, the (eventually) 15 'Soviet Republics' which became independent countries after the dissolution of the union. Some of these republics (mostly Russia) also contained internal 'Autonomous Republics', among other administrative divisions of their own. Bashkorostan was once of those 'ASSR's. This is a bit of an over-simplification since some of these definitions changed over time as did the status of some of the regions in question but the main thing is, there were several kinds of 'republic'.