In this article, we explore intra-ethnic aspects of co-ethnic migration by members of the Slovak community from Serbia to Slovakia, both at the institutional level and at the level of intra-ethnic relations, and the boundaries between migrants and the established population. In the first part, we focus on the institutional framework of co-ethnic migration: the politicization of diaspora issues in Slovakia, the Slovak community in Serbia in the hierarchy of Slovakia’s diaspora policy, and co-ethnic relations as a subject of negotiations. In the second part, we investigate the role of language in co-ethnic migration, the situation of nonrecognition by co-ethnics in Slovakia, intra-ethnic boundary-making in everyday interactions, and the consequences of migration on intra-ethnic relations among those members of the community who did not migrate. We thus analyze the ongoing migration of the Slovaks of Vojvodina from Serbia into Slovakia, from the early 1990s onward, through a blend of perspectives “from above” and “from below.” This article is based on extensive fieldwork conducted among members of the Vojvodina Slovak community, both migrants and non-migrants who have remained in Vojvodina. Thus, the sending country (Serbia) and the receiving country (Slovakia) represent one research field. The data collected in the field have been complemented by legal documents and statistical data to gain an overview of the wider social and political structures within which the migration is taking place.

Poland remained a popular destination for migrants from Ukraine for many years before February 24, 2022, the outbreak of full-scale Russian aggression on Ukraine. Ukrainian communities in Polish cities, including local autochthonous Ukrainians (the Ukrainian national minority), are already well-established and well-organized, although they are very diverse. Drawing from anthropological fieldwork conducted in 2021 and at the beginning of 2022, this article seeks to address the nexus of the diaspora and culture and explores the imaginations of “common culture” in diaspora-forming processes. We treat “culture” as diasporic imaginings of naturalized and reified representations of what is to be a Ukrainian in Poland. The essentialized notion of putative “common culture” is routinely discursivized and maintained by diasporic elites. Exploring this as an empirical phenomenon captured in the field helps reveal the internal tensions and that this imagining empowers the production of cultural differences. We argue that imagined “common culture” may actually activate “othering” of the diasporic Other and might not be as unifying a factor in diaspora-forming processes as it appears.

In most accounts of peacemaking after World War I, “flawed” decisions at “Versailles” caused the ethnically mixed states of Central and Eastern Europe to descend into violent ethnic clashes, while the allegedly more homogenous Western European states faced few issues with minorities. This article challenges this simplistic view by examining the treatment of German-speaking minorities in the borderlands of Alsace-Lorraine, South Tyrol, and Eupen-Malmedy between 1918 and 1923 in the immediate post-war and the early interwar period. Building on an innovative comparative framework of five key variables, we find that, in all three cases, post-war borders generated incentives for the respective governments to suppress their new minorities, and that states used ethnic markers to target them. The strength of state institutions and liberal principles account for a reversal (Alsace-Lorraine), moderation (Eupen-Malmedy), or hardening (South Tyrol) of measures. International commitment to defend the new borders and the absence of a tradition of ethnic conflict also had a significant impact.

In this special issue, our contributors move the academic conversation beyond methodological nationalism and approaches that analyze far-right movements only within their respective state contexts by interrogating the circulation of ideologies, funds, and people across sociopolitical boundaries. Our goal is to scrutinize the far right in post-communist Eastern Europe by examining the multitudinous and multidirectional ties that exist between groups at the local, regional, national, and transnational levels. Attention, moreover, is paid not just to those factors that facilitate such linkages, but also to the obstacles that hamper these flows via various detours, omissions, and other forms of resistance. In this introduction, we offer a theoretical overview and discussion of contributors’ findings to argue that conduits for the dissemination of far-right discursive frames are hardly unidirectional in nature. As a result, the transitological narratives of progress and regress typically invoked to explain the emergence of the far right offer only a partial understanding of how it mobilizes, builds alliances, and circulates ideas. We unpack the conceptual pitfalls and fallacies of transitological narratives and instead foreground the concept of multidirectionality, which opens up new avenues through which to understand how far-right groups mobilize and disseminate their narratives.

This is an important book. It is important because it connects the study of internal armed conflict to big questions in comparative politics. It is important because it pays attention to the perspectives of ordinary men and especially women who make complex decisions in the context of legal pluralism. It is also important because it offers a window onto one of the most difficult-to-access settings of state-building on the back of protracted political violence and war. In my commentary, I will highlight these contributions of Egor Lazarev’s State-Building as Lawfare: Custom, Sharia, and State Law in Postwar Chechnya and areas for further discussion that stem from these contributions.

The article deals with the phenomenon of shaping Ukrainian national identity in artistic works of autobiographical nature, created at the time of life crisis and oppressive sociopolitical situation, using Leon Getz as an example. Getz (1896–1971) was a painter who was raised in a Polish-Ukrainian family in Lviv but made a decision to identify nationally with the Ukrainian minority, oppressed both in pre- and postwar Poland. After WWII, he was subjected to surveillance by the Polish Security Office because of his Ukrainian identification. That led him and his wife (also a Ukrainian) to attempt suicide—unsuccessful in the case of the artist, fatal in the case of his wife. Getz wrote down his memoirs twice: the first time in the 1930s, the second time after his wife’s death in the 1950s. The first memoirs expressed his loneliness in an environment dominated by Poles, and they were drawn up openly, though for the author’s needs only. The second memoirs presented his personal tragedy and were kept in secret because the Security Office sought to intercept Getz’s notes as documents incriminating the officers. However, the author hoped to make the text public in the future. The subject of the analysis is constituted by memoirs read in the context of the artist’s other personal documents and works. They present the formation of his Ukrainian national identity as the chosen one and at the same time as the one that, in his opinion, was related to his and his wife’s tragedy. I interpret these memoirs in two different but complimentary ways: first, as life writing at the time of a man’s personal life crisis and, second, as life writing in a situation of oppression by the authoritarian and after WWII totalitarian state, under surveillance by the Security Office, whose moves put the very subjectivity of an individual in crisis. Both interpretations highlight the process of building Getz’s self-identification not as a discovered preexisting nationality, but as a deliberate—and nonobvious—choice of national path. The article is based on Getz’s unpublished memoirs and works, which are held in archives in Cracow (Poland) and Rome (Italy).

Drawing on theories of comparative regionalism, this article examines the construction of regionalist frames in Azerbaijan covering the period from 1993 to mid-2023. By examining more than 60 text passages from presidential speeches and statements, the study identifies two framings of regionalism that have dominated presidential discourses in Azerbaijan: the discourse of Turkic solidarity or unity (in the political-security domain) and the narrative of an East-West corridor or the revival of the Silk Road for transport of cargo and hydrocarbon resources (in the economic domain). By constructing these discursive frames, Azerbaijani state leaders crafted an alternative regional order reconstituting the geographic category of “South Caucasus” into a new, spatially broader area. In this formulation, “South Caucasus” is viewed as a central pillar of the Silk Road, and Azerbaijan as one of its focal points or nodes. While the study underscores a key role that actors and ideas play in the formation of regions and regional institutions, it also highlights how social construction of regional identities is embedded in and shaped by historical experiences and country-specific political-economic conditions such as historical memories, experiences of war, collective identities and cultural affinities, geographic location, domestic political economic structures, and international linkages.

I would like to offer heartfelt thanks to Professors Stephen Hanson, Egor Lazarev, Bryn Rosenfeld, and Gulnaz Sharafutdinova for taking the time to read the book carefully and for offering their thoughtful comments and critique. I am also grateful to the editors of Nationalities Papers for providing a forum for and facilitating the symposium.

Georgia represents an interesting case to study the agency of small states in reshaping their regional identity and external environment. Although much of the world has considered Georgia as politically part of the South Caucasus region, the country’s political elites themselves have long attempted to escape the geographic boundaries of the South Caucasus region and relocate their country into Eastern Europe. We argue that Georgian elites were partially successful in their quest for foreign political identity change. Although they did not manage to entirely change the international perception about Georgia’s geographic belonging, the country has politically moved closer to Eastern Europe and is considered to be part of “Associated Trio” together with Ukraine and Moldova—and recently became an EU candidate. From a theoretical perspective, we argue that Georgia’s quest for foreign policy identity recalibration fits the constructivist paradigm of international relations well. It can be argued that Georgia’s political elites were partially driven by ideational factors and were ignorant of the balance of power in their external environment, which cost the country the lost wars and compromised territorial sovereignty.

Amidst the Russian aggression against Ukraine, peace and stability within the geostrategic region of the Western Balkans have come under the spotlight. While some have called for the “denazification” of the Balkans, others have firmly supported Ukraine. Among the six non-European Union states in the Balkans, the Republic of Serbia is perceived as the most visible and longstanding supporter, akin to a brotherly state, of the Russian Federation. This article aims to investigate President Vučić’s narrative in his Addresses to the Nation concerning the war in Ukraine. The objective is to gain a better understanding of Serbia’s foreign policy positioning with regard to the conflict in Ukraine. Anchored in the Regional Security Complex theory, the article examines President Vučić’s Addresses to the Nation from February 2022 to February 2023, revealing Serbia’s consistent insistence on independent decision-making in foreign policy matters, including in the context of the war in Ukraine. These Addresses to the Nation further reinforce the notion of Serbia’s multi-vector foreign policy, while also utilizing the war in Ukraine to reignite public discussions on the importance of Kosovo to Serbia’s foreign policy.

To what extent can de facto states act autonomously vis-à-vis their patron states and domestic societies? This article draws on theories of clientelism in international relations to develop a novel argument explaining the agency of de facto states. Examining two strategic triangles—Russia–Transnistria–Moldova and US–Taiwan–China—it demonstrates that interrelated domestic factors such as robust political competition, democratic pluralism, reimagined national identities, and big business shape the autonomy of de facto states in Eastern Europe and East Asia. Furthermore, the structured focused comparison of Transnistria and Taiwan indicates that the agency of de facto states declines when rising parent states and dissatisfied patron states challenge the status quo, engaging in great power competition. Their autonomy varies across areas of low and high politics, as patron states prioritize military-security issues and interfere less in the economic and cultural affairs of the de facto states.

A centralized authority with a monopoly of force is fundamental to eradicate war between states. Unfortunately, due to the outdated power structure of the Security Council, it has once again proven incapable of reacting, this time, to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Given the unprecedented potential that Russia’s unlawful use of force has of restructuring the international scene, this piece considers it crucial to adapt our international peacekeeping institutions to counter the emergence of a new disorderly and war-prone status quo. Thus, four legally and politically viable ways in which the international community can effectively express its outrage, avoid permanent member impunity, and reassert the United Nations’ legitimacy and relevance are proposed.

The 2008 global financial crisis and its aftermath provided fertile soil for criticism of and alternatives to the international liberal order, including the rise of financial nationalism. Contemporary financial nationalism is a view of the world that is nationalist in its motivation for political action, financial in its policy focus, and illiberal in its conception of political economy. At the same time, it is fundamentally shaped by its emergence from within the international liberal order, which both constrains the policy options of financial nationalists and provides opportunities for them to draw on transnational financial resources and institutions to advance nationalist causes. This article offers a conceptual analysis of contemporary financial nationalism that explores its fundamental characteristics, explains what is distinctive about it, delineates its four major policy subtypes, identifies the resources and capabilities required to successfully engage in it, and discusses the implications of doing so. It aids researchers in thinking about financial nationalism’s internal workings across different contexts, in understanding why it has lasted as long and spread as far as it has, in considering how it may evolve, and in contemplating how it can affect domestic and international political economies.

In the wake of Brexit, how has the framing of the EU and independence evolved among regionalist parties in the devolved regions of the UK? The effects of a multilevel structure such as the EU on regionalist parties has been examined, yet European disintegration is novel and thus yet to be fully explored. Has the framing of the EU by these parties shifted, and if so, how? In this article, I analyze 19 regionalist party manifestos between 2011 and 2022 through the lens of rational choice and discursive institutionalism to examine the effects of Brexit on the framing of the EU. At a rhetorical level, these parties have engaged in the subsuming of the EU, rhetorically tying their independence or enhanced autonomy to Brexit. Sinn Féin, Scottish Nationalist Party, and Plaid Cymru have used the critical juncture of Brexit to incorporate the EU into their regionalist rhetoric. By examining the effects of European disintegration on regionalist political parties, we can better understand the role that current events play in the fluidity of party positions as presented in manifestos.

Egor Lazarev has offered us a book of uncommon ambition and erudition. At its core, State-Building as Lawfare: Custom, Sharia, and State Law in Postwar Chechnya explores how elites and ordinary citizens pursue their interests by weighing the costs and benefits of using alternative legal frameworks in postwar Chechnya. By describing how politicians encourage nonstate legal remedies to build political coalitions—and how everyday Chechens engage in forum shopping when trying to manage their own legal issues—Lazarev teaches us about the challenges associated with the extension of state legal institutions in the wake of prolonged, nationalist conflict. Although Lazarev treats his exploration of legal pluralism as the theoretical framing for the book, such a reading belies what I view as his primary empirical contribution: a meticulous exploration of gender politics in the North Caucasus. In this review, I describe Lazarev’s arguments about elite and citizen legal strategies, discuss his understanding of gender disputes in a postconflict Muslim society, and offer a provocation for future research that would situate the study of Chechnya in a broader literature on autocratic politics.

The author examines Ľudovít Štúr (1815–1856), the main representative of the Slovak national movement in the 1840s, and his personal ethos in the struggle for the rights and freedom of the Slovak ethnic group. Štúr paid great attention to the development of the ethnic, social, and political awareness of Slovaks. In this effort, the Slovenskje národňje novini (Slovak National Newspaper) played an important role, through which Štúr and the representatives of the Slovak national movement shaped and spread its social and political program, the aim of which was both the fight against the national oppression of the Slovaks, but also the achievement of equal rights for the Slovak ethnic group in Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy.

The article seeks to fill a gap in existing scholarship on explicit and implicit linguistic, ethnic, and national classifications in Habsburg schools and their effects. It attempts to reconstruct the classifications that appeared in textbooks and other teaching materials as well as in daily practice, pupils’ exposure to them, and their engagement with these categories. Temporally, the study begins with the establishment of compulsory education (1774) and ends in the revolutionary period of 1848–49 and focuses on the Slavophone population of the Habsburg crownlands Carniola, Carinthia, Styria, and the Austrian Littoral. Our research suggests that systematic and uniform classification schemes were not yet in place in the school environment in the period under review. As a result, the influence of classificatory systems on identifications was limited. If anything, the schools inadvertently reproduced existing local and provincial identifications while the students’ limited internalization of emerging transregional identifications only happened through their personal relationships with a few teachers and peers. The transition from familiarization with emerging transregional ethnolinguistic identifications through personal networks to the systemic (and often completely unintentional) reproduction of nationalist ideology happened only after 1848.

In the early 20th century, Orissa, a province in British India, was marked by dismemberment and fragmentation. Nationalist leaders in colonial Orissa often portrayed the province as a disfigured mother to evoke nationalist sentiment among the Odia people and garner support for the unification of the Oriya-speaking tracts in adjacent provinces to form a separate and complete Orissa province. One painting from the period depicts a woman representing “Mother Orissa” being dissected on a table by an Englishman and surrounded by wolf-headed figures representing Bengal, Madras, and Bihar, who were opposed to the idea of Orissa’s unification. However, these leaders were careful not to create an environment of coercion and sought to allow for expressions of difference to foster a healthy national life. One way they did this was by trying to unite intrareligious groups in Orissa while also calling for the need to bring together people of different regions living in Orissa. Additionally, they balanced their allegiance and devotion among three mothers: Mother Orissa, Mother India, and Mother Victoria.

To survive over time, a diaspora must create sites of belonging and micro places in which to concentrate the main elements of its “iconography” that can consolidate social networks. This article analyzes how second-generation Greeks in Italy fit into diaspora networks by investigating the ways in which they define their sense of Greekness and use their ethnic resources. The findings of field research show a weakness of (formal and informal) social network ties and the pre-eminence of the family’s role in the process of sociocultural identification and ethnic identity construction. In fact, the second generation’s “ways of belonging” and the sense of attachment to Greece have an autonomous significance and are expressed more at a familial level and less collectively. Familial socialization plays a mediating role in the process of identification and transmission of Greekness, as well as in guiding ways of employing ethnic resources, contributing to the maintenance of the diaspora.