The purpose of this article is to investigate to what extent civic commitment and the political culture from the Estonian first republic survived communism at an individual level. Have representatives of the Estonian inter-war generation who endured Soviet occupation been able to remain civically committed even though they were disconnected from democratic institutions for a major part of their lives? Sometimes labelled “republican,” this generation matured into early adulthood during an unusually formative period in Estonian history, when the new democratic state was taking shape in between the two world wars. Hence, it fulfils the criteria of a political generation as “a group of human beings who have undergone the same basic historical experiences during their formative years.” The analysis contributes to two different, although in this context interrelated, discussions. The first addresses the roots of Estonia's successful post-communist experiences, the second the extent to which early socialization endures dramatic institutional shifts.

The Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) has been a highly controversial actor since its election in February 2001. The party initially governed under a hail of domestic and international criticism for its East-leaning foreign policy and authoritarian domestic politics. Yet, although with a diminished vote share, it was re-elected on 6 March 2005 in broadly free and fair elections on a pro-European platform with relations with Russia at a nadir.

Abkhazia during the Stalin era was at the same time a subtropical haven where the great leader and his lieutenants built grand dachas and took extended holidays away from Moscow, and also a key piece in the continuing chess match of Soviet politics. This paper will examine how and why this small, sunny autonomous republic on the Black Sea, and the political networks that developed there, played a prominent role in the politics of the south Caucasus region and in Soviet politics as a whole during the Stalin period.

Common religious, cultural, and ethnic bonds can hold communities together, while differences along these same lines often lead to calls for national independence, complicate nation building, and confound inter-communal peacemaking efforts. In particular, when religious differences exist between groups in conflict there is a marked tendency for such differences to become emphasized. This is not to say that religion is the root cause of all internecine and inter-communal conflict, which certainly is not the case. But conflicts become fundamentally altered as they rage on, and factors that were at the root cause of a conflict at its outset may no longer be the primary causes in later stages. That is, once conflicts have significantly evolved, the prior causes may no longer be the primary causes.

This article is the fourth in this Nationalities Papers series, following Part 1 which covered the period from the arrival of Gypsies to Europe until the mid-nineteenth century, Part 2 describing the birth of the first modern Romani organizations from the nineteenth century up until the Second World War (WWII) and Part 3a covering the first wave of expansion of Romani activism countrywide after 1945. As mentioned in Part 3a, the period between WWII and 1970 can be distinguished from the previously covered periods by the emergence of the following phenomena: (1) modern Romani political organizations at the national level, (2) their unification through international Romani umbrella organizations, (3) some limited Romani participation in non-Romani mainstream political or administrative structures, (4) an international Romani evangelical movement, (5) reconciliation between Romani political representation and the Catholic Church, (6) national institutions created by various governments to aid the administration of policies on Roma, (7) rapid growth of non-governmental organizations addressing Romani issues, and (8) some limited cooperation between Romani organizations and intergovernmental organizations.

After World War I, Austria, Germany, Russia, and Turkey moved from dynastic-imperial political regimes to quasi-republican regimes justified on the basis of popular legitimacy. Prior to this transition, in the management and political (in)significance of ethnic categories these empires broadly resembled each other. After World War I, the core successor states to these four empires pursued radically different policies in dealing with ethnicity as a social category. One can therefore speak of distinct Austrian, German, Soviet/Russian, and Turkish models in managing multi-ethnic populations, models which persisted since the 1920s. Both the emergence of different regimes of ethnicity in the 1920s and the persistence of these policies throughout the twentieth century present very intriguing puzzles for political science. It is not possible to “explain” either the emergence or the persistence of these distinct policies within the confines of this paper. Instead, the major differences between state policies in these four countries will be described in detail in order to highlight the important differences and the most significant features of each case. Since the major contours of these policies did not change throughout the twentieth century, I will limit myself to a brief description of period-specific nuances in the distinct national trajectories between the 1920s and the 1990s. Finally, I will focus on a period of significant change in the late 1990s in Germany, Russia, and Turkey, and inquire as to the causes of these changes.

This research examines and analyzes how the politicization of the environmental issue in Armenia led to the emergence of the Nagorno-Karabakh (N-K) nationalist movement in Azerbaijan as the USSR went into terminal decline in 1991. It is important to stress that the Karabakh movement that emerged in Armenia in February 1988 with a clear agenda on serious ecological problems escalated quickly in the subsequent weeks and months to demand the preservation of the cultural identity of Karabakh Armenians in Azerbaijan. Air pollution of Yerevan, Ashdarag, Yegheknatsor, and later Sdepanavan and Ghapan was a significant threat to the existence of the Armenian people. For the Armenians, air pollution was ecological genocide, and cultural discrimination against Karabakh Armenians was cultural genocide. The Armenians associated ecological and cultural genocides with the 1915 genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenian nation. This study shows that initially the Karabakh movement did not have political goals. However, as it intensified with an enormous consciousness it transformed to a nationalist movement with a political and ecological agenda. This study also analyzes ethnic mobilization by activists in Armenia and the emergence of the N-K nationalist movement from 1985 to 1991 in light of Soviet nationalities policy and the window of opportunity caused by the political transformation at the center (Moscow). The activists of the environmental and nationalist movements were the same.

While a large number of Kosovo Albanians before the war longed for international intervention in their province, after the “national victory” social and economic grievances put an end to the illusion of a “great” future in a “free” Kosovo. High unemployment rates as well as property and housing became the most vital issues for a majority of the Kosovar population. For minorities such as the Roma, Ashkali, Egyptians, and Serbs, issues of security and future integration in an eventually independent, Albanian-dominated country were added to the general economic crisis and to the difficulties of repossessing properties lost as a result of the war.

Much of the social science literature pertaining to the development of civil society in post-communist Eastern Europe focuses on the issue of religious pluralism, especially the relationship of religious minorities and new religious movements (NRMs) to the state and their established Orthodox churches. Their findings suggest that the equation of ethno-religious nationalism, cultural identity, and the state becomes a hindrance to religious pluralism and the development of civil society in these nation-states. As a result, social scientists depict these national churches, and in most cases rightly so, as being the caretakers and fomenters of ethno-religious nationalism in their particular states. A factor in this debate that is often overlooked, however, is the role of the local church in intra-ecclesial relations. Is the concept of the “local church,” which developed in the time of the Roman and Byzantine Empires, to be identified with the modern national church? If this is the case, these churches may be guilty of the sin of ethno-phyletism, which the Council of Constantinople condemned in 1872 in regards to the Bulgarian schism. Additionally, while the development of religious pluralism in post-communist society with the proliferation of Protestant Christian sects and NRMs challenges the religious hegemony of the national churches, even more problematic has been the issue of inter-territorial Orthodox churches in Eastern Europe. The existence of a plurality of national Orthodox churches in the same territory violates the ecclesiological principle of the “local church” as well as perpetuates the sin of ethno-phyletism. While some social scientists may laud the development of a multiplication of churches in the same territory, from an ecclesiastical standpoint such a multiplication denies the unity and identity of the Orthodox Church as the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, which it confesses to be. What social scientists have failed to discuss is this important self-understanding of the Orthodox churches, especially as it pertains to inter-Orthodox ecclesial relations. Only with this self-understanding of the church blended with the issue of ethno-nationalism can the problems pertaining to the relations and development of ethno-national churches be properly understood.

A personal note frames this essay. In recent years I have travelled with my Finnish colleagues from the University of Tampere to a number of international seminars and conferences organized in various European locations. While socializing with the other participants, my self-identification as Romanian has, on several occasions, prompted the question “are you Hungarian or Romanian …?“ No other options were ever offered, even though Romania has a quite sizeable Roma minority and a number of Saxons, though ever declining, still live in the country. At the same time, the ethnicity of my Finnish colleagues has never been questioned. True, Finns describe their country as a homogeneous place, yet Finland is a country with two official languages—Finnish and Swedish—ever praised for the treatment of its Swedish-speaking minority. And some other ethnicities—for instance, Roma and Sami—also live in Finland. Nobody interested? Or maybe there is more to it than simply a question of curiosity (or a lack of it). That the ethnicity of the Finnish participants was deemed irrelevant, whereas my ethnic identity seemed a topical issue for informal discussions during coffee breaks or conference lunches elicited my interest in the issue of national and ethnic identity. I have started to ask how collective identities, and especially national and ethnic identities, have been conceptualized and how those theoretical concepts have been deployed in the study of Central and Eastern European identities. Are there any differences in how Central and Eastern European identities are studied compared with Western identities?

For more than a decade, the five Central Asian republics have been “readjusting” their academic institutions in response to the new borders created by the fall of the USSR and subsequent independence in 1991. Both the university system and the Academy of Sciences have been called on to rethink their research policy in order to meet the new national stakes and current political demands. Thus, the elaboration of a national discourse is a particularly relevant object of study in order to observe the different modes of legitimization of the new Central Asian states and the scholarly tools they deem necessary for their political ratification. Consequently, in retracing the genealogy of the contemporary historical analyses we must pose a question regarding the development of the academic disciplines and the data concerning their political environment. Does Tajik independence in 1991 involve rethinking the genesis of the nation and the scholarly fields linked to the elaboration of the national narrative? Why have the political authorities declared 2006 the “year of the Aryan civilization”?

In 1991 the ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking communities, who had migrated to and been resident in the non-Russian regions of both the tsarist empire and Soviet Union, found themselves located beyond the borders of the newly independent Russian Federation. Despite an absence of actual, physical movement, the communities experienced a form of stationary or figurative displacement as the Soviet Union broke up and political borders demarcating their homelands moved over them. This displacement was furthered in subsequent years due to the nature and security of the environment where they lived and their often secure sense of ethnocultural and socio-economic identity being challenged through processes of political and economic transformation and increased levels of instability and uncertainty. This article focuses on members of those Russian communities who are living in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Through an analysis of narratives of their everyday lives it explores how they perceive and understand the “displacement” which has occurred, and how they are responding and actively renegotiating relationships with both their physical homeland—Uzbekistan—and their “historical” homeland—Russia. Furthermore, the article assesses how through these processes of displacement and renegotiation they are reshaping their own identities in the post-Soviet period.

The ballets of Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978) occupy a special place in the history of Soviet ballet and of Soviet music. Considered along with Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev as one of the leaders of Soviet music, Khachaturian devoted many years to the creation of ballet, although in the end he produced only three ballet scores: Schast'e [Happiness], completed in 1939; Gayane, completed in 1942; and Spartak [Spartacus], completed in 1954. Of these three, Gayane and Spartacus (both repeatedly revised) were notably successful, both immediately acclaimed as important new achievements in the development of an identifiably Soviet ballet style. Taken on tour abroad by the Bolshoi Ballet in a revised version, Spartacus also became one of the most internationally successful ballets written by a Soviet composer, although it never came close to equaling the international recognition eventually achieved by Prokofiev's Soviet ballets Romeo and Juliet or Cinderella. Gayane was not widely staged outside the USSR, but some of the music from the ballet, arranged into three orchestral suites by the composer, became very popular internationally—particularly the “Sabre Dance,” which became the single most recognized piece of Khachaturian, recycled repeatedly in Hollywood film scores.

The 1997 Russian law on religion recognizes Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism as the “traditional religions” of Russia. These religions see themselves as having an important role to play in achieving social stability, and particularly in overcoming religious “extremism” and the perceived threat it poses to society. “Traditional'” religions stand shoulder to shoulder, explaining that the values they champion tend towards the creation and preservation of peace and reconciliation in society, and that, moreover, these are shared values, common to all “traditional'‘ religions. Indeed, the primary criterion for identifying a “traditional'” religion in Russia today may be that it is “noncompetitive” with other religions. The Moscow Patriarchate rejects the idea, for example, that Orthodox Christians should proselytize among Muslims. The fact that each religion sees itself as having possession of the “truth” does not endanger the cooperation, harmony and mutual respect among the traditional religions in Russia at the level of official and institutional interaction. Regarding the controversy over the school textbook, Foundations of Orthodox Culture, which human rights activists accused of constituting pro-Orthodox propaganda, an Orthodox priest and a Muslim chief mufti filed a joint claim against those who initiated the case, and a Protestant leader came out in support of the use of the textbook in the public schools.

The paper will focus on the structures of collective identities of the Russian-speaking population of Estonia. Particular cultural and political orientations held by individuals and frequencies of self-categorization as Russian, ex-Soviet, citizens of Estonia, etc. have been discussed extensively. Much less attention has been paid to the structures of self-identification, which draw out people's thinking patterns. The paper is based on the methodological premise that analysis and interpretation of the disposition of different types of self-categorization is worth the effort, as it helps to elucidate the general meta-structures behind people's interpretation of different identification narratives and provides an opportunity to make prognoses about future scenarios.

Germany's role as a kin-state of ethnic German minorities in Central and Eastern Europe stems from a number of factors. At one level it is part and parcel of a unique historical legacy. It is also inextricably linked with the country's foreign policy towards this region. The most profound policy that the Federal Republic of Germany developed in this context after the early 1960s was Ostpolitik, which contributed significantly to the peaceful end of the Cold War, but has remained relevant thereafter despite a fundamentally changed geopolitical context, as Germany remains a kin-state for hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans across Central and Eastern Europe, particularly in the former Soviet Union, in Poland, Romania, and Hungary. As such, a policy towards these external minorities continues to form a significant, but by no means the only, manifestation of Ostpolitik.

Since the end of the Cold War it has become common for Finnish academics and politicians alike to frame debates about Finnish national identity in terms of locating Finland somewhere along a continuum between East and West. Indeed, for politicians, properly locating oneself (and therefore Finland) along this continuum has often been seen as central to the winning and losing of elections. For example, the 1994 referendum on EU membership was largely interpreted precisely as an opportunity to relocate Finland further to the West. Indeed, the tendency to depict Finnish history in terms of a series of “Westernizing” moves has been notable, but has also betrayed some of the politicized elements of this view. However, this framing of Finnish national identity discourse is not only sometimes politicized but arguably is also too simplified and results in blindness towards other identity narratives that have also been important through Finnish history, and that are also evident (but rarely recognized) today as well. In this article we aim to highlight one of these that we argue has played a key role in locating Finland in the world and in formulating notions of what Finland is about, what historical role and mission it has been understood as destined to play, and what futures for the nation have been conceptualized as possible and as providing a source of subjectivity and national dignity.