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?

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.

Would you like to travel to outer space? Explore like real astronauts the slow, gentle movements characteristic of a weightless environment? The Houston Space Center offers its visitors such a trip through the ISS, the International Space Station. It presents America's space programme by using a simulator to create a compelling environment, complete with 3,000 accurately placed stars that mimic what the real astronauts experience in the ISS.1 You can feel the glory of current-day American scientific progress, the power of the US, the world's number one power.

The Republic of Tatarstan is located between Europe and Asia. It is important to emphasize geographical location, which is a key element in the processes of identities formation and transformation. Tatarstan is located in the core of the Russian Federation, situated in the European part of Russia and 800 kilometres from Moscow, at the confluence of the Volga and the Kama Rivers. The capital of Tatarstan is Kazan. The economic potential of the republic is based mainly on raw materials (including oil and gas), industry and agriculture. According to the constitution of the republic (approved on 6 November 1992) Tatarstan (previously known as Tataria) is defined as a multiethnic republic, with two official languages, Russian and Tatar. The largest ethnic groups are Tatars and Russians; as a consequence it makes sense to talk in terms of a bicultural society with two main confessional groups, namely Muslim and Orthodox Christians.

This article concerns collective identities in the context of EU enlargement and the post-Soviet transition of Estonian society, particularly of the two main ethno-linguistic groups: ethnic Estonians and the Russian-speaking population in Estonia. The empirical basis of the study is formed by factor structures of self-identification. The data were obtained from nationally representative surveys carried out in 2002, before Estonia joined the EU, and in 2005. The thinking patterns behind the structures of self-categorization are discussed mainly on the basis of theoretical concepts of individualization and transition culture. For background information, comparative data collected in Latvia (2006) and in Sweden (2003) are used. The survey results reveal that in the post-communist transformation, EU integration and spread of global mass culture have homogenized the mental patterns of the Estonians and the Russians. It is characteristic of post-communist Estonia that both minority and majority groups have utilized trans-national and civic identity and individualistic patterns of self-identification in terms of (sub)culture and social and material achievement, extracted from social norms and existing structures. Surveys confirm that for political actors in both Estonia and Russia it is hardly possible any more to create a common umbrella identity for the Russians in Estonia—the self-designation patterns of the Estonian Russians have been emancipated during the transition period.

National identity was already the object of scholarly studies by the 1950s and 1960s, e.g. by analysts such as Karl Deutsch and Ernest Hass, to a great extent inspired by the start of European integration and German and French reconciliation. One of the crucial questions has been (and still is) to what extent national identity constitutes a barrier to Europeanization and integration, and to what extent overlapping multiple identities can co-exist.

The processes of democratic social and political changes in Poland that have gained momentum since 1989 have radically altered the foundations and the goals of Polish foreign policy. In addition to re-establishing Polish interests as the basis for foreign policy, they have also started the process of establishing a new element of Polish diplomacy, namely its eastern policy. In these altered political conditions it was the right time to ask the question of how to establish new relationships in the East, how to normalize relations with the USSR and, finally, what stance should be adopted towards the increasing independence claims of individual Soviet republics. The process of establishing a democratic Poland was concurrent with the reconstruction, and later, with the fall of the USSR. In addition, the convoluted history of Polish-Ukrainian and Polish-Lithuanian relationships from the very beginning hindered the attempt of Polish diplomacy to establish new contacts with its eastern partners.

The aim of this essay is to present a brief overview of the treatment in post-Soviet culture and the media, especially in literature, film and publitsistika on historical themes, of certain aspects of the perennial debate about “Russia and the West.” I will ask whether the West is still regarded as Russia's “Other,” or whether, in a period when Russia has been more open to the West than ever before, and Western and Russian tastes in historical and other fiction appear to be converging, such a polar opposition can now be seen as fundamentally outdated.