Ethnoregionalism in Europe is a phenomenon usually studied in the context of Western Europe. Still, in Central and Eastern Europe, there are some social and political movements that can be categorized as ethnoregionalist. The phenomenon started to play a role even before the Great War and in the interwar period, but was suppressed during the times of socialist regimes. It resurfaced immediately after 1989 during the times of transformation of political systems to fully democratic systems when problems of decentralization, authority, and division of power became openly discussed. In this article, I compare two such movements in the context of their political potential. The Moravian-Silesian movement in the Czech Republic and the Silesian movement in Poland have both similarities and differences, but the article mostly focuses on the evolution of these movements.

Nicholas Dima, Bessarabia and Bukovina: The Soviet-Romanian Territorial Dispute. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1982. v, 173 pp. Distributed by Columbia University Press. Maria Manoliu-Manea, ed., The Tragic Plight of a Border Area: Bessarabia and Bucovina. American Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences. Humboldt State University Press, 1983. xii, 280 pp.

Here are two good books providing detailed information on Bessarabia, until 1918 a province of the Russian Empire, and, to a lesser extent, on Bukovina, once a province within the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary. They include useful theoretical though somewhat debatable considerations on the history and ethnic nature of both regions. They come to proper conclusions which seem amply justified by the data and analysis which preceded them. However, both books are inadequately edited, especially the second one, and include a few statements either based on superficial generalizations or even tinted with disturbing — though perhaps unconscious — ethnocentrism.

George Y. Shevelov, known as a capable Slavist, is also praised as a very influential critic of modern Ukrainian literature. In this paper, however, we shall concern ourselves with Shevelov's linguistic interest only, and in particular with his contributions to the prehistory of Slavic: the historical phonology of Common Slavic.

At the beginning of his political career, Count Kuno Klebelsberg, the remarkable future Hungarian Minister of Culture and Education of the 1920s, prepared a statement on emigration from Hungary for Prime Minister Kálmán Széll in 1902. “[W]e must correct a great and general mistake, that might unfortunately lead to disappointment,” Klebelsberg warned the PM. “Unwilling to make a distinction among people from the point of view of nationality, we call everybody residing in Hungary a Hungarian. This is how it became fashionable to speak of 'the emigration of Hungarians' when emigration was discussed, giving the general public, unaccustomed to making distinctions, the mistaken belief that we are talking about the emigration of Hungarians who speak the native tongue. This is why the return of the emigrants and corresponding official arrangements are demanded. The case is different, however. The two largest contingents contributing to the [“Hungarian”] emigration are Slovaks and Ruthenes.”

In a famous article during the Soviet period, Walker Connor once asked, rhetorically:

My comments on ideology, unlike the two presentations that preceded mine, which were substantive and had something to report on, will be similar to the story about the dog that did not bark: a dog that barked incessantly in the Brezhnev era, ideology has literally stopped barking since then. In this sense, the most striking aspect of contemporary Soviet ideology is its silence. From one of the most insistent features of Soviet reality under Brezhnev, ideology has retreated into a dark corner, where, presumably, it is licking its wounds and plotting a return. Ideology is far from dead, however. The ace up ideology's sleeve is, of course, the Party. As long as the Party purports to play a leading role in Soviet society—and, as Gorbachev has suggested, its role will increase under conditions of perestroika—then something like ideology will be necessary to justify and legitimate the one-party rule of a party that, even by its own criteria, does not deserve to rule, let alone to rule alone.

The Act of Ems of 1876 completely paralized the Ukrainian arts, including the theatre. The situation created with the enforcement of the Act in Urkaine was vividly described by the well known acter Marko Kropyvnytsky. During his visit to Kiev in 1879 he found the Ukrainian population of this city in such a state of fear, that, when he was asked to sing in Ukrainian at the house of Mykola Lysenko, a Ukrainian composer, someone stood watch outside. When strangers appeared on the street he was motioned to stop. Apparently, “volunteers” were ready to report any seditious activity to the Governor-General of Kiev, Alexander Drentelm.

This article examines the criticism that we received regarding our article “Romani Migrations and EU Enlargement” which was published in Volume 13, Number 2 of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs (CRIA). In this reply we seek to clarify our position, pointing to distinctions between advocacy and policy analysis, between descriptive and normative statements, and to a need to examine not only the problems that the Roma face, but also those that their situation poses to policy-makers.

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.

A number of general summaries have been written on the history of the Jewish Antifascist Committee in the Soviet Union, the single major Jewish structure in the Ussr during the following the Second World War. The Jewish Antifascist Committee (JAC) constituted a special phenomenon when compared with similar Soviet organizations. It started as an ordinary instrument of Soviet wartime propaganda, but prevailing circumstances transformed it into a meaningful Jewish structure. Following a few introductory remarks, I would like to discuss one specific aspect of this Committee, namely the nature of its membership. Most of the existing studies treat the JAC in a chronological manner. The purpose of this article is to examine the inner dynamics of the Committee and evaluate it as an elite leadership group of Soviet Jewry.

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.

Many non-Russians in the Russian Empire were active members of imperial educated society (obshchestvo), and they often conceived of the colonial advance of Russia as part of the march of the progressive West and “civilization” itself into the backward lands of the East. Reformist empire builders who criticized the brutal wars and population transfers that marked the conquest of the southern borderlands also emphasized the civilizing mission of the empire on its eastern frontier. This article explores the conception of Russia and its empire in the work of the Azerbaijani publicist Hasan Melikov Zardabi. Zardabi was genuinely enthusiastic about Russia and the prospect of an enlightened imperial future for the lands of the former khanates on the frontier of the Iranian and Ottoman empires. The unusual circumstances of his life, however, which included exile to his remote and native village of Zardob, a small fishing village on the Kura River to the west of Baku, compelled him to re-evaluate his estimation of Russia and the benefits of imperial rule. Zardabi learned from his experience in Zardob, and grew to rethink his earlier views about civilization and the Russian Empire.

Reaction and revolution, so much a part of the reign of Nicholas II, became even more prevalent in the opening years of the twentieth century. The foundation of the Russian Empire had begun its erosion process which would topple the autocracy by 1917. Nicholas and his ministers had to act decisively and aggressively if they hoped to stem the process. To fight the wave of revolution and popular discontent in April of 1902, Nicholas appointed Viacheslav Pleve as Minister of the Interior. Pleve was a careerist who was devoutly loyal to the autocracy. In contemporary terms he might be described as an ‘aparatchick,‘ a party man who towed, and at times shaped, the party line. V. I. Gurko, a colleague, characterized him as “a legal clerk … a very superior clerk it is true, but a clerk nevertheless.” Pleve had also earned the dubious honor of being the autocracy's “most famous policeman,” a reflection of fourteen years of service as Director of the Police Department and Assistant Minister of the Interior.