I am not sure how to respond to these presentations since they were all very different in form and content. Maybe that says something about the monster with which we are trying to grapple.

In a recent reflective essay written on his dual role as a scholar and public advocate, Paul Robert Magocsi with self-deprecation described himself as a loser on the margins. The sentiment of loss came with his emotional attachment to the wrong baseball team (the Dodgers rather than the Yankees) (“The Scholar as Nation-Builder”). What is clear, however, is that Magocsi is no loser in academia. My esteemed colleagues in this symposium are echoing what has become incontrovertible: Magocsi is a towering figure in Ukrainian Studies.

On the basis of a comparative analysis of the case studies of the Slovenian Erased and the Latvian Non-citizens, the paper endeavors to identify the reasons for the EU involvement in the latter, but not the former case. These two situations are recognized as similar enough to be compared, and endure the counter-argumentation that the different EU approach is conditioned by the specifics of the local context, not by double standards. Hence, the paper comes to a conclusion that the involvement in Latvia has been conditioned by the fear of the potentially violent conflict, the existence of a proactive kin state, and a minority, significant in number, as well as the explicitly discriminatory legal framework that was in collision with the EU economic acquis. Thus, it has been inferred that double standards occur due to the lack of EU and international interest in these situations of human rights violations, where the powerful kin state and the minority, significant in number, are absent, do not have a potential to develop into a violent conflict, do not derive from explicitly discriminatory legal provision, and do not challenge the fundamental market freedoms of the EU.

The paper examines how the tiny ethno-cultural group of Setos constructs its identity in the multicultural context. The study examines the validity of three acculturation models and tests earlier findings on the relationship between identity and well-being. The results suggest that Setos have clearly adopted a multicultural identity strategy while not merging different identities, and that they have managed to separate the material well-being from the pride of their identity. Despite its small size and peripheral location, the Setos' way to preserve their identity in a constantly changing context is an interesting lesson for other indigenous groups, and also for bigger neighbors.

One of the most important sources of demographic data concerning the Soviet nationalities is the official Soviet census reports. Considering the sensitivity of the nationality problem in the USSR today, however, how thorough and dependable are the published results of the Soviet censuses regarding the more than 100 Soviet nationalities? In January 1980, a preliminary and partial report on the 1979 enumeration was issued, and until the full reports are published, probably in a year or two, it is the best source of information concerning the current numbers and distribution of the Soviet nationalities. These figures have already been and will be used for comparisons with the 1970 census reports and projections, as well as for other analyses and computations. But how reliable are these most recent statistics? Can they be taken on face value as accurate, thorough reflections of the ethnic scene in the USSR in January 1979, when the count was taken?

The Yugoslav critique of Stalinism and the concomitant elaboration of the Titoist model of self-managing socialism continue to bewilder observers East and West, as well as the Yugoslavs themselves. Thus, until recently, Chinese communist criticism that Yugoslavia had sold out to the West and become its Trojan Horse in the communist world was neatly balanced by those Western critiques which see in Titoism a communist Trojan Horse to penetrate Western defenses. Some wonder whether Yugoslavia is really a self-managing democracy or a single-party dictatorship. Others ask themselves whether Yugoslavia's decentralized economy is capitalist or socialist. Many fear for Yugoslavia's territorial integrity and national independence, particularly since Tito's death on May 4, 1980.

The so-called “national,” or ethnopolitical questions, whose existence has long been denied in Russia, is a significant issue in the Udmurt Republic. The Soviet propaganda machine long advanced the theme of friendship among all the peoples of the multinational USSR until glasnost', when this notion began to be questioned by society. In the minority areas ethnic questions finally emerged at the end of the 1980s and since then have occupied a prominent place in the mass media, in Udmurtia and elsewhere. This article highlights the polemic character of the debate on ethnic issues in Udmurtia, which is located in the Volga-Urals region, against a background of the particular local historical and demographic factors.

The article offers a detailed analysis of the debates at the All-Russian Democratic Conference and in the Provisional Council of the Russian Republic (the Pre-Parliament), which followed the proclamation of the republic on September 1, 1917, and predated the Bolshevik-led insurgency on October 25. The two assemblies were supposed to help resolve the multilayered political, economic, and military crises of the First World War and the Revolution by consolidating a Russian postimperial political community and establishing a solid government. The debates demonstrated that grievances and antagonism, which were articulated in terms of class and nationality, made the idea of a broad nationalist coalition unpopular, since it would halt agrarian and other reforms and continue the negligence of non-Russian groups. Furthermore, those who still called for all-Russian national or civic unity split on the issue of community-building. The top-down, homogenizing and bottom-up, composite approaches proved irreconcilable and precluded a compromise between non-socialist and moderate socialist groups. The two assemblies hence failed to ensure a peaceful continuation of the postimperial transformation and did not lead to a broad coalition against right and left radicalism. The divisions, which were articulated in the two assemblies, translated into the main rifts of the Russian Civil War.

It is very difficult to translate fully the above verse from the great Persian-speaking poet Bidil without violating its spirit in the context of the Central Asian (and other Iranian areas) culture. The spirit of the verse is not so much fatalism about life itself but is one of cynicism derived from power-lessness over one's fate. This verse is often uttered by the Central Asian intellectuals in response to questions about their relationship with the Russians and sharing of power in the Soviet bureaucracy. It does not communicate resignation. It describes the reality of the USSR, an awareness that a Central Asian is powerless to change circumstances to those favoring his/her well being and spiritual instincts. It camouflages the underlying resentment toward the dominant group, the Russians, who have the monopoly of the means of violence and who have not hesitated to use these means against the Muslim population of Central Asia on numerous occasions during the past hundred years of their rule there.

What are the chances for peace and stability in the Transcaucasus—a region that has been plagued by decades of exploitation and colonization and has recently been the setting for a violent conflict between neighboring nationalities? Nadir Mekhtiev, Chairman of the Human Rights Commission of the Azerbaijani Supreme Soviet and Chairman of the Azerbaijani Helsinki Committee, offered some thoughts and impressions on this matter.