In December 1918, Hungary ceded 21,000 square kilometers to what was soon to become the Serbo-Croatian-Slovenian Monarchy. According to 1910 census data, of the total 577,000 ethnic Hungarian population on the ceded territory, one-fifth came under the jurisdiction of Croatia, approximately one-twentieth came under the jurisdiction of Slovenia, and the rest became citizens of Serbia in the region that was to become the autonomous province of Vojvodina. According to 1991 census data, the Hungarian-speaking minority decreased by 200,000 (over one-third), and its proportion of the population also changed: currently, only 6 percent live in independent Croatia and 2 percent in independent Slovenia. The population of Hungarians in Croatia decreased by four-fifths, and that of Slovenia decreased by two-thirds. Already between 1980 and 1990, the decrease in the Hungarian minority population exceeded 10 percent in both republics. Despite the differences in the condition of the Hungarian community in Croatia and Slovenia, their total assimilation can be averted only if serious measures are taken. An analysis of the political, economic, demographic, cultural and other factors contributing to the population decline since the post-world war peace treaties is beyond the scope of this article. I would merely like to point out the general demographic trends and indicate that, according to estimates, the Hungarian population is 1.5 times larger (22,400 in Croatia and 8,500 in Slovenia) than the figure revealed by census data.

Russia's policy towards the Cossacks may prove detrimental to the development of federalism in Russia. Their rehabilitation is important for the rebirth of Russian culture. Yet, the Cossacks as a social-military institution, may further harm the relations between ethnic Russians and non-Russians in the Caucasus, which may revive the dispute over the preservation of the ethnic principle in Russia's federalism.

On 27 February 1992, almost 47 years after the end of the Second World War, Chancellor Helmut Kohl of a re-united Germany and President Václav Havel of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic [the ČSFR] signed a Friendship Treaty between their two countries in the Spanish Room of Prague Castle, the residence of the Czechoslovak president. While this treaty could have signalled a new era of Sudeten German-Czech relations, in fact it did not, as some 2,000 protesters who greeted Kohl and Havel with denunciatory placards following the signing made clear. Why not?

The fate of the Hungarian minority in Romania is closely linked to the political situation in that country, its economic development, and its geopolitical location. This was the case before 1989 and remains so today. On the other hand, the Hungarians of Romania are an important factor affecting the internal and the external political relations of the country. This was dramatically confirmed by the revolution of 1989 which had been triggered by ethnic unrest. This study will focus on major political and economic developments from December 1989 until December 1993, analyzing them in terms of their impact on the Hungarian minority.

The relationship between Germans and Czechs has often been the crucible on which the history of Central Europe was forged. Although characterized more by enmity than amity in recent times, this was not always the case. For most of the centuries when Czechs and Germans shared the same Central European space, the cultural differences between them lacked a political dimension, and their interaction was peaceful and mutually beneficial. The Teutonic Knights named their citadel “Königsberg” in honor of the Czech ruler, Přemysl Otakar II, while German townspeople contributed their skills and crafts to the economic advancement of the Bohemian kingdom which he ruled. Beginning in the nineteenth century, however, the positive aspects of this ethnic coexistence were ignored, forgotten, or suppressed by scholars and politicians, both Czech and German, who interpreted the Bohemian past in the language of national separatism.

A religious minority of Bulgarian-speaking Muslims, the Pomaks now live dispersed in five Balkan countries: Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, Albania and Turkey. A living legacy of the complexities of Balkan history, the Pomaks represent a perfect case to study interstate political intricacies around the unsettled identity of small inter-communal groups. An examination of this community should enrich the knowledge about the nature of Balkan Islam that stands on the periphery of the Arab-Iranian-Turkic Islamic heartland, the three peoples who carried the major burden of Islamic history.

In his recently published article, “The Turks of Bulgaria: The Struggle for National-Religious Survival of a Muslim Minority,” Kemal H. Karpat addresses an important and sensitive topic. The manner in which he undertakes to explore it, however, leaves much to be desired.

The situation of Hungarians in Slovakia since 1989 has developed in the context of the political and economic transitions of the region: from post-totalitarian states towards pluralist democracies, and from centrally-planned economies toward market systems. In addition, the end of Czechoslovakia as a united entity on December 31 1992, has directly affected the Hungarian nationality. These political, economic and social changes have had a direct impact on their situation in Slovakia.

As in other countries of the Danubian Basin, the Hungarians of historic Subcarpathian Rus' (Hungarian—Kárpátalja), present-day Transcarpathia, did not become a national minority until 1919. Before then they were simply Hungarians—and part of the dominant state nationality—living in the northeastern corner of the Hungarian Kingdom. With the border changes that occurred in 1919-1920, the Hungarians of Transcarpathia/Subcarpathian Rus' found themselves within the borders of the new state of Czechoslovakia. Since then borders and countries have changed several times, so that Transcarpathia's Hungarians have found themselves in Czechoslovakia (1919-1938), again in Hungary (1938-1944), in the Soviet Union (1945-1991), and in an independent Ukraine (1991-present). Regardless of what state may have ruled Subcarpathian Rus'/Transcarpathia, it has remained a distinct administrative entity—at times, with a degree of autonomy—throughout most of the twentieth century.

The preceding studies in this volume have provided an overview of the history and current situation of Hungarians living as minorities in Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, and the regions of the former Yugoslavia. The purpose of this conclusion is not to analyze past experience and current hardships but rather to illuminate the future prospects of Hungarian communities located outside Hungary's current state borders by looking at various autonomy proposals. Since the collapse of state socialist regimes in the late 1980s and early 1990s, persons belonging to Hungarian national communities in the region have expressed a political will to preserve their identity and to determine and govern their own affairs. It is, therefore, instructive to take a closer look at the various proposals for autonomy advocated by the representatives of these Hungarian communities because they offer a peaceful and democratic solution, not only to the current problems of the countries they inhabit, but also to the growing destabilization of the region due to ethnic strife.