Chapter 4 traces how the German firms, big business and bazaar exporters alike, reentered India after World War I. It shows how the postwar situation triggered a joint sense of victimhood among Germans and Indians who both felt mistreated and exploited by the British, laying the groundwork for a mental map of nationalism that highlighted their parallel history. Both Germans and Indians experimented with new sensemaking offers, among them the bold idea of an Indo-German “Aryan” community that claimed a joint heritage of both people. However, this “identity work” required constant effort and investment. And, many of the Indian suggestions seemed too audacious for most German businesspeople to approve. While they often advocated political neutrality towards the goals of the Indian Independence movement and other independence movements around the world, they also took notice of the similar national aspirations of countries, which otherwise had little in common and started discussing them as a cluster.

Chapter 14 addresses the relationships between translation and gender and sexuality, which began to be discussed in translation studies in the 1980 by scholars often informed by feminist theory and by the minority rights and independence movements of the time. The chapter deals with translation and gender and with sexuality and translation in separate sections, to reflect the fact that gender identity and sexual orientation are not mutually determining. It surveys current research within those discrete but intersecting categories, before discussing emerging themes and future directions.

Four major forces played a role in determining whether a country moved rapidly in the transformation: historical legacy; reform commitment by leaders; the role of specialist technocrats; and external influences. This chapter addresses the historical legacies that affected the strategy and speed of transition, be they inertia or return to earlier history. While in general being closer to Western Europe and today’s European Union, or having a shorter history of communism tended to propel countries toward more rapid reforms, there were many exceptions on both sides of the divide. Thus, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Romania initially moved far more slowly. Farther east, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and to some extent Armenia initially moved far faster on economic reforms that others in the USSR – although this was effort was soon aborted. The chapter also asks how related historical issues affected economic reform speed: the occurrence of wars or civil conflicts (Yugoslav republics, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Tajikistan); and the role of nationalism – sometimes positive (the Baltics and Ukraine), sometimes negative (Armenia and Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova).