Major changes are in progress in Russian science as the dominance of military objectives have been removed. The problems of rebuilding a national research and educational system in science are enormous.

In recent years large global programmes on the environment have been developed in which geography provides an essential component. This article outlines the main programmes in progress.

All over the world natural history museums act as storehouses. Billions of creatures are preserved. Most museum visitors never see these collections; they only meet the limited specimens presented in public exhibitions. Most people seem to know little about the value of these collections and how they are used. This article presents some aspects of natural history collections and their value in scientific and other contexts.

The paper discusses policies aimed at reducing the eutrophication of the Baltic Sea. Discharges of two nutrients—phosphorus and nitrogen—can be mitigated by measures ranging from sewage treatment to creating or enhancing natural ‘nutrient sinks’ such as coastal wetlands. The latter have been identified as low-cost alternatives to removing nitrogen through traditional, end-of-pipe technologies. Implementation of such projects yields additional benefits through enhancing biological diversity by recovering valuable habitats typical of wetland ecosystems. The paper offers several recommendations regarding policy instruments likely to enhance the cost-effectiveness of the Baltic-wide environmental recovery programme now under way.

The article restates the theory of Nationalism, which it links to the transition from agrarian to industrial or industrializing society. In an agrarian society, culture is used to underscore a complex and fairly stable system of statuses. Political units themselves are complicated and overlapping and ill-defined, and culture does not demarcate their boundaries. In an industrial society, work ceases to be physical and becomes semantic, and society itself is highly mobile. Under these circumstances, a shared and standardized, codified culture, inculcated by formal education, becomes a precondition of social participation and employability. When shared, literacy-linked culture is very important, people identify with it and thus become ‘nationalists’. The article also traces the five stages which Europe has passed in the course of this transition: the perpetuation of the old dynastic/religious political system in 1815, the century of nationalist irredentism, the setting up of a political system in 1918 based on nationalities which was weak and self-defeating, the most intensive period of ‘ ethnic cleansing’ in the 1940s under the cover of war-time secrecy and post-war retaliation, and finally a certain demolition of the intensity of ethnic feeling during advanced industrialism, thanks to the partial convergence of industrial cultures and the softening impact of affluence.

A fully integrated Europe implies an increased diversity in composition but can only be an association of states which preserve their identity within a framework characterized by mutual tolerance. Historically, nationalities and ethnic groups lived intermingled and in relative harmony, this changed after nations became more separated after 1918. The old concept of nation state is not compatible with contemporary circumstances.

This essay discusses, from a historical and contemporary perspective, the processes of state and nation building. The difficulties of making every nation a state and every state a nation, and the fact that people live intermingled within the borders of states and have different and often dual identity leads to arguments for multi-national states, states which abandon the dream of becoming nation states and ‘nations’ willing to live in a multi-national democratic liberal state.

The article starts with an analysis of minority protection in Tito's Yugoslavia, and points out the merits and the shortcomings of this system. It has been suggested that after the collapse of Tito's Yugoslavia the standard was lost, and there were no more confines halting the escalation of ethnic hatred and violence. In this situation, setting new standards deserves an utmost priority. The article suggests some starting points for new standards. In doing so, an endeavour has been made to define the notion of minorities on the territories of the former Yugoslavia. The article also pleads for the recognition of collective minority rights in addition to individual human rights. Suggestions are made regarding appropriate internal and international legal mechanisms for the protection of minority rights.

The paper examines the background of current national and minority conflicts in Eastern and Central Europe and argues that a deeper-going analysis of these phenomena calls for a reconsideration of the traditional European territorial-administrative institutions. It argues that the European State-structure as shaped in the 17–19th centuries is the greatest obstacle to the prevention of global dangers, then looks at the typical arguments against dismantling the present national-state borders.

The conclusion is that European nations are primarily cultural nations and they have to survive in that form for the 21st century.