Shortly before the Christmas of 1860, the major bookstores in Prague put on display a German-language booklet entitled Bohemian Sketches: By a Native Writer. Although the book was published anonymously, its author soon became well known: he was Jan Palacký, the son of the prominent historian and leading Czech politician Frantis̆ek Palacký. But even his famous name did not spare the young man from stormy, harsh criticism that followed after the publication of the book. For weeks the newspapers both in Prague and in Vienna scrutinized the rhetorical nuances of the book, pointing out the author's national and political biases. Surprisingly, neither of the Czech-language newspapers, Národní listy nor C̆as, that had recently entered into the public arena, stepped forward in defense of the author. The critical response in the press raises one's curiosity: what was wrong with Jan Palacký's arguments? How could someone so closely connected with Czech national leaders write such a controversial account? Moreover, considering the censorship practices and vigilant police supervision of the time, it is also worth asking how the publication could have escaped the attention of governmental surveillance.

Over the last twenty years, the theoretical perspectives of Benedict Anderson and Ernest Gellner have played a large role in discussions of the origins and development of nationalism. In each of their conceptions is not only the now famous and widely agreed upon notion that “nationalism engenders nations,” and that nations “imagine” themselves into existence, but also that such development is inherently connected with underlying economic developments associated with the rise of capitalism and industrialization. For each of these theorists, communication plays a central role, a defining function, in the rise of nationalism.

Among social psychologists, there has long been a debate over the concept of the stereotype. Are stereotypes meant mainly for consumption by an in-group or are they designed by and for curious outsiders? Are they primarily individual or collective? Are they benign generalizations and categories that make it easier for individuals or groups to perceive and organize the world around them? Or are they insipid and unsustainable generalizations, based on false information, exaggeration, unfairly rigid conceptual categories, or even the observer's laziness? Do they beget understanding or prejudice? These questions, many of which were first raised by Walter Lippmann when he published Public Opinion in 1922, still polarize the psychological profession today. They also continue to confound politicians who wish to construct coherent, distinct, and vibrant identities for their nations.

Introduction

Among the nationalist revolutions that spread across Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Latvia seceded from the Soviet Union through a relatively benign process marked by the virtual absence of violent conflict. Several issues were conflated in this movement. Latvia's independence was about democracy, historical redress, and national autonomy. Yet, each of these areas included an ethnic component. Would a Latvian democracy make room for Russians? Would Latvians seek revenge against Russians for the Soviet annexation of the Baltic republics? In the event of conflict between Moscow and Riga, whom would Russophone residents of Latvia support? The demographic situation of Latvia—featuring a near balance of Latvians and mostly Russophone non-Latvians at the time of independence—suggested the potential for ethnic conflict. The forecast of conflict, though, oversimplified the roles that ethnicity and national identity play in affecting political actions. The potential for conflict was predicated on the assumption that individuals naturally identify primarily with others within their ethnic group and act competitively against members of the ethnic “other.” The fact, then, that Latvians and Russians did not clash violently during Latvia's “Singing Revolution” begs the question why inter-ethnic conflict did not occur in this case. This article explains this lack of conflict by focusing on the formation of Latvian identity in the period immediately preceding independence. I argue that individuals in nationalizing states intentionally act with reference to their national identity, and this sense of national identity is not some fixed, exogenous variable. Instead, it is socially constructed. We cannot hope to explain ethnic conflict processes without first understanding the factors that drive ethnic and national identity during chaotic times of change.

The Holocaust was one of the major experiences of the populations, both Jewish and non-Jewish, of those European countries that were either part of the Axis or occupied by Nazi Germany. This was certainly the case for the inhabitants of Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and Transnistria. These regions remained under Romanian administration from June/July 1941 to spring/summer 1944. The Soviets had seized Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania in June 1940 under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. These territories were then reoccupied (“liberated”) by the Romanian and German armies after the German attack against the Soviet Union in June 1941. From 1941 to 1944 they were Romanian provinces ruled by separate highly centralized administrations. Transnistria (meaning literally “territory across the Dniester” in Romanian), which lies between the Dniester and Bug rivers, though never formally incorporated into Romania, was ruled by the Romanians during this period under the agreement with Hitler. Romanian authorities deported practically all Jews from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to Transnistria, accusing them of both treason and collaboration with the Soviets in 1940–1941 during the Soviet occupation and hostility towards the Romanian state in general. Some Roma, together with other “hostile elements” from other Romanian provinces, were also deported to Transnistria.

The national identities of post-Soviet societies profoundly influenced the politics and economics of Eurasia during the 1990s. These identities varied along two distinct but related dimensions: their content and contestation. Nationalist movements throughout post-Soviet Eurasia invoked their nations in support of specific purposes, which frequently cast Russia as the nation's most important “other” and the state from which autonomy and security must be sought. Nationalists therefore offered specific proposals for the content of their societies’ collective identities. But not everyone in these societies shared the priorities of their nationalist movements. Indeed, the international relations among post-Soviet states often revolved around one central question: did post-Soviet societies and politicians agree with their nationalists or not? The former Communists played a decisive role in contesting the content of national identity. One of the defining differences among post-Soviet states during the 1990s was the political and ideological relationship in each one between the formerly Communist elites and the nationalists—whether the former Communists marginalized the nationalists, arrested them, coopted them, bargained with them, or even tried to become like them. These different relationships revealed different degrees and kinds of societal consensus about national identity after Soviet rule.

The collapse of the Soviet Union has accelerated the development of national identities in the newly independent states of this region. Additionally, the devolution of the USSR has created a “beached diaspora,” or a group of Russian speakers who have been isolated from the Russian state. This beached diaspora is an influential agent in the creation of a borderland conflict in independent Kazakhstan, in part because of the great distance separating the Russians of Kazakhstan and the original capital of the Kazakh state in Almaty, and in part because of the incongruity of the Kazakh and Russian national and state boundaries.