Development in Estonia during the last decade has been very rapid and impressive. Changes that started at the end of 1980s and increased in intensity after Estonia reclaimed its independence in 1991 have completely transformed the face of the country. This rapid political and economic development has been accompanied by several worrying trends. The social cost of the reforms has been high: a decline in living standards, falling birth rates, increasing crime rates, and uneven regional development. Major declines in many other social indicators have occurred as well.

This study draws on ethnographic research conducted in a small village, Baltinava in Latvia, 2.5 kilometres from the border with Russia. The research examines how ethnic Russian women create a specific Latvian Russian identity by contrasting themselves from ethnic Latvians and Russians who live in Russia and identifying with both groups at the same time. To narrate their lives and to make them meaningful, real and/or perceived “attributes” are combined to draw boundaries between “us” and “them.” Thus, the same thing such as language can be used not only both to distinguish themselves from Russians in Russia or Latvians but also to form coherent identities and to emphasize similarities. This study suggests that ethnicities cannot be reduced to a list of set ethnic groups that are very often used in official government statistics. Ethnic identities have to be viewed as fluid and situational. Moreover, this study shows the dialectic nature of ethnicity. On the one hand, external political, historical and social processes create and recreate ethnic categories and definitions. Yet, on the other hand, the women in this study are active agents creating meaningful and symbolic ethnic boundaries.

Russia’s institutions on nonterritorial cultural autonomy (NTCA) can be broadly situated within the country’s political community, in the sense that they—for the most part—recognize the government’s rules of engagement and its role as decision maker, leading to overarching consensus and pursuit of shared objectives. At the same time, they remain at the periphery of the political community. This article outlines the reasons for NTCA institutions’ peripherality and limited influence upon Russia’s minority policies. Such reasons are linked to external factors—Russia’s undemocratic political system—but also to conditions intrinsic to NTCA institutions themselves—forms of passivity and (non)participation, and blurred boundaries between NTCA institutions and state actors. The interaction of such factors generates the noted prevailing consensus between NTCA institutions and the Russian state. Interview data further reveal that representatives of NTCA institutions are far from monolithic: the said external and internal factors affect them in different ways, resulting in variations in forms of consensus and cooperation with state actors. This, in turn, allows for multiple interpretative frameworks of state–civil society coexistence in the sphere of Russia’s diversity management.

This article endeavors to open a new critical space for Soviet studies and for nationalities studies more generally. Through analyses of recent trends in Soviet studies, the article dismantles the frequently used opposition between subjective and objective approaches to Soviet empire and suggests instead that truths and categories, whether considered “subjective” or “objective,” are constructed discursively, through legitimizing certain interpretive models over the others. The article also argues against disciplinary avoidance of “what is” questions (e.g. “what is a nation?”) and claims that an excessive concern for (re)producing essentialism should not hinder scholarly inquiry. Several new lines of inquiry for the study of the Soviet empire are suggested and also applicable in nationalities studies more generally: research on the role of symbolic violence in manufacturing consent and research concerning the role of affect in producing linkages between the performative life of a singular human being and the pedagogical discourse of a nation or empire. The article also offers an analysis of the Soviet Union as an empire in becoming and it advocates for postcolonial approaches within Soviet studies. The practical dimensions of Soviet rule are exemplified with data from the Baltic borderlands in the postwar years.

Since the early 1990s, large numbers of Polish Roma have emigrated, mainly to Germany and Great Britain. Unlike the migration of Polish (non-Roma) citizens there was an intriguing silence regarding the migration of this ethnic group. The absence of Roma in the grand narrative of migrations from Poland, as we argue, suggests that the notion of belonging and citizenship were unequally distributed among Poland’s population. Based on our ongoing ethnographic research among Polish Roma migrants, complemented by an analysis of relevant documents, we argue that these inequalities and hierarchies are deeply rooted and there is an interesting continuity in how they were produced and reproduced prior to and after the 1989 regime change. We argue that one of the key factors in these movements, the collectiveness of the migration project – i.e. migrating as an extended family group as a component of the moral economy of Roma mobility – is mutually produced by unequal citizenship, mobility regimes and strong moral obligations stemming from kinship ties.

Focusing on process tracing and using the example of fieldwork in Donbas, I develop an argument on what theoretically grounded and empirically detailed methodological solutions can be considered to mitigate the challenges of research on conflict zones and assure the robustness of any causal claims made. I first outline my assumptions about process tracing as the central case study method and its application to research on conflict zones, and then discuss in more detail data requirements, data collection, and data analysis. Using two examples of case studies on the war in and over Donbas, I illustrate how three standards of best-practice in process tracing—the need for a theory-guided inquiry, the necessity to enhance causal inference by paying attention to (and ruling out) rival explanations, and the importance of transparency in the design and execution of research—can be applied in the challenging circumstances of fieldwork-based case studies of conflict zones. I conclude by suggesting that as a minimum threshold for reliance upon causal inferences, these three standards also should align with a standard of evidence that requires both the theoretical and empirical plausibility of any conclusions drawn.

This article explores the tensions inherent in how Kyrgyzstan's nationhood and statehood have been imagined and practised via an analysis of local reactions to the findings of the Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission's (KIC) investigation into the 2010 Osh violence and in particular the threat narrative that developed in opposition to the investigation. In the wake of the clashes that erupted in Osh in June 2010, a recurrent theme was calls from the international community for an independent investigation. Within Kyrgyzstan, however, some politicians argued that investigations violated the republic's sovereignty. Despite local reluctance, a number of investigations did subsequently take place. Yet the reports of the respective investigations did little to quell controversy, with the KIC report being strongly criticized and declared a threat to national security. The strength of feeling demonstrated by this reaction was indicative of long-standing and unresolved tensions in Kyrgyzstan between international and local imaginings of nationhood and statehood. The article concludes by arguing that nationhood and statehood need to be reimagined to focus on reestablishing state-society relations by both local and international actors in order for Kyrgyzstan to begin repairing the already fragile sociopolitical relationships that were grievously damaged by the violence and the subsequent investigations.

This article analyzes different ways Russian speakers residing in Petropavlovsk, a city in northern Kazakhstan close to the border with Russia, make sense of the place they inhabit and form a sense of belonging to it. Politically and geographically speaking, Petropavlovsk serves as a contested area divided between Russian and Kazakhstani nation-building projects. While keeping in mind the antagonistic politics of both states, this research rather focuses on the everyday practices and personal narratives of Russian speakers living in this area. With the help of empirical material collected during the interviews and dwelling alongside the participants, this article demonstrates how through symbolic practices and everyday life experiences Russian speakers differently construct their understanding of Petropavlovsk as a Russian, Kazakh, and global space simultaneously.

In our article we examine changes experienced by media and memory systems in Russia since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis. Using as an example a popular Russian blogging platform, LiveJournal, we scrutinize how the digital practices related to commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany are influenced by the growing instrumentalization of Second World War memory for media propaganda and manipulation. Using topic modeling to analyze a large set of data on Russian users’ interactions with the platform, we examine how hegemonic and alternative interpretations of the Second World War interact on LiveJournal and how their interactions are influenced by the growing antagonism between Russia and the West. Our findings suggest that LiveJournal constitutes a fractured memory system, which is characterized by uneven representation of Second World War experiences and the growing influence of pro-government actors promoting hegemonic war narratives. However, our observations also show that instrumentalization of the past in the context of the Ukraine crisis does not necessarily interfere with digital practices of Second World War commemoration with the latter remaining unaffected by the events in Ukraine.

For more than a quarter-century, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been one of the most important factors influencing the political map of the South Caucasus. On 12 May 1994, Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, and Azerbaijan signed a cease-fire agreement that ended military operations in the conflict zone and has been observed until recently. Negotiations for a peaceful settlement have been underway within the framework of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Minsk Group co-chaired by the USA, Russia, and France since 1992, but society and the elite in Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Azerbaijan remain largely unprepared for compromise. Considering the settlement process a zero-sum game, they have generally accused one another of escalating the conflict and of a lack of willingness to restore peace. Other countries and international organizations involved in the negotiations do not share a vision of the future and frequently pursue their own interests. Accordingly, the Karabakh conflict could remain unresolved for decades more. The aim of the paper is a general assessment of the current stage and dynamic of this conflict and the impact of new trends and old obstacles on the prospects for further settlement.

The many recent crises in Belarus are often seen through the prism of democratization, post-communist transition, and nation- and identity-building. As a rule, it is put into the context of the 1989 democratization in Central and Eastern Europe and compared with similar societal mobilization in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004; 2014), and Kyrgyzstan (2005). This article, however, argues that while these theoretical approaches provide an important explanatory potential, they nevertheless fail to account for informal, hidden, and unstable processes presently unfolding in the Belarusian society, leading to profound change. We argue that, in the vulnerable, unpredictable, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world of today, our knowledge and ability to plan and achieve desirable outcomes are limited in contrast to a largely positivist or interpretivist epistemology of the mainstream theories, which conceive of the world as a closed system. In this article, we offer an alternative explanation of the many crises in Belarus by drawing on the insights of complexity-thinking to suggest that (hidden) transformative change in the country is now irreversible.

The administrative division of late imperial Russia made few concessions to minority populations, who often found themselves divided among several provinces. The Bolshevik ascendancy to power changed the situation; Vladimir Lenin's “federal compromise” marked a breakthrough from the tsarist unitary practice to a system of governance which, at least on paper, made allowance for the ethnocultural diversity of the population. The chief designers of the Bolshevik nationality policy believed that a federal arrangement would offer a framework for controlling undesirable national sentiments during the transitional stage when class identities would gradually replace ethnic attachments. However, it turned out that for non-Russian groups the national-territorial autonomous units were not simply empty containers, free of cultural and emotional meaning, in which their political socialization would occur. These units became an integral part of their national identity; ethnicity obtained “legal” territorial roots and the various territorial units began to function as vessels of ethnic consciousness.

This article explores the implications of monolithic notions of “East” and “West” for security within ethno-religiously diverse nation-states. It builds on literature within critical geopolitics by recognizing not only that homogeneous notions of the “West” and its “Others” were formed for the purpose of legitimizing ideological and physical contestations of geographical space, and that they continue to operate, but also that this has made nation-states substantially less secure at the intra-state level. Travel accounts by Western European and American travellers to Turkey from 1989 onwards are used as data to explore this. The content of these accounts mirrors the wider East–West discourse; considered together with Turkey's popularly described position “at the crossroads” of Europe and Asia, the texts lend themselves to salient discussion of identity, culture, and difference between the hegemonic “West” and its “Others.” The post-1989 decolonized, post-Cold War period enables us to work within a contemporary context in which the opening of geographical space has occurred, and allows us to test whether “Western” identity in its hegemonic form of Western Europe and the US has evolved to accommodate this new context.

The government of the Chuvash Republic, an ethno-federal region of the Russian Federation, used a targeted and symbolic language policy in an attempt to stabilize the position of the republic's titular language while avoiding conflict with local Russophones and the Russian federal government. The resulting policy allowed the republic's government to frame the existence of an autonomous Chuvash republic – as well as the local elite's form of governance – as being essential to the preservation of the Chuvash language and thus the Chuvash people. In this way, it used language politics to strengthen its position vis-à-vis both local constituents and the Russian federal government. However, the limited nature of the government's program has made its gains tenuous in the face of continuing Russian political and cultural recentralization.

For 60 years, the international community has limited the right of territories to gain independence without the permission of the “parent state.” Such limits were, however, challenged when Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia, in February 2008. As a result, Belgrade referred the matter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). On 22 July 2010, it came back with its long-awaited decision. Taking a narrow view of the question, the majority argued that, in general, declarations of independence, as mere statements, do not violate international law unless stated otherwise by the Security Council. Thus, Kosovo's declaration of independence cannot be considered as being wholly “unique” – as those states that supported its statehood have claimed. On the key questions of whether Kosovo's secession is legal, or if it is even a state, they chose to avoid controversy. On these points, the international community is no clearer now than it was before the case.

The Taiwan model of conflict transformation and the Kosovo model of conflict settlement have specific features, and are useful for analyzing the Georgian and Russian policies toward Abkhazia and South Ossetia. There is a similarity between the Georgian strategy of engagement and the Taiwan model, with its declared readiness to interact with the other party regardless of any setbacks arising over the issue of status. Unlike the Taiwan model, however, the Georgian strategy includes no concrete view on how to involve the authorities controlling the breakaway territories or, in particular, how to have a positive impact on their relations with the outside world. A comparison between the Kosovo model and Russian policies toward these two entities demonstrates that, in deciding to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Moscow largely drew on the moral and legal arguments put forward for the recognition of Kosovo. Russia has established political oversight over these entities, to a certain extent mirroring the Western policy of supervised independence for Kosovo. But Russia is still unable to adopt a conflict resolution policy toward Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Georgia that is based on regional integration prospects, in contrast to Western policies toward the Balkans.

After the outbreak of World War II, the Bulgarian government pursued a policy of non-alignment. In the fall of 1940 it rejected plans for a combined Italian-Bulgarian attack against Greece. And when Italy alone invaded Greece, Bulgaria facilitated Greek resistance by her own passivity. When Germany called on Bulgaria to enter the Tripartite Pact and make its territory available for a German attack against Greece, the Bulgarian leadership succeeded in retarding the talks. At the same time, the Soviet Union, Germany's Balkan rival, tried to entice Bulgaria into concluding a pact of mutual assistance by offering the whole of western and eastern Thrace at the expense of both Turkey and Greece. Bulgaria refused, and on 1 March 1941 joined the alliance with Germany in hope of territorial gains. It took this step only when it seemed unavoidable.

The 1980s caught Albanians in Kosova in interesting social, political, and psychological circumstances. Two diametrically opposed dogmatic dilemmas took shape: “illegal groups” – considerably supported by students – demanded the proclamation of the Republic of Kosova and/or Kosova's unification with Albania. On the other side of the spectrum, “modernists” – gathering, among others, the political and academic elites – pushed for the improvement of rights of Kosovars guaranteed under the “brotherhood and unity” concept advocated within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). This paper outlines the nature of demonstrations that took place in March and April 1981 and the corresponding responses of political and academic elites. Stretching beyond symbolic academic reasons – demands for better food and dormitory conditions – the study points to the intense commitment of the students to their demands, often articulated in nationalistic terms. Was it inevitable that the structure of the SFRY would lead to those living in Kosova as a non-Slavic majority in a federation of “Southern Slavs” to articulate demands for national self-rule? It is necessary to highlight these political and social complexities through analytical approaches in order to track the students' goals and to reexamine assumptions behind the “modernist” agenda. In that vein, the paper analyzes the conceptual connections and differences between student reactions and modernists' positions during the historical period under discussion here.

It is well known that the idea and practice of cross-border cooperation have been developed in postwar Europe with the intention of overcoming the economic and social isolation of border regions and reconciling the hostilities between former enemies. But as a precondition for this process the new map of European borders had to be perceived as “final” and “just,” and as such it was legitimized on international and national levels. Moreover, it was the universal acceptance of the principle of the invariability of borders which made it possible for national governments to grant border regions more freedom in their contacts with the neighbours. The same applies in principle to the former socialist countries, where cross-border cooperation is supposed to help overcome the post-Cold-War division of Europe.