In this article I analyze the term “Macedonian(s)” based on the discourse of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (1893–1908) from the aspect of the internal understanding of the term as a supra-local and supra-church identity. Another matter for analysis in this article is that of the stereotypes in the interpretation of Macedonian historical processes inherited from the nineteenth century, still present in some contemporary historiographies. Hence, the article makes an attempt to bring down the stereotype about the existence of some unique Macedonian ethnic phenomenon known as the “Macedonian salad.” This article also deals with the significance of the geopolitical position of Ottoman Macedonia within the empire. More specifically, the emphasis is placed on the change of its position after the Great Eastern Crisis (1875–1881). Namely, for the first time since the Ottoman conquests in the Middle Ages, Macedonia's position within the empire changed from being a central to a peripheral Ottoman province, with all the advantages and disadvantages that this change brought about. This aspect of Macedonian historical reality is often neglected in the historiography.

In developing his theory of the “literary field,” Pierre Bourdieu essentially had in mind the case of France from the second half of the nineteenth century, the use of which as a case undoubtedly contributed to his marginalizing numerous aspects of the national microcosm. Among its unstated and unrecognized particular qualities, France is mono-national (rather than multinational) and monolingual (rather than multilingual), and occupies the dominant position in the international Francophone world (much as Germany is at the heart of the German-speaking world). A state, a nation, a language, a territory, a literature — all of these make one unit and prevent one from considering situations more complex or tangled, such as those of many minority literatures. These allow the tackling of issues — among others, problems of their “autonomy” in relation to realities outside of literature such as the political, religious, linguistic, and economic. Rather than imposing constraints on a research agenda, the study of minority literatures allows one to shed light on the complex and contradictory relations between the political (the national, the communal, and sometimes the state), the market, and the literary game.

This paper examines a less researched aspect of East European party politics: change within ethnic parties, which are conventionally regarded as stable or intransigent political actors. The main argument of the paper is that the decreasing relevance of a bipolar model of political competition has affected the relative positioning of ethnic parties. Their programmatic outlook, role in the party system, and mobilization strategies are being mainstreamed. Ethnic parties are no longer regarded as inevitable participants in power sharing and informal elite accommodation. They are increasingly treated by voters and the party system alike as national-level parties and national-level competitors. The paper applies the concept of mainstreaming to explain the long-term evolution of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms in Bulgarian party politics as a critical case study of ethnic party repositioning from proximity to government to parliamentary opposition. It builds an argument about the MRF's continued relevance to the party system, ensuring minority representation beyond ethnicity, as a liberal-centrist party representing distinct economic interests and political orientations within the Bulgarian electorate.

This paper considers the role of Russian print media and government in forming and publicizing nationalist sentiment through a content analysis of newspaper coverage of ethnic conflict in Stavropol in 2007. It shows that though the government officially pursues an inclusive multicultural approach (which I call associative nationalism), newspapers owned by Kremlin-loyal business holdings printed quite nationalist and sensationalist versions of the events in question. I argue that this is a passive promotion of a dissociative type of nationalism on the part of the Kremlin, which works against its stated purposes of bringing together all those in the Russian territory into a united national identity.

This article looks at the press coverage of Ukrainianization, the Soviet terror, and the famine (Holodomor), particularly in the years 1932–33, focusing on the largest Ukrainian daily outside Soviet Ukraine, the Lviv Dilo. It compares this coverage to the reporting in the press of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). It argues that these two years were a turning point in political attitudes. Galician Ukrainians turned away from the Communist Party of Ukraine and support for the OUN began to grow. Ironically, the OUN had not led protests against the famine, but benefited from the lack of a strong response from European governments and international bodies. The article draws on a reading of the Ukrainian press of the 1930s, and on recent research by Polish and Ukrainian scholars.

In this paper we explore, through the narratives and perspectives of “old residents” in post-Soviet Bishkek, the dominant discourse which has emerged towards rural migrants arriving to the city from other areas of Kyrgyzstan from the late Soviet period onwards. We investigate the existence of a primarily “antagonistic” discourse in relation to the migrants and analyze this in detail to understand how it illuminates wider concerns amongst residents about what is occurring in their city, and about wider processes of social change in Kyrgyzstan. The paper provides a revealing insight into the processes of urban change in post-Soviet Central Asia, and demonstrates the ways in which confrontation with the everyday harsh realities of post-Soviet transformation can lead to the negative “othering” of one group of urban residents by another. We also demonstrate how the “old residents”’ perceptions of migrants reveal important insights into emerging notions and constructions of identity in the post-Soviet period, related in this case to understandings of “North” and “South'1 and related concepts of what is “urban” and what is “Kyrgyz”.