Contested minorities in the ‘New Europe’: national identities in interwar Eastern and Southeastern Europe

ABSTRACT

Among the many challenges facing the new, or enlarged, nation-states that arose on the territories of the former empires of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe in 1918, few were as vexing or complex as the so-called ‘minorities question’. Thousands of disparate communities suddenly discovered that they now existed as minorities, often in areas adjacent to their designated homelands. As an introduction to this special issues, this article provides an overview of the key concepts and historical debates surrounding the interwar regional minorities question. It also seeks to challenge underlying assumptions that characterise such communities as perpetual victims of nationalist animosity.

KEYWORDS:

• National identities
• minorities question
• national history
• authoritarianism
• imagined communities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See T. G. Masaryk, The New Europe (the Slav Standpoint), (London, 1918). The term also served as the title for a weekly political magazine that Masaryk had helped establish in 1916 while living in exile in London during the Frist World War. Masaryk's philosophical ethos of national self-determination as a fundamental human right was adopted as the title's central political stance. Despite playing an influential role in swaying Western opinion, diminishing interest in the region after 1919 led to The New Europe fold in 1920.

2 Poland's German minority, for example, were blamed for the Bromberger Blutsonntag (the massacre of several hundred people in Bromberg on the first Sunday after the German invasion of Poland in 1939). See Winston Chu, The German Minority in Interwar Poland (Cambridge, 2012). In addition, the discussion surrouding the German politicial loyalties is frequently linked to the Nazi occupation and the subsequent expulsions of these diaspora communities from across Eastern Europe, especially Poland and Czechoslovakia. R.M. Douglas, Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War (New Haven, 2012); Eagle Glassheim, Cleansing the Czechoslovak Borderlands: Migration, Environment, and Health in the Former Sudetenland (Pittsburgh, 2016); John J. Kulczycki, Belonging to the Nation: Inclusion and Exclusion in the Polish-German Borderlands, 1939–1951 (Cambridge, MA., 2016); Peter Polak-Springer, Recovered Territory: A German-Polish Conflict over Land and Culture, 1919–1989 (New York, 2015); Hugo Service, Germans to Poles: Communism, Nationalism and Ethnic Cleansing After the Second World War (New York, 2013); Mirna Zakić, Ethnic Germans and National Socialism in Yugoslavia in World War II (Cambridge, 2019). In the case of Poland's Ukrainian minority, a key example would be the Volhynia massacre of 1943, see Motyl (1985).

3 See also Alexander Pinwinkler, Historische Bevölkerungsforschungen: Deutschland und Österreich im 20. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 2014); Göderle (2016).

4 Brubaker introduces the term of ‘a nationalising state’ to define ‘entities that are ethnically heterogeneous yet conceived as nation-states, whose dominant elites promote (to varying degrees) the language, culture, demographic position, economic flourishing, or political hegemony of a nominally state-bearing nation’ (57).

5 Selected publications from the period: Evans (1923–1924); Heyking (1927); Macartney, Nation States; Joseph Chmelař, National Minorities in Central Europe (Prague, 1937); Oscar Karbach, Max M. Laserson, Nehemiah Robinson, and Marc Vichiniak, Were the Minorities Treaties a Failure? (New York, 1943); Oscar Janowsky, Nationalities and National Minortities (New York, 1945)

6 See also: Mazower (2004).

7 Selected publications from the Cold War-era include I. Bagley, General Principles and Problems in the International Protection of Minorities (Geneva, 1950); Inis Claude, National Minorities: An International Problem (Cambridge, MA, 1955); Fink (1972); Christoph Giitermann, Das Minderheitenschutzverfahren des Völkerbunder (Berlin, 1979); J. Laponce, The Protection of Minorities (Berkeley, CA, 1960); Raymond Pearson, National Minorities in Eastern Europe, 1848–45 (London, 1983).

8 On the international aspect of the minority question see, for example: J. Mayall, Nationalism and International Society (Cambridge, 1990); D. Moynihan, Pandaemonium; Ethnicity in International Politics (Oxford, 1993); Thornberry, International Law; Mazower (1997). Preece, National Minorities; Christian Raitz von Frentz, A Lesson Forgotten. Minority Protection under the League of Nations: the Case of the German Minority in Poland, 1920–1934 (New York, 1999); Martin Scheuermann, Minderheitenschutz contra Konfliktverhiitung? Die Minderheitenpolitik des Völkerbundes in den zwanziger Jahren (Marburg, 2000); Carole Fink, Defending the Rights of Others: The Great Powers, the Jews, and International Minority Protection, 1878–1938 (Cambridge, 2004); Weitz (2008).

9 On the minorities treaties see: Woolsey (1920); Dugdale and Bewes (1926); Macartney, National States; Giuseppe Motta, Less than Nations. Central-Eastern European Minorities after WW1, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 2013).

10 See also Bartov, O., & Weitz, E.D. (Eds.), (2013). Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

11 On anti-Christian violence in the late and former Ottoman Empire, and the numerous controversies surrounding it, see, for example, Richard G. Hovannisian (Ed.), Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide (Detroit, 1998); Ronald Grigor Suny, Fatma Müge Göçek & Norman M. Naimark (Eds.), A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire (Oxford, 2011); Avedian (2012); Taner Akçam, The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire (Princeton, 2012); Hannibal Travis (Ed.), The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies (Abingdon, 2017).

12 Several iterations of the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ existed in Central and Eastern Europe since the late nineteenth century however, it only came into wider usage in the West during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.

13 The literature covering the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia is extensive however, some significant contributions include the following: Misha Glenny, The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War (London, 1992); Mark Thompson, A Paper House: The Ending of Yugoslavia (New York, 1992); Ed Vulliamy, Seasons in Hell: Understanding Bosnia's War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994); Laura Silbur & Alan Little, The Death of Yugoslavia (London, 1994); Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia (Berkley, 1998); Sabrina P. Ramet, Thinking about Yugoslavia: Scholarly Debates about the Yugoslav Breakup and the Wars in Bosnia and Kosovo (Cambridge: 2005); Charles W. Ingrao & Thomas A. Emmert (Eds.), Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies: A Scholars’ Initiative (Washington, DC, 2009). On the Caucuses see Thomas de Wall, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War (New York, 2003); Emil Souleimanov, Understanding Ethnopolitical Conflict: Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia Wars Reconsidered (Basingstoke, 2013); Arsène Saparov, From Conflict to Autonomy in the Caucasus: The Soviet Union and the Making of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh (Abingdon, 2014); Emil Souleimanov & Huseyn Aliyev, How Socio-Cultural Codes Shaped Violent Mobilization and Pro-Insurgent Support in the Chechen War (Basingstoke, 2017). See also Cerwyn Moore, Contemporary Violence: Postmodern war in Kosovo and Chechnya (Manchester: 2010).

14 The government of Bosnia-Herzegovina filed a case at the International Court of Justice in 1993 alleging that the Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) had committed genocide within its borders by attempting to exterminate the Bosnian Muslim population. Given the ongoing and disparate nature of the conflict, a final verdict was not delivered until 2007 with the ICJ ruling that Serbia (now Yugoslavia's legal successor) had not committed genocide but had violated its international obligations to prevent it from happening. Croatia also filed a genocide suit to the ICJ in 1999 however, numerous court delays and a later counter-suit filed by Serbia in 2010, resulted in both cases being dismissed in 2015.

15 See also, Kasianov and Tolochko (2012).

16 On nationalist history and its limitations see Coakley (2004), On German history see Ther (2003a).

17 Werner and Zimmermann (2003); In English: ‘Beyond Comparison: Histoire Croiséé and the Challenge of Reflexivity,’ in History and Theory, 45 (2006). 30–50; On histoire croisée see Werner and Zimmermann (2002); Kocka (2000); Ther (2003b).

18 For a historical overview of the general region encompassing Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania, see Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations. Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999 (New Heaven, 2003). Prof. Julia Richers from the University of Bern's current project ‘Amidst Multiple Border Shifts: Carpatho-Ukraine, 1918–1946’ expands on this by exploring the complex entangled history of the Eastern Carpathians. For south-east Europe see Marie-Janine Calic, The Great Cauldron: A History of Southeastern Europe.

19 The transnational approach to history originated in American historiography. See Tyrrell (1991), and Michael McGerr, ‘The Price of the “New Transnational History,”’ ibid: 1056–67; Rethinking American History in a Global Age, ed. Thomas Bender (Berkeley, 2002); For the European context see Clavin (2005). David-Fox (2011). The main forums for the debate on transnational history in Europe are the journals Geschichte und Gesellschaft and Comparativ in Germany and Annales in France.

20 On Vilnius, see: Weeks (2006); On Lviv, see Yaroslav Hrytsak, ‘Lviv: A Multicultural History through the Centuries,’ in Lviv: A City in the Crosscurrents of Culture, ed. John Czaplicka (Cambridge, MA, 2000): 47–74; Lutz Henke, Grzegorz Rossolinski and Philipp Ther, eds., Eine neue Gesellschaft in einer alten Stadt. Erinnerung und Geschichts -politik in Lemberg anhand der Oral History (Wrocław, 2007); Tarik Cyril Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv. A Borderland City between Stalinists, Nazis, and Nationalists (Ithaca, 2015).

21 Richard Breyer, Das Deutsche Reich und Polen, 1932–1937. Außenpolitik und Volksgruppenfragen (Wurzburg, 1955); Theodor Bierschenk, Die deutsche Volksgruppe in Polen, 1934–1939 (Wurzburg, 1954). Joachim Rogall, ‘Einheit in Vielfalt der Deutschen aus Polen,’ in Archive und Sammlungen der Deutschen aus Polen. Erlebte Geschichte, bewahrtes Kulturgut, ed. Peter E. Nasarski, 13–18 (Berlin/Bonn, 1992); Gerke (2002/2003); Beata Lakeberg, Die deutsche Minderheitenpresse in Polen 1918–1939 und ihr Polen- und Judenbild (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 2010). See also Beata Lakeberg, ‘Identitatsfragen in der deutschen Minder- heitenpresse wahrend der ersten Jahre der Zweiten Polnischen Republik,’ in Grenzdiskurse. Zeitungen deutschsprachiger Minderheiten und ihr Feuilleton in Mitteleuropa bis 1939, ed. Sibylle Schonborn, 81–93 (Essen, 2009); Mathias Niendorf, Minderheiten an der Grenze. Deutsche und Polen in den Kreisen Flatow (Złotow) und Zempelburg (Sepolno Krajenskie) 1900–1939 (Wiesbaden, 1997).

22 Another case of cross-cutting loyalties within the minority group is the Ukrainians living in Galicia and Volhynia in the interwar Poland. See Włodzimierz Mędrzecki, Kresowy Kalejdoskop. Wędrówki przez Ziemie Wschodnie Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej 1918–1939 (Warsaw, 2018).

23 On regionalism see Richard Blanke, Orphans of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland, 1918–1939 (Lexington, 1993); Celia Applegate, A Nation of Provincials. The German Idea of Heimat (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); Alon Confino, The Nation as a Local Metaphor: Wurttemberg, Imperial Germany, and National Memory, 1871–1918 (Chapel Hill, 1997); Reagin (2004); Siegfried Weichlein, Nation und Region. Integrationsprozesse im Bismarckreich (Dusseldorf, 2004); Michael B. Klein, Zwischen Reich und Region. Identitatsstrukturen im Deutschen Kaiserreich (1871–1918) (Stuttgart, 2005).

24 Some examples of historical studies based on these sources: Kate Brown, A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland (Cambridge, MA., 2005); Peter Judson, Guardians of the Nation. Activists of Language Frontiers of Imperial Austria (Cambridge, MA, 2006); Zahra (2010).

25 Zahra (2010); Ibid, Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900–1948 (Ithaca, 2008); Judson, Guardians of the Nation; James E. Bjork, Neither German nor Pole: Catholicism and National Indifference in a Central European Borderland (Ann Arbor, 2009). King, Budweisers; Jeremy King, ‘The Nationalization of East Central Europe: Ethnicism, Ethnicity, and Beyond,’ in Staging the Past: The Politics of Commemoration in Habsburg Central Europe, 1848 to the Present, ed. Maria Bucur and Nancy M. Wingfield, 112–152 (Lafayette, 2001); Bryant (2002); Chad Bryant, Prague in Black: Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism (Cambridge, MA., 2007).

26 See Bjork, Neither German nor Pole; Andrzej Michalczyk, Heimat, Kirche und Nation: Deutsche und polnische Nationalisierungsprozesse im geteilten Oberschlesien, 1922–1939 (Cologne, 2010); Niendorf, Minderheiten an der Grenze; Elizabeth Vlossak, Marianne or Germania? Nationalizing Women in Alsace, 1870–1946 (Oxford, 2010). Carrol and Zanoun (2011).

27 Brubaker (2014), p. 805; Bolin and Douglas, National indifference, 20.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust.

Notes on contributors

Olena Palko

Olena Palko is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London and is currently working on the minorities question in the early Soviet Union. Her upcoming book, Making Ukraine Soviet: Literature and Culture under Lenin and Stalin (Bloomsbury, 2020), examines the cultural sovietisation of Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s.

Samuel Foster

Samuel Foster is an Associate Tutor at the University of East Anglia and author of the forthcoming book Yugoslavia in the British Imagination: Peace, War and Peasants before Tito (Bloomsbury). His research focuses on the First World War and south-east Europe in transnational history.