Introduction: National Identity in Eastern Europe after Communism

Abstract

A remarkable amount of scholary literature on the issue of national minorities in post-communist countries began to flourish after 1989. The main reason for this interest lies first and foremost in the historical fact that national and ethnic minorities were largely reduced in numbers or eliminated in the end of World War II. Terms like ‘forced migration’ or ‘expulsion’ and ‘resettlement’ are commonly used to describe the degree of large population movements that were organized for the sake of creating homogeneous nation-states in order to contribute to domestic stability. To name just a few examples: 89,660 Hungarians were forced to move from Slovakia to Hungary from 1945 to 1948. At the same time 73,273 Slovaks left Hungary for Slovakia (Ther 2001:57). 40,000 Hungarians also left Yugoslavia in 1946. The former eastern territories of Poland were also restructured when Poles had to migrate from Vilnius and L’viv after World War II. In turn, 650,000 Ukrainians were resettled from southeastern Poland amongst other regions to the regions from where Germans were expelled.