The New European Diasporas: National Minorities and Conflict in Eastern Europe by Michael s> Mandelbaum (review)

Abstract

I92 SEER, 8o, I, 2002 These wordswere writtenbefore Vladimir Putin appearedon the scene. In the interval changes have taken place in the oil and gas industry'sfortunes that render some of the book's material out-of-date. But changes have also taken place in the fortunesof the country as a whole. Just how far Putin has strengthenedthe state is open to debate. But economically there is no doubt that he is attemptingto win more than a mere piece of the Caspianpie and to increase Russia's energy profits in the east as well as the west. Politicallyhe has begun the process of trying to wrest initiatives back from the dissident regions.And in termsof the oil and gas sector, at the time this reviewis being written he has just succeeded in getting his own man elected as the chief executive of Gazprom. A sequel to Lane's present book would also be worth reading. Glasgow W. V. WALLACE Mandelbaum, Michael (ed.). 7heNewEuropean Diasporas. National Minorities and Conflict inEastern Europe. Council on ForeignRelations Press,New York, 2000. ix + 322 pp. Notes. Index. $I9.95 (paperback). THERE is a mercurialyet timelessqualityto the phenomenon of diaspora.The twentieth century, for instance, witnessed the diminution of some 'old' diasporas (e.g. the German and Jewish), the persistence of other 'recent' diasporas (e.g. the Albanian and Hungarian) and the precipitation of 'new' diasporas (e.g. the Serbian and Russian). Stimulated by the visibility of national minorities within the Soviet successor states and horrified by the internecine atrocitiesof the Balkans,the scholarlystudyof national diasporas has become something of a growthindustryover the last decade. What might soon be termed 'diasporology'is fastdeveloping into a discretesub-discipline which juxtaposes a disinterested historical curiosity about the past with an urgentforensicconcern forthe future. Self-evidently, the essay collection under review provides expert coverage of fourdiasporasof contemporaryEasternEurope:Bennet Kovrigisrelatively sanguine about the prospectsforrestrainton the part of the Hungarianbodypolitic since the I920 Treaty of Trianon;Aurel Braunconsidersthe (perhaps surprising)ten-year quiescence of the 25 million Russians marooned outside the RussianFederationby the collapse of the Soviet Union; SusanWoodward chroniclesthe tragicblood-lettingwhich has followedthe dissolutionof Titoist Yugoslaviawithout fallinginto the familiartrapof demonizing the Serbs;and Elez Biberajdetails the struggleof those Albanians in involuntaryexile since the concession of a 'LesserAlbania' by the Great Powers on the eve of the First World War. Averaging almost seventy pages of text, the essays are substantial and authoritative, buttressed by plentiful endnotes which are alwaysscrupulouslyevidentialand often helpfullyhistoriographical.Although threeof thefourcontributionswere originallypapersdeliveredto a symposium on 'New Diasporas of EasternEurope' in Washington,D.C. in May I998, all have been significantlyupdated to a cut-offpoint late in I999. The authorsof the otherwisevulnerableSerbandAlbanianessayshave consequentlyavoided REVIEWS I93 being overtakenby the NATO and later KFOR operations in Kosovo since Marchi999. But the collection proves to be more than a magisterial exposition of the past and an up-to-date specialistprognosis of the future of leading diasporas of EasternEurope, valuable though they both are. Michael Mandelbaum has a higherprofilethanthe term'editor'would suggest,seekingin hischaracterful introduction and conclusion to establish common denominators which the internationalcommunity may find conducive to fosteringthe futurestabilization of diaspora. Editorially,the real startingpoint for this stimulatingessay collection is the argumentadvanced in Rogers Brubaker'sseminalNationalism Reframed: Jationhoodand theNationalQuestion in theNew Europe(Cambridge, I996), that an insight into (and implicitly a solution to) geopolitical diaspora depends on the 'triadicnexus', the symbioticrelationshipbetween 'outposted' minority enclaves, their 'nationalizing' host-states and their national homeland -states.Allfourspecialistcontributorsobligeby consideringthe applicability (orotherwise)of the 'Brubakermodel' to theirindividualcase studies. It is in this area of comparativeapproach that some reservationsarise. For example, despite the riskof over-complicatingan alreadycomplex methodology , it is crucial to a comprehension of 'diaspora dynamics' to banish any vestigial sense of a homogeneous diasporic society, instead identifying a correlativetripartitedifferentiationbetween the 'near-diaspora'of expatriates resident in host-statesneighbouring the homeland-state, the 'far-diaspora'of emigrants and exiles remote from the homeland, and the 'inner-diaspora'of displaced 'returnees'and refugees within the often unwelcoming homelandstate . This is not to accuse the presentcollection of over-simplifyingdiaspora; ratherto suggest that the bewildering intricaciesof diasporarequire an even more sophisticated acknowledgement of both external and internal triadic factorsand relationships. In his conclusion on the mismatch of state and...