Nationality Policy Research Articles

Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in the South Caucasus: Nagorno-Karabakh and the Legacy of Soviet Nationalities Policy. By Ohannes Geukjian. Post- Soviet Politics. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2012. xi, 247 pp. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Glossary. Index. Maps. $114.95, hard bound.

Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in the South Caucasus: Nagorno-Karabakh and the Legacy of Soviet Nationalities Policy. By Ohannes Geukjian. Post- Soviet Politics. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2012. xi, 247 pp. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Glossary. Index. Maps. $114.95, hard bound.

Dancing with the Devil: Rosa Luxemburg's Conception of the Nationality Question in Polish Socialism

Rosa Luxemburg is probably one of the best-known and most ardent Marxist opponents of everything national—she has become synonymous with revolutionary internationalism. She epitomized Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels's international cosmopolitanism, economism and belief in the inevitable progression of the historical forces towards a workers’ revolution. When Luxemburg entered politics in the early 1890s, she encountered a blossoming socialism of the Golden Age. Yet her intellectual evolution quickly became defined by the growing divide over the issue of nationalism. In Polish socialism, this division translated into a partisan confrontation between supporters and opponents of the restoration of Polish statehood. Emerging as a leading figure of the latter camp, Luxemburg carried the mantle of international revolutionism, economic determinism and anti-nationalist rhetoric. Unfortunately, Luxemburg's obsession with the battle against Poland's independence—embodied in the conflict between the Polska Partia Socjalistyczna (Polish Socialist Party) and the Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy (Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania)—carried her towards determinism. Moreover, Luxemburgism, which opposed Polish independence, became one of the key factors that prevented the spread and popularity of Communism in the interwar Second Republic. Throughout the interwar years, it was the inability and unwillingness of the Komunistyczna Partia Robotnicza Polski (Communist Workers’ Party of Poland) to construct a viable nationality policy—inspired by adherence to Luxemburgism—that prevented the party from achieving solid grassroots loyalty.

Minority Identities and the Construction of Rights in Post-Soviet Settings

This article looks at the emergent policies and legal constraints shaping identity constructions within and for minority groups in Estonia and in northwest Russia, in order to investigate the processes of ‘minority-building’ and emergent state policies through cultural entanglements. The case studies discussed comprise legal regulations and measures for the promotion of minority identities in Estonia with special focus on Estonian Russians, the country’s biggest and most diverse minority; the Seto, their cultural heritage construction and the question of intangible rights in the border zone between Estonia and Russia; and the Votians and the process of claiming a minority status in Russia in the context of recent socio-economic developments. These three studies enable us to explore the reverberations of Soviet nationality policy as well as new hybrid policies, strategies and self-conceptions emerging in a particular region. This collaborative article proposes a supplement to the study of identity constructions in the post-Soviet setting of minority-buildings that are inherently interdependent and complementary for understanding the possible developments in this sphere.

The Ironies of Citizenship, Naturalization and Integration in Industrialized Countries By Thomas Janoski Cambridge University Press, 2010, xv + 336. $29.99 paper

The issues of nationality and naturalization and the development of related policies are hotly debated topics in politics across many industrialized countries, and substantial cross-national differences in naturalization policies exist. Whereas some countries opt for liberal nationality policies that allow immigrants to quickly become citizens, other countries install restrictive naturalization policies that make it hard for immigrants to become full citizen of their host country. Janoski's book adds to this ongoing debate about cross-national differences in naturalization policies by presenting two main explanations for such differences: a country's colonial history and the success of left and green parties. The colonization explanation is based on a regime theory represented by the following types: (1. colonizing countries (such as Austria, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom) that have familiarized people all over the world with their customs and languages will have moderately high rates of naturalization in proportion to their colonization throughout the world; (2. settler countries (Australia, Canada, the United States and New Zealand) whose indigenous population decline causes labor shortages will solve this labor shortage problem by immigration and naturalization; and (3. noncolonizing countries or countries that do not reach the so-called social control stage of colonization (Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Switzerland) will have no rationale to accept immigrants.

“The Permiak question”: Bolshevik central authorities, Russian and non-Russian provincial elites negotiating over autonomy in the early 1920s

This is an article on Bolshevik nationalities policy and ethnic engineering, asking who, in fact, decided which populations belonged together as ethnic groups (narodnost') and thus had the right of national self-determination, and how the level of autonomy was determined for each ethnic unit. Scholars have dealt with Russian and Soviet nationalities issues for decades already, but they have turned their attention mainly to the larger nationalities (at the level of SSR, and to a lesser degree the levels of ASSR and autonomousoblast). I argue that the lower levels of national territorial autonomy in the Soviet Union (nationalokrug, raion, volost', andselsovet) are worthy of greater academic attention, at least from the ethnological point of view. Having this kind of low-level territorial autonomy has often been a question of to be or not to be for the small ethnic groups concerned, and hence the subject is connected with the question of preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity in Russia.

The Russian-Speaking Jewish Diaspora in Translation: Liudmila Ulitskaia'sDaniel Stein, Translator

Liudmila Ulitskaia's 2006 novel,Daniel' Shtain, pervodchik(Daniel Stein, Translator), explores the experience of the Russian-speaking diaspora in the aftermath of World War II through a focus on Jewish immigrants in Israel who convert to Christianity. The novel's treatment of the divisive topic of Jewish to Christian conversion is enabled by the author's reliance on the theoretical and allegorical values of translation. Evoking advancements in twentieth-century translation studies through its broad treatment of translation and critique of the investment in the notion of fidelity to the original, be it language or identity, the novel advocates for the acceptance of the transformations and the resulting hybridity of the Jewish diasporic self.Daniel Stein, Translatorspecifically highlights the influence of the Soviet nationalities policies and the Nazi occupation of eastern Europe on the identity metamorphoses of Soviet Jews. By promoting the legitimacy of the expressions of Jewish identity by immigrants from the USSR through her novel, Ulitskaia proposes an expanded and anti-essentialist view of Jewish identity that would include individuals traditionally viewed as apostates.

The Heritage of Soviet Oriental studies

Michael Kemper and Stephan Conermann, eds. The Heritage of Soviet Oriental Studies. Routledge Contemporary Russia and Europe Series, 25. London: Routledge, 2011. 352 pp. Index. $150.00, cloth.The present volume brings together twenty scholars from the West and the post-Soviet space with the goal of providing an integrating view on Soviet Oriental (p. 1). The latter is understood in the double sense of presenting these studies as a single discipline and relating them to the on-going discussion of Orientalism. Against the prevailing perception of Soviet Orientology as hopelessly isolated and ideologized, the editors and contributors to the volume argue that it fits rather well Edward Said's view of Western Orientalism as peculiar nexus of knowledge and power. At the same time, Soviet Oriental studies had a number of important peculiarities and legacies that make them a subject worthy of investigation. The volume is divided into two parts, of which the first, including nine articles, traces the evolution of Oriental and Islamic studies in Moscow and Leningrad/St. Petersburg. The seven articles of the second part of the volume examine Oriental studies in the republics of the former Soviet Union and two provincial centres of the Russian Federation.The objective set by the editors is quite timely: after Kritika broke new ground by organizing a discussion on pre-revolutionary Russian Orientalism ten years ago, it was only logical to ask similar questions about its Soviet successor. Although the volume focuses on the Soviet period, several articles briefly discuss pre- 1917 developments, while David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye' s piece is devoted entirely to the peculiarities of imperial Orientology. These included, among other things, the division of labour between the more academically oriented Oriental studies of St. Petersburg versus the more practical profile of the Kazan and the Moscow schools, the desire of the government to impose advisory functions upon Orientalist scholars and their resistance to this pressure in the name of scientific objectivity.The most important pre-revolutionary legacy was of course the Orientalists themselves. Similar to other bourgeois experts during the early Soviet decades, prerevolutionary Orientalist scholars went through hardships and travails, which are discussed by Mikhail Rodionov and several other contributors. Still, Soviet terror was mixed with opportunity, as Michael Kemper notes in the introductory chapter. In the context of Soviet policy, Orientalists were supposed to produce the ideologically correct historical narratives for the titular nationalities of the republics of the USSR. This phenomenon is discussed in detail in Aifa-Alua Auezova's chapter on Kazakh historiography of the 1 920 s and 1 930 s and receives some attention from other contributors to the second part of the volume.While Orientology had a special role in the Soviet nationality policy, the latter in rum influenced the Oriental scholars in a number of ways. First, there occurred a significant nativization of Oriental studies in comparison with the pre-1917 period. The number of indigenous scholars from the borderlands (traditionally high in Imperial Russia) became even higher under the Soviets. Second, nativization policies determined the distribution of centres of Oriental studies. Alongside Moscow and St. Petersburg/Leningrad, these were created in Tashkent, Baku, Tbilisi, Dushanbe, and Yerevan (which were all the capitals of Eastern union republics), but not in Kazan or Makhachkala (which were and continue to be the capitals of the autonomous Tatar and Dagestan republics within the RSFSR/Russian Federation), despite important prerevolutionary traditions and/or strong local initiative.The Soviet encounter with Islam was another major conditioning factor for the development of Soviet Oriental studies. In a highly interesting contribution, Vladimir Bobrovnikov addresses the relations between Soviet Orientology and anti-religious propaganda. …

Crossing Boundaries, Breaking Rules: Continuity and Social Transformation in Trickster Tales from Central Asia

Crossing Boundaries, Breaking Rules:Continuity and Social Transformation in Trickster Tales from Central Asia1 Ildikó Bellér-Hann (bio) and Raushan Sharshenova (bio) Introduction The Arguments Although oral literature has conventionally been considered a field of study for folklorists, anthropologists started taking an interest in the subject very early on, conceptualizing such materials as socially embedded communicative strategies.2 The present paper investigates a body of texts that emerged in the Kyrgyz3 speech community in what is today northern Kyrgyzstan over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In an effort to implement Soviet nationality policies, Soviet folklorists in the 1960s identified and collected a sizeable body of Kuyruchuk stories and published them in Russian (Bektenov 1964).4 Since Kyrgyzstan's declaration of independence in 1991, two new books have been published, one containing some of the figure's adventures and the other summarizing and analyzing stories about him, this time in Kyrgyz (Öskönalï uulu 1997, Kenchiev and Abdïrazakov 2002). The stories are generally simple and evoke the style of folktales; under socialism a number of such stories were published in journals aimed at a young readership (e.g. Zhash Leninchi, Kirgizskie pioneri), and Kuyruchuk is also mentioned in shorter publications (e.g. Bektenov 1959, 1978, 1981; Toygonbaeva 1987; Naymanbay 1990). The paper is organized along two axes. First, it identifies a classic "Trickster" figure set in modern Kyrgyz history, ranging from the period of the last decades of Russian rule to early Soviet times. It will be shown how in the wake of major social upheavals, Central Asian oral tradition mobilizes the figure of the Trickster to demonstrate the ambiguities of everyday life at times of rapid political and social transformation. Second, the materials presented illuminate more general processes of cultural production and entextualization in socialist and postsocialist Central Asia. It will be argued that the Soviet and the Kyrgyz states at times deploy very similar strategies to pursue overlapping goals of identity-building. Shifting strategies aimed at supporting different state projects can be recognized in the meta-folklore of a text corpus taken from Kyrgyz oral tradition. Since the text corpus is available as printed materials, we see it as being situated at the interface of oral and written realms (Goody 1993). The stories in question were published in Russian and Kyrgyz during the Soviet and post-Soviet eras, and we have no detailed reliable information concerning performative and receptive aspects, yet they are clearly rooted within the established genre of Central Asian oral tradition. Given the lack of extratextual evidence, the lines of argument mentioned above will be elaborated on the basis of evidence provided by the stories themselves.5 In view of these two central concerns, the classification of the stories poses a dilemma. Several possibilities presented themselves. Of these we considered two in particular: one was to follow the historical setting of the stories, starting with Kuyruchuk's adventures in the Russian Empire and continuing with those set in the young Soviet Union. The other was to concentrate on the major historical periods in which the stories were published: the Soviet Union in the early 1960s and the early years of independence in the mid-1990s. These two competing organizational possibilities underline the complex nature of the concept of "context," ranging from the geographical/spatial to the broader social and historical.6 The latter option initially seemed more attractive, since it offered a suitable structure to elaborate on shifts in ideological strategies concerning important themes such as the unequal distribution of resources, the need for social justice, attitudes toward religion, the force of local tradition in constituting ethnic identity, inter-ethnic relations, and the like in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. After seriously considering this possibility, we have decided not to follow this path for several reasons.7 It must be emphasized that at no time has a systematic analysis of all the stories included in these volumes been carried out, and the same holds true for those stories that have been published separately in various journals over the course of the socialist and postsocialist decades. A full comparison of the stories published in Soviet and post...

Constructing Interethnic Conflict and Cooperation: Why Some People Harmed Jews and Others Helped Them during the Holocaust in Romania

The authors draw on a natural experiment to demonstrate that states can reconstruct conflictual interethnic relationships into cooperative relationships in relatively short periods of time. The article examines differences in how the gentile population in each of two neighboring territories in Romania treated its Jewish population during the Holocaust. These territories had been part of tsarist Russia and subject to state-sponsored anti-Semitism until 1917. During the interwar period one territory became part of Romania, which continued anti-Semitic policies, and the other became part of the Soviet Union, which pursued an inclusive nationality policy, fighting against inherited anti-Semitism and working to integrate its Jews. Both territories were then reunited under Romanian administration during World War II, when Romania began to destroy its Jewish population. The authors demonstrate that, despite a uniform Romanian state presence during the Holocaust that encouraged gentiles to victimize Jews, the civilian population in the area that had been part of the Soviet Union was less likely to harm and more likely to aid Jews as compared with the region that had been part of Romania. Their evidence suggests that the state construction of interethnic relationships can become internalized by civilians and outlive the life of the state itself.

Education of national and ethnic minorities in contemporary Poland

The transformation process that took place in Poland after 1989 has introduced a change in the nationalities policy of the state as well as in the legal status of national and ethnic minorities. The right to native language teaching has been constitutionally and statutorily guaranteed. It was also strengthened by international obligations of Poland within the frame of bilateral agreements with neighbouring countries as well as approved documents of international institutions defending the rights of national minorities. According to GUS (Central Statistical Office), teaching of Belorussian, Kashubian, Lithuanian, Lemko, German, Slovak, Ukrainian, Russian, Hebrew and Armenian language was offered in the school year 2009/2010 in various organizational forms and on the level of different types of schools.

Imperial Nationality Policy and the Russian Version of the History of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

This article analyses how changes in Russian nationality policy after the 1830–31 Uprising in Poland and Lithuania led to the initiative of an historical project that sought to prove the Russian nature of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It focuses on the tender organized by the Ministry of Education in the 1830s for the publication of a history textbook, which was to form the canon of Russian interpretations of the history of the Grand Duchy. The most important creator of this narrative was Nikolai Ustrialov. According to Ustrialov, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was just as much a Russian state as the Grand Duchy of Moscow, with the sole caveat that the tiny Lithuanian nation had played a part in creating it. Territorial rivalry between these two states was a mere ‘family quarrel’ over which dynasty would prevail. The supremacy of the Lithuanian dynasty did not mean the victory of an alien power since the Lithuanian princes were closely related to Russian princes and moreover, a considerable number of them belonged to the Eastern (Orthodox) Church. Russians could regard therefore them as their own. The last part of this article is devoted to the changes in nationality policy after the 1863–64 Uprising and the requirement for a new interpretation of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Uninvited guests in the communal apartment: nation-formation processes among unrecognized Soviet nationalities

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a body of scholarship arose which effectively bypassed Miroslav Hroch's work on the emergence of small nations. Rogers Brubaker, Yuri Slezkine and Ronald Suny, among others, persuasively argued that Soviet nationalities policies shaped the ethnogeographic make-up of the post-Soviet space some sixty or seventy years later: it had become literally almost unimaginable to conceive of national affiliation outside of institutionalized forms. This analysis also convincingly accounted for the relative weakness of ethnic Russian identity in contrast to the assertive nationalism of non-Russian nationalities around the time of the USSR's collapse. The Kuban’ Cossacks – an ethnocultural community in the south of Russia – never had official recognition as a Soviet nationality. Hroch's framework can be applied to show their clearly national characteristics and, indeed, their progress towards nationhood around the turn of the twentieth century. By reclaiming Hroch's framework for the post-Soviet context, and combining it with later scholarship, we are able to identify this process for the first time, and thus further refine our understanding of the nation-formation processes within Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

When ethnic returnees are de facto guestworkers: What does the introduction of Latin American Japanese Nikkeijin (Japanese descendants) (LAN) suggest for Japan's definition of nationality, citizenship, and immigration policy?

Japan officially bans unskilled foreign labor. A 1990 change in Japanese immigration law provides Nikkeijin (Japanese descendants) a renewable visa that allows them to live and work in Japan on the basis of their Japanese blood descent. 1 Some argue this was a government initiated de facto guestworker program to satisfy demands for cheap labor under the guise of a policy to facilitate “ethnic return” migration. Since 1990, over 300,000 Latin American Japanese (LAN) descendants have emigrated to Japan. However, despite Japanese mythic notions of common ethnic ancestry and ethnic affinity, a spring 2009 program facilitates the paid voluntary repatriation of unemployed Latin American Nikkeijin workers. This article discusses these policies and programs what they imply for the realities of Japan's immigration policy and society. The findings suggest an emergent separation of the traditional notion of a simultaneous Japanese nationality and citizenship away from jus sanguinus with ethnicity less of a criteria for membership and point to a need for a more coordinated approach to Japanese immigration policy amidst the growing realities of an increasingly multicultural society. 1 There is some ambiguity as to the distinctions between definitions of ethnicity and nationality ( Castles and Davidson, 2000, pp. 12–13; Lie, 2001, p. 3; Castles and Miller, 2003, p. 41). Following Hobsbawn (1990, p. 8) and Lie (2001, p. 3), the terms nationality and ethnicity are defined here respectively as, “any sufficiently large body of people whose members regard themselves as members of a ‘nation’ as a national or ethnic group” ( Lie, 2001, p. 3). Citizenship is normally defined as legal membership that includes a broad range of civil, political, and social rights, i.e. in the “legal sense to designate the formal status of membership in a political community” ( Bosniak, 2001, pp. 240–241). As Castles and Davidson (2000, p. vii) note the “pivotal right is that of participation in law-making and government”. Although Sassen (2006, p. 281) points out that the terms citizenship and nationality essentially refer to the same concept and others note they are sometimes used interchangeably, I draw some distinctions in the Japanese case in this paper. As argued by Lie (2001, p. 144), in Japanese there is not an “intrinsic” distinction between shiminken (citizenship) and kokuseki (nationality). In his view, shiminken is generally regarded as a foreign concept and kokuseki is an extension of koseki (household or family registry) and thus denoting nationality as an “extension of the family”. Minzoku (ethnics) are also sometimes referred to as nationals ( Lie, 2001, pp. 144–145). Pak (2006, p. 85) suggests the term shimin (citizen) rather than kokumin (national) is a more inclusive term used by Japanese intellectuals, politicians, leftists, progressives, and some local governments to refer to “local citizenship” that is more reflective of participatory democracy. This may include foreigners (without formal legal Japanese nationality/citizenship), minorities, women, civil society, and social movements.

Warfare, State and Society on the Black Sea Steppe, 1500–1700. Warfare and History by Brian L. Davies (review)

740 SEER, 88, 4, OCTOBER 2010 Obsidio Iadrensis, Opsada^adra. Edited and translatedby Veljko Gortan, Branimir Glavicic,VladimirVratovic, Damir Karbic,MiroslavKurelac and Zoran Ladic. MonumentaSpectantiaHistoriamSlavorumMeridionalium ,54. CroatianAcademyof Sciences and Arts,Zagreb, 2007. Notes.Indexes.Facsimiles. 341pp. + 78 fols.HRK 200. The seriesMonumenta Spectantia Historiam Slavorum Meridionalium began publicationinZagrebin 1868,intheyearoftheNagodba. Despiteitstide,theseries was alwaysconcerned withthepublication ofhistorical sourcesilluminating Croatianhistory. Inevitably, itsearlyfecundity driedup to a trickle in both thefirst and secondYugoslavia,while- in one ofthevagariesofYugoslav nationalities policy - official supportwas in the 1950sput behinda rival series, Monumenta Turcica Spectantia etc.,published in Sarajevo. Following the re-establishment oftheCroatianAcademyofSciencesand Artsin 1991,the series waseffectively re-launched. In 2002,theAcademy published a collection of sourceson the history of fourteenth-century Splitunderthe Monumenta imprint. This latestwork,a contemporary accountoftheVenetiansiegeof Zadar in 1345-46,is itsimmediate successor. The volumeincludesa critical editionoftheoriginal Latintext,a paralleltranslation intoCroatian,a facsimile oftheearliest extant version ofthetext, and several introductory essays, in Croatianand English, thatexplorethehistorical background to thesiege, thepossibleidentity oftheauthorand hisstyle and grammar. UCL SSEES Martyn Rady Davies, Brian L. Warfare, Stateand Society on theBlack Sea Steppe, 1500-iyoo. Warfare and History. Routledge, Londonand NewYork,2007.xv+ 256 pp. Maps. Notes.Bibliography. Index.£22.99 (paperback). The blackearthforest-steppe and thesteppenorthoftheBlack Sea was a frontier zone fortheEast Slavicforest people(thepeopleofmedievalKievan Rus') sincemedievaltimes.Conflict had dominatedhere overcooperation and culturalexchangewithvariousTurkicpastoralpeople. After themidsixteenth century, afterMuscoviteRussia's conquestof the Khanates of Kazan' and Astrakhan had secureditssouth-eastern frontier, the southern frontier remainedthe mostcontestedfrontier zone forMuscoviteRussia, followed onlybyRussia'swestern borderzone.Thischangedprofoundly only withtheconquestof thenorthern shoreoftheBlack Sea by Russia under Catherine II in thesecondhalfoftheeighteenth century. The authorofthiswonderful newbook,BrianL. Davies from theUniversity ofTexas at San Antonio, explores howthethreat oftheCrimeanKhanatestimulated Muscovite Russiatoimprove itsmilitary organization alongits longand opensouthern frontier. Thisis initself an ambitious task.The story has neveryetbeenfully written inWestern historiography, butDavies'sbook offers farmorethanit initially setsout to achieve,by presenting a multidimensional accountoftheblackearthforest-steppe and stepperegionfrom around1500to Russia'sconquestoftheportofAzov in 1696.It does so by REVIEWS 741 givingbalanced treatment to all majorregionaland imperialactorsin the region: theCrimeanKhanatewhichdependedmostly on theconsideration of theOttomanSultans;theNogai,who overtwocenturies lostmuchoftheir influence; the Kalmyks, who to some extentassumedtheirpositionin the seventeenth century; theCossacks,whosecommunities had evolvedsincethe late fifteenth century along thelargerrivers, particularly theDon Cossacks and theZaporozhianHost,and sincethemid-seventeenth century theUkrainian CossackHetmanate;thePolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, whichlost influence during thecourseoftheseventeenth century, and lastbutnotleast MuscoviteRussia. To investigate and describethe interaction of all these actorsin an area whichis, forgeographical reasonsalone, alreadyhighly complex(further and more detailedmaps than the two includedshould havebeen added)requires extensive research and higherudition. Davies has fulfilled his task superbly.The book can be recommendedto historians withvariousscholarly interests: thosewho are interested in theprocessesof (military) colonization willfind important chapters on theso-called Abatisand theBelgorodLine or on garrison towns;social historians willfinddetailed information on socialgroupssuchas theodnoduortsy' historians ofUkrainewill acknowledge thatDavies has takenthemostimportant Ukrainianhistorical literature intoconsideration (e.g.inhistreatment ofthePereiaslav agreement); military historians willreadwithinterest abouttheMuscovite wagenburg tactics, different commandstructures and foreign formations inRussia'sarmy.In the lastthird oftheseventeenth century, Muscovite Russiaabandoneditspolitical isolationand became morethana regionalpoliticalactorby participating in the Holy League againstthe OttomanEmpire.In 1696 Russian and Ukrainiansoldierssuccessfully laid siege to the Ottomanfortress of Azov, locatedat themouthoftheDon. Although thisis an accountofa worldfarremovedfrom thepresent day, Davies's volumenevertheless contains muchthatcouldbe valuablyappliedto our understanding of thecomplexities of contemporary Polish,Lithuanian, Russianand Ukrainian political relations. Historisches Seminar Universität Freiburg G. Hausmann Glomski,Jacqueline. Patronage andHumanist Literature in the Ageofthe Jagiellons: Courtand Careerin theWritings ofRudolfAgricola Junior,Valentin Eck, and Leonard Cox.University ofTorontoPress,Toronto,ON, Buffalo, NY and London,2007. xiv + 336 pp. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Appendices. $75.00:£45.00. Despite thepatronageofRenaissanceartand architecture by Sigismund I (1506-48),Cracowwas nota hospitable place forwandering humanists inthe earlysixteenth century. The springs ofcourtpatronageweredrunkdryby royalservants suchasJustus LudovicusDecius andJohannes Dantiscus, while theuniversity itself was onlybeginning to reform itscurriculum. The present ...

Obsidio Iadrensis, Opsada Zadra. Monumenta Spectantia Historiam Slavorum Meridionalium, 54 by Veljko Gortan , Branimir Glavičić , Vladimir Vratović , Damir Karbić , Miroslav Kurelac , Zoran Ladić (review)

740 SEER, 88, 4, OCTOBER 2010 Obsidio Iadrensis, Opsada^adra. Edited and translatedby Veljko Gortan, Branimir Glavicic,VladimirVratovic, Damir Karbic,MiroslavKurelac and Zoran Ladic. MonumentaSpectantiaHistoriamSlavorumMeridionalium ,54. CroatianAcademyof Sciences and Arts,Zagreb, 2007. Notes.Indexes.Facsimiles. 341pp. + 78 fols.HRK 200. The seriesMonumenta Spectantia Historiam Slavorum Meridionalium began publicationinZagrebin 1868,intheyearoftheNagodba. Despiteitstide,theseries was alwaysconcerned withthepublication ofhistorical sourcesilluminating Croatianhistory. Inevitably, itsearlyfecundity driedup to a trickle in both thefirst and secondYugoslavia,while- in one ofthevagariesofYugoslav nationalities policy - official supportwas in the 1950sput behinda rival series, Monumenta Turcica Spectantia etc.,published in Sarajevo. Following the re-establishment oftheCroatianAcademyofSciencesand Artsin 1991,the series waseffectively re-launched. In 2002,theAcademy published a collection of sourceson the history of fourteenth-century Splitunderthe Monumenta imprint. This latestwork,a contemporary accountoftheVenetiansiegeof Zadar in 1345-46,is itsimmediate successor. The volumeincludesa critical editionoftheoriginal Latintext,a paralleltranslation intoCroatian,a facsimile oftheearliest extant version ofthetext, and several introductory essays, in Croatianand English, thatexplorethehistorical background to thesiege, thepossibleidentity oftheauthorand hisstyle and grammar. UCL SSEES Martyn Rady Davies, Brian L. Warfare, Stateand Society on theBlack Sea Steppe, 1500-iyoo. Warfare and History. Routledge, Londonand NewYork,2007.xv+ 256 pp. Maps. Notes.Bibliography. Index.£22.99 (paperback). The blackearthforest-steppe and thesteppenorthoftheBlack Sea was a frontier zone fortheEast Slavicforest people(thepeopleofmedievalKievan Rus') sincemedievaltimes.Conflict had dominatedhere overcooperation and culturalexchangewithvariousTurkicpastoralpeople. After themidsixteenth century, afterMuscoviteRussia's conquestof the Khanates of Kazan' and Astrakhan had secureditssouth-eastern frontier, the southern frontier remainedthe mostcontestedfrontier zone forMuscoviteRussia, followed onlybyRussia'swestern borderzone.Thischangedprofoundly only withtheconquestof thenorthern shoreoftheBlack Sea by Russia under Catherine II in thesecondhalfoftheeighteenth century. The authorofthiswonderful newbook,BrianL. Davies from theUniversity ofTexas at San Antonio, explores howthethreat oftheCrimeanKhanatestimulated Muscovite Russiatoimprove itsmilitary organization alongits longand opensouthern frontier. Thisis initself an ambitious task.The story has neveryetbeenfully written inWestern historiography, butDavies'sbook offers farmorethanit initially setsout to achieve,by presenting a multidimensional accountoftheblackearthforest-steppe and stepperegionfrom around1500to Russia'sconquestoftheportofAzov in 1696.It does so by ...

Diasporic homecomings: ethnic return migration in comparative perspective

In recent decades, increasing numbers of diasporic peoples have returned to their ethnic homelands, whether because of economic pressures, a desire to rediscover ancestral roots, or the homeland government's preferential immigration and nationality policies. Although the returnees may initially be welcomed back, their homecomings often prove to be ambivalent or negative experiences. Despite their ethnic affinity to the host populace, they are frequently excluded as cultural foreigners and relegated to low-status jobs shunned by the host society's populace. Diasporic Homecomings, the first book to provide a comparative overview of the major ethnic return groups in Europe and East Asia, reveals how the sociocultural characteristics and national origins of the migrants influence their levels of marginalization in their ethnic homelands, forcing many of them to redefine the meanings of home and homeland.

From ethnic cleansing to affirmative action: exploring Poland's struggle with its Ukrainian minority (1944-89)

. The ambivalent attitude of Poland's communist leadership towards Poland's minorities – on the one hand violent and severely repressive, while on the other hand allowing for controlled liberties and offering protection – is the main focus of this article. In the mid-1940s, Poland's new communist leadership proceeded to expel and deport millions of Germans, Lithuanians, Belarusians and Ukrainians from their native territories. A decade later, the communist government adopted a policy that aimed at the reduction of discrimination and the creation of equal social and economic opportunities for the country's residual minority populations. This article explores the background of the wavering communist nationalities policies by focusing on Poland's Ukrainians. It demonstrates how the seemingly contradictory policies of ethnic cleansing and affirmative action were prompted by the same underlying political motivations.

"Backward Gypsies," Soviet Citizens: The All-Russian Gypsy Union, 1925–28

"Backward Gypsies," Soviet CitizensThe All-Russian Gypsy Union, 1925–28 Brigid O'Keeffe (bio) In 1926, the Commissariat of Enlightenment (Narkompros) conceded that Gypsies posed serious challenges to the Soviet Union's all-encompassing modernization aims. In a memorandum detailing its recent successes in educating minority peoples, Narkompros singled out the empire's Gypsies as a people so peculiar, perplexing, and "backward" that they had thus far escaped the focused attention of political-enlightenment workers. "This nationality," Narkompros officials explained, is extremely scattered—it leads a nomadic way of life and for now has settled only in small part. It lacks … a written language and is almost universally illiterate; it is isolated from surrounding nationalities; as a consequence of economic needs and poverty, a number of Gypsies tend to such antisocial pursuits as horse-stealing, thievery, begging, and the like; and this provokes distrust among the settled population. Yet despite their overwhelming "backwardness" and subversive tendencies, Narkompros declared, Gypsies were "still another people [narodnost´] that has begun to awake to conscious civic life and to lay their claim to cultural-enlightenment activity."1 [End Page 283] That the Soviet Union's Gypsies were undergoing a national awakening—or any awakening at all—initially came as encouraging news to Narkompros and other Soviet officials. Soviet nationality policy, after all, did not provide officials with a detailed plan for the transformation of "backward" Gypsy nomads into conscious Soviet citizens. Yet nationality policy did promise minority peoples a generous platform from which even Gypsies could smoothly transition from backwardness to enlightened Sovietism.2 In the first years of Soviet rule, few officials expected representatives of an unheard-of Romani intelligentsia to step forward as political entrepreneurs, let alone to demand that the Soviet state fulfill its promises to all nationalities, and to Roma in particular. Fewer still expected that an organization by the name of the All-Russian Gypsy Union would challenge reigning notions of what it meant to be Soviet. It even occurred to a few officials in Moscow that the appearance of a group of Romani intellectuals preaching the word of Lenin could be nothing more than a typical Gypsy ruse. For a brief period in the mid-1920s, however, many Soviet officials welcomed the All-Russian Gypsy Union and its Romani youth activists as a potentially convenient answer to the empire's thorny "Gypsy question." [End Page 284] This article examines the short-lived All-Russian Gypsy Union and the political struggles of its organizers, the heirs of Moscow's prerevolutionary Romani intelligentsia. A product of the largely unscripted opportunities offered minority peoples by Soviet nationality policy, the All-Russian Gypsy Union provided Romani activists a space within which they fashioned themselves into citizens on a civilizing mission and developed the political, cultural, and social skills necessary for engaging the Soviet nationality regime. In their brief tenure as All-Russian Gypsy Union members, Romani activists assimilated the language and mores of Sovietism and learned to make effective political use of both their minority status and ascribed "backwardness." Through their embrace of Soviet nationality policy, Moscow's Romani activists assumed the Bolshevik mission to incarnate the merger between civilizer and civilized. Shrewdly asserting themselves not only as "backward Gypsies" but also as Soviet citizens, All-Russian Gypsy Union activists integrated themselves and others into the Soviet project. Although "Gypsiness" was officially regarded as the antithesis of the advanced civilization promised Roma by the October Revolution, the All-Russian Gypsy Union and its Romani activists nonetheless came to embody the Soviet ideal of a modern citizenry composed of conscious, disciplined, self-mastering, and enlightened individuals.3 Late Imperial Russia's Romani Intelligentsia In memoirs composed for a late socialist audience, I. I. Rom-Lebedev vividly recalled his first glimpse of a "live Gypsy." Then a small child living with his maternal Russian grandmother in Vilnius, Rom-Lebedev was startled one day when a swarthy male stranger unexpectedly knocked at his grandmother's door. After exchanging pleasantries with the home's matriarch and offering sweets to [End Page 285] the children, this "dark-faced" man abruptly departed, taking Rom-Lebedev's sisters with him. Though this encounter terribly confused Rom-Lebedev at...

The Tselinograd Incident Reconsidered: Soviet Nationalities Policy during “the Era of Stagnation”

The Tselinograd Incident Reconsidered: Soviet Nationalities Policy during “the Era of Stagnation”

Power Games: the German Nationality Policy (Volkstumspolitik) in Czernowitz before and during the Barbarrosa campaign

Czernowitz, capital of Romania′s province of Bukovina, was a diplomatic, political, and ethnic battleground during World War II. Seeking to preserve its claim to the region against encroachments by the Soviets, Romania sought to suppress the region′s most powerful ethnic minority, the Ukrainians, pursuing a policy of expulsion aimed at creating a “Romanised” zone. At the same time, the German Sonderkommande 10b ensconced itself in the city, arresting the better part of the Jewish population and killing hundreds. The Romanian regime, which originally viewed Germany as an ally against Soviet designs, felt betrayed when the German force began to cooperate with the Ukrainian nationalist movement. In the end Romania prevailed because of Hitler`s decision not to establish an independent Ukraine that would include both Czernowitz and Bukovina. The Romanians herded 50,000 Czernowitz Jews into a ghetto; many of these were subsequently deported to Transnistria, but were not sent to death camps. But, after the war, the Jews never re-established themselves in the city, which had once been a vibrant center of Jewish culture.