The question of whether there are cultural borders between East and West is thrown up by the clear awareness of a process exacerbating worldwide contradictions which politicians call the Clash of Civilizations. However, UNESCO proposes that this opposition should be transformed into a more peaceful Dialogue of Civilizations. It is obvious that in both cases we need to disentangle the causes of differences that undoubtedly have ancient roots.

In the field of geographical limology, the new science of international borders, it is possible to distinguish several consecutive theoretical approaches that can be seen as either traditional or postmodern. At each consecutive stage new approaches have been applied together with, not in place of, the traditional, in order to continue to perfect the discipline (see, for instance, Minghi, 1963; Rumley and Minghi, 1991). Traditional approaches, such as historical mapping, the typological, the functional and the political, have been described in previous theoretical works (e.g. Kolossov and O'Loughlin, 1998; Kolossov and Turovsky, 1998; Kolossov and Mironenko, 2001). Here we are concerned with the postmodern approaches, which have been emerging mostly during the 1990s and the present decade.

The demise of the two federal communist states, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, was the major cause of the appearance of a new kind of state entity, unheard of since the end of feudalism in Europe. While the 15 Union Republics of the Soviet Union became independent from the old center (Moscow) as well as detached from each other, some ethnically different or mixed parts of the newly independent republics, deprived of federal protection, felt uncomfortable within the new framework and emerged as separate or detached entities. It should be remembered that this separatist movement predates the disintegration of the Soviet Union and is parallel to Gorbachev's ‘perestroika’. In the Trans-Caucasus, the separatist forces within the republics began to act as soon as Moscow loosened its grip and the national republics began to assert themselves. The half-hearted and limited use of force by Moscow in order to prevent the disintegration of the Soviet Empire (in Baku, Tbilisi, Vilnius) succeeded no better than attempts by individual republics to stop separatism within their own borders. Georgia and Azerbaijan were most affected, with several ‘quasi-states’ appearing within their borders: Nagorno-Karabagh in Azerbaijan, Abkhazia and Ossetia in Georgia. With the direct support of the Armenian republic and covert Russian assistance, the Armenian majority in the former Nagorno-Karabagh Autonomous Region split from Azerbaijan, expelled the Azeri minority, occupied a substantial chunk of Azeri territory, and created a ‘state’ of its own. The Abkhazian minority (less than one-fifth of the total population), with Russian assistance, split Abkhazia from Georgia, expelled the Georgian majority, and established its own ‘state’. South Ossetia declared itself a ‘sovereign republic’, while Adjaria and parts of Georgia proper became practically independent from Tbilisi. Political mistakes and chauvinist acts on the part of the Azeri and Georgian Popular Front governments that initially came to power contributed to local separatism.

This article is a narrative with several voices based on interviews conducted with various social actors from Moldova in June 1993. That was three years after the republic declared its independence and one year after the Transnistrian civil war, which ended with separation into two independent republics: the Republic of Transnistria and the Republic of Moldova. These two entities, one of them legal and the other not recognized by the international community, then entered a very difficult period of transition. Recognized by 120 countries and a party to many diplomatic relationships, the Republic of Moldova, which formed an important and particular element of the former Soviet Union, in fact found it quite hard to break its links with Russia for a variety of reasons, which this paper will attempt to make clear.

To begin with, for Albanians, the very concept of religious affiliation is in itself problematic. Albanian society reflects a multi-faith environment within which those of Muslim religious origin are in the majority. That said, all this must be correctly interpreted. For it is true that there are today a good number of Albanians, particularly of younger age, for whom the traditionally tolerant and non-militant form of Islam practised in Albania still commands respect as the religion of their ancestors, while yet no longer constituting a set of personal religious beliefs for them.

Leopolis in Latin, Lemberg in German, Lwów in Polish, Lviv in Ukrainian, this city located in the historic province of Eastern Galicia (Galizien, Galicja, Halychyna) has a history marked by the successive conquests of the region by imperial powers. Founded in the 13 th century by Prince Danylo of Galicia as a fortress against the Tatar and Mongol invasions of the period, then bequeathed to his son Lev (Leo) who built it into the city which bears his name, in the 14th century it came under rule of the kings of Poland for the next 400 years or more, emerging as a major centre of the Polish-Lithuanian union. Its multi-ethnic make-up was nevertheless established very early on, like that of most Central-European cities, as a consequence of coming under the ‘Magdeburg rights’ legal system in 1352. Through this development, the city attracted a large number of immigrants of diverse origins (Germans, Czechs, Poles, Jews, Armenians, Tatars, Moldavians and Saracens, both merchants and artisans, who established themselves in their own ethnic quarters in various parts of the city). They had been invited there by King Casimir the Great who was anxious to develop prosperous urban centres in Poland. It was also this ‘German law’ status (jus teutonicum) that set the city apart from its hinterland, populated by Ruthenian peasants and a Polish petty nobility.

Turkey's historical intimacy with Europe has always spelled ambivalence between inclusion and exclusion. Religious difference was an issue from the start, but this did not stop the Ottomans from recruiting Byzantine princes and Venetian grandees to serve their new state. The sultans in those early centuries claimed the Byzantine mantle and saw their realm as the New Rome, a universal empire in the making. Indeed, European attitudes betrayed an acceptance of these claims as well; it was only after the 16th century, and especially with the Reformation, that the Ottomans emerged as an irrecoverable other.

In the 1990s I began to prepare a thesis on ‘Inter-ethnic relations in the Northwest Caucasus from the 13th to the 19th centuries’. From the outset of this project, I ran up against two difficulties: which approach to follow and which terminology to use.

This issue asks questions about the future of today's borders in a period of globalization and the end of bipolarization. In this new situation we are witnessing the unprecedented formation of huge regional and subregional groupings on an intercontinental scale. This allows us to glimpse the sketch plan for building a multipolar world, to compete with a world dominated by American power, against which continents and subcontinents are starting to unite to reformulate new rules of exchange. They present themselves as surprise competitors for the human masses they represent, Central and South America, India, Asia, Africa …. The borders that traditionally separated states according to dividing lines that were stable and clearly identifiable have suddenly started to become porous and act in accordance with a new and complex logic we need to redefine.