Every newly emerged and nationalizing state has to confirm its legitimacy and, more often than not, employs a cultural-historical approach for that. It is even more so, if, under an authoritarian regime, the given society presents itself as a cultural-historical entity rather than a civic one based on political cohesion. The less democratic a society the more it is eager to depict itself as an organic community based on a well-bound culture and deeply rooted in the given soil. In this case the idea of an ancestral heritage is used as a substitute for political legitimacy.

The crucial question in the analysis of social unrest is why it occurs at a particular moment in history. Whether one refers to the new militant movements in the United States (“Black Power,” “Red Power,” “Ethnic Power”), Ukrainian nationalism in the Soviet Ukraine, Great Russian revitalization, or the recent World Slovak Congress held in New York; it is clear that traditional systems of social stratification in the United States and Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe are now being severely strained. As Shibutani and Kwan have emphasized, in stable stratified societies the inequality of prerogatives goes unquestioned, even by the subjugated who willingly support it. Only in periods of instability is the differential access to opportunity questioned. And dissatisfaction arises only when alternatives to the status quo are perceived. This insight is the core of the “theory of relative deprivation.”

This article investigates the creation of a Romanian football style and system of play, best espoused by the Romanian national teams of the 1990s. It does so by engaging the works of Virgil Economu (1896–1978), undoubtedly the leading Romanian practitioner in the field. The analysis develops around the notions of furia latina – Latin fury – and “élan” and traces their elaboration and implication at two different historical periods, the interwar and the postwar. Premised on these notions, Economu sought to develop a distinctly Romanian style of football play, one emphasizing speed and individual technique. The successes of Romanian football in the 1980s and early 1990s, the rise of the midfielder Gheorghe Hagi, and the popular meanings attached to them are all intimately connected with Economu's contributions. Overall, my arguments document football's crucial role for modern Romanian nationalism.

Western Ukraine comprises those areas of Ukraine annexed by the Soviet Union after September 1939. They are (1) Galicia, made up of the Soviet oblasts of Lviv, Stanislav (now Ivano-Frankivsk), Drohobych (now part of Lviv oblast) and Ternopil; (2) Volynia, made up of Rivne and Volyn oblasts; (3) Bukovyna (Chernivtsi oblast); and (4) Transcarpathia (Zakarpatska oblast). In the interwar period, the Galician and Volynian territories were governed by Poland, Chernivtsi was part of Romania and Transcarpathia was ruled by Czechoslovakia. Whereas the former areas were all annexed by the USSR after the invasion of Eastern Poland in 1939, Transcarpathia became part of the Soviet Union only in June 1945.

When Kosovo declared its independence in 2008, it did so not as a nation-state, but as a “state of communities,” self-defining as multiethnic, diverse, and committed to extensive rights for minorities. In this paper, this choice is understood as a response to a dual legitimation problem. Kosovo experienced both an external legitimation challenge, regarding its contested statehood internationally, and an internal one, vis-à-vis its Serb minority. The focus on diversity and minority rights was expected to confer legitimacy on the state both externally and internally. International state-builders and the domestic political elite in post-conflict Kosovo both pursued this strategy. However, it inadvertently created an additional internal legitimation challenge, this time from within Kosovo's majority Albanian population. This dynamic is illustrated by the opposition movement “Lëvizja Vetëvendosje” (Self-Determination Movement), which rejects the framing of Kosovo as first and foremost a multiethnic state. The movement's counter-narrative represents an additional internal legitimation challenge to the new state. This paper thus finds that internationally endorsed “diversity management” through minority rights did not deliver as a panacea for the legitimacy dilemmas of the post-conflict polity. On the contrary, the “state of communities” continues to be contested by both majority and minority groups in Kosovo.

Croatian President Dr. Franjo Tudjman's announcement on 12 January 1995 that, as of 31 March, he was withdrawing Croatia's “hospitality” to the 12,000-person U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR), stationed in strategic locations on its territory, was a calculated gamble. As subsequent events showed, the risk was not as great as it first appeared. The departure of the UNPROFOR buffer force seemed, on the one hand, to expose Croatia and its army, the HV, to a resumption of hostilities with the rebel Serb forces of the self-proclaimed Republika Srpska Krajina (RSK) and their Serbian allies in Bosnia (RS—Republika Srpska) and, possibly, the rump Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia-Montenegro). The UNPROFOR presence had largely kept such hostilities in check since early 1992, and the outcome of their resumption was at best uncertain.

The consensus among specialists on the politics of socialist Yugoslavia and supporters of Slobodan Milošević is that he rose personally as the leader due to a broad appeal of his political programme. According to one version of the political programme thesis, Milošević overwhelmed his initially more powerful opponents in the leadership of Serbia in 1987 by obtaining majority support in higher ranks of the party for his nationalist programme, namely the reduction of autonomy of Kosovo. The other version of the thesis says that he extended nationalist appeals to the population at large and established control over party and state organs in the largest republic of federal Yugoslavia largely by bringing pressure from society on the political elite. In any case, Milošević emerged from the leadership struggle as a very powerful leader and was thus able to purge his rivals from the regional leadership and embark upon the implementation of a nationalist programme. The supporters of Milošević have largely agreed with the specialists. Borisav Jović, his right-hand man, claimed, “the removal of bureaucratic leadership of Serbia, which had subserviently accepted the division of Serbia in three parts,” to be one of their main achievements.

The situation of Hungarians in Slovakia since 1989 has developed in the context of the political and economic transitions of the region: from post-totalitarian states towards pluralist democracies, and from centrally-planned economies toward market systems. In addition, the end of Czechoslovakia as a united entity on December 31 1992, has directly affected the Hungarian nationality. These political, economic and social changes have had a direct impact on their situation in Slovakia.

Since independence in 1991, Central Asian countries have put great effort into creating their respective national narratives, which are often based on an ethnic imagination. In Tajikistan this included the idea of shaping society via the family unit. Increasingly, motherhood became the focus of attention, which was made possible by merging two concepts. On the one hand, women are considered as “cultured” and educated people who the Soviet Union freed from “backward” traditions. On the other hand, traditions were reinvented such that the woman is considered the ultimate mother of the nation and the backbone of tradition. This article examines the changing status of motherhood in society and politics through efforts to create a sound family and a healthy nation.

Yugoslavia's socialism was always a special case when compared with other states in the eastern part of Europe, and so was its religious policy. In the 1960s, Yugoslavia adopted a rather liberal stance towards its religious communities. The state interfered less in the internal affairs of the churches than it did in most states in the Warsaw Pact. Even Croat Cardinal Franjo Kuharić, who was otherwise very critical towards Tito's Yugoslavia, had to admit in 1987,

The Albanians are divided between three religions: the Catholics, the Orthodox, and the Muslims. The religious groups participated in the national development of the Albanians around 1900 each in its own way and in proportion to its own strength. As the majority group, the Muslims (70–80%) played the most important role. Most of the Muslims wanted to remain within the Ottoman Empire as long as their traditional rights were maintained, in spite of a strong desire for local self-government, but, as the Ottoman Empire declined, radical Albanian leaders stressing cultural and linguistic unity rather than religious unity were to gain the upper hand. The Albanian language, culture, and feeling of common blood played the most important roles in Albanian nationalism. The Albanian language in particular gave Albanians the feeling of belonging to the same nation.

In May 1989, two series of demonstrations in Turkish villages of northeast Bulgaria was followed by a massive gathering of more than 50,000 Muslim Turks in the town of Shumnu in the same area. The Turks had converged to Shumnu from the surrounding villages and smaller towns in order to protest the forced changes of names and the bulgarization imposed by the government of Todor Zhivkov, then undisputed ruler of Bulgaria. The demonstration was put down in the usual brutal Bulgarian way; some twenty to thirty-five demonstrators were killed and hundreds were injured. However, the Turks had made their point; they were not going to give up, however fierce the official terror, their Islamic identity and culture.

Communism in the Soviet Union has long served officially as religion's surrogate. It has offered an organized and compelling belief system with which to rationalize the misfortunes of the past, establish codes of behavior to manage the present, and conceptualize the future. Although communist theory categorically rejects religion, it actively promotes, and is itself predicated on, institutions of “faith” in the abstract sense. The herculean industrialization and literacy campaigns of the early decades of Soviet rule that forever transformed the USSR's largely illiterate, agricultural society vividly illustrate the power and popular legitimacy of communist institutions of “faith” such as the Party and the Komsomol. Trusting that earthly sacrifice will bring future rewards has been as much the basis of Soviet communism as it has been of the Abrahamic tradition of religion addressed in this issue.