Iran is a multi-ethnic society in which approximately 50% of its citizens are of non-Persian origin, yet researchers commonly use the terms Persians and Iranians interchangeably, neglecting the supra-ethnic meaning of the term Iranian for many of the non-Persians in Iran. The largest minority ethnic group in Iran is the Azerbaijanis (comprising approximately a third of the population) and other major groups include the Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis and Turkmen. Iran's ethnic groups are particularly susceptible to external manipulation and considerably subject to influence from events taking place outside its borders, since most of the non-Persians are concentrated in the frontier areas and have ties to co-ethnics in adjoining states, such as Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

The literature on collective memories in the Baltic states often stresses the irreconcilable division between Russian and Baltic official interpretations of the Second World War. This paper seeks to challenge this popular notion of two polemic collective memories – “Latvian” and “Russian”. While there is evidence that Latvia's Russian-speakers are heavily influenced by Russian cultural and political discourses, I will argue that the actual positions taken up by Russian-speakers are more nuanced than a crude Latvian–Russian dichotomy would suggest.

Based on survey data collected at the site of the 2011 Victory Day celebrations in Riga, this paper points to the germane existence of a partial “democratization of history” among Latvia's Russian-speakers, typified by an increasing willingness to countenance and take stock of alternative views of history. Through an examination of the data it will be argued that such tentative steps towards a democratization of history are most visible among the younger cohort of Russian-speakers, whose collective memory-myths have been tempered by their dual habitation of the Latvian, as well as Russian, mythscapes. In order to more fully understand this process both bottom-up and top-down pressures will be examined.

In Kazakstan, there are currently over sixty known oil and natural gas fields, including five sedimentary basins with a potentially large amount of proven and expected gas and oil bearing seams. The largest and best known are the Caspian (Prikaspiiski), South Mangishlak (Uzhno-Mangishlakski), Ustiurt-Buzachi (Ustiurtsko-Buzachinski), Torgai (Torgaiski), and Chu-Sarisu (Chu-Sarisuiski). Kazakstan is ranked twenty-fourth among the world's 55 oil-producing countries by many analysts. It has about 60 billion barrels of oil reserves. Indeed, it has been estimated by many of the same analysts that the offshore fields in the Caspian Sea, which borders Kazakstan's western territory, contain at least 26.6 billion barrels of extractable oil reserves. Yet in 1994, according to an article in Oil and Gas Journal, the government of the United States stated that it “does not consider Kazakstan as the most important source of oil supplies for the United States; however, Kazakstan might play [an] important role in reduction of the [sic] oil price.” Oil is a vital resource for Kazakstan and its extraction will play a major role in fostering the country's future development and relations with major oil consumers. Accurately estimating Kazakstan's reserves, and its ability to sell it on the world market, remains a major concern for Almaty.

In much of the already vast and expanding literature on nationalism there is an understandable emphasis on its political dimensions. It is generally seen as the ideological mobilization of an essentially cultural national identity—which may or may not be considered pre-existing—for the purposes of attaining sovereign state power, or in some other way influencing and affecting state power, for example attaining greater rights or autonomy within the state. Where there are no such demands directed at the state, such an understanding implies that either we are not dealing with a nation, or we are dealing with one that is still unconscious of its nationhood or that is satisfied without any political expression of that nationhood. None of these cases, in any event, would normally be considered examples of nationalism, since nationalism by definition must demand, indeed is the demand for such state expression or recognition of nationality. As John Breuilly puts it: nationalism is “above and beyond all else, about politics, and … politics is about power.”

The following tables have been compiled on the basis of published census data. In many instances this has necessitated explanatory footnotes for the following reasons:

1. The oldest census results used in the tables are taken from the 1910 Austrian and Hungarian census based on “language” and “religion” categories. The later census results are usually based on declared “nationality.” A significant consequence of this difference is that in the Austrian and Hungarian census Jews can be found either among the German- or the Hungarian-speaking population, while in subsequent census results they are always designated a separate “nationality.” For this reason, additional information is provided in some of the footnotes regarding the Jews.

The events presently taking place in the Baltic are so interesting that I am almost prepared to cede my time to Alex Shtromas. Pamiat’ is clearly a less intriguing phenomenon than the issues he has been discussing.

I have been asked to talk about Pamiat’ as a social movement and basically my response is that it is not one. It is not a social movement. Pamiat’ would like very much to be one, but recent events have made clear that the response of ethnic Russians living in the RSFSR to Pamiat’ has been very restrained. We know this due to various polls which have been published in the Soviet press and due to the elections to the USSR Congress of People's Deputies, which showed that Pamiat’ had little support. I suspect that the upcoming elections in March 1990 to the RSFSR Supreme Soviet will also demonstrate the same lack of support for Pamyat'. (They did so, conclusively.)

This article takes a subjective approach to studying norm compliance in order to determine how EU conditionality and Russia's activism have affected elite attitudes toward minority policies, majority–minority relations, and language use in Estonian society in the post-accession period. The results of a Q method study and semi-structured interviews with integration elites in spring 2008 reveal four distinct viewpoints. The study casts doubt upon the success of EU conditionality in Estonia by demonstrating that European minority rights norms remain contested and have not been internalized by a substantial portion of elites. In addition, the study points to an important role for Russia's activism in the development of a more inclusive society. Russia's activism actually works against minority integration by reinforcing pre-existing domestic norms that are not compatible with European minority rights standards and by aggravating tensions over history and language, which frustrate integration efforts. This article ultimately contributes to studies on the effects of international pressure on minority integration by pointing to the need for greater attention to the ways in which multiple actors at both the international and domestic levels structure the influence of EU conditionality.

How do I define Azerbaijani women's identity? This is very complicated, because we have been influenced by Russia, Iran, Turkey, the Caucasus and Islam … Every day we have to wear different masks and juggle multiple identities. You cannot find a single or typical Azeri female identity. You cannot generalize any type to the whole population of Azeri women since we vary so much.