In a time of international crisis, a small group of Polish Communist intellectuals on Soviet territory, with approval from the Stalinist government, harnessed the national myths of a people faced with total destruction in the name of fascist Aryan supremacy. These intellectuals, ethnic Poles and Polish Jews, rejected, revitalized, or revolutionized old national myths and created a new mythology. They coordinated their efforts closely with the anti-Hitlerite National Front Strategy adopted by the Comintern following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June, 1941. They sincerely, albeit naïvely, believed that their creation manifestly assured the Poles of their national identity. They also believed that the new mythology promised not only the survival of an honorable people but also the rebirth of their state in a brighter future in solidarity with fellow Slavs, and ultimately with the Stalinist Soviet state which they admired.

The problem raised in the title of the paper asks for an answer on two levels: how did the relationships between these two entities work out 1) on the administrative level–the day-to-day relationships and 2) on the ideological/political one. I shall be very brief in answering the first problem and somewhat more lengthy in answering the second one. My reasons for doing so may become obvious as I go along.

A recent investigation of attitudes among nationalities living in Ukraine reveals a low level of tolerance and high level of hostility towards the non-Slavic nationalities. This was the foremost conclusion of Dr. Valentin Sazhin, who surveyed 10,000 residents of Ukraine on matters relating to ethnicity. Dr. Sazhin based his presentation on the findings from this investigation.

During the last three years, extensive academic as well as public discussions of national minorities’ rights have taken place in Poland. Scholars can be roughly divided into a pro-national minorities rights group and an anti-national minorities rights group. Some strive to reconcile these two disparate positions. Similar groups can be found in the Sejm (Polish Parliament) which has been discussing the draft of a law on national minorities since Autumn 1993. This brief article investigates the situation of national minorities in Poland ever since a “specific” policy towards ethnic minorities was carried out in Poland by communist governments (though it focuses primarily on the German minority). It also reviews changes in the official policy of the Polish government, the Sejm, and assesses the prospects for the adoption of a Minorities Law, by discussing the major arguments of those groups proposing national minorities rights and those of its opponents.

Capital cities play an integral role in the construction of national identity. This is particularly true when the capital is the country's only major urban center. Over the course of its history, Mongolia's capital of Ulaanbaatar has been periodically reshaped to reflect competing trajectories of national culture. This article examines the evolving symbolism of architecture, urban design, and public space in Ulaanbaatar as a means of exploring Mongolia's complex negotiation between its traditional culture (mobile pastoralism and Shamanism/Buddhism), its socialist legacy, and globalization. Amidst the rampant social change of the last two decades, rather ambiguous national narratives have emerged in Mongolia. Like the capital's cityscape, these narratives reflect aspects of both recent and distant pasts, as well as contemporary economic, political, and social realities. This article reveals how increasingly palpable global economic and cultural practices are fomenting material change in the current phase of Ulaanbaatar's evolution. A combination of secondary source research and observations drawn from several months of fieldwork provide the basis for a discussion of the city's role as a forum for cultural contestation and national reform.

This article explores the policies of Nazi Germany towards the Karaites, a group of Jewish ancestry which emerged during the seventh to the ninth centuries CE, when its followers rejected the mainstream Jewish interpretation of Tanakh. Karaite communities flourished in Persia, Turkey, Egypt, Crimea, and Lithuania. From 1938 to 1944, the Nazi bureaucracy and scholarship examined the question of whether the Karaites were of Jewish origin, practiced Judaism and had to be treated as Jews. Because of its proximity to Judenpolitik and later to the Muslim factor, the subject got drawn into the world of Nazi grand policy and became the instrument of internecine power struggles between various agencies in Berlin. The Muslim factor in this context is construed as German cultivation of a special relationship with the Muslim world with an eye to political dividends in the Middle East and elsewhere. Nazi views of the Karaites’ racial origin and religion played a major role in their policy towards the group. However, as the tides of the war turned against the Germans, various Nazi agencies demonstrated growing flexibility either to re-tailor the Karaites’ racial credentials or to entirely gloss over them in the name of “national interests,” i.e. a euphemism used to disguise Nazi Germany's overtures to the Muslim world.