The paper negotiates ideas, views and beliefs of Bulgarians towards the ethnic minorities of their country published in the Bulgarian press during the period of 2005–2009. Through these aspects it becomes clear that three years after Bulgaria's accession to the European Union and despite various state attempts to integrate minorities – mostly initiated and funded by the EU and various governmental and non-governmental organizations – prejudice and racism have not been overcome, the Other is still differentiated and the way to multiculturalism is very long. The research field is limited to the Turkish and the Roma minorities, which are “visible” in the sense that they are officially recognized.

Russian nationalists in the Soviet Union have, of course, always claimed to speak and act on behalf of the narod, the common folk, but the folk they have had in mind have been largely the inhabitants, and particularly the older inhabitants, of the fast-disappearing traditional Russian village. Aware that this narod has indeed been vanishing, Russian nationalist writers and publicists have stressed that the task at hand is to graft the “ethics and esthetics,” the accumulated wisdom and mores of this traditionalist populace, onto the life of deracinated modern Soviet man. The really existing and largely urbanized Russian narod—factory workers, miners, truck drivers, cashiers, and waitresses—has remained beyond the purview of most nationalists, with the exception of a few like the gifted writer and filmmaker Vasilii Shukshin (d. 1974), who focused upon the plight of a people torn away from its roots.

Professor Altschuler launched his discussion of the volatile status of Jews living in the USSR by challenging the popular understanding of ‘Soviet Jewry.’ Fundamental questions arise: how many Soviet Jews are there? What are the various types of Jewish communities within the Soviet Union, and how do they differ one from another? What are the distinguishing cultural activities of Soviet Jews? and what is the status of their emigration from the USSR?

In early 1992, the “three m's” (tri m), which denoted a multicultural, multiethnic, and multiconfessional Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), became the rallying cry against the forces of disintegration, or more accurately, of partition. These identifying characteristics or national ideals could not avert catastrophe. Indeed, BiH's liminal position at the crossroads of cultures, religions, and history rendered it the most vulnerable of republics in the Yugoslav wars of succession. However “three m” Bosnia and Herzegovina was in 1992, it was less so by 1995. Yet, despite the bloodshed, forced expulsions, migrations, and the inevitable rise in nationalism, citizens of BiH have no choice, in the aftermath, but to examine what their country was before the war and the potential for a new “multi-multi” Bosnia and Herzegovina. Such an investigation must begin with the past, as a Sarajevan colleague implied when I asked her how she envisioned the future in Bosnia. She replied that Bosnians could hardly conceive a future when in 1998 they still had no idea what had happened, and why. This work addresses the reality behind the epithets that gained currency during and after the war, of a “three-m,” “multi-multi,” and multi-kulti (multicultural) Bosnia and Herzegovina. Within the framework of a particular understanding of multiculturalism, it will suggest why, despite its multiethnic and multiconfessional reality, BiH proved in many instances vulnerable to nationalistic rhetoric. This analysis proceeds from the conviction that multiculturalism must be both studied and encouraged in the international community's efforts to support the growth of democratic institutions and practices in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In September 2014, the people of Scotland voted on whether or not to become an independent state. The consequences of independence would have been complex –decisions about accession to the EU, currency union, defense. Seemingly less dramatic, yet no less important, are the consequences of Scotland not seceding — the effects in global law and politics of the very fact that the referendum happened, and that it failed. Many elements of the Scottish case find close parallels in claims for secession elsewhere in the world. Yet those claims more often meet less welcoming receptions. Indeed, it is not the attempt to secede, but the existing state's acquiescence that marks this case as different: The UK is the rare country that acknowledges the possibility of its own division. Great Britain's acquiescence both made Scottish secession possible and made it an outlier, whose precedential value must be closely interrogated. The key missing element is any evidence that the process was shaped by a sense of international legal obligation — indeed, the pathways of Scottish secession have been an insular affair, a function of particularly British law and politics, in which international law played little role. This article argues that the Scottish referendum provides little precedent for a changing legal norm — yet also offers a compelling model for how such a new norm ought to look. This article is about something that did not happen, and why it does not matter — but also why precisely that is so important.