By the year 1453, when the vestigial remains of the Byzantine Empire were destroyed with the fall of Constantinople, much of the Balkan peninsula was already in the hands of the conquering Ottoman Turks. The overthrow of Byzantium in that year was the capstone in a century-long process that transformed an originally militant Muslim Anatolian border emirate into a powerful Muslim empire that straddled two continents and represented a major contender in contemporary European great power politics. Over half of the population subject to the Ottoman sultan were Christian European inhabitants of the Balkans: Greeks, Serbs, Vlahs, Albanians and Bulgarians. With the conquest of Constantinople, Sultan Mehmed II Fatih, the victorious Turkish ruler, faced the quarrelsome problem of devising a secure means of governing his vast, Muslim-led empire that contained a highly heterogeneous non-Muslim population.

I

Zu dem historischen Erbe, das die Sowjetmacht im Jahre 1917 antrat und mit dem sie sich auseinanderzusetzen hatte, gehörte nicht zuletzt das ungelöste Nationalitätenproblem — in rückschauender Perspektive sicherlich eines der säkularen Probleme der russischen und sowjetischen Gesellschaft. Die bolschewistische Partei hat es bei der Entwicklung ihrer Programmatik stets reflektiert, und Lenin verfügte im Gegensatz zu Marx und Engels über ein vergleichsweise feines Sensorium für die politische Bedeutung der Nationalitätenfrage. Vor dem Hintergrund der späteren Erfahrungen (vor allem im 2. Weltkrieg) erscheint die Entwicklung der sowjetischen Nationalitäten in den 20er Jahren als eine Periode der nationalen Konsolidierung: Die Politik der Bolschewiki setzte hier Kräfte frei, die lange Zeit unterdrückt waren und nun eine enorme Dynamik entfalteten. Die Mobilisierung der sowjetischen Nationalitäten verlief dabei übrigens weitgehend parallel zur allgemeinen Bildungs- und Kulturpolitik. Der zügige Aufbau des Bildungswesens, die Verbreitung der Kulturtechniken und der Medien etc. hatte allerdings mehr noch als im eigentlichen Russland neben der sozialen Mobilisierungsfunktion eine national-kompensatorische Bedeutung. Dieser Nebeneffekt war keineswegs erwünscht und die immer stärkere funktionale Ausrichtung der Bildungspolitik auf das Industrialisierungsprogramm machte sie zunehmend zu einer als eher hinderlich empfundenen Begleiterscheinung. In den 30er Jahren dienten die ehemaligen “Randgebiete” des zaristischen Russland vornehmlich als Rohstofflieferanten einer zügig aufgebauten Industrie im europäischen Teil der Sowjetunion.

Right at the start, one word in the title of this special topic issue requires clarification: the word “minority.” We will not try to define the term here, but it is only fair to say that some of the groups which are mentioned or discussed are not recognized as minorities or have a rather dubious legal position, as, for example, the Kashubs and Lemkos in Poland or Macedonians in Greece. As to the notion of linguistic minority: it is a term very often used but rarely defined. That it is often used has to do with the fact that most minorities in Europe speak a language or a dialect or variant which discriminates them from the majority. As a matter of fact, the nationalist traditions in Europe seem to take more or less for granted that a minority without a separate language is not a real minority. Language questions have been in the forefront of most nation-building projects or ethnic mobilizations in Europe, and so it has become more or less axiomatic that every nation or ethnic group should have its own language. As an example, the Bosnian language may be cited. The Bosnians—or rather the Bosniaks—insist on naming the language they use Bosnian instead of, as before, Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian. They also insist on their right to standardize their language in their own fashion. Another good example is the Rusyn language, or rather—to be more precise—the Rusyn languages in the Carpathian area. As Rusyns, not Ukrainians, they are now trying to create their own standard language or languages on the basis of their own dialects. The Rusyns in Yugoslavia started this process earlier; consequently, the Rusyn language of Yugoslavia is now to be considered one of the standard Slavic languages.

This article concerns collective identities in the context of EU enlargement and the post-Soviet transition of Estonian society, particularly of the two main ethno-linguistic groups: ethnic Estonians and the Russian-speaking population in Estonia. The empirical basis of the study is formed by factor structures of self-identification. The data were obtained from nationally representative surveys carried out in 2002, before Estonia joined the EU, and in 2005. The thinking patterns behind the structures of self-categorization are discussed mainly on the basis of theoretical concepts of individualization and transition culture. For background information, comparative data collected in Latvia (2006) and in Sweden (2003) are used. The survey results reveal that in the post-communist transformation, EU integration and spread of global mass culture have homogenized the mental patterns of the Estonians and the Russians. It is characteristic of post-communist Estonia that both minority and majority groups have utilized trans-national and civic identity and individualistic patterns of self-identification in terms of (sub)culture and social and material achievement, extracted from social norms and existing structures. Surveys confirm that for political actors in both Estonia and Russia it is hardly possible any more to create a common umbrella identity for the Russians in Estonia—the self-designation patterns of the Estonian Russians have been emancipated during the transition period.

The aim of this article is to analyze changes in the ethnic structure in the Baltics. The publication of the results of the 1989 Census data allows one to analyze the dynamics of ethnic structure in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania since the 1920s. The restoration of the de jure independence of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia allows one to describe accurately the factual ethno-demographic situation, because it has made available information which could not be published openly in the former USSR. Nevertheless, a major problem is posed by territorial alterations, especially in Lithuania.