The relationship between Islam and ethnicity has generally been studied almost exclusively from a theoretical (theological) and/or practical (historical) viewpoint of the Muslims themselves. If we observe this problem from another point of view, that of the Islamized natives, we discover that there exists a tacit consensus as to the three levels or degrees according to which Islamized peoples can be classified: (a) a maximum or even total confluence of Islam and ethnicity, as in the Arab lands and in Daghestan; (b) a partial distinction between Islam and ethnicity, stemming from a certain ‘ethnicization’ of Islam, as in Shia Iran; and (c) a somewhat vague decentralization between these two focal points, as in Turkestan, Subsaharan Africa and Southeast Asia.

In early 1983 I concluded my book on Iu. V. Andropov with the prediction: “This is how Andropov's country will advance toward its own 1984 which hopefully will not correspond to Orwell's description.” Scarcely one year later the Soviet Union did actually enter 1984 — both in the chronological and in the profounder sense — but without Andropov. And it probably happened against Andropov's desires and expectations.

The development of new states in Central and Eastern Europe during the inter-war period was an enthusiastic attempt to build free and democratic societies, which unfortunately was soon followed by a sense of disappointment among both the public and political elites. This eventually led to the replacement of the young democracies with authoritarian regimes in Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and other countries. I explore this growth of anti-democratic tendencies through the case of Latvian democracy and its opponents in the 1920s and early 1930s. I particularly focus on the role of the nationalist intelligentsia as the author of anti-democratic and pro-authoritarian political ideas.

During the early post-war years (1944–1948), the newly established communist regimes in Eastern Europe followed the Soviet example. They honoured figures and events from their respective national pasts, and celebrated holidays dedicated to anti-fascist resistance and popular uprisings, which they presented as forerunners of the new, bright and prosperous “democratic” era. Hungarian communists celebrated 15 March and commemorated 6 October, both recalling the national struggle for independence in 1848; they celebrated a martyr cult of fallen communists presented as national heroes, and “nationalized” socialist holidays, such as May Day. In the centenary of 1848 they linked national with social demands. In the “struggle for the soul of the nation,” Czech communists also extensively celebrated anniversaries and centenaries, especially in 1948, which saw the 600th anniversary of the founding of Prague's Charles University, the 100th anniversaries of the first All-Slav Congress (held in Prague) and the revolution of 1848, the 30th anniversary of the founding of an independent Czechoslovakia, and the 10th anniversary of the Munich Accords. National holidays related to anti-fascist resistance movements were celebrated in Croatia, Slovenia, and Macedonia; dates related to the overthrow of fascism, implying the transition to the new era, were celebrated in Romania, Albania, and Bulgaria.

The history of modern Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) is a history of referenda. The referendum as a tool to shape the political fate and future of a particular society has seemingly always been an integral part of the Bosnian past. The first two referenda in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the beginning of the so-called “democratic era” following the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia marked the beginning of a period of war and violence in the country. The referendum in November 1991, organized by the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) and asking participants about the status of BiH within the Yugoslav federation, was the first step toward the formation of Republika Srpska (RS). On the other side, the referendum in March 1992 about the question of independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina from Yugoslavia, which was attended by Bosnian Muslims and Croats and boycotted by the Serbs, plunged Bosnia into war.

Estonia enjoys a very delicate geographic position. It is located not just in the neighborhood of Russia, which is modernizing or Westernizing with fluctuating success, but it is situated strategically on the border of two civilizations reminiscent of Samuel P. Huntington's thought-provoking article in the journal Foreign Affairs. However, Estonia has not become a borderland in the classical meaning of the term since the country belongs historically and integrally to the sphere of the so-called Lutheran-German civilization. For centuries this has blocked attempts from the East to incorporate the northern Baltics (which include Finland) into the Orthodox-Slavic Eastern civilization. In the context of conflicting civilizations, each such invasion has been not so much an ethnic matter but rather one of clashing civilizations and of a choice between two competing civilizations. In the last couple of years, Europe has once again witnessed the failure of one more Eastern assault that was launched with the signing in 1939 of the Hitler-Stalin agreement, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

The fiftieth anniversary of the formation of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics has come and gone in 1972, but the grave problems concerning the “national question” in this multi-national state have not withered away. On the contrary, they have become more acute; the “national question” is far from solved. no matter what the official line from the Kremlin tries to present. The dissatisfaction with Moscow's policies towards the non-Russian nationalities has assumed the form of anti-Kremlin dissent, or, rather, opposition. Voices in defense of national rights, traditions and languages are being heard in several non-Russian Republics. In Ukraine, the largest non-Russian Republic, this opposition is being forged into a new. twentieth century National Renaissance. One of the leading figures of this movement is Va1entyn Moroz. This paper is devoted to him.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a body of scholarship arose which effectively bypassed Miroslav Hroch's work on the emergence of small nations. Rogers Brubaker, Yuri Slezkine and Ronald Suny, among others, persuasively argued that Soviet nationalities policies shaped the ethnogeographic make-up of the post-Soviet space some sixty or seventy years later: it had become literally almost unimaginable to conceive of national affiliation outside of institutionalized forms. This analysis also convincingly accounted for the relative weakness of ethnic Russian identity in contrast to the assertive nationalism of non-Russian nationalities around the time of the USSR's collapse. The Kuban’ Cossacks – an ethnocultural community in the south of Russia – never had official recognition as a Soviet nationality. Hroch's framework can be applied to show their clearly national characteristics and, indeed, their progress towards nationhood around the turn of the twentieth century. By reclaiming Hroch's framework for the post-Soviet context, and combining it with later scholarship, we are able to identify this process for the first time, and thus further refine our understanding of the nation-formation processes within Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union.