ABSTRACT
The collapse of communism delivered a profound shock to the foundations of statehood throughout Eastern, Central and Southeastern Europe, opening up questions of national identity and state borders. All three of the communist multinational federal states collapsed, changing what had formerly been internal administrative borders into the international borders of new ‘nation-states’ based more or less explicitly on the claim of the ethnic majority to ‘self-determination’. The question of the rights of minorities inevitably appeared again on the European security agenda, especially where newly formed minorities looked to their ethnic ‘motherland’ for support. Autonomist movements of Russians and Russian-speakers, backed more or less openly by Russia, challenged the integrity and security of the Baltic Republics and other new states formed on former Soviet territory. The break-up of Yugoslavia led to a series of exceptionally brutal ethnic wars over the borders of the states that emerged from the defunct federation. Even where borders were not in question, the fragile new democratic order offered opportunities for minorities to air long-suppressed grievances and stake their claims for enhanced political rights, including in some cases territorial autonomy. When such minorities received backing from a neighbouring ethnic ‘kin-state’, as was the case with Hungary and the Hungarian minorities, the prospect of renewed ethnic conflict engulfing the whole of the European Union’s post-communist neighbourhood set alarm bells ringing.
