Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book diverges from the more conventional accounts of postcommunism and seeks to explain the transition from communism to democracy by magnifying one major element of the transition process - the nation and its identity. It is concerned with the relationship between nationalism and democracy in a particular setting: the larger framework is postcommunist Eastern and Central Europe, the focus is on newly independent democracies, explored through the case studies of Slovakia and Slovenia. The broad range of factors taken into consideration indicates that the book adopts if not a sympathetic, but an objective attitude to nationalism which it views, for better or worse, as an integral part of the turbulent and all-encompassing changes in new states, seeking a direction, for the first time under democratic conditions.