ABSTRACT
The proliferation of often violent ethnic conflicts in Eastern and Southeastern Europe since the end of the Cold War has prompted some scholars and journalists to advocate compulsory population exchanges as means of settling such disputes. 1 In particular, Yugoslavia's brutal disintegration and descent into war prompted many to question the validity of preserving multinational regimes in the face of nationalist challenges. The logic behind such positions is straightforward: if groups can no longer live together, it is preferable to facilitate their separation along territorial and demographic lines, rather than risk suffering the potentially horrendous consequences associated with trying to force their continued coexistence. In the words of Chaim Kaufmann, a leading proponent of partition and 'engineered ethnic unmixing':
Kaufmann and others cite the 1923 Greek-Turkish exchange of populations and the post-World War II compulsory transfer of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe as examples of the type of solutions the international community ought to emulate.3 They argue that in both cases, compulsory population transfers led to interstate peace and the successful incorporation of the expellees. Hence, the Greek-Turkish and German examples might
serve as 'blueprints' for contemporary decision-makers grappling with similar kinds of conflicts.
