ABSTRACT
The European political landscape consists of many small nation-states that tend to be viewed as ethnically homogeneous. In fact, few are, or ever were. They contain minority groups from neighboring countries, as Swedes in Finland and Turks in Greece; a mix of ethnicities, as in Russia or Bosnia-Hercegovina; minorities lacking their own state, as the Basques of Spain and France; and pan-European minorities, including jews and Gypsies (Roma). For transnational ethnic minorities, music is a marker of ethnic and cultural difference. It expresses a distinctive cultural identity, which becomes highly meaningful when that identity is suppressed, censored, or persecuted by the mainstream. For certain minorities, including the Saami of the Arctic, the Basques of the Iberian Peninsula, and the Celtic peoples of northwestern Europe, singing songs gives new life to ancient languages in danger of being lost and affords a sense of identity distinct from that of the nation-state in which they find themselves.
