ABSTRACT
In Chapter 5 (“Historical, Political and Social Contexts of Ethnic Minorities in Central and Eastern Europe”), all ethnic minority groups that the book is about will be described. It is explained that the specific ethnic minority groups were chosen because of their location at the borderland between the EU and the CIS region, which has been found particularly interesting for studying identities (Pfoser, 2014; Pichler, 2008a). For a better understanding of the minority groups’ current situations and the discussions regarding minority rights, the history of each minority is briefly described with a focus on immigration waves and changing frontiers in the 20th century. Furthermore, for each minority group, the recent development and currently debated issues of minority rights have been investigated, since – as the book later shows – minority rights are a crucial topic regarding issues of belonging of minority populations. Additionally, the readers should get an idea about how much each ethnic minority group is integrated into the ethnic majority society of their “resident” country because all aspects of my presented research are to some extent concerned with questions of assimilation and identity preservation.
