Identities in Central and Eastern Europe

The Construction and Interplay of European, National and Ethnic Identities

Natalia Waechter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780815383161
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351206495
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Civil Rights in Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Numerous historical and political processes and dynamics have led to the emergence of ethnic minority groups in Central and Eastern Europe, each with its own long history and identity. The breakdown of the Soviet regime, the establishment of new nation-states, and the Eastern enlargement of the European Union have raised new questions for these ethnic groups, questions regarding their feelings of belonging and the main elements of their identity.

In contrast to the common assumption that ethnic identities have become prevalent having been suppressed for a long time, this book provides empirical evidence that ethnic minorities typically relate to both their ethnic identity and to the national identity of their country of residence. The contributions reveal that the development and maintenance of ethnic, national and European identities are linked to the socio-economic situation and possible benefits for individuals, their countries, or their specific ethnic minority group. The book also highlights that national and European politics may contribute to ethnic and European identification, particularly in the fields of minority rights (e.g. language rights, voting rights) and integration policies. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Identities journal.

European, national and ethnic identities in Central and Eastern Europe

Natalia Waechter

This book challenges the concept of fluidity and flexibility of identities by demonstrating that ‘new’ European identity is not easily adopted and that the co-existence of ethnic and national identities is an ongoing process of negotiation. The theoretical approach assuming multiple identities can be confirmed for ethnic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe who were often thought to be focused on ethnic identities. The book provides empirical quantitative and qualitative evidence for showing that ethnic minorities typically relate to their ethnic identity and to the national identity of their residence country simultaneously. The individual chapters reveal that the development and maintenance of ethnic, national and European identities are often linked to the socio-economic situation and possible benefits. Furthermore, the book highlights that national and European politics, above all minority rights and integration policies, may contribute to ethnic and European identification.

Theoretical objectives: the construction and interplay of territorial identities

There are many different historical and political processes and dynamics throughout past centuries that have led to the emergence of ethnic minority groups in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), with each ethnic minority group having its own long history of events and processes. About two decades ago the fall of the Iron Curtain, along with the establishment of new nation-states, was responsible for large groups of people becoming ethnic minorities within the same areas but now in different nation-states. Many members of ethnic minorities who live in the new borderlands of the ‘enlarged’ European Union (EU) have not changed their residence but one day found themselves living in another country. Over the past 20 years the political and economic dynamics have also produced massive migration flows in that part of Europe. Altogether, 8–10 million people, who now belong to ethnic minorities throughout CEE, have been affected by these historical changes (Chvorostov 2011). New questions arose regarding their feelings of belonging and their main elements of identification. However, there is not enough empirical evidence yet, especially regarding ethnic, national and regional (local and European) identities, of how people develop and negotiate those different identities, how those identities interact with each other, and which factors influence their emergence and maintenance. Furthermore, identity research has not considered ethnic minority populations much in CEE, which constitute a large proportion of the whole population in this region. This book contributes to identity research of ethnic minorities in addressing the construction and interplay of European, national, ethnic, and regional identities (summarised in the following as ‘territorial’ identities) of those population groups. Thus, it focuses on new empirical findings regarding the construction of ethnic, national and European identities in CEE by applying a bottom-up approach. The articles aim at a deeper understanding of the ways in which modern European identities and regional cultures are formed and intercommunicated in the Eastern part of the European continent. They address how ethnic minority groups constitute and negotiate ethnic, national and European identities through narratives, experiences and practices. This book also applies a strong comparative focus. The authors show and explain how and why the processes of identity formation and relationships differ between the ethnic minority groups investigated as well as present generational dynamics that occur in the Eastern European borderland.

In social science, ‘identity’ has become one of the core concepts for describing people’s feelings of belonging and of who they are and how they see themselves. One can observe that the constructivist approach and individualisation theory has influenced the development of theories of identity. The previously predominating concepts of identity, also called ‘strong’ concepts, have been replaced by ‘weak’ concepts. These ‘weak’, ‘fluid’ or ‘flexible’ versions of identity do not assume a fundamental and durable sense of selfhood anymore, but stress fluidity, impermanence, complexity and context sensitivity of identities rather than the existence of stable and fixed identities (e.g. Bauman 2004). It is assumed that identities are constructed in multiple ways and that the process of identity construction is never completed. They are part of an ongoing process of emerging, changing and redesigning. Identities in the weak version are not a state but a whole package of processes. It is often stressed that individuals have multiple or hybrid identities and that even within one setting they may draw on a range of identities. Applying this concept specifically to territorial identity, its idea of multiplicity means that there are several political units that people feel attached to at the same time. This concept could be applied especially to members of migrant populations assuming that they are able to identify with their home nation and their host nation. Depending on the context or situation, one of the two identities may become salient. However, there have been doubts as to whether the concept of multiple identities is also appropriate for ethnic minority populations in CEE after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It has been argued that in the Soviet regime ethnic groups had been oppressed from living their own culture and from representing themselves. After so many years of oppression, ethnic groups who could not form a new nation-state were assumed to have risen because they had been held together by ‘robust and deeply rooted identities’ (Brubaker and Cooper 2000, 26). Brubaker and Cooper have challenged this view by arguing that these ethnic minorities may be formally categorised as such but may have a different self-understanding in which identification with the ‘host’ nation becomes more salient than their ethnic identification (Brubaker and Cooper 2000). By exploring and investigating empirically how members of ethnic minorities in CEE construct and negotiate their identities, the chapters in this book confirm the concept of multiple identities but they cannot clearly support the assumption of flexible identities. The chapter by Cebotari shows explicitly that most members of ethnic minority groups have developed a multiple, hybrid type of identity, relating to their ethnic identity and to the national identity of their country of residence at the same time.

Other than the question of whether identities have to be considered strong and stable, or flexible and multiple, this book contributes to the discussion about (further) ways in which different identities are related to each other and which factors lead to the emergence of different types of identities. One can identify different, partly contradictory approaches regarding the relationship between different kinds of territorial identities. Some scholars state that local, national and European identities do not contradict each other but are complementary (Bruter 2004; Castano 2004) with some authors considering national identity a condition for the development of European identity. For example, Risse (2005) argues that European identity is embedded in national identity, which leads him to conclude that the compatibility between European identity and national identities varies by country. Others assume that identities are competing and may prevent others from becoming salient, for example, that national identity prevents European identity (Smith 1992). Cinpoes (2008), in contrast, argues that nationalism but not national identity hinders the development of European identity. In a similar vein, generally assuming that national and European identities are compatible, Jiménez et al. (2004) found that strong feelings of national pride inhibit European identity. Regarding the relationship of ethnic and national identities, Verkuyten and Yildiz (2007) showed that ethnic identification hinders national identification. The different approaches have been summarised into the two assumptions that identities are either ‘nested’ (interlinked like a marble cake (Risse 2005)) or separated. The chapter by Tchistiakova and Waechter is particularly concerned with the relationship between different kinds of identities and investigates whether for members of ethnic minorities national identity supports or prevents European identity. The relationship of identities is also addressed by Cebotari’s chapter.

Scholars focusing on the emergence of identities have developed different ideas of which conditions identities are more likely to develop under. A range of assumptions exists about which factors support the emergence of territorial identities. Some authors found that identities concern us in our daily lives and become part of our individual interactions in order to evolve (e.g. Spannring, Waechter, and Datler 2005), that they are more likely to become noticeable if they promise personal benefits (e.g. Jiménez et al. 2004), particular economic benefits (Verhaegen, Hooghe, and Quintelier 2014; Gabel and Palmer 1995), that they depend on strong feelings of belonging and emotional attachment (e.g. Pichler 2005), and that their presence is only situational and depends on the specific context (Haußer 1995). ln this book the authors refer to the approaches mentioned but also analyse further possible factors leading to the emergence of identities. Two articles investigate the impact of economic and social benefits and the role of minority rights (Waechter) and ethnic discrimination (Tchistiakova and Waechter) on the development of national and European identities, and Örkeny and Székelyi analyse the role of language and the social network.

The challenge in researching the different ‘territorial’ identities addressed is that they have different backgrounds (based on historical, cultural and political processes) but overlapping meanings. There is not even a commonly used term for that group of identities that refers to common culture and history, a political entity, a geographic region or to some of these aspects at the same time. Some have called them spatial and territorial (Kaplan 1999), geographically based or defined (Miller et al. 2012), or, more commonly, civic and political. National identities, as well as European identity, combine civic and political as well as cultural and ethnic elements. As with nations (which in western societies are considered as civic unities held together based on shared democratic values), so European identity has also been described, above all, as a civic one. However, European identity is also believed to have common cultural aspects (e.g. common history and culture based on Christianity and Humanism) and ethnic aspects (‘unity in diversity’). The chapter by Waechter particularly explores the development of European identity among members of different ethnic minority groups showing that ethnic as well as cultural, political and socio-economic aspects play a role.

The ENRI-East project: empirical design

This book was developed in the course of the European sociological, anthropological and political science research project ENRI-East: European, National and Regional Identities 2008–2011).¹ The aim of the project – to understand processes of identity construction of members of ethnic minorities – required the development of new empirical instruments based on ‘mainstream’ quantitative and qualitative methods. Data collection took place in the border regions of the EU which are the local regions within the nation-states where ethnic minorities constitute a high proportion of the local p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. European, national and ethnic identities in Central and Eastern Europe
• 2. Civic, ethnic, hybrid and atomised identities in Central and Eastern Europe
• 3. Constructing border ethnic identities along the frontier of Central and Eastern Europe
• 4. How national identification matters: the development of European identification among established ethnic minority groups
• 5. Formation of European identity: ethnic minority groups in Central and Eastern Europe in generational perspective
• Index