Lecture 7

                     Post-communist construction of new 'nationalising' states

                                             1989-1991

*      The collapse of communism

*      The collapse of the Soviet Bloc:

*      Polish Solidarnosc; Czechoslovak Civic Union; East German Civic Forum; Bulgarian Democratic
Union; Romanian Salvation front; the case of the Balts; end of the Warsaw Pact and Comecon

*      Break-up of multinational states:

*      Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia

*      Construction of new states





                                        The fall of the USSR





                                   Majority and minority nations

*      Difference between state-building and nation-building

*      Pierre van den Berghe: `nation-states' are killing machines, led by small groups of people
(elites), who steal from all others Once you define the nationalist state as the only legitimate
form of state power, it means that anybody who is not of the nation (i.e. of the founding nation, of
the dominant ethnic group in the state) is superfluous, does not fit in, and has to be eliminated
one way or the other

                                    `Nationalising' nationalism

*      Rogers Brubaker:

*      a nationalizing state is understood as "the state of and for a particular ethnocultural `core
nation' whose language, culture, demographic position, economic welfare and political hegemony must
be protected and promoted by the state



                                            case-study:

*      the break-up of Yugoslavia and 'ethnic cleansing'







                                       Next week's readings:

*      From Xenophobia and Post-socialism (Pajnik, ed.) read Tanya Lokshina "Hate speech in Russia"
pp. 89-108 (parts for review)

*      Pdf files for review