hallenges, conflicts and opportunities. 100 years of state- and nationhood in Central and Eastern Europe
A century has passed since the end of WWI, which brought about the disintegration of the major European multi-ethnic empires and the formation of smaller nation-states in Central and Eastern Europe. While the settlement might have solved some conflicts, it certainly generated new tensions and challenges, some of them defining international and interstate relations, intrastate, interethnic and social processes for the 100 years to come. Cultural, linguistic, religious and ethnic diversity had become even more pronouncedly a key societal and discursive question, generating varied institutional and sociological responses. The 1989 post-communist regime changes added even more complexity to the question.
The main objective of this conference is to investigate both the newer and older, persisting challenges that Central and Eastern European societies and states face and to critically analyze how the CEE countries, many of whom celebrate the centenary of their statehood in the upcoming period, “came of age” as sovereign nation-states. Furthermore, the past century has been a quite intense period for some ethnic or national groups too, which ended up under the sovereignty of another state, where they did not constitute the “titular” nation. Some of these groups proved to be quite resilient, and kin-states sometimes engaged in (often quite intense and controversial) political action on their behalf. Focusing on ethnopolitics, nationalism, and populism, the conference aims to bring new added value to both to the historical assessments and the newer debates regarding these issues, focusing on Central and Eastern Europe.