Looking beyond the Nation State: A Baltic Vision for National Minorities between the Wars

Abstract

The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union have again brought minorities in Central and Eastern Europe to the forefront of international attention and have generated renewed interest in the region's history between the two world wars. For all this, the continuing focus on conflictual aspects has obscured the efforts made at the time to build genuinely multicultural societies on the ruins of the old empires. This article examines an idea which was central to this endeavour, namely the principle of non-territorial cultural autonomy. The idea, originating with the Austro-Marxists Karl Renner and Otto Bauer, was uniquely adopted in the New Europe after the first world war by the Baltic countries, most notably Estonia. The doctrine recognized that the complex patterns of historical settlement in Central and Eastern Europe precluded a solution to nationality conflicts through the redrawing of territorial borders alone. Instead, it provided for a non-territorial expression of national identity, whereby minorities were allowed to constitute themselves as public corporations within their host states, enjoying full autonomy in the spheres of education and culture. The idea, taken up by the Congress of European Minorities from 1925, had far-reaching implications for the project of building a ‘United States of Europe’. It looked towards a Europe as a collection of nationalities rather than nation states. What was dismissed as utopian in an era beset by extreme nationalism has fresh resonance in today's ‘New Europe’, where West and East have finally been united within the supranational framework of the EU.

Estonia: A Model for Inter-War Europe?

“…Lithuania also conducted a short-lived experiment with nonterritorial autonomy for its Jewish minority at the start of the 1920s, but this was curtailed already prior to the onset of authoritarian nationalist rule in December 1926. 1 The Estonian Cultural Autonomy Law of 1925 was promptly implemented by representatives of the German (November 1925) and Jewish (May 1926) minorities, several of whom subsequently went on to play a prominent role in the European Nationalities Congress-a transnational non-governmental organisation founded in October 1925 which lobbied for a reform of League of Nations minority protection procedures and advocated non-territorial autonomy as a general model for minorities living in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond (Hiden & Smith, 2006). Such appeals never found a broad resonance in the context of interwar Europe.…”

“…Cited in W.E., 1936 13. For a full discussion of the Congress and its debates on non-territorial autonomy, see Hiden & Smith, 2006;Smith & Hiden, 2012, pp. 70-91. 14.…”

Estonia: A Model for Inter-War Europe?

“…Lithuania also conducted a short-lived experiment with nonterritorial autonomy for its Jewish minority at the start of the 1920s, but this was curtailed already prior to the onset of authoritarian nationalist rule in December 1926. (Hiden & Smith, 2006). Such appeals never found a broad resonance in the context of interwar Europe.…”

Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Cultural Autonomy in Central and Eastern Europe

“…Inter-War Europe', Department of Central and East European Studies, University of Glasgow. For a summary of the main findings to date see Smith (2005) and Hiden & Smith (2006). In this connection see also Smith (1999) and Hiden (2004).…”