Research in Politics, History & International Relations
Ethnic Politics in the Cold War
Report of a workshop held on 3-5 September 2004 at Loughborough University.
This workshop, which was supported by the British Academy, was the first of three intended to elucidate the relationship between ethnic politics and Cold War politics in Europe. Its guiding questions are: what happened to ethnic, or ethno-national politics during the Cold War? What was the relationship between ethnic or ethno-national attachment and the ideological competition between East and West? and last not least, what was the relationship between high politics and ethnic politics?
Robert Knight (Loughborough) introduced the workshop by discussing some central historiographical and conceptual issues. He argued that there was a gap in existing discussion in three senses: a) a gap of interest and understanding in western perceptions of central European ethnic conflict b) a gap between analyses of high politics and “low” ethnic politics and c) a gap between the scholarly literature on ethnicity and historiography. As far as the historiography of the Cold War was concerned he noted that over the past two decades its focus had moved away from a bilateral view towards giving greater weight to the relative autonomy of European states, especially in the West. In some cases this had led to a greater interest in social attitudes and identities, including ethnicity. Nevertheless most Cold War scholarship had not considered ethnicity to be of much interest, generally seeing it as a “sub-state” phenomenon with little bearing on “real” high politics. At most ethnic politics was regarded as a weapon or resource of the high politics. He suggested that firstly a distinction could be made between “intra block” and “trans-bloc” ethnic issues; secondly, the Cold War could be seen as an arena of competition, where each side sought to demonstrate that their system had found the better “solution” to a problem shared by both. Thirdly, from the perspective of ethnic politicians, the Cold War could act not just as a constraint but also as an opportunity. In conclusion Knight thought that (following George Schoepflin) there was a need to explore what the contribution of ethnicity to the pattern of Cold War politics had been.
Karl Stuhlpfarrer (Klagenfurt) analysed the situation of Slovene and German-speaking Austrians in Carinthia. Over the past 150 years a dramatic assimilation had taken place. In the mid-19 th century Slovene speakers in Carinthia had amounted to approximately 1/3 of the province’s population while the results of the latest census (2001) showed that they had now declined to about 2.5% of the Carinthian population. Since 1951 the minority had nearly halved in percentage terms. Until 1945 German-speaking the minority’s „others“ had seen themselves as German, since then they had constructed an identity which was both Austrian and provincial. It tended to exclude Slovene speakers although included German speakers, even those who were living outside the country. Stuhlpfarrer saw the main cause of this process as a more or less forced assimilation operating above all through the school system, in public and media representation, and in the public use of language. Especially in public sphere there was (and is) a marked German-speaking hegemony which leads to an assymetric collective memory. This can be seen in respect of war memorials: those of the German-speaking majority (killed in the border fighting of 1918/19 or in 2 nd World War whether in the Wehrmacht or SS) are situated in town centres and the main villages. Those recalling the partisan resistance to Nazism tend to be hidden. The same point applies to annual commemorations.
A further reason for the decrease of the number of Slovenes can be found in the so called “Windish” problem. Originally this was the German name for the Slovenes but at the end of the 19 th century German nationalists created and invented a new language and the a new people, in competition to the Slovene. The “Windish“ became a political instrument against the Slovenes claiming their own national rights in school and political participation. During the Cold War German nationalists revived the “Windish” theory in order to argue against Yugoslav claim to border changes. However borders generally lost much of their divisive effect in the sixties, when the migration of Yugoslav labour to Austria and Austrian tourism to Yugoslavia started. After the CSCE process came into existence cooperation strengthened among neutral and non-aligned countries. However the campaign for collective cultural rights of the Slovenes did not correspond in any way with this trend on international level. On the contrary in 1972 there were riots in Carinthia against the implementation of bilingual place name signs, as required by the Austrian State Treaty.
Eva Hahn’s paper on “The Cold War and the Myth of `ethnic cleansing` was a dissection of some of the assumptions in recent discussions within the expellees organisations. She addressed attempts by expellee organisations to promote a “common European collective memory” of the expulsions, These had ignored important work written during the Cold War in order to suggest that the subject had previously been tabu. The revival of the term “ethnic cleansing” since 1992 had promoted the perception of it as a bacillus divorced from a concrete context. Here Hahn criticised Norman Naimark’s book Fires of Hatred which conceptualised ethnic cleansing as a virus which spread throughout Europe. Earlier work by Elizabeth Wiskeman (Germany’s Eastern Neighbours, 1956) had offered similar detail but had also clearly stressed the prior German and Czech suffering. Similarly Peter Glotz’s recent work referred to the “bacillus” of ethnic cleansing and thus blurred the German role in instigating it and perpetuated other distortions and followed in a “Sudeten German” tradition. Ethnic cleansing was a historical construction which propagated a clear-cut black and white picture of German victims and reduced the motives of both Czechs and Germans to hatred and revenge
There had been many critical voices from the start in the USA and Britain, e.g. Bishop Bell and Victor Gollancz and Churchill (referring to the tragedy behind Iron curtain as early August 1945). The transfer had not been ignored. There had been an awareness of the problem of the transfers.
During the Cold War, Hahn suggested, Western governments policies had shifted between 1944 and 1948 towards a condemnation of expulsions of Germans, which it described them as based on both racial and linguistic criteria. However Western policy had been ambiguous in that it had allowed the expellee organisations to attack the expulsions but would not go so far as to question the legitimacy of Potsdam Agreement.
In conclusion Hahn argued that cold war interpretations had varied according to the emphasis placed on humanitarian/historical ethnic aspects. Thus the US position had changed between 1944 and 1948 moving towards a condemnation of the expulsion of Germans/Hungarians based on racial/linguistic criteria.
Günther Pallaver ( Innsbruck) grounded his discussion of South Tirol in IR functionalist theory. In this perspective ethnic minorities could be categories as “relatively valued interests”, they were a function both of order and of action. In the second case he distinguished between ideological propaganda, and political destabilisation; functions. He also noted that the nature of minority conflict also depended on the goals adopted, ranging from protection to irredentism.
South Tirol Pallaver argued, South Tirol had never been of central importance to the Cold War . When the Cold War was taken as lasting from 1945 to 1990 South Tirol appeared not as the first victim of the Cold War but as a gainer. from it. With or without the Cold War the area would have remained in Italy but the Cold War had led the western powers to lobby for bilateral agreement in 1946. In 1960s it was primarily Neutral/non-aligned pressure which had led to accommodation.
South Tirol had been instrumentalised by both sides of the Cold War. The East had been concerned to increase the Austrian Italian split but it had not been interested in escalating the conflict to the point of border revision for fear of the knock-on effects on Oder-Neisse border. Since the 1970s South Tirol had became a model of ethnic agreement.
As far as goals were concerned the Suedtiroler Volkspartei had (after a short irredentist phase) dropped demand for the right of self determination, and had become an autonomist party. Later apart from a small minority goals, its goals went no further than federalism.
In conclusion Pallaver compared the South Tirol and the Cold War as examples of conflict. Whereas South Tirol had been a single level ethnic conflict the Cold War had been a multilevel conflict (military, political-structural, ideological economical). Secondly, unlike the Cold war where the two blocs confronted each other irreconcileably, the South Tirol conflict had been a non antagonistic, i.e. resolvable by compromise, Thirdly, the Cold War had been essentially a symmetric conflict while the South Tyrol conflict had been asymmetric.
Lucian Nastaša ’s paper (Cluj) was distributed in his absence. It analysed the shifting position of the Magyars of Romania during the Cold War. Nastaša saw the ideology of the regimes as supposedly mediating between the conflicting interests of majority and minority, the latter termed variously “national minorities”, “nationalities,” or “coexisting nationalities”. In principle a common solution was meant to be found and in the first post-war decade the state visibly favoured the preservation of Magyar ethno-cultural identity. At the same time the regime provided the institutional conditions for integration and made concessions notably “the Magyar Autonomous Region” created in 1951. The 1956 Hungarian Uprising which saw an ad hoc mobilisation Magyars in Cluj and Targu Mures increased the regime’s suspicion of the minority. After its suppression the regime increased pressure to assimilate.
Nastaša ’s paper also analysed the shifts in Magyar historiography and the politics which lay behind them. He noted the general neglect of Magyar minority in Rumanian historiography and concluded by outlining the practical problems confronted by historical researchers in Rumania and the context to the establishment of the Ethno-cultural Diversity Resource Centre in Cluj
Joze Pirjeveć : (Triest) traced the history of ethnic relations in Triest and its hinterland from the 19 th century. It had been an asymmetric relationship with (Venetian speaking) Italians Slovenes and Germans. Triest itself had been cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic. He outlined the three “solutions” which had been proposed:
1) a pro-Italian irredentist programme in which Triest should be springboard for Italian expansion in Adriatic
2) a Slovene liberal programme which envisaged Triest as part of a south Slave state within the monarchy
3) a Social Democratic (Italian and Slovene) vision, which saw Trieste as a meeting-point of cultures.
The 1918 Italian regime implemented solution 1). It saw Slovenes as barbarians to be assimilated. In the littoral nearly all Slavs were united in resisting Italian claims.
After the second world war Churchill feared contamination by Yugoslav communists back Italians for class reasons. Pirjeveć argued that the British despised Italians but loved them, the British sympathised with the Italian bourgeoisie for cultural and class reasons and out of fear of communism. In the Cold War the Italian communist party had been ambivalent but the Triest communists had favoured the return of Triest to Yugoslavia. In this case it seemed that ideology trumped ethnicity The goal of “building socialism” was given priority and even led some Italian communists to go to Yugoslavia to work.
Jure Gombač ( Ljubljana) analysed the position of the Italians in Yugoslavia during the Cold War. After 1920 the “redemption” of all Italians living outside Italy’s borders had been the programme of some Italian parties. In 1941 it could be achieved. In Istria at the end of the war partisans expelled or pressurised Italians into leaving. Those who went included fascist officials, but also others like teachers. The exodus from Rijeka, which included all classes of Italians, took the Yugoslav authorities by surprise, People’s government replaced collaborators. An uprising by the Italians was brutally stifled and unemployment among Italian workers was high 1946-7. In the countryside agrarian reform led to extensive land expropriation, while the pressure of taxation forced businesses to transform themselves into cooperatives. Many Italian refugees felt disappointed with Italy and with the Allies, who they thought had betrayed them.
An Allied Boundary Commission which examined the ethnic composition of the area, visited it and was met by a wave or emotion on both sides. The Italian Peace Treaty (article 19) provided forthe migration of Italians from Istria, Thereafter attention to the issue declined. Formally Yugoslavia adhered to minority protection but informally Djilas and Kardelj encouraged Italians to leave. The government issued Diktats against fascists, there was violence by People’s Committees. The Italians were seen as historical enemies.
Although the People’s Committees originally included both nationalities Nationally the Cominform dispute led to a struggle between Italian and Yugoslav communists start of 1947 32,000 families working in Montfalcone left from Slovenia to build socialism ain empty shipyards in Fiume and Rijeka returned after 2 years downcast at Yugoslav regime’s nationalism. In 1948 a tougher policy led to many facing trial, exile and imprisonment.
In Italy refugees began to agitate for return. For example they made radio broadcasts to those remaining to called for more aggressive foreign policy, but they were uncertain as to whether to support staying or leaving.
Elections in the Free Territory of Triest in 1949 followed by elections in Zone B 1952 Italians not allowed real representation. By December 1952 resistance of Italians at an end, the new slogan was “time to leave.” In the 1954 London memorandum minor corrections were made to the 1945 Morgan line.
In conclusion Gombač thought that high politics had certainly been importance but had not necessarily dominated ethnic politics. Indeed Ideology could also be seen as an instrument of ethnic politics.
Oto Luthar ( Ljubljana) started his paper by stressing how different the situation of the Hungarians in Prekmurje was from that of the Italians in Istria. In the former case there were two adjoining states which had been ideologically of the same or similar complexion and the border were unchanged. He outlined the background to his own research in the area, based on an extensive interview programme. 570,000 Hungarians lived in post-war Yugoslavia. Assimilation had proceeded through urbanisation, intermarriage etc. Any understanding needed to consider the issue on three levels, Yugoslav, republic and local.
Educational provision had been extensive. Positive discrimination had obliged schools etc to recognised the use of Hungarians. There had been more discrimination in the economic sphere. He stressed the importance of the media, Hungarian language broadcasts. The situation had changed after 1970. There had been goodwill. There was some sign of the depredation of Hungarian to the level of a ‘kitchen language” and there were problems of teacher training. But in the 1970s the condition of the minority had improved.
The results of the survey had shown that 70% were clinging to local identity, that Slovenes Hungarians and Roma had similar attitudes. There was a Hungarian sense of superiority. Between 1949 and 1969 there had been little contact between Hungarians and the kin state. Hungarian were cut off from their own culture in the 1970 and 80s this changed with more Hungarians going to Hungary to study.
Each paper was followed by lively and free-ranging discussion. As well as a variety of issues of detail the following main issues emerged for consideration at the next workshop
Periodisation: should the Cold War be taken as starting in 1944/5 or later, should it stop with détente or 1989?
How did ethnic and ideological motives relate to each other in the case of individual decision-makers and or intellectuals. If neither was consistently dominant what determined the balance at points where a choice had to be made? The relationship between nationalism/ethnic identity and Marxism was a central issue to be explored in this context.
- The relationship between the minority situation and the high politics of the Cold War politics needed to be discussed more systematically. Most discussions had concentrated on the former, but there had also been a three level interactions of politics: local, regional (e.g. Slovenian) and national.
- Should Yugoslavia be seen as sui generis? It was more ethnically/nationally mixed than any other European state, secondly, as a dissident communist state after 1948 (later non-aligned) it was in an ambiguous position between West and East.
Participants
Prof Joze Pirjeveć: ( Trieste)
Dr Robert Knight (Loughborough)
Dr Jure Gombač: ( Ljubljana) Italians in Yugoslavia.
Prof. Eva Hahn ( Oldenburg)
Prof Oto Luthar ( Ljubljana)
Prof Günther Pallaver ( Innsbruck)
Prof Karl Stuhlpfarrer ( Klagenfurt)
Matt McCullock (Loughborough)
Wolfgang Deicke (Loughborough/London SOAS)
Bill Hartmann
Angela Spindler-Brown
Martha Wörsching (Loughborough)
The absence of Prof Lucian Nastaša (Cluj) was noted with regret.
Robert Knight
Loughborough University
Department of Politics, History and International Relations