Projects & Grants

Internal Grant Competition DGC
START-UP grant





Nationalism and its impact on ethnic minorities in post-Communist space
Project IdSGS15/PřF/2018
Main solverdoc. RNDr. Tomáš Hoch, Ph.D.
Period1/2018 - 12/2018
ProviderSpecifický VŠ výzkum
Statefinished
AnotationThe end of the Communist era and the collapse of the Soviet Union brought an increasing wave of nationalism in Eastern Europe. For many decades, when nationalism was held under the guise of communist ideology, signs of ethno-national mobilization were at the forefront of political processes in the early 1990s, both in Eastern Europe and in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Many latent conflicts at that time escalated into armed phases and their consequences in the form of tens of thousands of dead, hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, destroyed infrastructure, low level of cross-border cooperation, and disrupted interpersonal and inter-ethnic relations are present throughout the region to this day. Whereas in the early years of the new millennium, post-communist space was more likely to dampen more radical nationalist manifestations, the war in South Ossetia in 2008, followed by the annexation of the Crimea and the war in Ukraine, clearly showed that the process of political and social transformation is far from being completed in the region. These armed conflicts, however, represent only the tip of the iceberg. Data from the Conflict Barometer of the Heidelberg Institute record sixty-two conflicts in Europe in 2016. Despite the already mentioned war in Ukraine, it is another twenty violent crises, fifteen non-violent crises and twenty disputes. Very often they are located in post-communist space, and ethnic minorities are usually one of the sides of the conflicts. Their disputes with the central government have been boosted in recent years by a wave of political populism, right-wing extremism and the activities of disinformation channels that contribute to the creation of new cleavages and a greater degree of polarization of many societies in the region of Eastern Europe. The proposed research project focuses on the analysis and explanation of current manifestations of nationalism and its impact on ethnic minorities in post-communist space.