Moved Peoples and Moved Borders: Research on the interplay of ethnic, national and regional identities in Central and Eastern Europe
Moved Peoples and Moved Borders: Research on the interplay of ethnic, national and regional identities in Central and Eastern Europe

Summary/Abstract: The paper consists of two parts: the first part summarizes the main objectives and methods of the international research project ENRI-East (Interplay of European, National and Regional Identities: Nations between the States along the New Eastern Borders of the European Union, www.enri-east.net) funded by the European Commission (an FP7-SSH Grant # 217227). This cross-national study has focused on the detailed multidisciplinary investigation of the historical paths and contemporary status-quo of 12 ethnic minorities in eight EU and neighbouring countries: Belarus, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Russia (Kaliningrad oblast), Slovakia and Ukraine. Additionally, a special sub-study was conducted in Germany. The complex study includes a critical re-assessment of theoretical frameworks of concepts of identities and nationalism in the CEE region and is complemented by an impressive empirical program, embracing a large-scale quantitative survey and a set of qualitative methods. The second part of the article presents outcomes of the ENRI-East “Values and Identities Survey” with regard to ethno-national and regional pride. Five ideal types of pride are defined, described and interpreted (general ethnic pride, habitual pride, particular minority pride, regional and supra-regional pride). The main conclusions of the article disclose the observed hierarchy of feelings of pride (ethno-national pride above the regional pride) and reveal further regularities, such as predominantly high or predominantly low levels of general intensity of pride among particular ethnic minorities, positive and negative relations between particular types of pride.

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