National cultural autonomy revisited: Why Baltic minority politics matters

This event will discuss the historical and contemporary relevance of the concept of non-territorial cultural autonomy in the Baltics After the end of the Cold War, national minorities were widely perceived as a major source of potential conflicts in Central and Eastern Europe, and not least regarding the newly independent three Baltic states. In this connection, cultural or non-territorial autonomy of national minorities has received impressive and ongoing prominence in theoretical and policy discussions around the management of ethno-cultural diversity. Debates of contemporary application are closely intertwined with historical perspectives, first on the territories of the Habsburg Empire and then in particular on the Baltic region in the interwar period. There, Baltic-German politicians played an important role in the implementation and the promotion of the concept. Prof David Smith and Prof Joerg Hackmann will discuss the historical and contemporary relevance of the concept of non-territorial autonomy, but will also look at the ambiguous role of German minority representatives. A special focus will be on the Baltic German Werner Hasselblatt, who played an important role in shaping the Estonian law on cultural autonomy of 1925, but might also be called a “Vordenker der Vernichtung”, when looking at his activities during the Nazi period.