Periodic Reporting for period 4 - N-T-AUTONOMY (Non-Territorial Autonomy as Minority Protection in Europe: An Intellectual and Political History of a Travelling Idea, 1850-2000)
Período documentado: 2022-09-01 hasta 2023-05-31
NTAutonomy’s goal is to provide a new understanding of how the protection of national minorities was thought and implemented in the era of nationalism. Since the mid of the 19th century we have seen three different approaches to manage national diversity: First, national rights can be organised around the individual and equal citizen. Second, national rights can be granted to autonomous territorial units, where a national minority might form the local majority population. And third, minority rights can be granted to collective bodies, which unite persons of a common ethno-national affiliation, wherever they might live in the country. This means, that the legal entity is neither the individual nor a territory but the national group per se. These collective bodies manage the cultural affairs of their group autonomously. As this third approach is based on a person’s belonging to a collectivity, and not on a person’s place of residence, it has been labelled non-territorial autonomy.
NTA’s first objective was to trace the idea and practices of non-territorial autonomy to its origins in the multi-ethnic Habsburg and Russian Empires. We investigated the interrelations, continuities and adaptations of theoretical and practical approaches within the empires. When the concept started travelling at the turn of the twentieth century, in particular the Austro-Marxist model of non-territorial autonomy was largely received in Russia and was built into pre-existing Russian concepts of state reform. It turned out that the Russian adaptations and understandings of non-territorial autonomy left longer lasting imprints on how this concept was conceived of during the interwar period up to the present day.
The second objective was to examine how the idea of non-territorial autonomy was translated to the new political circumstances of the interwar period. Our research discovered that this concept was flexible enough to be adapted to warring ideological currents: communist, socialist, liberal and far right. Minority activists of the 1920s and 1930s, including Bolsheviks, Jewish Bundists, Baltic German aristocrats or Sudeten German extremists, explicitly and implicitly referred to practical and theoretical experiences of the Habsburg and Russian Empires. Our project thus emphasised these transtemporal and transnational connections in order to explain the different translations of the concept of non-territorial autonomy, and to demonstrate its applications.
Our third objective was to analyse the treatment of non-territorial autonomy within international systems of minority protection through the present day. While minority lobby groups like the interwar Congress of European Nationalities, or the contemporary Federal Union of European Nationalities, have advocated and continue to show support for the concept, international law making institutions like the League of Nations or the United Nations have been far more hesitant about it because they have focused on individual rights. The non-territorial autonomy model was omnipresent among interwar minority activists who sought to gain agency over their own national future. The knowledge of the concept did not necessarily imply that those who discussed it were in favour of this form of collective minority protection. Critics throughout time and space pointed in particular to the problems of distributing rights and duties to national groups as corporate bodies, because this makes it necessary to define who belongs to the group and who not, which interferes with the highly subjective nature of national identity.
NTA’s first objective was to trace the idea and practices of non-territorial autonomy to its origins in the multi-ethnic Habsburg and Russian Empires. We investigated the interrelations, continuities and adaptations of theoretical and practical approaches within the empires. When the concept started travelling at the turn of the twentieth century, in particular the Austro-Marxist model of non-territorial autonomy was largely received in Russia and was built into pre-existing Russian concepts of state reform. It turned out that the Russian adaptations and understandings of non-territorial autonomy left longer lasting imprints on how this concept was conceived of during the interwar period up to the present day.
The second objective was to examine how the idea of non-territorial autonomy was translated to the new political circumstances of the interwar period. Our research discovered that this concept was flexible enough to be adapted to warring ideological currents: communist, socialist, liberal and far right. Minority activists of the 1920s and 1930s, including Bolsheviks, Jewish Bundists, Baltic German aristocrats or Sudeten German extremists, explicitly and implicitly referred to practical and theoretical experiences of the Habsburg and Russian Empires. Our project thus emphasised these transtemporal and transnational connections in order to explain the different translations of the concept of non-territorial autonomy, and to demonstrate its applications.
Our third objective was to analyse the treatment of non-territorial autonomy within international systems of minority protection through the present day. While minority lobby groups like the interwar Congress of European Nationalities, or the contemporary Federal Union of European Nationalities, have advocated and continue to show support for the concept, international law making institutions like the League of Nations or the United Nations have been far more hesitant about it because they have focused on individual rights. The non-territorial autonomy model was omnipresent among interwar minority activists who sought to gain agency over their own national future. The knowledge of the concept did not necessarily imply that those who discussed it were in favour of this form of collective minority protection. Critics throughout time and space pointed in particular to the problems of distributing rights and duties to national groups as corporate bodies, because this makes it necessary to define who belongs to the group and who not, which interferes with the highly subjective nature of national identity.
NTAutonomy involved seven scholars working on seven work packages. The core research team welcomed 20 guest researchers and 14 research interns. The main results are: a synthesising monograph, two accomplished PhD theses, two landslide conferences (the first one cancelled two weeks before the pandemic) that turned into special issues in leading journals (the second under review), and 15 (mostly) peer-reviewed articles.
Comprehensive list of our achievments:
1. Adorjáni published the paper “National Minority: The Emergence of the Concept in the Habsburg and International Legal Thought“ in: Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, European and Regional Studies 16/1 (2019) and also its Hungarian edited translation
2. Battis’ first research paper, entitled “On common ground Soviet nationalities policy and the AustroMarxist premise”, was submitted in July 2020 to Slavic Review, one of the leading journals in his field (article under review).
3. Mulej submitted his article “Die Volksschutzgesetzesanträge der Sudetendeutschen Partei von 1937 als Beispiel nicht-territorialer Autonomie” to the journal Bohemia in April 2020
4. Kuzmany published one article that links WP1 and WP7: “Non-Territorial Autonomy in Interwar European Minority Protection and Its Habsburg Legacies,” in P. Becker, N. Wheately (ed) Remaking Central Europe: The League of Nations and the Former Habsburg Lands (Oxford UP 2021)
5. Guest researcher Korolov finalised his NTA-related monograph.
6. N-T-Autonomy members joined and are active participants of the COST Action “European NonTerritorial Autonomy Network” and add to this very normatively designed network a critical historical perspective.
7. Mulej’s paper focusing on the territorial and non-territorial aspects of the Sudeten German Party autonomist proposals, was accepted and published by the Nationalities Papers / Special Issue that he co-edited with Kuzmany and Battis
8. In the same Special Issue guest researcher Tatiana Khripachenko published her article “Beyond the Borders of the Fallen Empire: André Mandelstam’s Project for Non-Territorial Autonomy"
9. Aava’s paper, at the Association for the Study of Nationalities conference in 2021, was awarded with the Best Doctoral Student Paper award.
10. Adorjáni’s paper presented at the Annual World Conference of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) also received the Best Doctoral Student Paper award (in 2022)
11. Germane completed her archival research, in the American Jewish Archives (AJA) in Cincinnati, OH (where she was The American Council for Judaism Fellow) in October 2021, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in NYC in November 2021 (she was also a visiting fellow at the Harriman Center of Columbia University during that period) and the Central Zionist Archive in Jerusalem
12. Guest researcher Olena Palko published her article:"Constructing identities, ascribing nationalities: Polish minority in Ukraine during late imperial and early Soviet rule" acknowledging her stay in our project
13. We granted two of the planned fellowship positions exclusively to Ukrainian researchers fleeing the war
14. Concluding Conference (15-17 September 2022)
15. launching the Nationalities Papers Special Issue
16. The PI accomplished the monograph manuscript that synthesizes the findings from all seven work packages
17. Aava and Adorjáni both submitted their PhD theses
18. Germane successfully publish her article in the Anthology “Sovereignty, Nationalism, and the Quest for Homogeneity in Interwar Europe”
19. Yuki Murata joined the team as fix member and published on article the Slavonic and East European Review
20. A Special Issue is currently prepared on our Concluding Conference. Indicative publication early 2025.
21. Kuzmany co-edited and contributed, together with Germane, to the world’s first textbook on non-territorial autonomy "Non-Territorial Autonomy, An Introduction" published by Palgrave MacMillan within the framework of the COST Action "ENTAN"
Comprehensive list of our achievments:
1. Adorjáni published the paper “National Minority: The Emergence of the Concept in the Habsburg and International Legal Thought“ in: Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, European and Regional Studies 16/1 (2019) and also its Hungarian edited translation
2. Battis’ first research paper, entitled “On common ground Soviet nationalities policy and the AustroMarxist premise”, was submitted in July 2020 to Slavic Review, one of the leading journals in his field (article under review).
3. Mulej submitted his article “Die Volksschutzgesetzesanträge der Sudetendeutschen Partei von 1937 als Beispiel nicht-territorialer Autonomie” to the journal Bohemia in April 2020
4. Kuzmany published one article that links WP1 and WP7: “Non-Territorial Autonomy in Interwar European Minority Protection and Its Habsburg Legacies,” in P. Becker, N. Wheately (ed) Remaking Central Europe: The League of Nations and the Former Habsburg Lands (Oxford UP 2021)
5. Guest researcher Korolov finalised his NTA-related monograph.
6. N-T-Autonomy members joined and are active participants of the COST Action “European NonTerritorial Autonomy Network” and add to this very normatively designed network a critical historical perspective.
7. Mulej’s paper focusing on the territorial and non-territorial aspects of the Sudeten German Party autonomist proposals, was accepted and published by the Nationalities Papers / Special Issue that he co-edited with Kuzmany and Battis
8. In the same Special Issue guest researcher Tatiana Khripachenko published her article “Beyond the Borders of the Fallen Empire: André Mandelstam’s Project for Non-Territorial Autonomy"
9. Aava’s paper, at the Association for the Study of Nationalities conference in 2021, was awarded with the Best Doctoral Student Paper award.
10. Adorjáni’s paper presented at the Annual World Conference of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) also received the Best Doctoral Student Paper award (in 2022)
11. Germane completed her archival research, in the American Jewish Archives (AJA) in Cincinnati, OH (where she was The American Council for Judaism Fellow) in October 2021, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in NYC in November 2021 (she was also a visiting fellow at the Harriman Center of Columbia University during that period) and the Central Zionist Archive in Jerusalem
12. Guest researcher Olena Palko published her article:"Constructing identities, ascribing nationalities: Polish minority in Ukraine during late imperial and early Soviet rule" acknowledging her stay in our project
13. We granted two of the planned fellowship positions exclusively to Ukrainian researchers fleeing the war
14. Concluding Conference (15-17 September 2022)
15. launching the Nationalities Papers Special Issue
16. The PI accomplished the monograph manuscript that synthesizes the findings from all seven work packages
17. Aava and Adorjáni both submitted their PhD theses
18. Germane successfully publish her article in the Anthology “Sovereignty, Nationalism, and the Quest for Homogeneity in Interwar Europe”
19. Yuki Murata joined the team as fix member and published on article the Slavonic and East European Review
20. A Special Issue is currently prepared on our Concluding Conference. Indicative publication early 2025.
21. Kuzmany co-edited and contributed, together with Germane, to the world’s first textbook on non-territorial autonomy "Non-Territorial Autonomy, An Introduction" published by Palgrave MacMillan within the framework of the COST Action "ENTAN"
NTAutonomy constituted the first full-length study of a central issue in the history of minority protection. It successfully brought together the histories of the Habsburg and Russian Empires, interwar nation states and contemporary Europe, and applied them from a transnational perspective. Being situated at the crossroad of intellectual and political history this project significantly enhanced the broader field of nationalism studies. It analysed non-territorial autonomy not only as an evolving multigenerational concept but also, and more crucially, as a set of implemented policies in the twentieth century. It married theoretical writings of the time with case studies from Central and Eastern Europe, as well as from pan-European institutions of minority protection.
While the conferral of rights to national minority communities by means of the rights of individual members or through the allocation of territorial autonomy have been widely researched, the third route, through non-territorial autonomy, has received far less attention in the study of nationalism. We demonstrated that elements of non-territorial autonomy have been far more often considered and applied between 1850 and today than previously acknowledged.
While this was not a normative project intending to promote non-territorial autonomy as a political tool, our historical research obviously resonates with the lively present-day discussions on how to deal with national conflicts. Following the concept’s evolutionary arc over time and space, and by critically evaluating its radically different applications, this project had a strong impact on our understanding of how states and societies have tried to deal with national diversity and minority rights.
While the conferral of rights to national minority communities by means of the rights of individual members or through the allocation of territorial autonomy have been widely researched, the third route, through non-territorial autonomy, has received far less attention in the study of nationalism. We demonstrated that elements of non-territorial autonomy have been far more often considered and applied between 1850 and today than previously acknowledged.
While this was not a normative project intending to promote non-territorial autonomy as a political tool, our historical research obviously resonates with the lively present-day discussions on how to deal with national conflicts. Following the concept’s evolutionary arc over time and space, and by critically evaluating its radically different applications, this project had a strong impact on our understanding of how states and societies have tried to deal with national diversity and minority rights.