What’s the relationship of the host country with the minority? Do they have any minority rights there? Are they being assimilated, discriminated against? How does your country handle these issues?
Or have they been expulsed to your country? How did your country (as the state and as people) handle the refugees?
18 comments
Schleswig historically was a duchy with the king of Denmark as Duke of Schleswig, and the population there was mixed Danish, German and Frisian. The area came under German control after the Second Schleswig War in 1864. In the First World War thousands of Danes living in Schleswig were conscripted into the German army. After the war, a plebiscite was held in the area to determine the new border, and Schleswig was split in two with a sizable German minority in northern Schleswig, and a Danish one in the south.
The border has since then been agreed on by the two states (even Hitler didn’t change it after invading in 1940). Both minorities enjoy similar rights in the two countries, after a treaty which I can not remember the name of at the moment. This includes minority and language protection, as well as exemption from electoral thresholds for the minorities’ political parties. The SSW, representing the Danish and Frisian minorities, has one seat in the Bundestag.
Edit: It’s the Copenhagen-Bonn declarations, which are not a treaty but separate declarations.
We have decently sized minorities in Germany and Sweden. I don’t know if they have any particular privileges just for them in Sweden, but in Germany, they have access to schools subsidised by the Danish government and some social/cultural programmes (but it’s not impossible for Germans to get into those too, as long as they don’t mind learning a bit of Danish or that some parts are conducted in Danish). In Germany, there is also a party in Schleswig-Holstein that is meant to represent the Danish and Frisian minorities of the region. The same is true on our side of the border for the German minority here.
The relations and treatment in Germany have been up and down in the past, but from what I know, people are generally quite content with the systems that have been in place for some decades now.
Well, German minorities exist in France, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Hungary, Romania, I think a few in Serbia, and in the Russian far east, Kazakhstan and the US, Brazil, Argentina. I probably forgot a few.
There were a lot in Poland, Czechia, Russia, Moldova and other Eastern countries but they were mostly cleansed or forcibly moved to Siberia and Kazakhstan. A lot of them came back to Germany in the 90s after their families had lived elsewhere for centuries.
The minorities in Italy, Belgium and Denmark enjoy a lot of minority rights, language protection etc.
The minority in France is slowly but surely being erased by France‘s overwhelming cultural dominance and a lack of efforts to preserve the German language etc. But it‘s not like they actively try to destroy it.
I think the Germans in Romania and Hungary have a mixed experience between France and Belgium, but I‘d like a few others to weigh in here.
The minority in America was forcibly anglicized/assimilated over the course of WW1 and WW2, almost no-one speaks German anymore, except for the religious extremists who came from Germany.
The minorities in Brazil and Argentina aren‘t that many and I don‘t think they‘re organized, but I don‘t have too much knowledge on them.
I guess that most of the Anglosphere (UK USA Canada Australia New Zealand) don’t count since ethnic Brits are still majorities there. The only ones that spring to mind are White, ethnically, British Africans in the south of Africa – South Africa, Zimbabwe etc. I’m guessing that they are fine in South Africa, less so in places like Zimbabwe…
EDIT: Just realised you said neighbouring countries lol. I suppose the only one would be Brits living in Ireland, and I can’t possibly see any discrimination going on there.
Also there’s apparently a signifcant number of ethnic Englishmen living in [Chile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Chileans) (5-6% of the population). That’s news to me haha
In Switzerland, Italian is one of the four official languages at federal level, and it is the majority language in Canton Ticino and in some of the valleys of the Grisons (Moesa, Bernina and Bregaglia), there I don’t think there is any real discrimination, the bureaucracy and schools are all in Italian and there is also a television station (RSI). Italians are also a recognised minority in Istria, between Croatia and Slovenia, I know that bilingualism is in force there, and there are many local people even if they are not of Italian origin who learn the language because of the strong tourism in those areas (and also because our TV gets reception there too), but it is a fairly small minority nowadays.
Most Dutch living abroad live in our neighboring countries. Most of the time they moved because of cheaper housing while they often continue to work in The Netherlands. So they already lived in the border region and just crossed it, so it’s not a big step.
There are large groups of people from Dutch decent living in the USA, Canada and Australia. Most of them left after WO II pursuing a better life. I think most of them don’t consider themselves Dutch anymore. They same goes for the South African population of Dutch decent, I don’t think they feel Dutch.
Swedes in Finland have an interesting history. I have Finland-Swedish roots myself. For a long time, Swedish was the administrative language and the only language in which higher education was available. This was a holdover from older times when Finland was a part of Sweden and most people who were nobility or lived in the cities on the coast spoke Swedish anyway.
However it gets strange when Finland becomes a domain of the Russian Emperor and Swedish retains its position as the language of politics administration learning and law, even if the emperors at times supports Finnish nationalistic sentiment.
It gets real crazy around the time of independence because at that time you can seriously find shit like Swedish speakers openly telling Finnish countrymen in the newspapers that Finns can’t rule a country because their heads are too round “and btw don’t you know that you’re Mongols? Lol!” What can I say, it was 1917, imperialism was new, hot and fresh, as was this zany new science called “racism”, people gobbled that shit up and couldn’t wait to apply this new “racism” thing on the Joneses down the street. I’ve read quite a bit of both Swedish and Finland -Swedish stuff from around that time about the future of Finland and the amount of people who want to see themselves as the British Raj and Finland as India is pretty amusing.
However Finland is not India, Finland is Finland which means that cooler and saner heads usually prevail. Despite only being spoken at home by a minority, Swedish becomes one of two official languages of the new Republic. The number of Swedish speakers have generally dwindled over the years. Cities like Helsinki used to be majority Swedish speaking but not anymore, mainly because then cities have grown several times larger than in 1917 and most of that growth has been provided by Finnish speakers moving in from the countryside.
As for today, many Finns think it’s unnecessary to learn Swedish in school. Some Finland Swedes are probably shedding a tear or two over the death of local Swedish dialects, but largely I think people seem to get on well.
Technically only 2 countries have my people as a minority group in them, the last one was as a result of occupation after some centuries with immigration from the occupying power putting them at about a 50/50 ratio. After occupation harsh assimilation and oppression policies resulted in many leaving, either for here or for the americas. Today the minority enjoys protections, same with the reverse one. The other lies some 3 centuries back, and was another occupation followed by a much much harsher assimilation policy, executions, torture, etc. was the order of the day. The minority is largely assimilated, but culture wasn’t too different, to begin with, there are no special rights per se.
British in Ireland and Irish in Britain enjoy special legal status respectively that goes above what even EU law used to provide.
Both are considered full citizens of the host country (even though they are not) and don’t have any immigration requirements at all. Even goes as far as Non-citizen criminals not being deported and Full voting rights in all elections.
All of our neighbours have a significant Hungarian minority, most of them in Romania and Slovakia. Hungary used to be a lot larger, until the end of World War I, when 2/3 of the country was annexed by our neighbours.
However, these minorities have declined significantly in the last century. Contributing factors include assimilation policies, moving (escaping) to Hungary, the Holocaust (e.g. Oradea had a Hungarian-speaking Jewish majority until WW2).
Nowadays, the situation is a bit more complicated. There is no active persecution of Hungarians in the lost territories. However, ethnic violence does happen sometimes (e.g. the Uz Valley Cemetery incident). Some of our neighbours also tried to curb the rights of ethnic minorities (e.g. Slovakia banning dual citizenship, or Ukraine banning native language education from grade 5 – abolished recently in exchange for EU loan).
The relationship of Hungarians with those across the border is complicated as well. A 2004 referendum denied them a simplified naturalisation process, which is a painful point in our relationship. (This happened while Orbán’s ~~archenemy~~ opponent was in power, so most people outside our borders tend to be Orbán’s supporters.) There are people who call them Romanians/Slovaks/etc., which is quite offensive to them.
Despite this, Hungarians living in Hungary tend to be more vocal supporters of ethnic rights in our neighbouring countries. Those living in our neighbouring countries tend to be more accepting of the situation, but I can’t say that they don’t want more autonomy.
The most prominent of such groups lives in Poland. A commune where they make up a majority (gmina Puńsk) is officially bilingual, and they tend to retain the stronger Dzūkian accent due to having a closed border between 1920 and 1990. Since 2007 the border has become only another administrative boundary, so many of Puńsk Lithuanians study and work in Lithuania. They also have their own Lithuanian language schools and broadcasts on TV and radio. And contrary to most Podlasians, Lithuanians of Puńsk are way more supportive of PO rather than PiS. Churches of the borderland on PL side have Lithuanian services and even Lithuanian TV channels are broadcast there. So – their life is very similar to the life across the border, they just also know Polish and have different (or both) passports.
Technically Russia out of all our neighbours has the largest Lithuanian diaspora, mostly the deported people and their descendants, as well as some Soviet era migrants. I know that they have a Lithuanian school in Moscow, but overall their activities and Lithuaniannes is severely limited. When I checked that school’s activities, it seems that they celebrate the Soviet occupation of Lithuania and use the George Ribbon which is prohibited in Lithuania. Many of Lithuanians of Russia do not feel affinity towards Lithuania and are staunch russo-fascists.
Then it goes Latvia. There are some Lithuanians studying in Rīga universities and some folks working in companies where their Baltic HQs are located in Rīga, there is a Lithuanian school in Rīga, and there is a Lithuanian language broadcast on Latvian radio. I think that they are doing fine since Latvia is very similar to Lithuania (culture, language, etc), shares a very long border with Lithuania and we both consider ourselves unseparable brothers. We are also in EU, NATO, Schengen, and use the same currency (not like Poland on this one). The only difference is Latvians being predominantly Lutheran – I have no idea how does that work for our diaspora.
The 4th is Belarus – there are some remnants of autochtonic Lithuanian population that was widespread in area between Lithuanian border and and middle of the distance to Minsk. I guess it is somewhat similar to Russia – Belarusian government portrays us as an evil facist country that is poor and starving but wants to attack them, so they are closing Lithuanian schools and communitiess. Most of Lithuanians from Belarus I know have relocated to Lithuania.
Bonus: Sweden, our neighbour across the sea. Unlike with Latvians or Estonians, Lithuanian diaspora there used to be tiny, mostly based on refugees from tzarist and Soviet occupations and some students who came during interbellum. Current Lithuanian community in Sweden is more or less similar to another Lithuanian diaspora communities in Western EEA, mostly emerged since 2000s.
There’s a whole [Flemish region occupied by France](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Flanders). Untill recently their culture was being effectively erased, but now they are slowly regaining some rights.
Worse. All our people (Albanians) were discriminated and partially ethnic cleansed. A large part of our population was expelled to Turkey. Albanians in Montenegro were partly assimilated. Albanians in Kosovo were lucky to declare Independence. And Albanians in North Macedonia are 30% of the whole population and do not enjoy some sort of autonomy. Albanians from Greece were massacred and expelled after WWII.
There is a somewhat numerous ethnic Italian community on the coastal areas of Slovenia and Croatia (mainly Istria, and maybe a handful of places in Dalmatia, but I am not sure).
As far as I understand, they have extensive rights to speak or conduct their life in Italian in those regions, so I don’t think they are discriminated against. The Giuliano Dalmati fled the territories they lived before in the years following 1945, but fears of ethnic persecution only played a part in it, the other being that they didn’t want to live under the commies.
The newly established Italian republic treated the refugees quite poorly, as the Giuliano dalmati refugees were branded as fascists, even though they surely weren’t anymore fascist than a Milanese or Neapolitan. The trains that transported them to the camps were often booed by the communist party sympathizers.
Yes, in Romania Serbs lived in Banat, Transylvania and around Arad area (even made up majority of population there until 18th century) but eventually they left/got assimilated and in Banat they got massacred and expelled during 50s because of Yugoslavia going against Eastern block. Now in democratic Romania Serbian minority lives normally.
In Hungary also until 18th century Serbs made up majority in many places in back then desolate and war torn Hungary, in Southern Hungary (Baja, Szeged, Pecs) and in Szentendre and Buda but most of them got assimilated or left for Serbia.
In Kosovo they were majority until late 19th century and due to leaving because of poverty, ethnic conflict , expulsions and wars they dropped to being around 5% of population. Now they live in Northern Kosovo and few scattered enclaves.
In Macedonia there are a few Serbs living, who came there during colonization in early 20th century. Today they are concentrated in North close to the border with Serbia and they are having troubles with rights.
In Bulgaria there were few Serb villages close to the border with Serbia but they got assimilated and/or left to Serbia.
In Albania they lived in Scodra and Durres but most left by now.
Montenegro situation is complex so i wont talk about it now.
In Bosnia they make 30% of population today and have their own entity, Republika Srpska. Suffered greatly during WW2 they were main force of Partisans and helped Yugoslavia be liberated. During 90s they fought to stay in Yugoslavia and were granted autonomy in Dayton agreement. Serbs also live around Drvar and Dinara region outside Republika.
In Croatia they made up 13% of population in 1991 and 3% today. They mainly live/ed in border areas of Croatia (Krajna) which they settled during the Turkish wars. During WW2 they were genocided and as a result massively joined antifascist forces and were very significant part of the Partisans. Because of this after the war Serbs were overrepresented in police and army, in SR Croatia making 50% of policemen while only 13% of population. During 90s they fought to stay part of the Yugoslavia and they lost, most fleeing from Croat army and there were cases of some who stayed getting massacred. After the war small number of refugees returned back to Croatia. Today they have their own parties and organizations.
In the Balkans, the largest concentration of Croats outside Croatia would be in Bosnia, situated in the northwest and southwest of the country. While they are not as rabid nationalists as the Serbian minority in Bosnia, many were, and still are, vocal abour being annexed by Croatia (ironically, few Croatians within the country proper lend their support to this), and most are just content living in Bosnia.
There are also ethnic Croats in Vojvodina as well, but most Croats nowadays go north and always do; Germany was always the country for Croatians to immigrate in; most German Croats are in Swabia & Bavaria (Southern Germany is predominatly Roman Catholic, so its a religious preference as well, this is also why the Croatian idiom for Germans is *Švabi* [after Swabia]. To date, so many Croatians left for Germany that we collectively call them *gasterbajteri* (German word for guest worker) and “gasterbajtati” is now an unofficial verb for any Croat working abroad. Most of the Croatians in Germany were there for so long that there are already second-gen immigrants living there and already have assimilated well enough (it does help that German was the dominant foreign language taught in Yugoslavia)
Up until Brexit, UK was also a popular choice, but it was now also replaced by Ireland (Cork already has a sizeable population of Croatian immigeants), but Irish housing crisis already made many of them return back home because the costs are so high that it doesn’t really benefit them. Germany is still a go-to place for many Croatian youngsters, but Sweden & Denmark are slowly becoming popular as well (hell, I am planning to move to Denmark myself).
For Romania I will start clockwise
Bulgaria: There used to be some Romanian communities in the Bulgaria but most have been assimilated or moved to Romania as part of population exchange that happened during WW2. There were several waves of immigration of Bulgarians to Romania but again most were assimilated with the exception of a community of Catholic Bulgarians that still exist to this day.
Serbia: Things are a little more complicated with Serbia because there 2 communities of Romanians, with very different situations. First, there is a small community in the Banat region. They are officially recognized, they have minority rights and there is no discrimination (at least as far as I know). There is however another community of Romanian speakers that has no rights. They moved south of the Danube, in Serbia, sometimes around the end of the 18th century. Romania never had any claims on the region so there were no tensions connected to this community. At the same time, they have no language rights, they are not recognized as a minority and are just seen like a regional group called Vlachs. There is strong assimilation pressure on them, but I’m not aware of any explicit discrimination. The community also did not push for a lot of rights, so I’m not sure how the Serbian state would react.
Hungary: Historically there were significant Romanian communities under Hungarian control and the relations were bad, with significant discrimination in most periods. However the current border set up after WW1, were more advantageous for Romania (thanks France) so almost no Romanian communities were left on the Hungarian side. There is a very small community ( I think around 6000 people) in Hungary, where they have minority rights and overall there are no issues there.
Ukraine: There are multiple regions with Romanian population, with slight different situations. Overall the relations with Ukraine have been bad, only Putin managed now to get Romanians to have a positive view of Ukraine.
The western most community was in the current Zakarpattia region. As this area was never part of any modern Romanian state, most of the Romanians were assimilated, so there are small traces left of the Romanian speakers that used to live as west as Moravian Wallachia(Czech Rep) in the middle ages.
For the next regions, I will have to start by saying that officially Romania relinquished any claims over Ukrainian territory, but that does not mean that public opinion did. Ukraine has now a couple of areas that were parts of Romania until 1940. Some were part of the Russian Empire at some point, some had some Ukrainian population and some were just taken because Stalin could, no justification needed.
There is no ethnic conflicts or really strong tensions but the Ukrainian state has no been that supportive of the minority rights and has continued some controversial practices like separating Moldovians and Romanians. Politically the Romanians in Ukraine were voting more with the Russian parties in the past. I’m not sure how it will evolve in the future.
Moldova: Romanians are discriminated in Transnistria, with the language considered a separate one and written in Cyrillic alphabet (not the one that Romanians used until 19th century but the Russian version).
I suppose that Galicians match this a bit. Actually, they kept the original name and we changed. We speak two variations of the same language still, and since Spain as a whole is very empty, we are both sort of isolated from everyone else in the peninsula, so the historical relationships between Galicia and Portugal have kept strong throughout the years.
Spain’s handling of the Galician language hasn’t been stellar, but honestly it could’ve been worse (see: France), but since Spain and Portugal generally get along, so do Galicians and Portuguese, and I suppose we feel closer to them than to the Castillians, but I’m not sure of how reciprocal it is. It varies a lot by individual, I presume.