Dealing with National Diversity – Conversation with Börries Kuzmany

Alex Favalli in Conversation with Börries Kuzmany

Alex Favalli: What are the main issues your new book addresses, and why do they matter?

Börries Kuzmany: The book tackles the question of how states react to national diversity within their borders. Diversity per se was nothing new. Most European states had been confronted for centuries with inhabitants that did not speak the majority language, did not confess the majority religion, or were not considered of the same ethnic origin. The age of nationalism, starting in the nineteenth century, casted these linguistic, confessional and ethnic differences through the new lens of national homogeneity. In parallel, the modernising states increasingly took over more tasks for more people, not least in the sphere of education.

Modern states have reacted differently to this challenge and actually still do. While some states opted for outright homogenisation, others opted for different ways to handle national diversity within their borders. My book looks at non-territorial autonomy, which is a group rights approach to national diversity accommodation. It studies how this concept came into being, how it was discussed, circulated and transformed as a travelling political idea, and how it was implemented as a tool of governance. Hence, the book is at the crossroads of intellectual and political history. It analyses the multinational Habsburg and Russian empires, where the idea of non-territorial autonomy developed in theory and practice. In a second step, it investigates how non-territorial autonomy developed in several interwar (nation) states in Central and Eastern Europe, where we see that this idea could be interpreted in different,  even opposing ideological currents including communist, social-democrat, liberal, and far-right contexts. Finally, the book examines how non-territorial autonomy was discussed in the context of international minority protection, both in international organisations like the League of Nations and minority NGOs like the European Congress of Nationalities. This part demonstrates that unlike today, most people interested or engaged in minority protection were familiar with the concept of non-territorial autonomy, its origins, and its earlier implementations, which does not imply that they necessarily supported this model of diversity management.

While this book is a historian’s book and does not intend to give policy recommendation, it resonates with current debates on how to deal with national diversity within our contemporary societies in Europe. This diversity is visible both in the continued existence of autochthonous minorities and recent migration. Yet, this book does not idealise diversity, it also does not provide a blueprint solution. It actually points to the many pitfalls intrinsically linked to collective rights in liberal societies that are fundamentally based on the individual.

Alex Favalli: Can you briefly explain the concept of non-territorial autonomy and how the idea circulated within and beyond the Habsburg or Russian Empires?

Börries Kuzmany: The history of diversity accommodation in Europe has seen three different approaches: First, national rights could be granted to individual citizens; second, they could be granted to autonomous territorial units, where a national minority might form the local majority population; and third, minority rights could be granted to collective bodies, which unite persons of a common national affiliation, wherever they might live in the country. These collective bodies manage the cultural affairs of their national group autonomously, such as their schools, or theatres. As this third approach is based on a person’s belonging to a specific group, and not on a person’s place of residence, it has been labelled non-territorial autonomy. This third approach is the topic of this book; and through its thorough examination it hopes to provide a better understanding of the other two approaches as well.

The early roots of non-territorial autonomy, although not under this analytical name, had developed independently in the Habsburg Empire and in Imperial Russia since the mid  19^th century. As the ideas matured in their own directions, interaction began, even if it was not an even exchange and the Russians observed what the Austrians were doing more closely than vice-versa. Russian-Jewish socialists were particularly involved in the processes of translation and transformation between the intellectual spaces.

The Habsburg Empire experienced a decades-long state reform discussion that circulated around centralism and various forms of federalism; it transformed into two separate territorial entities in 1867 becoming Austria-Hungary. While this 1867 Compromise (Ausgleich) was a purely territorial solution, the Austrian part of the dual monarchy started experimenting with non-territorial arrangements in some provinces, or crownlands as they were then called. After the turn of the century, the Austrian social-democrats Etbin Kristan, Karl Renner, and Otto Bauer elaborated a model of national autonomy – based on territorial and non-territorial elements – that would have transformed Imperial Austria into a federation of corporate nationalities.

The Russian Empire also saw many discussions on how to overcome the state’s centralism and autocracy. Many suggestions rooted in the Narodniki (populists) and Ukrainian popular socialist ideas of rebuilding the state based on strong and autonomous communes, which eventually could be understood as territorial municipality and non-territorial community. The other important intellectual strands were Jewish thinkers. The liberal historian and politician Simon Dubnow developed a model of non-territorial autonomy based on early modern Jewish community self-administration in the diaspora, which he adapted to modern nationalism. Being familiar with the Russian populist reform discussion, Dubnow’s ideas and the concepts of the Austro-Marxists, Jewish socialist activists also supported the idea of non-territorial autonomy.

Alex Favalli: What were some of the key differences between the Habsburg Empire, the Russian Empire, and perhaps the Ottoman Empire in navigating the lines between nation and ethnic and/or religious communities? And is the idea of a nation state a prerequisite for non-territorial autonomy or did the concept emerge in tandem with the national frame?

Börries Kuzmany: Non-territorial autonomy is a modern group rights concept that is rooted in the principal equality of all people and all peoples. This is the big difference compared to early modern systems that very often gave different legal status to people according to their belonging to a specific social, ethnic or confessional group, and it was also common praxis in all European colonies. Not studied in the book, the Millet system in the Ottoman Empire, which certainly was a non-territorial self-governing arrangement, rooted in early modern conceptions of rule as the Ottoman Empire lacked the fundamental idea of civic and national equality (at least until 1908).

The Russian Empire is interesting because it is at the crossroads of early modern and modern conceptions. Those who discussed non-territorial autonomy were in strong favour of the equality paradigm and regretted that it had not yet been realised in Russia. When elements of non-territorial autonomy were applied in imperial policies, we can observe a mixture of early modern ways of ruling over indigenous groups or non-Orthodox subjects as social groups and modern ways of government in an empire that was increasingly nationalising around its Russian core. With few exceptions, the applied non-territorial autonomy elements were an imperial instrument to privilege the Orthodox Slavonic population. Only in the revolutionary period of 1917/18, the idea of non-territorial autonomy became omnipresent as a tool for safeguarding minority rights in a principally equal society.

In Habsburg Austria, national equality has been a legal paradigm ever since 1848 – although in reality national hierarchies remained very strong. So, formally, the empire (later only its Austrian part) did not know any minorities, but only various nationalities that differed in size. The Austrian 1867 constitution was inconsistent. It was based on liberal principles and hence the relationship between the individual and the state; at the same time, it also guaranteed the rights of the nationalities without defining how such a group can enjoy or exercise rights. After the turn of the century, several crownlands started experimenting with non-territorial autonomy elements. Moravia, Bukovina, Galicia and Bosnia linked the exercising of political rights, in particular electoral procedures, to an individual’s belonging to a group. These systems were highly complicated because they tried to balance national and social interests alike. Moreover, they also pointed to the liberal dilemma inherent to non-territorial autonomy: the reification of nationality and the question of national identification. If national belonging becomes a legal category, it is crucial to ensure that the categories of belonging are not misused. A liberal state would rather opt for people’s self-classification. While this is good for the individual, it might be detrimental to the group’s persistence, in particular if the group is in a hierarchical low position and dropping out of the group seems appealing to individuals.

Alex Favalli: How did people that were considered ethnic and/or religious minorities contribute to the development of concepts outside of the national framing of states? And how did they react?

Börries Kuzmany: The discussion on non-territorial autonomy was a discussion that equally involved actors from dominant and non-dominant nationalities. In the Habsburg Empire, non-German actors usually rather sought territorial federalism that would have given them political dominance in “their” territory. Yet, while nationalities activists formulated such claims vis-à-vis the imperial centre, many local national antagonisms had less to do with the imperial centre but with national power relations in a given crownland – local Czechs and Germans in Moravia, or local Poles and Ruthenians/Ukrainians in Galicia. So, when these provinces opted for non-territorial arrangements after the turn of the century, local national stakeholders needed to compromise. The Austro-Marxist theoretical discussion, however, was different. With the exception of Kristan, proponents of the non-territorial autonomy idea were the Austro-Germans Renner and Bauer. Czech social-democrats, although not being principal opponents of this idea, often criticised Renner and Bauer for the implicit centralism in the way how they formulated their concept.

In imperial Russia, the non-territorial autonomy idea was originally formulated only by non-dominant nationalities like Ukrainians or Jews. Via their writings and activities, in particular those of Jewish liberals and Jewish socialists, this idea also became familiar within the general Russian parties. During the revolution of 1917, liberal Russian legal scholars started to endorse non-territorial autonomy.

In the international arena of the interwar period, non-territorial autonomy was advocated most loudly by minority activists themselves, e.g. by Europe’s largest minority NGO, the Congress of Nationalities. States and state actors, on the other side, remained hesitant, not least because these decades were the apogee of the nation state and minority accommodation, be it territorial or non-territorial, was far-off the political agenda. However, it is important to notice that there was no univocal consensus among minority actors either. Support for non-territorial autonomy came largely from representatives of well-organised and economically strong minorities like e.g. Germans in the Baltic states. “Weak” minorities’ spokespersons like those of Germany’s Sorbes or Austria’s Carinthian Slovenes articulated concerns that their fellow nationals would neither register nor fund the autonomous institutions.

Alex Favalli: In what shape or form did non-territorial autonomy survive after “the End of Empires” and the Second World War?

Börries Kuzmany: The end of empires can be described as the moment of non-territorial autonomy. In 1917-18, in different parts of the disintegrating Russian Empire (Ukraine, Volga Region, Siberia, Far East) non-territorial autonomy was implemented; and at the demise of the Habsburg Empire, Royal Hungary and the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic, i.e. East Galicia, proposed non-territorial autonomy to accommodate the national diversity within the borders they hoped to preserve or attain.

The end of empires, however, brought one fundamental conceptual change. While Karl Renner in imperial Austria and Vladimir Medem in imperial Russia had originally designed non-territorial autonomy as an instrument for the reorganisation of a multinational state, during the interwar period it became a minority protection tool. At the same time, this minority protection tool could be interpreted very differently according to the different ideological settings. The various ideological interpretations did not necessarily differ in the extent of autonomous competences but in the divergent interpretation of what kind of group a nation is, what place the individual should have within the nation, and who was allowed to speak for the nation.

Although the minority rights as formulated by the League of Nations were by no means collective or group rights, minority rights were seemingly discredited after 1945. Rights were now formulated through the prism of individual human rights. Still, the successor organisation of the Congress of Nationalities, the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), has supported non-territorial autonomy ever since its foundation in 1949. And if we look more closely, the 1948/51 UN Genocide Convention and the 1989-1991 UN Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention clearly follow a collective rights approach as they do not only protect the individuals but also groups. Although vaguely formulated, the 1999 Lund Recommendations of the OSCE also point to non-territorial autonomy arrangements as being useful for the effective participation of national minorities in public life.

Alex Favalli: What makes the period of transition from empires to states interesting today? And in which ways can a reflection of the history of non-territorial autonomies be fruitful today?

Börries Kuzmany: The transition period at the end of the First World War points to the fact that states and borders might change, but people and ideas do not disappear necessarily at the same pace. They adapt themselves and their ideas to new political circumstances.

Interestingly, today, it is rather political scientists and legal scholars that are interested in non-territorial autonomy. Given their discipline, they have a rather normative approach to this model and investigate the applicability of this concept to current national conflicts. Most interesting to me seems a discussion of non-territorial autonomy in already deeply divided societies like in Israel/Palestine or in cases of widely dispersed (often indigenous) populations like the Māori in New Zealand or the First Nations in Canada; we also find implemented non-territorial autonomies for minorities in Hungary or Serbia. What I bemoan is that sometimes these normative scholars take an overly supportive stance towards this model and thereby occasionally overlook the problems of group rights, corporatism, and ethnic proportionalism that we can e.g. observe in Lebanon or Bosnia. Here, my non-normative historical approach might be helpful to put things into perspective.

To put it into a nutshell, my book is no instruction manual for politicians with ready to wear solutions. However, it investigates the multiple approaches to national diversity that have been discussed and implemented in the past – non-territorial autonomy being one of them. This model is neither good nor bad, but it has been suitable in some contexts. As there have never been and will never be one size-fits-all solutions to diversity accommodation, it might be good to have a book at hand that discusses past considerations and experiences.

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Alex Favalli works at the Forum Transregionale Studien and is part of the TRAFO Blog’s editorial team.

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Citation: Dealing with National Diversity: Conversation with Börries Kuzmany, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 15.08.2024, https://doi.org/10.58079/126b6

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