This collection contains transcripts of interviews conducted during 2014-17 with representatives of minority autonomy bodies and minority NGOs, state officials, political party representatives and academic experts in Hungary, Russia, Estonia, Romania and Serbia. In Russia the interviews covered a wide range of different non-Russian ethnicity, but with particular emphasis on Tatar and Finno-Ugric minority communities. In all five country settings, interviews were also conducted with current and former politicians from across the ethno-political spectrum who had been actively involved in debates leading to the adoption (where relevant) of cultural autonomy legislation during the 1990s and beyond. This research was inspired by ongoing discussion of what is often called the the 'nationality' or 'minority' question in the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE): namely, how to integrate ethnically diverse societies according to democratic principles within the framework of existing state borders. The period since the fall of communism and the demise of the multinational USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia has seen sustained efforts by international organisations (most especially the Council of Europe, OSCE and EU) to enact a credible national minority rights regime capable of preventing the emergence or resurgence of ethnic conflicts within this region. Minority rights are of course not simply an issue in relation to CEE: discussion of this region can be situated within the context of broader debates on integration of minority communities and the possibility of reconfiguring existing nation states along lines of democratic multiculturalism. One particular feature of recent minority rights development in CEE has been the adoption by several states of laws based on the principle of non-territorial cultural autonomy (NTCA). First elaborated in Austro-Hungary at the turn of the 20th century, NTCA is based on the premise that in an areas of ethnically mixed settlement, rights to minority autonomy cannot be allocated to particular territorial regions; rather, these rights must be allocated to public collectivities of persons, constituted on the basis of individual citizens freely associating to create their own institutions with responsibility for minority schooling and other cultural affairs. This model has attracted growing interest from contemporary scholars and practitioners of minority rights, who see it as possible way of conceptually separating ethnicity from territory and thereby alleviating fears that greater minority rights might undermine the stability and integrity of existing states. For all of this interest, however, there is still a lack of detailed comparative research on NTCA that seeks to determine the factors and agendas behind the revival of NTCA laws, the actual roles performed by NTCA institutions that have been established and the implications that NTCA carries for identity and the construction of statehood and political community within the post-communist CEE region. The broad aim of the research was to address this gap in the literature by conducting a thorough comparative analysis of debates and practices around NTCA in five states where the model has had particular salience in recent times: Estonia, Hungary, Romania, Russia and Serbia. The project also sought to set the findings from these CEE cases within a broader context through expert seminars involving academic theoreticians of NTCA as well as scholars and policymakers working in and on other states where NTCA is either used or mooted as a model for managing ethnic diversity. The findings are interesting and relevant not only academically, but also for organisations engaged in the development of a European minority rights regime. From a range of settings spanning the entire CEE region, including EU member, prospective member and partner states, the research gives a fuller and more nuanced understanding of whether NTCA is helping to integrate communities or whether it in fact reifies ethnic divisions.

This data collection consists of transcripts of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with: representatives of minority cultural autonomy bodies, representatives of minority NGOs and political parties, state officials involved in the design and implementation of minority policy and academic experts working on issues of cultural autonomy and minority rights in Hungary (Budapest, Baranya County & Borsod County) Russia (Moscow, St Petersburg, Petrozavodsk, Kazan & Ufa), Estonia (Tallinn, Tartu & Noarootsi), Romania (Cluj, Bucharest & Mures, Harghita & Covasna Counties) and Serbia (Vojvodina Province). The research focused primarily on the following minority communities: Hungarian (in Romania & Serbia); Ingrian Finnish, Swedish and Russian (in Estonia); German and Roma (in Hungary). In each case, interviews were initially requested with key individuals and institutions identified through secondary background research. Once in-country fieldwork began and interviews were underway, a snowballing method was used to identify further relevant contacts and approach them for interview.