Tolerant majorities, loyal minorities and ‘ethnic reversals’: constructing minority rights at Versailles 1919^*

Abstract

. The 1919 Versailles Peace Conference created new states in East Central Europe (ECE), but the imperfect implementation of the ‘one nation, one state’ formula resulted in more than twenty‐five million ‘unassimilable’ minorities. With the introduction of majoritarian democracy, this gave rise to what we term ‘ethnic reversals’: ‘formally dominant majorities’ suffered status decline, while previously ‘minoritised majorities’ found new political powers. Accordingly, the 1919 Minorities Treaties sought to manage these ‘ethnic reversals’ by instituting a liberal minority rights regime that tried to create both ‘tolerant majorities’ and ‘loyal minorities’. While the Treaties reflected the influences of Anglo‐American and Anglo‐American Jewish elites – the most notable voices of liberalism in an age of ethnic homogenisation – we suggest that in contexts of historical diversity with little institutionalised liberalism, ‘ethnic reversals’ raise issues that cannot be resolved within liberal conceptions of minority rights that rely solely or primarily on cultural protections.

Poland in the ‘Paris system’: self‐determination, stereotypes, and decisions in 1919

“…Despite Polish protests, the Allied and Associated Powers and Poland signed a separate treaty protecting minorities in Poland on 28 June 1919, after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles (Fink ; Kaufman ; Lundgreen‐Nielsen ). The treaty was to serve as a template for minorities treaties covering the new states of Central and Eastern Europe and those like Romania and Greece that had gained significant new territories (Fink ; Mazower ; Riga and Kennedy ). The leaders' discussions of the treaty in May 1919 made unusually broad reference to the personal and national histories of the leaders and what they knew about Jews and Poles.…”

Definiranje državljanskog korpusa na hrvatsko-slavonskom području u Kraljevini SHS/Jugoslaviji

“…29 Sličan primjer je i natječaj koji je raspisao grad Zagreb za zapošljavanje školskoga liječnika u kojem se također navodi da podnositelj činjenicu pripadnosti Kraljevini treba dokazati domovnicom. 30…”

Republic of Paradox: The League of Nations Minority Protection Regime and the New Turkey's Step-Citizens

“…Wilson's progressive liberalism, based on the American multiethnic model, strongly influenced the Great Powers' reasoning about how to create "tolerant majorities and loyal minorities." 31 This liberalism was first inscribed in the Polish Minority Treaty of 28 June 1919, which became the model for treaties with other newly formed or expanded states, such as Czechoslovakia, Romania, Greece, Albania, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Turkey, among others. 32 According to this Wilsonian logic, recognition of the cultural rights of minorities in the short run would eventually lead to value assimilation, therefore bringing about political loyalty and discouraging separatism.…”