INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENTS AND NATIONAL MINORITIES: SOME PARALLELS IN THE EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE *

In the case of several successful nationalist movements in Europe the path to independence has followed a common pattern. In Ireland, Finland, Estonia and Latvia, the progress of a tripartite struggle may be charted: between the metropolitan governing power, the local centre and the local periphery. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the local centre (Irish Protestants, Swede‐Finns and Baltic Germans) comprised a minority population group divided from the bulk of the local population in terms of language, economic position and political status (and, in the case of Ireland, religious affiliation). Political development tended to take on a form contrasting with the West European norm. As society modernised, the local periphery began to challenge the economic hegemony of the local centre by moving into towns and into industrial occupations and by threatening the confiscation of landed estates. The cultural supremacy of the local centre was undermined as the standardisation and revival of the peripheral language led to its replacing the central language in education, commerce and the administration, except in Ireland. The growth of a distinct ethnic identity among the peripheral population assisted in its assuming control of local government and ultimately of attaining political independence.