Ethnicity and Economic Development in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

Ethnicity and economic development have a strict connection in the history of Central-Eastern Europe. This essay aims to sketch some general lines of this complex relationship, focusing on the importance that culture and ethnical belonging had for the economic development of certain European regions. Inside the great multinazional Empires of Central-Eastern Europe, as a matter of fact, the inter-ethnic problems had always showed also an economic impact and had been largely conditioned by the distinction between dominant groups and dominated minorities. This situation was dangerously manifest at the end of the First World War, when the definition of a new geopolitical balance and the consolidation of the National States tried to erase this historical legacy creating many problems for the economic stability and the ethnic coexistence.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n1p155