Ukraine’s newest attempt to meet EU expectations regarding national minority rights has again failed to grant sufficient institutional protections to the numerous minorities living in the country.

John C. Swanson’s book Tangible Belonging provides not only a rare insight into the life of German-speaking villagers in Hungary, but also into the complexity of ethnic identity and interwar minority formation.

Given their considerable numbers, Roma could be a decisive force in Hungarian politics, however, due to the fragmentation of their political leadership, in the last thirty years Roma representation has not left any significant mark on Hungarian public life.

The social dynamics set into  motion under state socialism continues to have a lingering negative impact even today. Around 55 per cent of the Hungarian Roma live in villages or towns with a population of less than 50 thousand people.