Small (nation-)states

Small (nation-)states within/without empires and unions [SnS]

Leader: Adrian Brisku

Contemporary east-central, north-east, and south-east Europe, along with the Caucasus, are composed largely of small (nation-)states that emerged from the mid-nineteenth century as distinct entities within or beyond larger empires and unions. Drawing on both Hroch’s notion of small nations as structurally incomplete and newer understandings of small states as internationally recognized “rule-takers,” including discursive manifestations of smallness, the Small (Nation-)State Research Centre (SnS) explores and examines how these polities — and actors within them — have navigated geopolitical, economic, and cultural challenges across three periods: the late imperial era, the interwar and Cold War decades, and the post-1990 integration into European and Eurasian frameworks. It ultimately asks whether their strategies, or lack thereof, reveal enduring patterns of small state resilience or dependency shaped by contested national and ethnic narratives.

Members

 

Selected projects

Selected publications

  • Hazir, Ediz. 2026. “Women on a Mission: The Oblates of the Assumption and the Transformation of Catholic Outreach in the Ottoman Balkans.” Journal of Church and State 68, no. 1: xx–xx. ISSN 0021-969X.
  • Brisku, A., M. Gumiela and F. Stocker (eds). (2025). Varieties of Economic Nationalism in Cold War Europe: Small States Responses to Economic Changes, 1960s-1980s. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
  • Brisku, A. (2025). The Black Sea Region during World War I and the Interwar Period: The Forging of a Modern Identity,” in Handbook on the History and Culture of the Black Sea Region, Ninja Bumann et al (eds). Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 151-164.
  • Panahova, L. and J. Blinka. (2025). Türkiye and Kosovar Turks: Group Identity and Kin State Identification. Archiv Orientální. 93(2), 257-281
  • Panahova, L. (2025). Recognition of the EU's Actorness in the Karabakh Peace Process by Azerbaijan. Problems of Post-Communism. 72(2), 188-197
  • Horák Slavomír - Lepič Martin. (2025).The 2022 protests in Karakalpakstan. From lost autonomy to regional identity consolidation? Nationalities Papers. Vol. 53, No. 5, 2025, pp. 1174-1193.
  • Weiss, T. & Fernandes, S. (2025). Foreign Policy Specialisation in EU Small States: Conceptualising and Analysing an Underexplored Practice. Journal of International Relations and Development.
  • Weiss, T. (2025). Specialisation (un)recognised: human rights and Western Balkans in Czech foreign policy. Cambridge Review of International Affairs.
  • Weiss, T. (2025). Small states and specialisation: domestic politics, foreign policy, and their interface. Small States & Territories 8(1): 86-89.
  • Hazir, E. (2025). Politico-religious Imperialism: The Protectorate of the Roman Catholics and Holy Places in the Ottoman Empire. Journal of Religious Minorities under Muslim Rule, 3(2), 167-192.
  • Hazir, E. (2025). Religious Alliances and Imperial Ambitions: The Jesuit Mission to Little Armenia (1881). Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies, 42(3), 205-223.
  • Menclová, Barbora. (2025). "Similar but Different: Czechoslovakia in Angola and Mozambique.“ In H. Fonseca, C. Saunders, and L. Dallywater (eds). Communist Actors in African Decolonial Transitions: Comparative Perspectives. Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
  • Menclová, Barbora. (2025). "Czechoslovak experts in independent Lusophone Africa as a variant of economic nationalism.“ In Varieties of Economic Nationalism in Cold War Europe: Small State Responses to Economic Changes, 1960s-1980s. Brisku, Adrian, Gumiela, Martin and Stocker, Fredrik (eds). Bloomsbury Academic.
  • Brisku, A., and K. Beshku (2025). “A Tale of Two States: Explaining the Divergent Outcomes of the EU Soft-Transformative Power in Albania and Georgia”. YSU Journal of International Affairs 1 (2): 12-42.
  • Horák, Slavomír (2023). Turkmenistan in Eurasian Railway Geopolitics. Central Asian Survey, Vol. 42, No. 1. pp. 171–190. ISSN 1465-3354.
  • Brisku, A. (2022). Sto let česko(slovensko)-albánských vztahů. Univerzita Karlova, nakladatelství Karolinum.
  • Brisku, A. (2022). Njëqind vjet marrëdhënie shqiptaro-çeko(sllovake). Univerzita Karlova, nakladatelství Karolinum.
  • Weiss, T., & Edwards, G. (eds) (2022). Small States and Security in Europe. Between National and International Policymaking. Routledge.
  • Brisku, A. (2022). Dealing with Smallness in Hasbsburg Bohemia, Ottoman Albania and Tsarist Georgia in the late-19th and early-20th century. In Samuël Kruizinga (Ed.), The Politics of Smallness in Modern Europe. Size, Identity and International Relations since 1800.
  • Brisku, A., Blauvelt, T. (2021). The Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic of 1918 : Federal Aspirations, Geopolitics and National Projects. Routledge.
  • Weiss, T. (2020). A small state's anticipation of institutional change: effects of the looming Brexit in the areas of the CSDP and internal market. European Security, 29(1), 1-15.
  • Brisku, A. (2020). Modern Georgia. In D. Ludden (Ed.), The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History (pp. 1-22). Oxford University Press.
  • Švec, L. (2020). Demontáž sovětského dějinného paradigmatu v Lotyšsku na konci 80. let 20. století:některé aspekty kontinuity a diskontinuity. Slovanský přehled. Review for the History of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, 106(3), 547-567.
  • Weiss, T. (2019). Between NATO and a hard place: defence spending debate in Germany and Czechia. European Security, 28(2), 193-211.
  • Kolenovská, D. (2019). Československo a běloruská emigrace. In M. Kuthanová (Ed.), Z historie exilu : emigrace z území bývalého Ruského impéria v meziválečném Československu (pp. 9-15). Památník národního písemnictví.
  • Brisku, A. (2018). The Place of "Europe" in the Post-soviet Georgian Modernization Discourse. In G. Zedania (Ed.), Modernization in Georgia : Theories, Discourses, Realities (pp. 107-138). Peter Lang.
  • Kolenovská, D. (2018). Heros and anti-heros of the Belarusian independence project in Chechoslovakia. The Journal of Belarusian Studies, 8(3), 67-86.
  • Šír, J., Emler, D., Fjodorov, J., Hamatová, K., Karasová, N., Kučera, J., Lebduška, M., Lídl, V., Lukešová, O., Pondělíček, J., Raiman, V., Samus, M., Sviták, M., Svoboda, K., Švec, L., & Buchar, J. (2017). Ruská agrese proti Ukrajině. Univerzita Karlova, nakladatelství Karolinum.
  • Kolenovská, D., & Šimová, K. (2017). Cesty do utopie: Sovětské Rusko ve svědectvích meziválečných československých intelektuálů. Prostor.
  • Brisku, A. (2017). Political Reform in the Ottoman and Russian Empires: A Comparative Approach. Bloomsbury Academic.
  • Weiss, T. (2017). Promoting National Priorities in EU Foreign Policy: The Czech Republic's Foreign Policy in the EU. Routledge.
  • Brisku, A. (2017). Renegotiating the empire, forging the nation(- state): the Bohemian/Czechoslovakian case through the political-economic thought of Thomas G. Masaryk and Karel Kramář, c. 1890-1920s. Nationalities Papers, 45(4), 632-650.
  • Králová, K. (2016). Das Vermächtnis der Besatzung. Deutsch-griechische Beziehungen seit 1940. Böhlau Verlag.
  • Weiss, T. (2016). Too Limited, Too Late: Evaluating the Czech Republic's Performance as a Small-State Lobbyist in EU External Policy. New Perspectives, 24(1), 53-78.

News