(p. v ) Acknowledgements

While working on the subject, I received help from many individuals. First of all, I am grateful to the editors of the series, Donald Bloxham and Mark Levene, who read the entire manuscript several times and provided invaluable feedback, tactfully putting up with my proclivities to narrative.

Amir Weiner, Gabriel Finder, Eric Weitz, Omer Bartov, Peter Holquist, Norman Naimark, Jerzy Borzecki, Michael Gelb, Martin Dean, and Scott Zeman questioned my conclusions and accorded me helpful comments and suggestions. I am deeply indebted to John Staples and my friend and research companion Vadim Altskan for their generous help.

I am pleased to recognize the most important contribution of the staff members of the John Skeen Library at New Mexico Tech, especially Tom Irion, Peter Martinez, Sandra Licata, Tony Telles, and George Tavarez, without whom the research for this book would have been impossible.

The workshop ‘National Politics and Population Migrations in Central and Eastern Europe’ at the University of Minnesota in April 2006 and the international conference ‘Borderlands: Ethnicity, Identity and Violence in the Shatter‐Zone of Empires since 1848’ in Marburg, Germany, in May 2007 provided a propitious intellectual environment for the exchange of ideas.

Matthew Cotton of Oxford University Press tolerated my lateness in submitting the manuscript, while copy‐editor Veronica Ions stoically corrected my numerous errors and omissions.

Finally, I owe much to my wife Elena, who supported me through the entire process of completing the project. (p. vi )