National Integration and Formation of Multi-Ethnic Society: Experiences in Estonia and Latvia after EU Enlargement Edited by Nobuya HASHIMOTO, Hiromi KOMORI March, 2009 Kwansei Gakuin University Nishinomiya, Japan First Published in 2009 Copyright 2009 by editors and contributors School of Humanities, Kwansei Gakuin University 1-1-155, Nishinomiya Uegahara, Japan 662-8501 Tel. +81-798-54-6284 E-mail:
[email protected] Editors Nobuya Hashimoto (Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan) Hiromi Komori (Kyoto University, Japan) The proceedings of international conferences entitled « Integration Policy in Estonia and Latvia from a Viewpoint of European Dimension » and « Russia, Baltic States, Europe –Ethnopolitics of Memories and Histories » held in Tokyo and Nishinomiya, Japan in November 2008. National Integration and Formation of Multi-ethnic Society: Experiences in Estonia and Latvia after EU Enlargement, edited by Nobuya Hashimoto and Hiromi Komori. Kwansei Gakuin University, Nishinomiya, Japan, 2009 Printed in Kobe, Japan ii Preface It has passed 8 years since we started the International Research Project on the contemporary situation of Estonia and Latvia after their recovery of independence. The first stage of our project (“The History and Today’s Situation of Russian-Speaking Population in Estonia and Latvia: From the View Point of the Contemporary History of European Integration and Formation of Multi-Ethnic Society”, 2001-2005) addressed especially the issues of Russian-speaking minorities (people who had migrated from the other various areas of USSR and did not go back home after the recovery of independence by Estonia and Latvia, and their offspring) in both states, because they were the urgent matters of domestic and international discussions since their recovery of independence.