Anti-Fascism and Ethnic Minorities (Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right)

Anti-Fascism and Ethnic Minorities explores how, and to what extent, fascist ultranationalism elicited an anti-fascist response among ethnic minority communities in Eastern and Central Europe.

The edited volume analyses how identities related to class, ethnicity, gender and political ideologies were negotiated within and between minorities through confrontations with domestic and international fascism. By developing and expanding the study of Jewish anti-fascism and resistance to other minority responses, the book opens the field of anti-fascism studies for a broader comparative approach. The volume is thematically located in Central and Eastern Europe, cutting right across the continent from Finland in the North to Albania in the Southeast. The case studies in the 14 research chapters are divided into five thematic sections, dealing with the issues of (1) minorities in borderlands and cross-border antifascism, (2) minorities navigating the ideological squeeze between communism and fascism, (3) the role of intellectuals in the defence of minority rights, (4) the anti-fascist resistance against fascist and Nazi occupation during World War II, and (5) the conflictual role ascribed to ethnicity in post-war memory politics and commemorations. The editors describe their intersectional approach to the analysis of ethnicity as a crucial category of analysis with regard to anti-fascist histories and memories.

The book offers scholars and students valuable historical and comparative perspectives on minority studies, Jewish studies, borderland studies, and memory studies. It will appeal to those with an interest in the history of race and racism, fascism and anti-fascism, and Central and Eastern Europe.

Anders Ahlbäck is a Lecturer in History at Stockholm University, Sweden. His previous books include Manhood and the Making of the Military: Conscription, Military Service and Masculinity in Finland, 1917–39 (Routledge, 2014).

Kasper Braskén is a Researcher in the History Department, Åbo Akademi University, Finland. His previous books include the co-edited collections Anti-Fascism in the Nordic Countries (Routledge, 2019) and Anti-Fascism in a Global Perspective: Transnational Networks, Exile Communities, and Radical Internationalism (Routledge, 2021).