Call Number:

MC249

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Public Policy Papers

Extent:

• 41 boxes
• 64 items

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Project on Ethnic Relations Records, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1990-2016 (inclusive)

Creator:

Project on Ethnic Relations

Form:

Born digital.

Abstract:

The Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) was a not-for-profit organization based in Princeton, NJ concerned with the course of interethnic conflicts during the post-communist transitions in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and former Soviet Union, and the Balkans following 1989 and extending into the 21st century. The collection consists of paper and digital reports and records of consultations, meetings, roundtables (and discussions and preparations for roundtables), and correspondence with leaders of political parties and representatives of governments and international organizations.

The Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) was a not-for-profit organization based in Princeton, NJ concerned with the course of interethnic conflicts during the post-communist transitions in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the former Soviet Union, and the Balkans following 1989 and extending into the 21st century. PER originated in 1991 as a project of the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), the American organization that was responsible for the principal exchanges of scholars between the United States and the USSR and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. IREX's then Executive Director, Allen H. Kassof (who was on the Princeton University faculty from 1961 through 1973), had had extensive prior contacts with leaders of the transitions. He planned the project in anticipation of the ethnic disputes that were to follow the collapse of communism. PER's cofounder was Livia Plaks, who was Assistant to the Executive Director at IREX.

In 1992, Kassof stepped down as head of IREX and PER became an autonomous project. Kassof served as President of PER until his retirement in 2005, when Plaks, who had been PER's Executive Director, succeeded him. PER dissolved in 2012.

One of PER's most intensive activities concerned Romania where, over a period of years in the 1990s and into the 2000s, PER helped to negotiate a series of agreements between the main political parties and the leadership of Romania's ethnic Hungarian minority to ease the tensions between them. In September 2013, Kassof was invited to visit Romania in order to advise senior government officials, including ethnic Hungarian leaders, on steps that might be taken to update the original agreements and understandings, some of which had fallen into disuse. Kassof visited Romania in January and March 2014 and recommended that a series of roundtables be held for political leaders, including several who were alumni of the original talks, as well as younger politicians who were unfamiliar with them. Following these consultations, two roundtables were held in Romania, in May and October 2014. A new Romanian NGO, The Roundtable on Ethnic Relations, was established in September 2016 to sponsor the renewal of PER's efforts.

The collection consists of paper and digital reports and records of consultations, meetings, roundtables (and discussions and preparations for roundtables), and correspondence with leaders of political parties and representatives of governments and international organizations. Some of the records are in the form of published reports that summarize the positions of the disputants and interlocutors and the substance of their debates, providing a detailed picture of the nature of their claims and counterclaims and changes over time. There are also private notes and correspondence among staff members; reports on current developments prepared by PER's representatives in several countries; and copies of press coverage and commentary on PER's efforts.

Arranged into the following series: