Book review: Mehrsprachigkeit und Multikulturalitaet in politischen Umbruchphasen im östlichen Europa: Auftaktkonferenz des Thematischen Netzwerks 'Kulturelle Kontakt- und Konfliktzonen im Oestlichen Europa' in Kasan (19. und 20. Oktober 2013) (Multilingualism and multiculturalism in times of political change in Eastern Europe. Initial conference of the thematic network 'Zones of cultural contact and conflict in Eastern Europe' in Kazan' (19 and 20 October 2013)

The volume reviewed has the following sections: language policy and language situation; ethnic, cultural and language contacts; culture and literature; national and urban projects; security and violence. The first contribution is by Monika Wingender on “Language Policy in the Postsoviet Area between Regionalization, Nationalization and Internationalization – especially in the Russian Federation”. Language policy in the former Soviet states is defined by nation building. The formal equality of languages can in practice mean the right of the stronger language to dominate the weaker language, as in Belarus’, where Russian and Belarusian are formally equivalent but Russian dominates. The Tatar capital Kazan was chosen as a model of the tolerant and multicultural city in the late Soviet era, but recent surveys indicate that tolerance has declined. András F. Baloghs studies authors in the South-Eastern Europe that wrote in different languages. Thomas Daiber examines whether the Renaissance reached into Russia. And finally Peter Haslinger discusses multilingualism and securitization