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To examine the association between adult children's migration and depression among older parents in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and explore the role of intergenerational support in contributing to their depression. Data are from the eighth wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), pooling a study sample of 11 CEE countries, with a cross-sectional design. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and hierarchical linear regression were conducted using a study sample of 9133 respondents. Older adults whose children migrated over 500 km were more likely to experience depression compared to those with no migrant child or all children within 500 km. Among intergenerational support, frequent parent-child contact mitigated the effects of migration on depression in older parents with all their children who migrated over 500 km. This study suggests that older parents with migrant children over 500 km away should be considered a vulnerable population at risk for mental health in CEE countries. It is crucial for local governments and policymakers to address these challenges through improving integrated mental health and social programs for better mental health outcomes among older adults in CEE countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Little is known about bullying experienced by internationally adopted teens residing in Europe. Objectives: Within the framework of an international research effort involving several European countries, the main goal of this study was to explore the experiences of bullying victimization suffered by adopted adolescents, as well as its impact on their psychological adjustment. Methods: The sample consisted of 199 adolescents born in Eastern European countries and adopted in France (n = 50), Italy (n = 59), Norway (n = 25) and Spain (n = 65). Results: More than half of the adopted adolescents had been exposed to some form of peer victimization in the previous 2 months, with verbal harassment and social exclusion being the most common forms of victimization. Differences between receiving countries were not statistically significant, suggesting a common pattern for Eastern European adopted adolescents living in Western Europe. More frequent experiences of peer victimization were associated with more psychological difficulties among the adopted adolescents. Conclusions: Findings highlight that adopted adolescents might have considerable difficulties in social integration with peers; these experiences of peer victimization might play an important role hindering their psychosocial adjustment. The socioemotional development of adopted people is not only linked to their pre‐adoptive experiences; factors in their daily lives (i.e., peer relationships) may also be associated with their psychological adjustment later in life. Interventions are needed to promote the real inclusion of these groups of children in their social and educational contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: People living with HIV (PLWH) are at higher risk of poorer COVID‐19 outcomes. Vaccination is a safe and effective method of prevention against many infectious diseases, including COVID‐19. Here we investigate the strategies for national COVID‐19 vaccination programmes across central and eastern Europe and the inclusion of PLWH in vaccination programmes. Methods: The Euroguidelines in Central and Eastern Europe Network Group consists of experts in the field of infectious diseases from 24 countries in the region. Between 1 November 2020 and 19 March 2021 the group proceeded an on‐line survey consisting of 20 questions. Results: Twenty‐two countries (out of 24 invited) participated in the survey and 20/22 countries in the period between December 2020 and March 2021 had already started their COVID‐19 vaccination programme. In total, seven different vaccines were used by participating countries. In 17/21 countries (81%), vaccinated persons were centralized within the national registry. In 8/21 countries (38%) PLWH were prioritized for vaccination (the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Montenegro, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia) and the Czech Republic, Greece and Serbia had put in place national guidelines for vaccination of PLWH. In 14/20 countries (70%) vaccination was only provided by designated centres. Eighteen respondents (18/21; 85.7%) reported that they planned to follow up HIV patients vaccinated against COVID‐19, mainly by measuring antibody levels and checking COVID‐19 incidence (11/21; 52.3%). Conclusions: This survey‐based study suggests that there are significant differences in terms of prioritizing PLWH, the types of vaccines used, vaccination coverage, and the development and implementation of a vaccination programmes within the region. Regardless of heterogenicity and existing barriers within the region, systematic vaccination in PLWH should have the highest priority, especially in those with severe immunodeficiency, risk factors, and in the elderly, aiming for prompt and high vaccination coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of this study is to give a broad overview of the international best practices regarding the implementation of point-of-care testing (POCT) in primary care (PC) setting and to highlight the facilitators and barriers for widespread national uptake. The study focuses on the managerial and organizational side of POCT, offering a roadmap for implementation as well as highlighting the most important requirements needed to unlock the clinical and economical potential of POCT in the Hungarian healthcare system. Methods: We conducted an English language scoping literature review between January 2012 and June 2021 to assess the recent trends of POCT implementation in developed countries. Our research focuses on the recent publications of several European and Anglo-Saxon countries where POCT utilization is common. In parallel, we reviewed the Hungarian regulatory framework, ongoing governmental legislation, and strategies influencing the POCT dissemination in the Hungarian PC sector. Results: Among the possible POCT usage in PC, we identified several clinically relevant devices and tests (C-reactive protein, urine, blood glucose, D-dimer, prothrombin time) important in screening and early detection of morbidities representing high disease burden. Based on international literature, general practitioners (GPs) are interested in the shortened diagnostic times, portable devices, and better doctor–patient relations made possible by POCT. There are several concerns, however, regarding initial and operational costs and reimbursement, limited scientific evidence about quality and safety, unclear regulations on quality validation of tests, as well as managerial aspects like PC staff training and IT integration at the GP level. Conclusion: As our review highlights, there is considerable interest among GPs to implement POCT as it has the potential to improve quality of care; however, there are many obstacles to overcome before widespread uptake. Further investigation is recommended to elaborate management and quality insurance background and to develop appropriate regulatory framework and financial scheme for GP practices. Preferably this work should involve the local practicing GPs to better tailor the implementation roadmap to country-specific details. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the highlights of the 2021 Eastern European Diabetic Foot Ulcer Advisory Board meeting, including topics like improving treatment protocols for patients with diabetic foot syndrome (DFS) and the challenges in diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) treatment in Hungary.

Background: Because there is high variability among European countries in prevalence levels of various alcohol consumption measures, the informational value of adolescent's alcohol consumption indicators is uncertain. The present study aimed to examine information capacity and measurement invariance of different alcohol consumption indicators in adolescents from countries of the former Soviet (Eastern) Bloc in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Methods: Data were collected in 16 CEE countries, as part of the 2013/2014 wave of the Health Behavior in School‐aged Children study. Data from adolescents (age 15) who reported having consumed alcohol at least once in their lifetime were analyzed. Four binary items selected for analysis measured the presence or absence of alcohol consumption in the last 30 days, lifetime drunkenness, weekly drinking frequency, and binge drinking on a typical occasion. Multiple group confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory analysis were used to examine the data. Results: In most of the included countries, alcohol consumption in the last 30 days and lifetime drunkenness were indicative at lower severity levels, while binge drinking and weekly drinking frequency were informative at higher levels of alcohol use severity. A low proportion of the estimated intercepts and factor loadings were noninvariant, which indicated approximate cross‐national invariance of these indicators. Conclusions: Adolescent alcohol consumption indicators are informative for different severity levels and enable cross‐nationally invariant measurement. However, different indicators suggested the presence of diverging drinking cultures in the CEE regions, with the highest discrimination capacity at the lower and higher ends of the continuum of alcohol use severity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In analysing efforts to pass as white, this article examines the ways racialized difference materializes on the bodies construed as "Eastern European". Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among Russian-speaking migrants in Helsinki, it examines their attempts to inhabit whiteness through tactics of passing, such as changing their surnames, working on their accents, and adjusting how they dress. I argue that these efforts to pass as not "Russian" should be understood through the postcolonial formation of Europeanness, with its internal racialized division between (proper) Western Europeanness and (incomplete) Eastern Europeanness. The labour of approximating whiteness through passing draws attention to sites of racialized differentiation such as accent, audibility, language, surnames, and clothing. These efforts of attempting to pass for someone Russian speakers are not recognized as point to the structural racist hierarchies that refuse to attach value to their bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on a proposed workshop at the 16th World Congress on Public Health 2020 on people-centered approach in tuberculosis (TB) treatment.

Introduction: Lower-income European countries have a worse health status and less funds for health care compared to Western Europe. Despite their limited human and financial capacities for conducting Health Technology Assessment (HTA), the need for evidence-based decision-making is growing. Two main approaches emerged as potential solutions: joint clinical assessments on the European level, and simplified procedures relying on the judgments of well-established HTA agencies of Western countries.Areas Covered: Based on considerations of transferability, the European Network for Health Technology Assessment (EUnetHTA) was built up to harmonize HTA methodologies across the European Union, and to develop an HTA Core Model by focusing on joint production of relative effectiveness assessment, which can be used as a basis for national value assessments. The second approach has been suggested in various forms without considering transferability issues.Expert Opinion: Joint clinical assessments reduce duplication of efforts based on appropriate scientific rationale. On the other hand, recent examples show that relying on judgments of HTA agencies from wealthier countries with potentially different health-care priorities can lead to suboptimal allocation decisions. In the short term, some stakeholders may benefit from ignoring transferability, but it will ultimately lead to limited access in other disease areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Lithuania has one of the highest mortality rates from coronary heart disease (CHD) among European countries. Most CHD are preventable, but when they occur, the management of these patients is important in secondary prevention. The purpose of the present analysis was to describe the demographics, clinical profile, and contemporary management of patients with stable CHD in the Lithuanian population and to compare data with other Central Eastern European countries.Methods: CLARIFY (prospective observational longitudinal registry of patients with stable CHD) is an international cohort study in outpatients with stable CHD. Treated outpatients with established CHD from the CLARIFY registry in Lithuania (214 patients) were compared with those from the rest of Central Eastern Europe (2794 patients).Results: Lithuanian patients were younger (p = 0.0275), had a higher body mass index (p = 0.0003), and more frequently received treatment for hypertension (p < 0.0001). Prevalence of dyslipidemia (p < 0.0001) was higher in Lithuanian patients but a smaller group of people had diabetes (p < 0.0001). The total cholesterol (p < 0.0001), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (p < 0.0001), and blood pressure (p < 0.0001) were higher in the Lithuanian population. A smaller proportion of Lithuanian patients were physically inactive, and the majority of patients in Lithuania were engaged in light physical activity compared with Central Eastern European patients (p = 0.0018).Conclusion: The data analysis shows that management of hypertension, dyslipidemia, smoking, and obesity in patients with CHD in Lithuania is insufficient and needs further improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the relation between religiosity and cognitive appraisal of the subjective well-being of the Central and Eastern European's elderly population. The first part of the paper is dedicated to examining of the scientific literature. In the second part, the authors explore the data basis corresponding to the 6th wave of World Value Survey. The authors use the heterogeneous correlation and the multi-linear regression analysis in order to explain the relation between religiosity and subjective well-being of the old aged. Our results suggest that in the case of the Central Eastern European elderly satisfaction with life is mostly influenced by health and income. It is likely that for Central and Eastern European's elders religious practices do not sufficiently influence their life satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies demonstrating the vulnerability of labour migrants following the recession have focused on unemployment. This article examines how the labour market performance of East-European workers in the U.K. has been affected by the recession by focussing on four possible employment outcomes: unemployment, self-employment, over-qualification and part-time jobs. By showing the relatively low rates of unemployment amongst East-European migrants, which have become even lower following the recession, it argues that the vulnerability of immigrants in periods of economic downturn cannot always be solely measured in higher rates of immigrant unemployment. Labour migrants may be prompted to take jobs (any jobs) below their skills and qualifications, thus suggesting a ‘trade-off’ between unemployment and over-qualification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I approach the mobilization of women outside the realm of politics and inside NGOs in Romania and Poland, by analyzing some of the most important contextual elements that shaped their activities, interests or causes. In this manner, I present both similarities and differences between the communist legacies in the two countries, the effects of democratization and economic change, the civil society development and Western funding, elements of national culture, as well as transnational and EU actors. Issues such as interactions with the political sphere, network building and alliances, as well as differences between Western and Eastern countries are described throughout this endeavor. Conclusions are then drawn to stress out how different contextual elements have impacted women's movements in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Volga, the largest river in Europe, has experienced multiple stressors from human activities. Recently we showed that its upper course (about 500 km, from its source to Tver) still has large sections with low impact and a natural type-specific potamal flora and fauna. Our present research in the East European lowlands aim to define reference conditions for mid-sized to large lowland rivers in order to build a basis for future management and conservation. Three monitoring sites were selected based on the results from intensive sampling in 2005. In subsequent field campaigns between 2006 and 2010 regular surveys were carried out each year in summer and additional ones in spring. A taxon-rich macroinvertebrate fauna, including several rare potamal relict species, was recorded and the data was used to provide an overview of annual and interannual variation in community indices and metrics. The conditions described for the headwaters of the Volga River system can be used as a reference state for medium-sized and large lowland rivers in regions where reference sites of these types are lacking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The annual Eurovision Song Contest has provided a venue where participating nations from the former Soviet bloc, whose relation to Europeanness may be tenuous, strive to perform claims to belonging and partnership. Yet the increasing emphasis on ‘diversity’ in the representation of an expanding Europe has created difficulties for Central and Eastern European countries, which historically were positioned as ‘ethnic’, if not racialized vis-à-vis western European powers. Nevertheless, Central and Eastern European participants in the Contest have engaged with cosmopolitanism as the key term through which Europe has come to define itself. Through a close, historically contextualized analysis of two songs, the article argues that Central and Eastern European participants in the Contest have developed alternative discourses of cosmopolitanism that furnish a corrective to the increasingly reductive equation of the concept with cultural diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The European Union has achieved a substantial contribution to building a new order in Europe after the fall of the Berlin wall. Its main instrument was the accession of new member states. By associating and finally the accession of the ten central eastern European countries, the EU extended the values and standards on which it is founded. Moreover, it benefited politically and economically from this export of stability. However, the conditions in the Eastern Neighbourhood for further enlargement as a foreign and security policy are difficult. Considering this, the article recommends a further development of the European Neighbourhood Policy and a prioritisation of deepening European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the personal experiences of refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina related to their employment in Sweden. It is based on 35 interviews conducted in 2009 with asylum claimants and resettled refugees who came to Sweden in the early 1990s, aiming at their own perceptions and subjective assessments of their employment paths. The variety of experiences within each of these two groups suggests that individual employment paths can neither be fully explained by the admission category, nor in terms of the type of education, age, or gender. Although they admit the importance of these factors, the interviewees perceive chance as a decisive issue with regard to their initial access to the labour market, and its strong impact on their further success. They see official channels of professional recognition as far less functional than informal paths leading into the labour market that depend on personal encounters and connections. Against the background of laws and policies, personally experienced employment integration is revealed as a chance-ridden individual process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transformation of the seven central and eastern European countries' political system has undergone constant changes for more than twenty years, and has been influenced by various kinds of political thought. In these twenty years, political thought has gone through four great stages . Each stage has a profound impact on the political situation of these countries. In the first stage, the wave of anti-communist and liberalist thought is on the upsurge, the right parties are in power. There has serious confrontation between various political parties. In the second stage, the wave of anti-communist subsides and the thought of democratic socialism returns; the left parties are in power again and the pattern of political parties is formed. In the third stage, the thought of developing national economy becomes the most important, and multiparty competition is formed, taking turns to rule the country. In the fourth stage, populism rises and left-middle parties and right-middle parties begin to cooperate; the substitute of regime becomes more stable. The transformation of the seven central and eastern European countries' political system hasn't come to the end yet, and the process of political system transformation will be influenced deeply by the political thought in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article assesses the current state of corruption literature and conducts relevant empirical tests. It explores the validity of the corruption indicators regarded as having high explanatory power and juxtaposes them with empirical facts from several Eastern European countries. The article points out the existing problems with corruption indicators and the oversimplification of the term corruption as well as calls for a more comprehensive approach to studying corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past several decades, the "politics of history" has become a significant aspect of domestic politics and international relations within Europe and around the world. The politicizing and instrumentalizing of history usually pursues two main objectives: first is the construction of a maximally cohesive national identity and rallying the society around the powers that be; second is eschewing the problem of guilt. The two are clearly interlinked; having liberated oneself of the sense of historical, political, moral or whatever responsibility, it is arguably much easier to take pride in one's newly minted "unblemished" identity based on the celebratory interpretation of one's country's "glorious past." This article intends to explore how the memories of some momentous developments in the tumultuous 20th century (above all, the experience of totalitarian dictatorships, World War II, the "division" and "reunification" of Europe, the collapse of the Soviet Union) and their historical interpretations relate to concepts of national identity in the post-Soviet lands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the ongoing discussion on the normative efficiency of strategic control and the operational oversight of business in public limited companies from the Eastern European point of view, especially since some Polish regulation could be seen as an example of best practice for international shareholders. The article will attempt to answer the question: Using the appropriate legal tools and instruments available under Polish company law, is a balance of power possible within a corporation's bodies? It will consider various aspects of company law such as: the composition, powers and functioning of management boards as well as; the specific position and related duties of supervisors, their conflicts of interest, the role of external auditors, liability, the expected behavior of shareholders and the use of business judgment rules. There are certain factors and underlying forces which determine a divergence of the Polish regulation from that of the celebrated theories in Western Europe. The evidence of empirical observation regarding the type of ownership structure leads to an exceptional legal diversification of the monitoring and enforcement of corporate governance and subsequently allows us to see the advantages and disadvantages of such a system. More than three years after the begin of the economic crisis, it is necessary to review recent evidence and the possible impacts of the forthcoming EC measures on ''crisis management''. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on Eastern Europe stresses the weakness of its civil society and the lack of political and social involvement, neglecting the question: What do people themselves think it means to be a good citizen? This study looks at citizens’ definitions of good citizenship in Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, using 2002 European Social Survey data. We investigate mean levels of civic mindedness in these countries and perform regression analyses to investigate whether factors traditionally associated with civic and political participation are also correlated with citizenship norms across Eastern Europe. We show that mean levels of civic mindedness differ significantly across the four Eastern European countries. We find some support for theories on civic and political participation when explaining norms of citizenship, but also demonstrate that individual-level characteristics are differently related to citizenship norms across the countries of our study. Hence, our findings show that Eastern Europe is not a monolithic and homogeneous bloc, underscoring the importance of taking the specificities of countries into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the past decade of decentralization and regionalization research on the new Eastern European member states of the EU (EU-10). We classify the existing literature according to focus of analysis, explanatory programme and methodological preferences, and propose a distinction between three different research agendas: system transformation, EU conditionality and subnational governance. We argue that with respect to the EU-10, scholarly interest in the perspectives of state transformation and conditionality is waning. By contrast, the subnational governance approach is growing in relevance because it represents the cornerstone of a multi-level governance perspective that is able to integrate what have up to now been separate debates about regionalism in Eastern and Western Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After 1989, all central and eastern European countries reoriented their foreign policy agendas toward the West. What has become of relations with countries that used to belong to the Soviet bloc? This question is examined in the case of the Czech Republic's eastern policy. For the time being, it is the only new member state that does not share a border with a country not belonging to the EU. It participates in the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), which was launched in 2003 for countries bordering on the enlarged European Union. What interest has the Czech Republic shown in the ENP? Is its participation grounded on a genuine commitment, or is it only talk? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the impact on the UK economy of the flow of workers from ten East European countries after their accession to the European Union. We find evidence that those most susceptible to competition from these workers have seen weaker wage inflation. We document that the presence of these foreign workers has increased the fear of unemployment and helped to contain wage pressure. We argue that this inflow of workers has increased supply by more than it has raised demand and, thus, had the effect of reducing both inflationary pressures and the natural rate of unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes various Internet resources for Eastern European studies available to students, scholars, and general readers in the social sciences and humanities. These resources are a valuable source of general and scholarly information. The unprecedented growth of the Eastern European Internet resources allows users a glimpse into the rich cultural, linguistic, and historical diversity of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to contextualise the papers in this special issue, this paper presents an overview and framework for understanding the importance of East-West migration in Europe associated with the EU enlargement process. The new patterns and forms of migration seen among East European migrants in the West—in terms of circular and temporary free movement, informal labour market incorporation, cultures of migration, transnational networks, and other phenomena documented in the following papers—illustrate the emergence of a new migration system in Europe. Textbook narratives, in terms of standard accounts of immigration, integration and citizenship based on models of post-colonial, guestworker and asylum migration, will need to be rethought. One particularly fertile source for this is the large body of theory and research developed in the study of Mexican-US migration, itself a part of a regional integration process of comparative relevance to the new European context. While the benefits of open migration from the East will likely triumph over populist political hostility, it is a system that may encourage an exploitative dual labour market for Eastern movers working in the West, as well as encouraging a more effective racial or ethnically-based closure to immigrants from South of the Mediterranean and further afield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The official accession criteria for EU membership define the Union as a civic community. Yet, in the debate over enlargement the definition of 'Europeanness' remains complex and EU membership at times becomes a question of cultural affinity. Arguing that the media play a key role in shaping European identities, this study explores how British and German press coverage since 2001 ascribes both civic and cultural components to EU membership. Its analysis of the representation of Turkey and Central and Eastern European countries reveals a complex and context-dependant concept of European identity. While overall we can see a civic and culturally inclusive concept, when it comes to Turkey cultural criteria appear as well. Whereas Central and Eastern European countries are presented as 'natural' members of the European family, Turkey remains its 'other' and is excluded on the basis of its cultural identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the topography of the Enlightenment the region of Eastern Europe-broadly comprising the former Habsburg Monarchy, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Ottoman Empire in Europe and Russia-is usually neglected on the grounds of its economic and political backwardness. Moreover, the contribution of East Europeans is mostly regarded as irrelevant for the general picture of the Enlightenment as an intellectual movement under the pretext that their ideas are mostly derivative and exhibit no originality in comparison with their Western counterparts. In contrast to such one-sided models, which treat the region as a whole in structural terms without taking into account its political, social and cultural differences, the author proposes alternative approaches to East European case studies. She takes the Enlightenment as a form of sociocultural history and a product of contemporary urban culture, thus avoiding the regional typification and contextualising local particularities by means of micro-historical methods. The five contexts of the Prague Enlightenment are examined, which offer an 'insider's' look at the activities of local patriots and their 'quest for improvement'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current installment of the Ethnographic Atlas, we present formalized data (following Murdock's scheme) on seventeen peoples of the European part of the former Russian Empire and the Soviet Union not covered by any of the previous installments of the Ethnographic Atlas. Different peoples of the sample were integrated into Russia in different historical periods, from medieval (the Ingrians, Karelians, Veps, Votes) to early modern (the Besermyan, Bashkir, Chuvash, Kazan Tatar, Mordva, Udmurt) to modern (the Gagauz, Estonians, Lithuanian K araim and Tatar, Latvians, Livs, Moldovans). Some of them have always remained within Russia's borders (the Besermyan, Bashkir, Chuvash, Ingrians, Karelians, Kazan Tatar, Mordva, Udmurt, Veps, Votes), while others departed after the fall of the Russian Empire, during the 1920s and 1930s, and live outside of Russia today. After the break up of the USSR, there arose the independent republics of Estonia (the Estonians), Latvia (the Latvians and Livs), Lithuania (the Lithuanian Karaim and Tatar), and Moldova (the Gagauz and Moldovans) (Kizilov 1984; Tishkov 1998). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Czechs are some of the least religious people in Eastern Europe. In contrast, their close neighbors and one-lime compatriots, the Slovaks, are vastly more religious. What explains this marked difference hi religiosity between two regions that have shared a common history throughout the twentieth century? Statistical analyses of demographic differences do not yield any convincing answers. Instead, the religious differences between Czechs and Slovaks are rooted in the historical relationship between religion and nationalism in both regions. This paper provides a historical framework in which to understand current religious differences and shows that secularization is a complex phenomenon which depends heavily on church relations with nationalist sentiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]