historical typology of European minorities
Historically European minorities can be placed into four categories. Indigenous, autochtonous minorities have been living continuously in their current areas of residence; they did so even before the emergence of nation states. Historical minorities are those groups that were formed before the nineteenth century through special rights of the orders, settlements and migration processes. Groups that have emerged not as a result of social-historical processes, but as a result of a change in state borders, as a result of a political decision, and have been cut off from the majority ethno-cultural community of another country, can be called “forced minorities.” The fourth large group is made up of migrants resulting from economic immigration which became significant in the second half of the twentieth century. Ethnic and national communities in Hungary are historical minorities, while Hungarian minority groups living beyond the country’s borders are forced minorities.