Why have ethnic conflicts become such a predominant fact of contemporary East European history? Here it is not enough to use Nietzsche’s formula of ‘eternal return’, at least not in the unqualified way it has been presented, as a mere ‘repetition’ of earlier outbursts of ethnic hatred (Glenny, 1992; Joffe, 1992; Kennan, 1993). Nor can we accept the equally simplifying theory of ‘suppressed ethnicity’, emerging as the ‘lid of communism’ is lifted off (Zizek, 1990; Sampson, 1992).