Chapter 2. Europe and Statelessness aiming to demonstrate the reasons for statelessness occurring in Europe in such a way that states felt it necessary to respond to it through law-making. Europe has a unique history, which reveals its particularities, also as regards statelessness. Today, statelessness remains a significant problem in Europe and this chapter demonstrates the link between nationality questions, statelessness and Europe’s history. Europe, in this sense, should be understood as not only a continent in the geographical sense; there appears to be a common basis of culture and understanding of the world. As the famous adage by Umberto Eco – “the language of Europe is translation”275 – demonstrates, Europe has found a specific way of connecting between cultures, states and even people or citizens despite the differences between them. “Europe is not merely a geographical expression. It implies not only a defi nite area on the earth’s surface, but also a certain type of civilisation. The conceptions of European states concerning social life and government, concerning religion and art and science, have, underneath all their differences, a certain resemblance which may be difficult to define, but which appears unquestionable when they are compared with the ideas of the old civilisations of Asia or the conditions in Africa or the New World. This basis of common ideas and practices is not the result of a common nationality, for the peoples of Europe are many, and some are widely removed from others; it is the result of the historical development of the European lands”.276 The above quote shows that some historians confirm the image of Europe’s peculiarities. This image has been shaped by the history of the continent, fi lled with great wars and states dissolving, (re)appearing, or otherwise transforming or ceasing to exist, and being succeeded by new states.277 Given the changes of borders throughout Europe’s history, the nationals or citizens of a state needed to be defined repeatedly, which would – often deliberately – result in people being left out and (sometimes) becoming stateless. Such actions which left people out or whereby people became stateless were frequently targeted, driven by totalitarianism and discrimination in Europe, and leading to direct rights deprivation. The ‘birth’ of statelessness coincides with the start of the period of time until today in which modern citizenship – or nationality278 – became a scheme for distinguishing between ‘us’ – nationals or citizens of a country – and ‘them’ – non-citizens, foreigners or stateless people. It also relates to the moment when states came to be in charge of decisions regarding nationality – when they “came to possess the sole legal authority to confer, withdraw or withhold nationality from any natural person under 275 276 277 278 Umberto Eco, ‘The language of Europe is translation’, lecture given at the Dixièmes Assises de la traduction littéraire (Arles 1993). AJ Grant & Harold Temperley, revised and edited by Lillian M Penson, Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1789–1950) (Longmans, Green and Co Ltd 1961) 1. Eg Andreas Dorpalen, Europe in the 20th Century. A History (Macmillan 1968) 157–160 on the break-up of Austria-Hungaria in 1918 with Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia succeeding this state. On the use of nationality and citizenship in this book, please refer to para 1.4.2. Intersentia 53