The present volume is dedicated to those ethnic groups and traditional communities of Eastern and Central Europe which have not been integrated by modern civil and national movements, and which have not actively participated in the nation-building or state-building processes that shaped modern Europe. We discuss on the same level of interpretation both the national/religious minorities who ere not part of modern national movements due to their traditional lifestyle, and such minority communities living within nation-state borders, whose endeavour to manifest themselves as independent communities takes mostly forms of symbolic gestures and practices. Identity, ethnicity, tradition and modernization: these are the keywords of the present publication.