Within the range of methods available to
actors seeking to change the numerical relations
among ethnic groups living within the boundaries
of a given territory, altering the ways in which
populations are defined and measured is perhaps
the least intrusive (cf. Bookman 2002: 28).
Possible effects of state category choices include
“amalgamation” (e.g., Czechs and Slovaks vs.
Czechoslovaks; the inclusion of all ethnic
minorities in a single census category in postCommunist
Albania), “absorption” (e.g.,
Communist Bulgaria’s classification of Pomaks,
5
Turks, and Roms as Bulgarians), “fragmentation”
(e.g., distinctions between Germans, Saxons, and
Swabians in the 1992 Romanian census),
“invention” (e.g., the introduction of categories
“Yugoslav” and “Muslim” in the Socialist Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia), and “omission” (e.g.,
ruling “Jews” a confessional category and
“Gypsies” a social category, such that neither
constitutes an appropriate object of Communist
statistics on ethnic composition6
) (Liebich 1992:
33-35). These techniques can also be combined:
The Soviet census category “Moldovans”
constitutes an example of fragmentation combined
with invention (i.e., ruling persons previously
considered Romanians to be members of a
nationality created for those same persons)
(Liebich 1992: 34).