The Editors of the volume prepared under the National Center for Science project believe that over twenty years of experience is a good opportunity to analyze and assess the ethnic politisc of East Central European states. Aware of the deficiency of each attempt of this kind, the authors of successive chapters tried to carry out a balanced assessment of successes and failures of individual states ant the region. It is a multifaceted attempt besause the volume contains fundamental, methodologically-based in-deph analyses and reflections presenting new hyphoteses and judgments. The essence of the work is detailed presentations analyzing the specifity of ethnic politisc in selected states. It appears therefore, and this is the goal of this publications, that the volume provides a substantial amount of knowledge about an important, selected aspect of the functioning of East Central Europe - an area not yet firmly established, a field of research and original solutions, in the process of system transformations.