Imagined Communities and Asymmetric Distribution of Power. Some Abstracting Remarks

In period historical of World terminology, War II, at least if one seems considers to be historiographical restricted to the peri d Wo ld War I, t leas if e co siders historiographical works dealing with the phenomenon. If, on the other hand, one takes the term literally, one can find this phenomenon in all epochs and in many segments of human experience. In trying to define what collaboration actually means and historically was (or at least how it was looked upon in a given period), it is necessary to focus on the reasons that lay behind it and the context in which it developed. This is the purpose of the articles that make up this special issue. It is not possible to list every aspect of the phenomenon of collaboration touched upon in these articles. I will, therefore, first concentrate on three general implications, before continuing with a few remarks concerning types of collaboration within different contexts. 1. An initial analytical approach might be to focus on the distinction between chronological and definitional dimensions of the topic, and their respective applications to the case of the Baltic countries. Konrad Maier and, even more so, Detlef Henning emphasize the evolutionary character of the collaboration issue, as exemplified by key figures of the Estonian and Latvian national movements. This procedure shows quite clearly that collaboration, despite its general character of an anthropological constant, is something that changes along with its historical context. In the case of the Baltic countries, the 1880s, the Revolution of 1905, the period of World War I and the liberation wars seem to be turning points in the history of collaboration. In the contributions by Karsten Bruggemann and Joachim Tauber, the problem of terminology and semantics, as well as the difficulties of finding appropriate definitions of collaboration form the centre of attention. It becomes quite clear here that every kind of behavior can be stigmatized as collaboration when it comes to the interests of one or another class, people, or nation. 2. Collaboration has a lot to do with the creation of ideologies and collectivities. The development of norms of thinking and acting within a collective context and the representation of collectivities to the outside

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