Ethnic Complexity

Thanks for the lesson in European ethnic insecurity, Sasa Tajcevski (Letters, 25/1), but please: but it behind you.

Endless hand-wringing about who is Hungarian, or a Tartar or "former Yugoslavian" something-or-other is impenetrable, boring and ultimately futile.

After traipsing around those parts of Europe, I've realised that pretty much every village has belonged to a range of ethnic groups - disturbingly with some form of still-simmering claim - after a thousand years of war and politics.

Europeans expect their local history to be universally understood the way Americans expect everyone to understand their geography. In a global world, that looks very petty.