INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION OF THE LANGUAGE RIGHTS OF MINORITIES IN THE 19th – THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20th CENTURY

The article discusses regulatory efforts of states to protect the rights of national minorities. The focus is on the role of the League of Nations and the treaties on minorities concluded with Poland (1919), Czechoslovakia (1919), the Serbo-Croat-Slovenian state (1919), Romania (1919) and Greece (1920), as well as the peace treaties that formed the basis of the Versailles-Washington system of international relations in Europe in 1919–1922 (the 1919 Peace Treaty between the Allied and United Powers and Germany, the 1919 Saint-Germain Peace Treaty, the 1919 Neisk Peace Treaty, the 1920 Trianon Peace Treaty, the 1920 Sevres Peace Treaty). The contribution of the Permanent Court of International Justice to the protection of minority rights is noted (the case of minority rights in Upper Silesia, the case of minority schools in Albania, the case of eviction of German minorities in Poland).