Draft:Tom Trier

• Comment: The formatting is quite odd, I don't know if this has been copied from a Word document or similar? Eg. the bullet points are not recognised as bullet points, and therefore do not create a list (in wiki markup bullets are made using asterisks). DoubleGrazing (talk) 12:10, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: It's not enough to just link to the sources using <ref> tags, you need to cite them with an appropriate {{cite}} template; see WP:REFB for advice. And don't include the chromeextension blurb in the citation, please. DoubleGrazing (talk) 12:07, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

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Tom Trier is a Danish social anthropologist, EU diplomat and former research director whose work has focused on inter-ethnic relations and minority issues in the South Caucasus and Eastern Europe.

Career

Trier holds a cand.scient.anth. (M.Sc) degree in social anthropology. In the late 1990s, he served as the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) Regional Representative for Ukraine, conducting field research in Transcarpathia on Rusyn identity and inter-ethnic relations.

He held several positions at ECMI, like Head of Programmes (2003), Deputy Director (2004), and Regional Director in the Caucasus (2005-2012). In that capacity, he engaged with Georgian authorities and civil society on minority and integration policy. In recent years, he has worked for the EU. As of 2024–2025, he is listed as Head of Office and Political Adviser at the Office of the European Union Special Representative (EUSR) for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia, based in Tbilisi.

Research

Trier's research has addressed the politics of ethnicity and displacement in Georgia and its breakaway regions, with studies on Abkhazia and on the repatriation and integration dilemmas facing the deported Meskhetian (Ahıska) Turks. He has also written on Rusyn identity and inter-ethnic relations in Transcarpathian Ukraine and most recently on historical relations between Scandinavia and the South Caucasus.

Selected Work

• Trier, Tom, Blue Sea, Black Gold, Red Banner: Scandinavia and the South Caucasus, 1880s-1920s. Ithaca: Northern Illinois University Press, 2026. ISBN 978-1-5017-8792-8.
• Trier, Tom, Lohm, Hedvig; Szakonyi, David. Under Siege: Inter-Ethnic Relations in Abkhazia. London: Hurst & Co.; New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1-8490-4020-4.
• Trier, Tom, Tarkhan-Mouravi, George; Kilimnik, Forrest. Meskhetians: Homeward Bound, Flensburg: ECMI, 2010.
• Trier, Tom, Khanzhin, Andrej (eds.). The Meskhetian Turks at a Crossroads: Integration, Repatriation or Resettlement? Hamburg: LIT Verlag, 2007. ISBN 978-3-8258-0644-4.
• Trier, Tom, Pentikäinen, Oskari. Between Integration and Resettlement: The Meskhetian Turks. ECMI Working Paper No. 21, 2004.
• Trier, Tom, Turashvili, Medea. Resettlement of Ecologically Displaced Persons: Eco-Migration in Georgia 1981–2006. ECMI Monograph No. 6, 2007.
• Trier, Tom, (ed.). Focus on the Rusyns: International Colloquium on the Rusyns of East Central Europe.Copenhagen: Danish Cultural Institute, 1999. ISBN 978-87-7429-094-0.
• Trier, Tom, Inter-Ethnic Relations in Transcarpathian Ukraine. ECMI Report, 1999.

Reception

Under Siege: Inter-Ethnic Relations in Abkhazia was reviewed in several peer-reviewed journals. George Hewitt reviewed the book in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. It was also reviewed in Europe-Asia Studies and in Slavic Review. A further review appeared on the independent Caucasus-focused outlet Abkhaz World.