1st Edition

Understanding Central Europe

Edited By Marcin Moskalewicz, Wojciech Przybylski Copyright 2018
    610 Pages
    by Routledge

    610 Pages
    by Routledge

    “Central Europe” is a vague and ambiguous term, more to do with outlook and a state of mind than with a firmly defined geographical region. In the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Iron Curtain, Central Europeans considered themselves to be culturally part of the West, which had been politically handicapped by the Eastern Soviet bloc. More recently, and with European Union membership, Central Europeans are increasingly thinking of themselves as politically part of the West, but culturally part of the East. This book, with contributions from a large number of scholars from the region, explores the concept of “Central Europe” and a number of other political concepts from an openly Central European perspective. It considers a wide range of issues including politics, nationalism, democracy, and the impact of culture, art and history. Overall, the book casts a great deal of light on the complex nature of “Central Europe”.

    Acknowledgments



    Making sense of Central Europe: political concepts of the region (Marcin Moskalewicz, Wojciech Przybylski)




    Part I: Positioning Central Europe



    1) Positioning in global hierarchies: the case of Central Europe  (Attila Mellegh)
    2) Centers of Europe (Mate Zombory)
    3) Creating Central Europe in Polish and Czech Samizdat  (Weronika Parafinowicz-Wertun )
    4) Transition/transformation, state capture or varieties of capitalism? (Marcel Tomasek)
    5) Europeanization (Michal Wenzel)




    Part II: Orientalism



    6) Which way east?  A conceptual misunderstanding (Adam Reichardt)
    7) Problem of “Western” approach to the “East” – a need for more careful listening and better understanding (Igor Lyubashenko)
    8) Poland and the East (Tomasz Zarycki)
    9) The East in the Czech perspective (Radomír Sztwiertni)
    10) On "East", "Central" and "Eastern" Europe: Belarus and Central European politics of identity (Aliaksei Kazharski)




    Part III: Geopolitics



    11) Regional geopolitics perspective of contemporary Poland: same or different with other V4 Countries? (Wojciech Kazanecki)
    12) Geopolitics in the Polish national strategies  (Łukasz Medeksza)
    13) Towards a sustainable Visegrad: some reflections on the future role of Central Europe in the EU (Tomáš Strážay)
    14) Popular geopolitics: understanding the Central European space in the Czech Republic (Matus Halas)
    15) Regional geopolitics: the case of Hungary (Attila Jakab)




    Part IV: Nationalism



    16) Nation: Central European context (Radoslaw Zenderowski)
    17) The normative isomorphism of language, nation and state (Thomas Kamusella)
    18) Nation and region in Central Europe (Bálint Varga)
    19) My hero, your enemy: competing national memory cultures and symbolic politics in Central Europe (Bálint Varga)
    20) The concept of "nation" in Polish educational books (Daniel Ciunajcis)
    21) Narra

    Biography

    Marcin Moskalewicz is a Fellow at the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Sciences, Poznań University of Medical Sciences, Poland.







    Wojciech Przybylski is the Editor-in-Chief of Visegrad Insight – a magazine on Central Europe – and Chairman of Res Publica Foundation in Warsaw.