Political Thought in Central and Eastern Europe 2102-ERASMUS-POTO

This course is an examination of political concepts and political imagination of Central and Eastern Europe . Such terms as “Central Europe” and “Eastern Europe” belong to “imagined geography”, which means that their understanding depends on interpretation. One of the main purposes of the seminar is to familiarize students with various interpretations of these concepts. The originality of these regions are determined by specific historical experiences and meaning given to them by representatives of the political thought in these parts of Europe.
The interpretations of these experiences, which constitute the distinctiveness of political thought in these parts of Europe, will be discussed in more detail. In the discussion at the seminar we will pay special attention to the following issues:
I. Imagined geography: concepts of Central Europe and Eastern Europe
II. In Search of identity – Slavophilism and Pan-slavism
III. Ant-Western narratives in Central and Eastern Europe
IV. The legacy of empires - between nostalgia and nightmare
V. – VI. The faces of nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe. Interpretations of national identity
VII. Constructions of regional identity - Intermarium
VIII. Totalitarian temptation – fascism
IX. – X. Totalitarian experience – interpretations
XI. In the grip of the past – discussions about the culture and politics of memory
XII. Russia in search of itself – the meaning of the Vladimir Putin’s presidency in Russian history
XIII. The problems with liberalism in Central and Eastern Europe
XIV. The spectre of populism and “the European civil war”
XV. Final essay (in class)

Reading list (selected fragments):
I. M. Kundera, The Tragedy of Central Europe, New York Review of Books Volume 31, Number 7 · April 26, 1984 http://www.kx.hu/kepek/ises/anyagok/Kundera_tragedy_of_Central_Europe.pdf
II. F. Palacký, Letter to Frankfurt, 11 April 1848, in: Discourses of collective identity in Central and Southeast Europe (1770–1945) : texts and commentaries / edited by Balázs Trencsényi and Michal Kopecek, CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY PRESS, Budapest & New York 2007.
A. Walicki, The Flow of Ideas. Russian Thought from the Enlightenment to the Religious-Philosophical Renaissance, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2015.
III. N. Berdyaev, Leontiev, Academic International 1968.
IV. D. Lieven, The Russian Empire and Its Rivals, Yale University Press 2001.
M. Riabczuk, Ukraine without Ukrainians?, in : Towards an Intellectual History of Ukraine. An Anthology of Ukrainian Thought from 1710 to 1995, Edited by R. Lindheim, G. S. N. Luckyj, University of Toronto Press 1996.
V - VI. D. Dontsov, Nationalism, in: Towards an Intellectual History of Ukraine. An Anthology of Ukrainian Thought from 1710 to 1995, Edited by R. Lindheim, G. S. N. Luckyj, University of Toronto Press 1996.
I. Bibo, The Misery of Eastern European Small States, in: The Art Of Peacemaking. Essays by Istvan Bibo, Yale University Press 2015.
The Spirit of Thomas G. Masaryk (1850-1937). An Anthology, edited by George J. Kovtun, Palgrave Macmillan 1990.
VII. T. Snyder, Reconstruction of Nations, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999 Yale University Press, New Haven & London 2003.
VIII. S. G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1919 – 1945, University of Wisconsin Press 1996.
IX - X. A. Gleason, Totalitarianism. The Inner History of the Cold War, Oxford University Press 1995, chapter IX.
A. Solzhenitsyn, A World Split Apart https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/alexandersolzhenitsynharvard.htm
XI. V. Tismaneanu, The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century, University of California Press 2012.
XII. V. Putin: The Real Lessons of the 75th Anniversary of World War II
https://nationalinterest.org/print/feature/vladimir-putin-real-lessons-75th-anniversary-world-war-ii-162982
XIII. Viktor Orbán’s speech at Băile Tuşnad (Tusnádfürdő) of 26 July 2014
HTTPS://HUNGARIANSPECTRUM.ORG/2014/07/31/VIKTOR-ORBANS-SPEECH-AT-THE-XXV-BALVANYOS-FREE-SUMMER-UNIVERSITY-AND-YOUTH-CAMP-JULY-26-2014-BAILE-TUSNAD-TUSNADFURDO/NIVERSITY AND YOUTH CAMP, JULY 26, 2014, BĂILE TUŞNAD (TUSNÁDFÜRDŐ)
R. Legutko, The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies, Encounter Books 2018.
XIV. F. Furedi, Populism and the European Culture Wars: The Conflict of Values between Hungary and the EU, Routledge 2017.
I. Krastev, After Europe, University of Pennsylvania Press 2020.

Supplementary Reading:
G. Hosking, Russia: People and Empire, Fontana Press 1997.
R. A. Kann, A History of the Habsburg Empire 1526 – 1918, University of California Press 1974.
L. Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment , Stanford University Press 1996.
P. Wandycz, The Price of Freedom. A History of East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present, Routledge 2001.
All of the materials will be sent to students by e-mail

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