1. Longue durée historical forces and special characteristics
(Kundera, Jeno)
Milan Kundera: The tragedy of central Europe (80s samizdat)
CE is made of small nations (confidence) between Russia and Germany.... existence may be put in question at any moment, a small nation can disappear and it knows it (napr. Poland)
CE = EUROPE (West) kidnapped by Russia ... not GEO term, but cultural, political
EUROPE HISTORY
1 EUROPE = WEST
connection with 56:
Szucs Jeno: The 3 historical regions of EU (80s samizdat)
What is East central Europe?
Hungary fought for EU, or H that is European
connection to culture (What value is EU unity based on?)
no exact borders (like Middle East): constantly changing borders and numbers of states
geo, historical, political, cultural question
between West and East: "Eastern part of central EU" (partly like the west, partly like the east)
realtional, constructed (depended on other terms)
iné koncepty CE/EU
3 EUROPES (from 1500 AD)
History of division of EU
EAST
WEST
IN BETWEEN (East-Central EU) = Hungary here
HYBRID: it has both West and Eastern features, not its own
Eastern developments on (weaker) Western basis
From Great Schism of 1054: EU Occidens stretched further to include a new region to the East to the Eastern borders of the Polish and Hungarian Kingdom: Roman Catholicism xxx Orthodox Church
From 1500 AD : Elbe- Leitha lines (WEST) becomes dominant again - Western EU, modernization, liberties, * 3 EUROPES
East central EU post (1989 (for the purpose of the course)
in narrow sense: Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary
in border sense (Halecki post 45): all countries between the Baltic, Adriatic, Aegean, Black Sees or between Russia and Germany - Baltic states, Poland, CSSR, Carpathian Basin, Balkan, peninsula (Minus Greece)
Around 800 AD:* Carolingian Empire, Occidens, Imperium, Europa (rôzne názvy) to the Elbe Leitha lines (rivers on German / Austrian border): *Christian and feudal society xxx Byzantium and Islam (relational)
Romanesque and Gothic styles of architecture, Renaissance
Reformation, autonomous cities, Estates,
separation of sacred and secular, modernization, liberties, free contractual relations (Magna Charta, power limited by contract norms - you have certain liberties as noble...)
caesaropapism, patriarchal relations (no contractual)
second serfdom (nevoľníctvo): peasants not free to decide for themselves, without contract obliged to serve the landlord
conferences of division of EU after WW2 (Postupim, Jalta, Teheran): division of EU the same way as in 9th century (Middle Ages, Charlemagne age): West x East schizma
Middle ages: religion x Modern Era: culture x Now: ? technical feats?, market place? mass media? politics? === West do not share the culture anymore
CE: culture matters, true EU, modern EU, shared identity based on culture (literature, historiography, philospohy...)
connection to the notion of EU
"The moment Hungary is no longer European (Western) it is driven from its own destiny beyond its own history, it lose the essence of its identity"
Zwischen EU: in between Russia and GErmany, Eastern part of MittelEuropa... Nazi term (German political concept)
Osteuropa (Eastern Europe): behind the iron Curtain, Communist EU
MittelEuropa (= CE, kedysi SRRNN): German concept of Central Europe, including Germany, Austria, Hungary, SKandinavia, Low countries, Switzerland, Balkan
DIVIDED EUROPE
Dichotomy:
Interwar period
16/17th century: Regional differences in cultural or eco developmend
1308: Description of Eastern Europe (geo treatise in Latin) by some monk: Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Russia, ALbania, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia
catholic- protestant xxx Orthodox-Muslim
Germanic-Latin xxx Slavic - Greek
Oscar Halecki: Russia is not Europe, Eastern Europeis: Poland, Baltics, Belorussia, Ukraine, Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Jaroslav Bidlo
Western Christianity: Poles, Czechs, SLovaks, Croats, Slovenes, Baltic, Hungarians
Byzantine Orthodoxy: Belorussians, Ukrainian, Serbs, Bulgarian, Macedonians, Greeks, Romanian, RUssians
Sudost-Europa (South-East EU): "what starts when you leave Vienna towards Istanbul"
belongs to different regional- cultural x politically defined regions at the same time
po 1845: border between 2 EU shifted 700 km to West (Hungary now in East)
po WW2: 3 regions
do 1845 2 EU: tied to ancient Rome + Catholic Church (CE) xxx EU tied to Byzantium + Orthodox church
Eastern Europe
Central Europe: (Geographically in the centre, culturally in the West and politically in the East )
Western Europe
3 REVOLTS
1968 Prague Spring + CSSR occupation
Polish revolt of 1956 + 1968
1956: Hungarian revolt
the critique of literary group named after Romantic poet Sandor Petofi
theatre, films, literature, philosophy
1968: banning of a play by Mickiewicz - * student revolt
František Palacký Central Europe: family of equal nations, each trading other with respect and structure in protection for a strong unified state
Communism: negation (of its religiosity) and fulfillment (of its centralizing tendencies and imperialistic drams) of Russian History
all of CE (except Austria) has been subjugated by Russia -- lost most of its individual character
(supported by almost the entire population, the regime oculd not define itself if it has not been backed by RUssia)
not nourished by the media, but prepared and shaped by theatre, novels, poetry, cinema....
media under state control 100%
Russians destroying Czech culture = 3 POINTS
undermined the identity of the nation (enabling to be more easily swallowed up by Russian civilization)
put a violent end to the modern era, in which culture still represented the realization of supreme values
destroyed the centre of the opposition
CE = it is not a state, it is a culture of a fate = its borders must be redrawn with each historical situation
Austrian Empire: had great opportunity to make strong CE: FAIL = after WW1 CE = small, weak states (Hitler, Stalin)
Error of CE: ideology of the Slavic world (political mystification * in 19th century)
zač 20 stor: CE = great cultural importance
Kafka, Hašek
VIENNA: Freud + Mahler, Kafka,
great influence of Jews in CE
Habsburg Empire: union of 3 independent states: Bohemia, Hungary, Austria
Habsburg empire: dominance of the irrational and the dominant position of the visual artes + music
Hussite revolution
19th century: the nations struggle
1348: * Charles University
20th century: collapse of Austrian Empire
RUSSIA: another dimension of disaster, another image of space (space of immense entire nations are swallowed up in it), another sense of time (slow + patient), another way of living, dying, laughing