Eastern European identity

Eastern European identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as a Eastern European person and as relating to being Eastern European.

Background

The identity has been referenced in media, and researched widely in academia and across international institutions in relation to both domestic and diasporic Eastern European identity.[1] In a research study by four professors and doctors of University of Exeter, the academics proposed that the identity has historical roots associated with early Muslim conquests in the region and a subsequent early conception of "Fortress Europe":[2]

Alongside Iberia, parts of Eastern Europe had the longest engagement with the Islamic world on the continent. Through the presence of domestic Muslim minorities and entanglement with the Ottoman Empire for over half a millennium, the idea of Islam - whether in times of conflict or of coexistence - played a formative role in the construction of a specifically Eastern European identity.

University of Graz academic Natalia Waechter's research has correlated a pattern of a lesser sense of the identity in individuals who, while European, are ethnic minorities in neighboring countries in the region;[3] "Analysis has also shown that Eastern European identity is especially low for ethnic minority groups among which either Slovakia or Hungary is resident nation or titular nation (Slovaks in Hungary, Hungarians in Slovakia, and Hungarians in Ukraine)." In Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, the competing national (e.g. Moldovian) versus regional Eastern European identiy in diasporic populations has also been explored within the United Kingdom.[4]

History

In an Anthropological Journal of European Cultures-piece, University of Exeter's Dr Ljubica Spaskovska proposed that an "East-West divide" in Europe and a "distinct 'Eastern European' identity" can be traced and credited to several European project developments between the two World Wars.[5] At the end of the Cold War and the revolutions of 1989, Eastern European identity entered a new phase of development.[6] In this regard, sociologist Göran Therborn believes "heavy-handed Soviet bilateral hegemony barred most of any positive Eastern European identity".[7]

In 2000, Iulia Motoc, who in 2013 became a European Court of Human Rights judge, published research suggesting that the development of the identity can be contrasted with German identity. In the context of European integration within the legal structure of the European Union, while both identities "demonstrate a deep attachment to Europe", Motoc proposed that national identity in Germany shows signs of subsiding, while contrastingly a growing assertion of Eastern European identity has been observed.[8] Since the 2004 enlargement of the European Union, academic analysis has suggested that cooperation between MEPs from the EU8 countries can be viewed as the expression of "Central and Eastern European identity".[9]

In Costica Bradatan's 2013 Philosophy, Society and the Cunning of History in Eastern Europe, academic Julia Sushytska analyzed Lviv, a city in Eastern Europe which had its national affiliation switched seven times in the 20th-century, as an example of the complexities in Eastern European identity formation and associations.[10]

Academic research

Research by academic Gary Marks and political scientist Liesbet Hooghe has correlated strong national identity in Eastern Europe with both a pan-European and broad Eastern European identity.[11] In 2009, University of Helsinki's Matti Jutilla analyzed historian Hans Kohn's dichotomy on Eastern versus Western European identity.[12]

Published in the European Journal of International Relations, the research proposed conflict and bias in Kohn's respresentations of the two regional European identities; with common portrayals of Eastern European identity as backward or illiberal in comparison to its Western counterpart.[13] In 2013's The Politics of Becoming European, University of Kent academic Maria Mälksoo used the writings of Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin to analyze and compare "Western and Eastern European identity constructions".[14] In June 2019, Dr Catherine Baker of the University of Hull; University of Warsaw's Agnieszka Kościańska, and Dr Bogdan Iacob and professor James Mark at University of Exeter spoke at a conference in Bucharest which attempted to explore the identity's complex interesection with whiteness and the Western world.[15]

See also

References
  1. Hilary Pilkington (2005). "Modernism/modernity" (Volume 12 ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press . Over the Wall/After the Fall: "Representations of Eastern Europe participate in the production of narratives of both Eastern European identity and American identity"
  2. James Mark; Bogdan C. Iacob; Tobias Rupprecht; Ljubica Spaskovska (2019). 1989: A Global History of Eastern Europe. Cambridge University Press . p. 154. ISBN 978-1108576703.
  3. Natalia Waechter (2019). The Construction of European Identity among Ethnic Minorities: ‘Euro-Minorities’ in Generational Perspective. Routledge. ISBN 978-1138364646.
  4. Mariann Märtsin (2010). "Rupturing Otherness: Becoming Estonian in the Context of Contemporary Britain". Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science (Volume 44 ed.). Springer Publishing. pp. 65–81. The discussed data will also highlight some interesting aspects in Estonians' self-definition as it is constructed in relation to Eastern-European identity
  5. Ljubica Spaskovska (2008). "Recommunaissance: On the Phenomenon of Communist Nostalgia in Slovenia and Poland". Anthropological Journal of European Cultures (Volume 17 ed.). Berghahn Books. pp. 136–150.
  6. James Fowkes; Michaela Hailbronner (2019). "Decolonizing Eastern Europe: A global perspective on 1989 and the world it made". International Journal of Constitutional Law (Volume 17 ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 497–509. Seen in this broader postcolonial light, we can see the predicament of post-1989 Eastern European identity. Whatever else the proximity value of its neighborhood, was it too close to the West to do its own thing, or to have the sense of doing so either in its own eyes or in the eyes of others?
  7. Göran Therborn (1995). "Issues of Identity". European Modernity and Beyond: The Trajectory of European Societies, 1945-2000. SAGE Publications. ISBN 978-0803989351.
  8. Iulia Motoc (2019). "Europe, You will Remain the Same". Europe and its Teleology: Is there a Central-Eastern Vision?. Academy of European Law. We can now see more clearly why Eastern European identity formation within the process of European integration can be defined by contrast to identity formation in Germany. Certainly, both demonstrate a deep attachment to Europe. In Germany's case, however, this is concomitant with the fading away of national identity, while in Eastern European attachment goes hand in hand with the assertion of identity.
  9. M. Killingsworth; M. Klatt; S. Auer (2010). "Where Does Poland Fit in Europe? How Political Memory Influences Polish MEPs' Perceptions of Poland's place in Europe". Perspectives on European Politics and Society. Taylor & Francis. Again, such actions are reflective of Polish MEPs' desire to reaffirm their own Central and Eastern European identity, through promoting and supporting the political aspirations of a 'near neighbour', while simultaneously confirming their continued desire to belong to a greater Europe.
  10. Julia Sushytska (2013). "What Is Eastern Europe?". In Costica Bradatan (ed.). Philosophy, Society and the Cunning of History in Eastern Europe. Routledge. ISBN 978-1138118478. Let us consider a very concrete example, that of Lviv, an Eastern European city ... It is a city of borderlands par excellence ... in the twentieth century alone it changed its national affiliation seven times ... The absence of stability makes it impossible to ever dogmatically assert Eastern European identity (for instance, to begin forming political or economic associations on its basis).
  11. Gary Marks; Liesbet Hooghe (2004). European Integration and Political Conflict (Themes in European Governance). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521827799. Although discussion of Eastern European identity often narrowly focuses on ethno-national identification over other forms, the underlying cleavage structure in eastern Europe is similar to western Europe: strong national identity is a predictor of strong European identity, not weak European identity.
  12. Matti Jutilla (2009). "Taming Eastern Nationalism: Tracing the Ideational Background of Double Standards of Post-Cold War Minority Protection" (Volume 15 ed.). European Journal of International Relations. pp. 627–651.
  13. Kaija E. Schilde (2014). "Who are the Europeans? European Identity Outside of European Integration" (Volume 52 ed.). Journal of Common Market Studies. pp. 650–667. This assumption is reflected within the original ‘Kohn dichotomy’ distinguishing between civic and cultural forms of identity: that eastern European identity was backward, illiberal, ethnic/cultural and prior to the creation of the state, while western European identity formed after the nation-state and was as a result more civic in nature (Jutila, 2009, p. 635)
  14. Maria Mälksoo (2013). "Conclusion: How we become what we are". The Politics of Becoming European: A study of Polish and Baltic Post-Cold War. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415851374. An argument for a dialogical understanding of Western and Eastern European identity constructions, contending that a Bakhtinian model of dialogue holds considerable promise for analyzing the particular postcolonial security predicament of Poland and the Baltic states.
  15. Historicizing “Whiteness” in Eastern Europe and Russia, Bucharest: Institute for Political Research, 2019, Few scholars heretofore have engaged with the concept of “whiteness” as a core component for understanding the history of East European identity and the region’s relationship with Western Europe and the world.
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