Narratives of European Identity and the Making of the _Other_ Inside the European Union

8/19/2019 Narratives of European Identity and the Making of the _Other_ Inside the European Union

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rd ECPR Graduate Conference_______ _ _ __ ___ ______ ____ _____ _____ _ _

______ection 2 Panel 53 Comparative Regional Integration ID28

arratives of European Identity and the Making of

he “Other” Inside the European Unionhe Eastern European as Alterity

manuel [email protected] Advanced Studies Institute, Lucca, Italy Ph.D.andidate in Political Systems and Institutional Changelistener calls up 'Armenian Radio' with a question: 'Is it

ossible', he asks, 'to foretell the future?' Answer: 'Yes, no

roblem. We know exactly what the future will be. Ourroblem is with the past: that keeps changing'.1he use of "the East" as the other is a general practice inuropean identity formation. "The East" is indeed Europe'sther, and it is continuously being recycled in order toepresent European identities. Since the "Eastern absence" defining trait of "European" identities, there is no use

alking about the end of an East/West divide in Europeanistory after the end of the Cold War. The question is nothether the East will be used in the forging of new Europe

dentities but how this is being done.


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ver Neumann2friend of mine . . . once said that an author coming from

entral and Eastern Europe to the West will find an ideal

terary situation there. He can narrate fantastic stories abouis country, about his part of the continent, can sell them asothing but the truth and can then retire comfortably becauis stories will never be verified. This is possible, on the onand, because the public thinks that just about anything coundeed happen here; on the other hand, because these

ountries remind the West more of literary fiction than ofctually existing states.ndrzej Stasiuk3The joke is quoted by Tony Judt, Postwar. A History ofurope since 1945, (London: The Penguin Press, 2005), 83Iver B. Neumann, Uses of the Other. “The East” inuropean Identity Formation, (Minneapolis: University ofinnesota Press, 1999) 207. 3 Andrzej Stasiuk, ‘Wild,unning, Exotic: The East Will Completely Shake Upurope’, in Daniel Levy, Max Pensky, and John Torpey

eds.), Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe: Transatlanelations after the Iraq War , (London: Verso, 2005), 104.

wenty years have passed since the revolutions in Centralnd Eastern Europe. Usually when the passed time isxpressed in round numbers there is a boom inommemorations, monuments and memorials, art works anublic conferences. It is not necessarily the same case in


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erms of public debates, political usage of remembrance,econciliation, restitution or disclosure in most post-ommunist states and in Western Europe as well. This pape

rather a circumstantially elaborated attempt to confrontome simple questions of memory from within the context nlarged European Union but from the perspective of anastern European. It is not a paper on the past or historicityut rather an inquiry into the ways the past is acknowledger ignored in connection to the present. Writing this paper i

aly and reading Maria Todorova’s book about Imagininghe Balkans4 made me reflect – similar as she did in thepening of her book – that maybe if I would have written itome it would have been about the Romanians othering EUnd othering themselves from EU. But being in Italy andreviously attending a conference in Germany aboutemembrance connected to the 1989 revolutions it suddenlyame as a challenge to go deeper into a subject that seemede to be approached in Europe in a divided manner. On onde, from a Western Europeans perspective, if I am to use

he East-West slope stereotypes, the last 20 years are aretext for not cozy commemoration of unclearircumstances in 1989 that have anyway to be integrated as

uropean in their victory and non-European in their past. Ohe other side, from an Eastern European perspective,merges an embarrassing confusion on a multitude of not ylear events that leads to discursive avoidance ofemembrance (sometimes politically correct sometimes not


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ee Timothy Garton Ash5) in favor of simplyommemorative discourses joined by an exotic feeling ofeing somehow different and particular in the actual contex

f Europe. Both of these very different approaches and theeelings involved in each incited my interest. Still, this pape

limited by being at the same time just the beginning of mxplicit reflection on the topic and the result of limitedeadings from a wide variety of books that might give a betccount than what I manage to do here. It intends anyway –

ithin these acknowledged limitations – to approachritically some features of the “Western European identityarrative” and to follow some traces that indicate itsothering” manifestations regarding Eastern Europe. Yet, boing so, I subscribe to Merje Kuus’s statement that “toriticize this narrative is not to deny the need to harmonizehe applicant states’ policies with those of the EU and NAT

is rather to problematize the hierarchyMaria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, (Oxford: Oxfordniversity Press, 2009). 5 Timothy Garton Ash, ‘Trials,urges and History Lessons: Treating a Difficult Past in Poommunist Europe’ in Jan-Werner Muller (ed.), Memory aower in Post-War Europe, (Cambridge: Cambridge

niversity Press, 2004), 265-282, 282.

f places that is implicit in the narrative. This hierarchy vieifference in terms of essential core features of places rathehan in terms of specific historical circumstances.”6


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ince memory and remembrance are more about identity thbout outcomes of institutional politics or realist history myarting point is the inquiry about perceived gaps in the so

alled European identity and discontinuities involved inpproaching the past in the “reunified” Europe. Although isnstitutionally integrative, EU has no assertive positionowards acknowledging the past of new post-communistembers but rather chooses to develop in parallel a Europe

dentitarian emphasis and a process of “othering”. The term

f discussing European identity are mainly configured by thost-Second World War standards and narratives which areot always inclusive towards historical trajectories of the nembers. The Cold War and post-Cold War memories of

ost-communist nations are most of the time considered to arginal or too complicated for the integrative identitarian

roject financed by EU. Though a tremendous literature onost-communism was written, just rarely it is attached to thmancipating project of European identity building other ths an independent variable for its underdevelopment. Musthe past of these new members be acknowledged in the EUdentitarian project or must the terms of compliance shapelso the imaginary of people from these countries? Does th

U develop conditionality requirements for historicalmnesia? Is European identity inclusive or club basedxclusive? These are important questions since, as Tony Juays, “the communist experience did not come from nowheid not disappear without leaving a certain record, and cann


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e written out of the local past, as it had earlier sought toxtrude from that past those elements prejudicial to its ownrojects”7.

ne of the main questions that absorbs an increasing amouf energy is whose identity is in fact European identity,ssuming there is one. Another question is how Europeecame so quickly integrative after such a long history thatound a first fragile unity only in front of common non-uropean threats and then a profound “unity in division”

uring the Cold War. Is it still true that the only unity Europas is a unity in diversity or is there something more – asome (i.e. Gadamer, Habermas) argue? Edgar Morin (1987as profoundly right describing Europe historically as a selrganizing vertigo. But that was an outcome of his concernith complexity paradigms. This vertigo continues today b

nchanted by more beautiful words of an invoked unity thaistorically is not fully acknowledged and culturally evenore precarious. Yet hard efforts are made in this directionn institutional approach can fruitfully explain the EU modf framing,Merje Kuus, Geopolitics Reframed. Security and Identity urope’s Eastern Enlargement (New York: Palgrave

acmillan, 2007), 29. 7 Tony Judt, ‘The Past is Anotherountry. Myth and Memory in Post-War Europe’, in Jan-erner Muller (ed.), Memory and Power in Post-War

urope, 157-183, 175.


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nlargement and integration. But still does not explain whyU is focused on such a deep search of a common identitynd to what extent such an identity – if it doesn’t treat the

emories of nations within seriously – integrates, includesssimilates or even remains blind. European identity makinreates and reproduces through daily practices an internallterity while enlargement risks to make the process ofthering constitutive to most of European identitarianndeavours if they are approached uncritically. The discour

nd the construction of interests and identities within the EUonstitutive process of othering in both internal and foreignanifestations significantly impacts the potential formation

f a cohesive European demos, the nature of polities in theuropean Union and challenges the validity claims oformative statements within the EU’s logic ofppropriateness. Thus, in a reshaped paraphrase, a newpectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of the “other”.he departure point of this paper is the explicit assumption

hat identities are dynamic social constructs rather thenubstantive ontological pre-givens. If a European imaginary

shaping a European community in Benedict Anderson’s1991) understanding of ‘imagined communities’, than

ultiple identifications should be possible in an inclusiveogic. Yet, inside recent Europe, a logic of appropriationunctions in conjunction with anxclusivist/exclusive/marginalizing logic of presetmperatives of integration under the domain of EU’s acquis


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istorique communautaire8 and the politics of the faitistorique accompli. Frank Schimmelfennig (2003) hasonvincingly shown that EU takes the features of a rather

xclusive club when it’s about to pay the price for itsollective identity in terms of facilitating a beneficialntegration to new members. This paper therefore seeks toxamine how to situate the project of European integrationnd its impact on the ways the meaning of ‘Europe’ has beeonstructed in recent decades in the wider analysis of alteri

aking. Its central point is to tackle the reasons for EU’sailure to acknowledge the whole of its territory indentitarian terms. In methodological terms, the present stuccommodates within the wide area of European enlargemeudies with a constructivist emphasis on the European

dentity formation and its role in shaping a particularuropean polity.paradoxical political identity gradually puts emphasis on

he fragility of European integration (Wæver, 1990). Theuidity of borders and internal diversity creates constitutivethers. While a constant emphasis was put on the borderingffect of alterity making (Neumann 1996b, 1998, 1999;elegh 2006; Cerutti 2008; Kuus 2007, 2004) little or no

mphasis was given to internal processes of othering. Thisaper aims at filling this gap by approaching frontally theational and trans-national internal European processes oflterity making. Since a common market is not a way ofving together, diverse nations of Europe pass within the


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ansnational identityAbout the existence of an acquis historique communauta

ee Fabrice Larat, Present-ing the Past: Political Narrative

n European History and the Justification of EU IntegratioGerman Law Journal”, 6, February 2005, pp. 273-290, pp87-289.

aking through self-othering stages while a significantumber of new-members are saluted alterity in the enlarged

urope. European identity takes shape through an internalynamic of dichotomization and complementarizationEriksen, 1995). It asserts the core/periphery nexus bybsorbing the desirable as commonality and marginalizinghe different as unaligned. While an identity basedxplanation is better able to account for the enlargementecision itself than conventional theories of integrationSchimmelfennig, 2003; Sedelmeier, 2005) we can infer mobout the substance of European identity only if we get tonow more about the Europe’s and European othersNeumann, 1999). In the context of this analysis, the EUembership status is essential in that it influences the veryay in which diverse actors see themselves and are seen by

ther as social beings (Risse, 2009). Acknowledging thexistence of the internal others is essential since it indicateshe context-dependent formation of a European identity andn the meantime dramatically limits the reifying tendenciesssentialist or primordialist understandings of it. This is


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ecause identitarian narratives not only describe but alsoroduce identities (Campbell, 1992; Paasi, 1996) as collectationalizations of social relations (Eder, 2009). Anna

riandafyllidou (2001) has extensively showed how nationdentities are reconsidered and the ways in which the imagef Self and Other are transformed in the emerging newurope. The European enlargement determined the increasef narratives mediating social relations and thus theormation of multiple non-congruent networks of social

elations that generated a profound diversity of identityuilding patterns. Since the time of the Enlightenmentuccessive European orders have been characterized by alear hierarchy. Western Europe constituted the ‘core’,hereas other Europes (the East, the South, and the farorth) were viewed as somehow less important, less

ivilized, less ‘European’. As Larry Wolff (1994) showed iis fascinating book on Inventing Eastern Europe, we canace the Western view on Europe as a division in two distiivilizational entities back in the intellectual agenda of the8th century. Eastern Europe is thus, in Wolff’s account, aultural construction invented by the Enlightenmentntelligentsia out of ideological self-interests and self-

romotion. This construction inflicted however long-lastingental mappings that continue to configure prejudicial qua

ntological views of the West towards the East. Today, thenvention of overarching regions raises the question ofhether this hierarchy is fading away, making it possible to


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ntroduce other Europes equal to the old core.believe that the idea of a common European identity afterecent enlargements or future ones risks to be constructed o

‘memory kitsch’. Whether inside or outside the Europeannion, post-communist national identities were and still areery troubled ones emerging from confused memories. Alsn terms of supra-national identities, the cultural concepts oouth-Eastern Europe, Central Europe, transition societies,eveloping democracies and many others connected to the

egion emerged mainly in an axiological identificationhrough separation with Russia perceived unjustly as the evther, as everything that is opposed to Western Europe, as aifferent civilization (Neumann, 1996a, 1996b) challengingrogress and modernization. The newly developed conceptade the relation between Eastern and Western Europe mo

omplicated on one side by placing Eastern and Centraluropean national identities on a singular common Europeaultural whole or, on the other side, asserting the desirableharacter of Western modernization and development. Thisecond choice generated imperatives for emancipation,ccession, compliance that curiously were perceived as the

egitimate “return to Europe”. This “return” wasnstitutionally endorsed first by NATO and then by EUnlargement: first geopolitics and security, and then,conomics and regional stability scenarios. But where doeshe European identity fit in here? Little more than twenty


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ears ago Western scholars had no ability to predict the endf the Cold War and since than on they show little ability tonderstand or deal with its outcomes. As Checkel and

atzenstein expressed it, “almost everyone was taken byurprise at how the return of Eastern Europe was profoundlnd irrevocably changing European identity politics.”9

very often used independent variable for explaining thexistence of a European identity is the common historicaluropean “playground”, a common culture that can be trac

ack to ancient times that framed, of course, its currenteauty as a condition of possibility. Let me take just onelustrative example. In 2002 Anthony Pagden (2002) starteis introduction to The Idea of Europe. From Antiquity to thuropean Union, an ambitious and valuable book that hedited, as follows: “Today, as the older territorial andational boundaries of the world become increasinglyncertain, the quest for national and transnational identity hntensified.”10 Such statements are taken for granted quasiverywhere in optimistic “cultural” approaches of Europe an political discourses about Europe today. Yet, it is notlways obvious and even less clear how come suddenly theational boundaries are becoming now more uncertain than

hey were during the whole modern process of nation-uilding in Europe. And where can we concretely detect thntensified quest for a transnational identity cited by Pagdenther than in scholarly works, political statements and EU other multi/transnational financed projects ? And, if it truly


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o, why does it have to be understood as a EU-makingrocess rather than as consequences of globalization? Yet,ater in his Introduction to the volume, after arguing for the

ontested historical unity of Europe, Pagden presents manyhe essay’ authors inside the book as being “hopeful about tossibilities of a new and happier European future”11. Whyew and why a happier Europe after surveying in a book onurope allJeffrey T. Checkel and Peter J. Katzenstein (eds.),

uropean Identity, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pre009), xi. 10 Anthony Pagden, ‘Introduction’, in Anthonyagden (ed.), The Idea of Europe. From Antiquity to theuropean Union, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press002), 1-32, 1.1 Ibid , 2.

s glorious ideas from ancient Greece to EU? Probablyecause many cultural historians may forget in the optimistruggle for meaning that the political promises of happinesroved to be dangerous in modern ideological politics. Ande have to talk about a new Europe it means it will be aroduced/invented one and that, for such a thing, it might

eed an imaginary that it currently does not possess. Butagden’s history of Europe is rather a cultural, deliberatelyxclusive history of Western European thinkers chosenostly to serve the purpose of making a point. Established

dealist tracks of readings from Kant’s cosmopolitan views


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agden’s approach of a common European cultural unityhaped by history strikes us again by the conclusion iteaches: “To create a genuinely transnational identity, a

enuinely European ‘culture’, means blending the features xisting European cultures into a new whole.”12 While maistorians hardly tried before to convince us that a commonuropean identity is there built on historicity, now, thexisting historically-shaped European identity must becreated” and even more curiously created as “genuine”

hrough a culinary process of “blending” various tastes in aood meal. It might be that Europe is a more complicateditchen and such unhappy metaphors are unfortunately tooasily and too often used throughout historical accounts inddressing current European issues. Pagden goes further bysserting that we have to shape this European identity lookit it from Japan:Viewed from Europe there may be no such thing as aEuropean culture.” Viewed from Japan there clearly is.hat the new Europe must generate is a sense of belonging

hat retains the Japanese eye-view, a sense of belonging thaan perceive diversity while giving allegiance to that whichhared.”13

guess EU should involve Japanese researchers in framing uropean identity. Yet, following Pagden’s chapter onurope: Conceptualising a Continent, some approachesight look just as far and “objectively” distant as Japan in

heir view-point towards the real Europe. And the “outside”


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ook on Europe that Pagden invokes is constitutive touropean constant creation of “others”: no need to go outsiurope for finding outsiders! I believe that Pagden’s

nvocation of Japan is representative of the substantialistiew on the European “core” that can be perceived only frohe view-point of the core of a competing identity and notom peripheries within or outside(terms used not necessari

n Wallerstein’s manner). But in many books on Europeanistory the process of othering is an unintentional reflex tha

nly indicates the mentioned spectre of the other in Europeet, by all said above nothing diminishes Pagden’s virtues n excellent historian.2 Ibid , 23. 13 Ibid , 24.

n reality however, I stay in line with those that argue thatastern and Central European countries lived their owneparate “self-organizing historical vertigo”. As Attila Aghlaborates, the W estalmost always dominated their neighbours to the East whiy the twentieth century were generally very small and, atost, semi-developed countries. Furthermore, these small

ountries (although many of them were packed into the

absburg empire for several centuries) suffered from theressures of Western modernised and industrialised states one side and the Eastern empires (Russian and Ottoman) onhe other. They have been swinging through history betweeong waves of Westernisation and Easternisation. After the


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ast five decades of Easternisation, there appears once moreo be a fundamental turn in the other direction and so their

esternisation begins again”14.

he period before the Second World War, the war itself andost-1945 memories of Western “betrayal” of the East wereovered by ‘selective sentimentality’, transformativemnesia, and a pathos for cultural invention of a genuinenity. No responsibilities for political abandonment haveeen addressed. And there will be none since these states ar

n a functional path of achieving through conditionality thereat historical aim of emancipation and of a new alignmenetting there will make the new Europeans become trulyuropeans. But the vertigo societies of Eastern Europe areonfused once again in their search for local, national,egional and European identities. They are treated as a unitnly when dysfunctions are explained, otherwise thengagement for EU integration was rather centripetal, aompetition for accession among them that fragmented theegion once more. Central and South-Eastern Europeanations had to pursue the goal of emancipation extremely fs if it were a school task. Transition and democratizationudies regarding post-communist societies scholarly show

emendous enthusiasm in pursuing such aims as there wereausal chains to be followed. Yet, a simple insertion insidehe post-communist realm will show otherwise. A deficit ofistory, memory, disclosure, and of understanding of past an place and affirm resistance to fast aimed targeted goals o


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U identitarian integration. After all it is hard to wish toecome when you don’t really know who you are whileving in historical apathy. On the other side, Western

uperficiality in addressing recent history of these countriesxposed the EU to policy confusions and sometimes iteemed that the EU has serious troubles in dealing with itsew citizens. These troubles generate the path of creatingthe other”, “the alterity” inside EU.he European Union produced the new Europeans and for

mplicity tries to greet it with identity. By doing so it alsoroduced two categories of the other: the external and thenternal. The external ones are complex and geopolitical: thnilateral hegemonic American, the falsely4 Quoted by Iver B. Neumann, ‘Europe’s Post-Cold Waremory of Russia: cui bono?’, in Jan-Werner Muller (ed.)emory and Power in Post-War Europe, 121-136, 122.

ythologized undesirable Russian, the concerning TurkishNeumann, 1999), the troubling post- colonial, the post-ugoslav, the cheap efficient Chinese, Pakistani or Indian,

he fast spreading Muslim, etc. The internal ones are evenore troubling since they can be integrated in an imagined

orm of unity and in an historical inheritance but in theeantime escapes it: namely here the Central and Easternuropean. This internal one is both familiar and foreign butrings a luggage of commonality with him at all time: it’s tame as another. He is the unplanned child of “new” Europ


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e brings joy to the parents but restricts the budget andhallenges predictions. Even if Europe is about free mobilitnd movement this new inside “other” remains still an

mmigrant in most of EU Western countries. As Adrianavell puts it:An evaluation of the future of this new European migratioystem, then, needs to stress both dimensions of the Europe

building. Yes, the integrating Europe of mobility promisey demographers and economists is happening. But the

ystem they are moving into is more often than not a systemased on a dual labour market – in which East Europeans wake the secondary, temporary, flexible roles based on theirxploitability in terms of cost and human capital premium.urope thus comes to resemble the US–Mexico model: wheast–West movers do the 3D15 jobs or hit glass ceilings, anhere underlying “ethnic” distinctions between East andest are unlikely to disappear. In a sense, this mode of

nclusion continues the iniquitous longerstanding historicalelationship between East and West ... Eastern Europeans wet to move, and they will learn the hard way that the Westnly wants them to do jobs that Westerners no longer wanthe danger, in short, is they will become a new Victorian

ervice class for a West European aristocracy of universityducated working mums and “creative class” professionalsho need someone to help them lead their dream lives”16.n interesting division between the self-perception of Euro

nd of the “inner other” was inserted in 2003 by the


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abermas/Derrida intellectual statement in their attempt toespond to Donald Rumsfeld17. Acknowledging in 2003 thupport of the “new Europe” (meaning Central and Eastern

urope) for the war in Iraq, Rumsfeld opposed it to the “oldurope as a counterbalance of Western European oppositio

or the war. This led Habermas in a quick reply (Derrida jugned the article) to refer in essentialist terms to the “core”urope that should define the European moral perspective o

he war in Iraq. For Habermas it is France and Germany or

he “Old Europe”/”Core Europe” that are supposed to definhe counterbalance to the US unilateralism. Nevertheless,espite the international politics statement, Habermasanaged to make explicit a cleavage that

5 3D is for dirty, dangerous, and dull 16 Adrian Favell,mmigration, Migration and Free Movement in the Makingf Europe’, in Jeffrey T. Checkel and Peter J. Katzensteineds.), European Identity, 167-189, 184-185. 17 Jurgenabermas and Jacques Derida, February 15, Or What Binduropeans Together: A Plea for a Common Foreign Policyeggining in the Core of Europe, “Constellations”, 10 (3),003, pp. 291 – 297.

sually is kept hidden in approaching Europe: when it’s abohe political identity of the EU, it is the “core” that shouldatter as a reflection of a European attitude and not the “neurope”. One of the many answers to such statements is thaf the famous Hungarian writer Peter Esterhazy:


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Once I was an Eastern European; then I was promoted to tank of Central European...Then a few months ago, I becamNew European. But before I had the chance to get used to

his status – even before I could have refused it – I have noecome a non- core European. While I see no serious reasoor not translating this new division (core/non- core) with therms “first class” and “second-class,” still, I’d rather notpeak in that habitual Eastern European, forever insulteday”18.

he former French President Jacques Chirac deepenedumsfeld’s claims by stating that EU candidate states are inosition to choose between Brussels and Washington whenhey take positions on foreign policy matters. “Such eventshows Christopher J. Bickerton - augured badly, suggestinghat once the EU’s membership had grown to 25, it would bmpossible for the continent to achieve any geopoliticalnity”19.ttila Melegh (2006) wrote a convincing book on the

omplexities of the processes of “othering” inside Europe aspecially in regard to Central and Eastern Europe. He seesn East- West slope connected with a liberal utopia (in Karannheim’s interpretation of this term) that links the frame

f the process of “othering” in colonial and post-colonialestern discourse with a process of “othering” produced

nside EU concomitantly with the enlargement towards theast. The East-West civilizational slope is, for Melegh,istorically established and has been biopolitically (in


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oucault’s meaning) visible since 18th century. The EUnlargement is just another form of “othering” Central andastern Europe both from the West but as well from the Ea

s an internal reaction towards the Western patronizingttitude. For Melegh this is a sociologically visiblehenomenon that does not have to be transformed inormative statements but more profoundly analyzed sincehis slope shows significant tendencies to resist in theorthcoming times.

n a book about What Holds Europe Together? aimed atnswering Romano Prodi’ request for finding the roots ofolidarity that can strengthen Europe in the future, Janosatyas Kovacs, referring to the narratives of enlargementates that:8 Quoted by Holly Case, ‘Being European: East and Westn Jeffrey T. Checkel and Peter J. Katzenstein (eds.),uropean Identity, 111-131, 112-113. 19 Christopher J.ickerton, ‘A Union of Disenchantment: The New Politics ost-Enlargement Europe’, in Yannis Stivachtis (ed.), Thetate of European Integration, (Burlington: Ashgate, 2007)9-110, 91.0

Nonetheless, scattered references to the overambitiousemands of the Easterners, as well as to their poorerformance, bad habits, etc., remained an indispensableomponent of even the friendliest Western narratives”.20laborating on the concept of solidarity, Matyas Kovacs


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2006) shows even a division innderstanding the term itself in Western and Eastern Europnce in an Eastern European understanding of solidarity on

annot include the element of self-interest or mutualependency that are essential to the Western Europeannderstanding of it. Solidarity, as understood in most Easteuropean countries, is a form of moral unselfish gratificatio

hat involves sacrifice and uninterested care for the other.uch an Eastern European understanding of solidarity

xcludes the solidarity with a stronger or more powerful othnd inserts therefore once more a cleavage inside a potentiaU perception of a united community. This gap innderstanding solidarity can be easily perceived in theommonality of asserting the idea of an existing solidarity ohe West with the “poor” East simultaneously with a strongpposition in Western Europe towards redistribution of theealth involved by the enlargement. There were no solidarased approaches in the bureaucratic enlargement procedurU applied from Brussels for the East – as Kovacs argues –ut rather a rigorous calculus of costs-benefits and a rhetorif indifference asserting the free basis of accession and theill of the Eastern European countries to join as essential

easons for an institutional expansion of EU. I believe thataint Simon would be sad and unemployed now in Brusselmong his fellows experts. As Jacques Rupnik puts it:The enlargement to the East is a case of asymmetricalntegration. The asymmetry has facilitated the transfer of


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orms and institutional convergence, but not a commensuraansfer of resources. In this the EU’s function of regulation

akes precedence over the function of redistribution. Yet th

egulatory function is likely to be accepted as legitimate byhe newcomers from Central and Eastern Europe if it remaio some extent related to redistribution. Otherwise, cynicsay be tempted to conclude that this is a case of “the less

here is to distribute, the more there is to regulate.”21hough the “otherness” or alterity of the new EU members

f Russia, or of “Orients” in their cultural or geographicnderstandings is perceived as a periphery problem in themancipator dominant narratives inside the EU, I believe thwill strongly shake its foundations in the upcoming future

nd will ask for a re-negotiation that will bring EU to one os most initial statuses: the one of a conflict resolution tools a denominator for a “periphery” European I0 Janos Matyas Kovacs, ‘Between Resentment andndifference. Narratives of Solidarity in the Enlargingnion’, in Krzysztof Michalski (ed.), What Holds Europeogether ?, (Budapest, New York: Central Europeanniversity Press, 2006), 54-85, 58. 21 Jacques Rupnik, ‘Thuropean Union’s Enlargement to the East and European

oldarity’, in Krzysztof Michalski (ed.), What Holds Europogether ?, 86-92, 88.1ubscribe to Alexei Miller’s next statement formulated fromussian perspective but applicable I believe to all “others”:


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It is indeed impossible to define, once and for all, whaturopean culture is. However it is possible (and necessary)inpoint those elements of the European cultural tradition

hat should be perceived as potential sources of danger. Onf these features, for example, is the drive for domination,eeply imbedded in the European tradition. When, as now,he enlarged and, hopefully, stronger EU strives to obtainew power for political action, this danger should beemembered....If we say that it is a common European cultu

hat must provide new energies for cohesion and the shapinf a common political identity, we must admit that, as withny enterprise of identity formation, this one must inevitablnvolve the practices of “othering” in shaping a “we.”uropean culture has a centuries-old tradition of usingifferent “others” for identity formation. ...The effort toobilize culture as an instrument for cohesion and unity

hould begin, not with the construction of a European mythwhich is well under way) and practices of othering, but wiuch values as compassion, self- restraint and recognition, nnly of diversity, but also of conflicts in cultural heritage analues. We should remember that when a system of values culture are impossible to define, when they are “open,” th

re also open to diverse manipulations, particularly on theart of those who are engaged in cultural production andquipped for such manipulations. For this reason, I continuo have greater confidence in material interests and inractical politics, where people are more subject to


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erification and responsibility”22.erje Kuus (2007) sees, despite the rhetorical claimed unitgeopolitical continuity and reproduction of the division

etween East and West. The narrative of the insecure Easteurope – both for inside Europe and for external (Oriental!hallenges – persists after the end of the Cold War. “Theouble enlargement is not undermining but working inandem with the notion of a multitiered Europe in whichuropeanness declines as one moves east”.23 Originated in

he 18th century, the East/West slope was profoundlyifferent from the ancient-long otherness of the Orient:astern Europe became an entity of negative connotations

nside Europe as an internal alterity. “This figure of Easternurope – Kuss says – has undergone a number ofansformations since its inception, but its premise oftherness has persisted.”24 The post-Cold War understandif Eastern Europe is, for Kuus, nothing else but aontinuation of the established model by the area studies anovietology during the Cold War that treated Russia, theoviet republics and satellite states as a bloc. In 1997, Adamurgess was already showing that “the sense of profoundifference between East and West has, if anything, intensif

ith the end of the political division of Europe2 Alexei Miller, ‘European Culture, an Ambivalenteritage’, in Krzysztof Michalski (ed.), What Holds Europogether ?, 165-166, 165-166. 23 Merje Kuus, Geopoliticseframed. Security and Identity in Europe’ s Eastern


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nlargement , 22. 24 Idem.2etween communist and capitalist blocs.25 After the Cold

ar, transitology was nothing else than a modernizationheory that emerged from the reflexes of the now obsoleteovietology of the Cold War. “Institutionally, transitologyas tied to many of the same political and intelligencerganizations that had managed the Cold War”26.n a neoliberal fashion, most Western researchers

cknowledged the specificity of Eastern- Central Europe inerms similar to those used to refer in approaching the Thirdorld as a problematic target for moderate messianic aid.

ince during the Cold War Central and Eastern Europe werardly considered to be identitarian part of Europe, after 19he concept of Europe re-entered into an open debate whichrought to the floor the conception of Europeaness. This leo the normative idea that “what is European is good andhatever is good is European”27. The newly integrative

pproach of an altruistic emancipating modernization theorenerously delivered by most researchers from the Westuffers from Plato’s didactical influence. After almost half century of forgetting the “ideal prototype” of good polity

ue to historical estrangement from the “model/Idea/rationaolitics”, Central and Eastern Europe can be taken out fromhe “cave/curtain” and coached to achieve, through a procef anamnesis (simultaneously conditioned by an instantmnesia on recent history), the validity of a Western shaped


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emocracy. The cave men can finally be taken to see the ligf reason but, as in Plato’s phaideic project, this is not goino be an easy task: it requires a strong will and determinatio

or the subject to become what is ought28. “Europeanizatiosays Kuus – is conceived as a kind of graduation fromastern Europe to Europe proper, a process in which theccession countries must prove that they are “willing andble” to internalize Western norms”.29 In this process, toeturn to Plato’s ironically invoked framework of thought,

hat matters is recognizing the prototype, the models, and oing that they will easily surpass the “shadows” inflicted iemory by the imperfect too imperfect copies in the recent

istory of these nations. The perpetuation of the Cold Warogic of arguments appears astonishing in Eastern otherings Popper (1957) outlines it in his famous book The Openociety and its Enemies, Plato’s model was born in hisistoricist anger at democracy. It is possible that theEuropean model” will emerge once again after the 90’s in ustrating anger on history. Essentialist views of Europe m

egitimize otherness in a similar fashion to Plato’s times. Ahis may be a trajectory that should be strongly questionednce even if Europe is not perfect it doesn’t mean it cannot

et worst. Just as Plato’s antidemocratic views exercised aemendous seduction5 Adam Burgess, Divided Europe: the New Domination ofhe East , (Chicago Illinois: Pluto Press, 1997), 2. 26 Merjeuus, Geopolitics Reframed. Security and Identity in Europ


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Eastern Enlargement , 24. 27 Ibid, 27. 28 Iver Neumannees this pedagogical task as being attached more to theersions of Enlightenment. See Iver B. Neumann, Uses of t

ther. “The East” in European Identity Formation, 110.9 Merje Kuus, Geopolitics Reframed. Security and Identitn Europe’ s Eastern Enlargement , 28. 13ver the most democratic minds, the contemporaryuropeanization approaches are sometimes seductive for

ntelligent people even when they are subversive for their

wn promoters. In the meantime, the historicist path ofuilding Europe in an energetic Western perspective can beasily blurred by an emerging othering of the “Easterners”hemselves as well. Because, to palimpsest Tony Judt,Western Europe is already afloat in a sea of mis-memoriesbout its own pre-1989 attitude towards communism.

hatever they now say, the architects and advocates of anified Europe `a la Maastricht never wanted to include ahole group of have-not nations from the east; they had ye

ully to digest and integrate an earlier Mediterraneanssortment”. Furthermore, “the history and memory ofestern political and cultural attitudes towards the east is a

mbarrassing one” and “if the west forgets its own immedia

ast, the east will not” since “at a time when Euro- chat hasurned to the happy topic of disappearing customs barriersnd single currencies, the frontiers of memory remain solidn place” “in Eastern European memory, where the wheel oistory has all too often been turned by outsiders”.30


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atasa Kovacevic (2008) argues even more forcefully – iner book Narrating Post/Communism – that during the Colar, Western Europe constructed its European identity

hrough a “demonization” of Eastern Europe and of itsommunist regimes within. She argues that after the Cold

ar, Western Europe suppressed completely the legacies aistories of the Eastern European countries in order to justihe transition to liberal democracy and to perpetuate theirependency on the West31. For Kovacevic, a double

rientalization of Eastern Europe emerged: an external oneoming from the West and a self-Orientalization of Easternurope coming from the narratives of anti-communistissidents of the region in their will to represent themselvess emancipated, westernized, enlightened experts of the Eahe conditional inclusion/exclusion dialectic involved in thnderstanding of the EU “common future” makes – forovacevic – the dialogue between Western and Easternurope impossible. She sees the West-East relationship as aolonial or proto-colonial attitude, moving in a directionejected by Maria Todorova (2009). Since Todorova arguedgainst a projection of colonial approaches on Easternurope, Kovacevic sees in this nothing else than another

iased perception of Western Europe as axiological civilizend legitimate in mastering Eastern Europe. Kovacevic’spproach is much closer to Etienne Balibar’s (2004) leftistiew – and to a more artificial line of argumentation, in myiew – in seeing a colonial attitude in the idea that the


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atronizing Western behaviour cannot be separated from thubsequent idea of a potential conquest. In my own view, thay unnecessarily complicate the understanding

0 Tony Judt, ‘The Past is Another Country. Myth andemory in Post-War Europe’, in Jan-Werner Muller (ed.),emory and Power in Post-War Europe, 157-183, 180-183

1 Natasa Kovacevic, Narrating Post/Communism. Coloniaiscourse and Europe’ s Borderline Civilization, (London

nd New York, Routledge, 2008), 1-3.

4f what’s happening now and might bring us back – on onede – to a required comparative framework towardsabsburg, Ottoman and Soviet masteries in the region and n another side – to an excessively and dramaticallylaborated language in analyzing “otherness” through anxpansion to endogenous factors. Though her analysis ofost-colonial textual manifestation is valuable, it might be tuch to generalize from particular colonial narratives to a

eneral attitude(though I must say some particular examplere convincing). Kovacevic’s focus on cultural/literary textnd images is understood as a valid tool for analyzingollective anxieties and identity crises. But, we must say th

ost literary texts or particular cultural manifestationscknowledge especially exceptional and/or limit experiencehus they should be perceived rather as indicators and notxplanatory tools since a control group would need to bencluded. Her emphasis on the total rejection of the


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ommunist past without historical recognition of specificnon refutable based on ideologies) modernizing projects me a good point to make and deserves further elaborated

esearch. Still, her biographical fight is mainly with the “enf history” that anyway we all now either failed tocknowledge or never happened. As Kuus (2004) showed,he East/West slope does not necessarily operate in cleareographical terms but rather in valorised terms of degrees uropeaness, Eastness, developed - not yet developed,

ature-immature, secure-less secure, etc. Even more, thisxiological scheme is broken by divisions inside Easternurope itself where the geometrically variable concept ofentral Europe became indeed close- hearted to Westernurope and provided some pain in the Eastern excluded parilan Kundera (1984) is famous for his apology of theestern character of Central Europe. Still this achieved

othing but making the scale of Europeaness even morelaborate. Eastness is still European identity “underonstruction” but not quite a domain for colonization. Weight want to avoid using a colonial vocabulary for

nderstanding what’s actually going on. The process ofthering doesn’t have to be a process of “alien-ing”. I

herefore agree with Cerutti that “whatever may happen nowhe emergence of a European self-identification processepends on future political developments much more than oultural pre-givens.”32he problematic dimension in framing a European identity


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s a practical tool for cohesion, solidarity and would-beolicies – is if its formation is dialogical or will consisturely in submission of the other. Though an illustration of

istorically contingent idea of the self the European citizennchored in a very discursive but yet not elaborated identityne of the things ignored in approaches of European identithat individual or collective, historical or ah-hoc identity

lways requires a subject. Of course now the question woule if there is a real subject for

2 Furio Cerutti, ‘Why Political Identity and Legitimacyatter in the European Union’, in Furio Cerutti and Soniaucarelli (eds), The Search for a European Identity. Valuesolicies and Legitimacy of the European Union, (London aew York: Routledge, 2008), 3-22, 7.5European identity? Though the qualitative approaches

ound difficult problems in observing a European subject odentification, the quantitative ones locates such a subject batistically numbering inside opinion polls (of course

hrough ignoring subjective reasons) how many prefer toonsider themselves Europeans before or “above” theirational identity. Therefore it seems that the only comforta

ay of providing fundamentals for an existing Europeandentity is mathematical modelling and the belief that politi

mostly an outcome of political institutions. But when it’sbout European identity, statistics provoke just what Hannarendt (1958) called the “communist fiction”:


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The laws of statistics are valid only where large numbers oong periods are involved, and acts or events can statisticallppear only as deviations or fluctuations. The justification o

atistics is that deeds and events are rare occurrences inveryday life and in history. Yet the meaningfulness ofveryday relationships is disclosed not in everyday life but are deeds, just as the significance of a historical periodhows itself only in the few events that illuminate it. Thepplication of the law of large numbers and long periods to

olitics or history signifies nothing less than the wilfulbliteration of their very subject matter, and it is a hopelessnterprise to search for meaning in politics or significance iistory when everything that is not everyday behaviour orutomatic trends has been ruled out as immaterial. Howevence the laws of statistics are perfectly valid where we deaith large numbers, it is obvious that every increase inopulation means an increased validity and a markedecrease of "deviation." Politically, this means that the larghe population in any given body politic, the more likely itill be the social rather than the political that constitutes thublic realm.”33n quantitative terms it is rather a challenge to measure a

uropean identity. The main tools used in EU over time torovide some measurements of identity were theurobarometer and the European Values Study surveys. Asichael Bruter (2005, 101-103) emphasized, questions insi

hese surveys are highly problematic in regard to


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espondents’ attachments to an invoked European identity.irst, the questions in the survey’s design changed over timnd identity measurements involved asserted arbitrary

ensions between national and European identities that areuestionable in quantitative terms and trapped in language.econdly, the validity of these measurements is questionabecause it’s unclear if they indicate identities rather thanreferences since it involves respondents in agreeing with aregiven hierarchy. Thirdly, in measuring identity a

onceptual problem also emerges: the answers of respondenannot be compared since they do not all refer to a commonefinitional conception of identity. It is impossible toistinguish inside these surveys whether respondents refer iheir answers to a civic component of identity linked to EUo a cultural component that encompasses the idea ofuropean shared culture, values and history.3 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, (Chicago: Theniversity of Chicago Press, 1958), 42-43. 16herefore, according to numbers and polls we can claim toave an already framed European identity as an answer toredetermined questions. The operational concept of such aerceived identity can work well in Brussels’ bureaucracy,

owever, it says little about perceptions of people and is evess functional when dealing with ongoing problems insideU. The Romanian case in such polls is a good example:

hough the polls show a decrease in the pseudo- enthusiasmhat accompanied admission in the EU, most Romanians w


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nswer that they strongly feel attached to European valuesue to a historical form of national pride that resists toocating Romania on the periphery of the European project

et reality shows meanwhile little knowledge and awarenef Romanian people about what are those values and howhey can be traced in a historical continuity of the Romaniahe lack of political culture can produce statistically the sa

esults as in established democracies of the Western nationet such an identitarian affinity cannot be traced by a

ualitative approach with the same results. A large part ofomanian (especially the large rural part) still have no ideahat EU is about, even after accession. As Checkel andatzenstein shows:

Yet, several analytic biases limit the ability of thischolarship to fully capture identity dynamics inontemporary Europe. Substantively, it focuses too much oU institutions. Methodologically, it is hindered by excessi

eliance on survey instruments such as the Eurobarometerolls. To be sure, cross-national surveys and refinements tohem are useful for helping to understand basic distinctionshe political orientations of mass publics in Europe andoward the EU. But polls risk imposing a conceptual unity o

xtremely diverse sets of political processes that meanifferent things in different contexts. Indeed, surveyuestions may create the attitudes they report, since peopleish to provide answers to questions that are posed”34.he end of the Cold War and the emergent trends might ha


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appened too fast. Twenty years passed so quickly, and theew post-communist states inside the EU and the EU itselfre confused identitarian entities. The ‘memory kitsch’ is

kely to be the result that nobody in Western Europeelieved that it will all happen so quickly though for Easterurope the process of EU admission was mostly perceived ndignifiably slow. But, if institutional matters could haveeen rushed by political and economical desiderates andircumstances, their political solidity and legitimacy have t

e strengthened through identitarian cohesion. Central andastern European countries are perceived inside the EU asisciplined pupils available and ready to learn. As in anylassroom there are some more eager, some lazier, and somisbehaved, but in the long run

4 Jeffrey T. Checkel and Peter J. Katzenstein, ‘Theoliticization of European Identities’, in Jeffrey T. Checkelnd Peter J. Katzenstein (eds.), European Identity, 1-25, 107hrough continued efforts and passing several tests, they allecome part of a cohesive generation. But sometimes withihistory of education one has to account for what is actuall

aught.

uch cohesion requires a step back to the luggage of nationemories through real disclosures and revisiting the past or

an be puerile inventions based on instant amnesia. But abohe second choice I have strong doubts it will resist.specially if the postmoderns are right and a competition


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etween multiple identities in fashion and choosing annhistorical narrative are available, the future will not be soifferent from the past: confusion is fun and, as long as it

roduces welfare, European identity will seduce. But whatbout the structural inequalities in Europe?The new Europe, bound together by the signs and symbolsf its terrible past, is a remarkable accomplishment; but itemains forever mortgaged to that past. If Europeans are toaintain this vital link—if Europe's past is to continue to

urnish Europe's present with admonitory meaning and morurpose—then it will have to be taught afresh with eachassing generation. 'European Union' may be a response toistory, but it can never be a substitute.”35fter 1945 many nations had a lot to be silent about.owever what they talked about mattered and it gradually

ame out that what they didn’t talked about mattered as weoth memory and amnesia are now attached to a certain

mage that European nations and Europe as a union have onhemselves. After 1989 things started looking as more of thame: civilized silence seemed more sustainable in therocess of evaluating Europeaness for the newcomers. Forony Judt, the unnatural and fundamentally ‘false’ Europea

dentity is the result of “the deliberate and sudden unconcerith the immediate European past and its replacement by

Euro-cant’ in its various forms”36. By analyzing the EUnstitutional narratives, Fabrice Larat showed that within thexts of the European treaties we can already find visible


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ttempts to unify the historical roots of integration in formshat promote an ‘official’ historiography through whichsome aspects of the European legacy are accepted and som

re definitively rejected”37. To such a historiography Judteacts when he writes that “the ways in which the officialersions of the war and post-war era have unraveled in receears are indicative of unresolved problems for both westernd eastern Europe”38. In the period after 1945, as Judtrgues, it was not only the division of Europe that constitut

he post-war trademark but it was also “the period duringhich Europe’s post-war5 Tony Judt, Postwar. A History of Europe since 1945, 836 Tony Judt, The Past is Another Country. Myth andemory in Post-War Europe, in Jan-Werner Muller (ed.),emory and Power in Post-War Europe, Cambridge,ambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 157-183, p. 157. 37abrice Larat, Present-ing the Past: Political Narratives onuropean History and the Justification of EU Integration,it., p. 283. 38 Tony Judt, The Past is Another Country. Mynd Memory in Post-War Europe, cit., p. 157.8emory was molded”39. The wartime memory/amnesia

exus currency was constituted by the simple but cynic logf a self-indulging projection of the guilt and blame towardhe Germans. By using the logic of “They did it!” it naturalollowed “We’re innocent”. An instant amnesia comfortablnstalled while the memories of complicity during the


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trocious war all over Europe were soon to be marginal forontinent engaged now in two radically different versions oeconstruction that will remain as a scarf over two types of

odernities: the Eastern and Western ones. It was the mythf resistance that emerged instantly all over Europe torengthen the selective qualities of memory and thus “to be

nnocent a nation had to have resisted, and to have done so s overwhelming majority, a claim that was perforce madend pedagogically enforced all over Europe, from Italy to

oland, from the Netherlands to Romania”40. Theidespread of such ‘official’ normative narratives asnemonic loci were considered strategies to reinstall

egitimacy and to channel energies towards reconstruction.fter 1989 the Central and Eastern European countries

ollowed a similar strategy while Western Europe greetedhem with the happy aura of the now self-discovered statusCold War victor. Despite not being so keen as America onsing and enjoying the statement ‘We won the Cold War’,urope has chosen amnesia once more: ‘it was the Sovietnion’s fault ergo we are once again innocent’. This amneowever created some strong but confused feelings after989 of some sort of unity that will soon come to be covere

hrough the rational-choice messianism of conditionality asarking the functional and equal opportunity driven

ntegration in the European community of axiologicalhoices. In identitarian terms, the individuals from the postommunist countries were invited in a generous void: a rea


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haped would be European identity with no real interest buome very limited exotic curiosity for their past and anmancipatory narrative that exposed them to the pedagogic

ask of learning now the other face of modernity: to adapt the future by forgetting the laggardness of their past.mnesia became a prerequisite of integration and a

equirement of Europeaness. However, the inexplicit victorpproach on the end of the Cold War does nothing but pushorward the Cold War logic itself. The division of Europe

ather persisted through the narrative reflexes of taking theost-Cold War as a return to normalcy of the East which noo longer represents a threat for Europe but a laggard that ho be taught afresh how to adjust to presumably universalisesirability incarnated by the West. This move was nothinglse than the return to the original reflexes of thenlightenment that invented Eastern Europe in evaluative

erms in the first place. To quote Larry Wolff extensively:.9 Ibidem, p. 160. 40 Ibidem, p. 163.9The revolution of 1989 in Eastern Europe has largelynvalidated the perspective of half of century, compelling theconsideration of Europe as a whole. The maps on the wal

ave always showed a continent of many colors, the puzzleieces of many states; the dark line of the iron curtain,upplying the light and shadow in front and behind, wasrawn on the maps in the mind. Those maps must bedjusted, adapted, reconceived, but their structures are deep


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ooted and powerfully compelling. In the 1990s Italians areorriedly deporting Albanian refugees: Albanesi, no grazie

eads the graffiti on the wall. Germans are greeting visitors

om Poland with thuggish violence and neo-Naziemonstrations, while tourists from Eastern Europe are beinrbitrarily stopped and searched in Paris shops, under theuspicion of shoplifting. Statesmen, who oncenthusiastically anticipated the unity of Europe, are lookingway from the siege of Sarajevo, wishing perhaps that it we

appening on some other continent. Alienation is in part aatter of economic disparity, the wealth of Western Europeacing the poverty of Eastern Europe, but such disparity isnevitably clothed in the complex windings of culturalrejudice. The iron curtain is gone, and yet the shadowersists.” 41his is not to say that Western Europe was not messianicnough after 1989 but that it was nor prepared nor willing teat the Eastern part of Europe as its equal partner. Asimothy Garton Ash has put it, the only fact that seemed toatter anymore about communism was and still is in the

resent the fact that it is over42. It is surprising thendifference that EU showed and continues to show for the

eed/moral requirement of Central and Eastern Europeanountries to engage seriously with their own past. Thenlargement process can be seen once again as an ad-hocequirement for a pre-defined Europeanization than as anffective identity-sensitive integration. European Union


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equired compliance and got it. However, when it’s aboutdentitarian integration is rather a move from alignment of ess Europeans to the ‘core’ Europe while the East/West

ope tends to persist within the EU with visible features. Tersistence of the slope does not come from engagement incknowledging the tragic experiences in the East but ratherom the perception that the East will be truly European whwill be ‘more of the same/more of the West’ while for theoment being acknowledged as less. According to the EU

ogic of the fait historique accompli, Eastern Europe shouldradually disappear as a distinct category inside the EU as esult or a sign of the so called convergence induced througonditionality. However, the identitarian narrative thatvaluates in terms of Europeaness or les-Europeaness nationside the EU will not fade away very soon.himothy Snyder argued that the differences encompassedithin the historical memory in Eastern and Western Europo seriously beyond the experience of the Cold War. Theold War itself despite being a ‘common’ experienceenerated rather diverse perspectives. One of the facts1 Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe. The Map ofivilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment , Stanford,

tanford University Press, 1994, p. 3. 42 Timothy Gartonsh, Trials, purges and history lessons: treating a difficultast in post-communist Europe, in Jan- Werner Muller (ed.emory and Power in Post-War Europe, cit., pp. 265 – 282

0


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hat Snyder notes as being rarely acknowledged in recentccounts of remembrance in the West is the particularity ofhe historical memory that emanates in Eastern Europe from

ouble occupation both by Germans and Soviets. In someense it is harder to integrate the Easter experience in a widuropean historical account precisely because “almost all o

he worst acts of political violence in Europe in the twentieentury took place in lands that fell behind the Ironurtain”43. The particular nature of the Cold War as not

eing ‘hot’ produced no significant individual experiences,ourning and memorialization in Western Europe but menivisions that tend to persist. Eastern Europe was exposed ttemporal decalage in dealing with its own memories of thecond World War, Holocaust and the Soviet atrocities thahen available to be put on an open floor were to be

onfronted with the prioritizations resulted from the views he present and future. That’s how some collaborators of thazis could have been refurbished as heroes in some post-

ommunist states due to their opposition to the Soviets thatecame now a virtuous currency. In terms of this temporalesynchronization in accessing the historical memory,astern Europe is described by Benoît Challand as in a stat

f allochronism that results from its different positioning inme in relation with Western Europe’s referent in dealingith memory. The preference of Eastern Europeans torioritize memories of Nazi and Soviet occupations and thetrocities derived from them over the memory of Holocaus


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aken as an example of allochronism. Allochronism becomeor Challand, a sign that different positionings in times ofemorialization create distances among various groups.

pecific axiological attributes are attached to the referenceoint setter and the desynchronized: active/passive,dvanced/laggard, modern/traditional. The allochron grouphus disempowered and projected into a state heteronomy.eterochrony is a terminological combination betweenllochronism and heteronomy that is seen by Challand as

ptimal for describing the difference within the collectiveepresentation of Eastern Europe in Western Europe. In hisords, heterochrony expresses “the situation in which aiven group does not have the capacity to choose theognitive means to perceive itself as a consequence of beinut in a different time location”44. By trying to avoid the bf Western-centrism in explaining the differences in dealinith the past, Challand explicitates also the asymmetricalature of cognitive perceptions on the ‘proper way’ to dealith the past in the two socially constructed sides of Europ

n this sense, “a division along the East-West line is still anbject of reproduction and reification”45. This division migersist at least until EU will truly become an ‘ever closer

nion3 Thimoty Snyder, The Historical Reality of Easternurope, “East European Politics and Societies”, 23(1),ebruary 2009, pp. 7-12, p. 10. 44 Benoît Challand, 1989.ontested Memories and the Shifting Cognitive Maps of


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urope, “European Journal of Social Theory”, 12 (3), 2009p. 397-408, p. 400.5 Ibidem. p. 397.

1mong the peoples of Europe’. And this moment doesn’t loo be fast approaching as some would like to think.•he European identity issue, in a cost-benefits analysis ofost of scholarly work, could be easily abandoned with no

eal significant consequences. Ruth Wittlinger (2009)xplained that “the lack of a European identity does notecessarily have to be seen as a severe flaw.”46 However istill believed that there is some normative pressure on

upporting open debates on the topic, then today’s dominanpproach from the top to the bottom should be abandoned,nd a more critical and realist approach should as wellntroduce the “others” and the reshaping of memory andemembrance that they bring with them. An approach ofuropean identity should be complemented today with pubebates on national histories of the new members, witheconciliation, restitution, disclosure and awareness ratherhan indifferent arrogance of the old towards the new learne

hat need just time to disciplinate and adjust. Europe shouldscape the “spell of Plato”. The new member states that areoo busy now to comply should find the energy – and the Ehould support this – to affirm their understanding ofuropeanity of their past, present and future beyond


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nstitutional rhetoric and widespread troubled attitudes.erious discussion, research and activism should therefore rofessed inside the new EU nations and – agreeing with

imothy Garton Ash47 – I believe that historians shouldxercise now an important role in revealing the “lessons ofistory” in these “other” nations, in clarifying the role of thast in shaping perceptions of Europe as union, if not as aocus for a common identity.herefore, “it is not so much that memory is the independe

ariable determining political culture and ultimately policieut that memory to some extent is political culture”48.urope, Europeanism, Europeanization shall beomplemented now with cerebral understanding from Russungary, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania,oland, etc. “The others” should write their own stories aboeing European and these stories should become integralarts of the European self-understanding and shape EUolicies in the future. The explicit integration of these storieill lighten again the dialogical nature of Europe and willrovide a potential exit from the embarrassing not imaginedut imaginary European identity and open the path for a truntegration.

6 Ruth Wittlinger, ‘The Quest for a European Identity: Aurope Without Europeans?’, in Klaus Larres (ed.), Aompanion to Europe Since 1945, (Oxford and Malden:lackwell Publishing Ltd., 2009), 369-386, 380. 47Timotharton Ash, ‘Trials, Purges and History Lessons: Treating


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ifficult Past in Post-Communist Europe’ in Jan-Werneruller (ed.), Memory and Power in Post-War Europe, 265

82, 282.

8 Ibid , 26.2uch histories can also have the benefit of constructively

ncluding what is perceived for now as ignorable orndesirable: path dependencies in post-communistemocratization, accomplishments in the modernizing

ommunist projects, complicities of the West with the Eastemories of abandonment and also support and cohesion,xclusion, tragic destinies, remembrance instead of instantmnesia, retributions and recognition, perceptions, processef specific elite and intellectual configuration, dissidents aniasporas, national narratives, cultural affinities, dynamicntegrative dimensions of post-communist culture thatctively complement the passivity of compliance.emembrance can take these countries out of sloganisms anive meaning and value to both national self-valorisation anctive integration.Europeans must find a way to rewrite the larger narrative s to include both East and West. This requires a

onfrontation with two basic matters of the recent Europeanast: that the center of the suffering Second World War wan the East rather than the West, and that East Europeans hao experience communist subjugation for four decades rathehan European integration. It should be simple, one might


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hink, to accept the full historical force of Nazi and Sovieterror. The European Union, after all, is built upon theremise that totalitarianism must never return. Yet in practi

his requires some humility. One often hears the argument,owadays, that Americans can learn about total war andolitical terror from Europeans, because they experienced torrors of twentieth century. This is true. By the same tokeest Europeans have much to learn from East Europeans.”

ut, after all, there is no problem in being an alterity, an

other”. Quite the contrary, the acknowledgement ofifference could be the legitimate dialogical position thatamed Europe (even though sometimes dramatically) overenturies. There is no problem in believing that there isomething like a British, American, German, Russian,omanian, Hungarian mentality. Yet it is important to beware of what conclusions we draw from these differencesnce it’s known that cultural stereotypes are usually

naccurate. The problem is rather being a “de-valorisedther”, as part of a dialectical or evolutionist game as thenequal among equals and developing axiological reactionso that. This is also an old historical game for Europe, and iidn’t have the most honourable outcomes. Most of the tim

he category of Eastern Europe seems to be an operationalgnifier for specific particular goals. This paper was not anpology of the East or a victimization of it but rather anttempt to locate difficult spots in the widespread narrative “united” Europe. It rather acknowledges that it should be


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ntegrated, as I’m sure that it must/will become, as a non-ialectical partner in identitarian politicization of Europe.ecause,

in its core definition, political identity is the overarching anclusive project that is shared by the members of the polityr in other words the set of political and social values and9 Timothy Snyder, ‘United Europe Divided History’, inrzysztof Michalski (ed.), What Holds Europe Together ?,85-188, 188.

3rinciples in which they recognize themselves as a ‘we’.ore important than this set (identity) is the process (self-

dentification through self-recognition) by which the peopleecognize themselves as belonging together because theyome to share, but also modify and reinterpret those valuesnd principles which are the framework within which theyursue their interests and goals.”50

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5

Documents

Narratives of European Identity and the Making of the _Other_ Inside the European Union