White but not quite: Race and illiberalism in Central Europe
When Eastern Europeans fight Russians they capture the sympathies of the West, and are celebrated as the valiant defenders of democracy against authoritarianism. This was so in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968. It is so today in Ukraine, which, to be sure, is making an even greater sacrifice.
But there is an opposing view of Eastern Europe, which, if the past is any indication, survives such periods of solidarity. A prejudice I call ‘Eastern Europeanism’ conjures up the image of a desperate, destitute region rife with exploitation by a corrupt elite, where most people will do anything for a euro or a dollar. This demoralised population, moreover, seems culturally inclined to support autocratic governments. They appear to be congenitally antisemitic, Islamophobic, homophobic and racist.
Eastern Europeanist prejudice functions as a binary divider, with Eastern Europe pictured as the direct opposite of the West. It also functions as a gradual distinguisher, with each country to the East in Europe imagined as progressively less Western, including in their own minds. Eastern Germans see themselves as more Western than Czechs, who in turn see themselves as more Western than Slovaks, who see Ukrainians the same way, until we get to the ultimate Eastern Europeans, the Russians. When people in the region say they are ‘Central Europeans’ they mean that they are not like the Russians and want to be seen as more Western. But the West won’t always listen.
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