More than once I've had upset Poles and Slovakians insisting their country is not eastern European. Im not getting the upset. Nobody is saying they are still totalitarian, however the shadow of 20th century history is undeniable. These “new europe” countries do have similarities.
What do you think of when you think Eastern Europe? Most likely it’s a grey wasteland of communist block buildings, where people live dusty deprived lives, drowning in vodka.
Where unwashed children play in the weeds of a dusty courtyard under hanging carpets drying in the sun; where dilapidated old housing sags and crumbles; where cigarette packets and broken glass litter the streets; where unattractive chain-smoking men dressed in Adidas tracksuits light cigarettes from flaming, rolled up hundred dollar bills gained by the illegal smuggling of uranium to hazy, shadowy figures in dark smokey rooms; where , garishly-made up women dressed in clothes made from plush velvet drapes have sex with men and steal their wallets. A place immortalized by such Hollywood classics such as Hostel, and Hostel 2 where some innocent American tourists are put to unspeakable torture for a few bucks. Because the people are so soul-less and poor that human life means literally less than nothing: where a human kidney cut from a child’s back can be cheerfully exchanged for a litre of vodka.
Gee, I wonder why people wouldn’t want to be associated with that image?
Ok, so let’s forget the Hollywood image. Hollywood, frankly gets everything wrong: they are not really interested in “holding up the mirror up to nature, as ‘twere.”
They make dreams. Beautiful dreams and nightmares. I love Hollywood, but let’s recognize it as what it is.
So let’s look at reality.
Countries in Central Europe (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary) certainly do have similarities, thanks to twentieth century history. Heck, Slovakia is so close to Czech Republic in language and culture that you hardly notice the difference, except the roads are worse and drivers are even crazier.
You are quite right to differentiate these countries from Western Europe: the difference is undeniable and obvious. Cross the old line of the Iron Curtain and it is absolutely clear: the roads are less well-kept, the public areas weedier, there is more graffiti on the walls. There are more seedy casino-bars, weirder spirits, folk customs, the like of which you really only have in Bavaria, on the other side of the Line.
Moreover, at least in the recent past there were prostitutes, some of them shockingly young , lining the roads on the German border, ripe for German perverts to take advantage of.
And there is no doubt that the post-war history of this part of Europe made an indelible mark: in 1918, when the Czechoslovakia was founded, it was considered part of Western Europe. But it will be some decades still before that is true again, I think.
But then you go further east and you have countries like Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Georgia.
Do you really think that the Czech Republic has more in common with Russia than Germany? Let’s take a look at Russia. This is a place
- where foreigners have to constantly be on the lookout not only from the pickpockets that fill any big city, but from the police looking to line their pockets;
- where foreign investers have to pay a fee to shadowy figures even before they have to pay a bribe to ordinary government licensing offices;
- a place where state-owned business and mafia are so entertwined nothing but a complete demolition will ever sort it out
- where investigative journalists investigating Putin have a tendency to come down with sudden cases of bullet-in-brain syndrome; where political opponents are poisoned, regularly exposed in sex scandals or jailed for bureaucratic blunders?
- where the government spends significant amounts of money spreading propaganda all over the west to undermine current systems and the idea of Democracy itself
- where there are laws about how much “negative news” regarding Russia can be printed; where a certain amount of “positive news” has to be mandated.
- Where the men have a life expectancy of around 50 because they are such incredible alcoholics
- where some women are absolutely dying to get out of their country; willing to marry the fattest, sleaziest Western sucker who will have them (a horrid stereotype that is likely mostly not true: but more true than it is for these parts
- where some portions of the rural areas are so hopelessly polluted and ravaged by Communist Central Planning (which for some reason was terrible at everything but rocket science)
Gee, I wonder why people wouldn’t want to be associated with such a country?
Yes,
I’m sorry, but if you think that these countries are like Russia, then you really are ignorant. If I was from one of the four countries above (or one of the countries from the former Yugoslavia or even Romania), I would be insulted too.
Now, Russia is a beautiful country, don’t get me wrong.I just listed off the problems that are popularly associated with Russia. I know that Russia has stunning natural scenery and I have heard that it has many intelligent, open-minded people; it has an amazing history of literature, art and music. A multi-ethnic, complicated country, that straddles Europe and Asia , that straddles history itself. I’d love to visit. But I think it’s pretty clear that its institutions, from a Western perspective, are utterly wretched and pretty much always have been.
Doesn’t it make sense to differentiate the countries of Central Europe and the former Yugoslavia from the countries of Eastern Europe, just as it makes sense to differentiate them from Western Europe? Are the Northern Great Plains of the USA the same as the Texas or the Deep South? Or is it all just hick-land?
Anyway, here are some more bullet points for you to peruse:
- The countries of Central Europe were never part of the Soviet Union, even though they were Communist.
- While there were some people who identified with communist ideals in the forties, the majority of people did not: communism was very much imposed by a foreign power(the Soviet Union). It was a brutal machine of a regime where no one could really trust friends or even family members; where drunken griping could land ou in the hoose-gow in less than an hour; where people were tortured and killed, sometimes literally for nothing; where no one new what was truth what was lies; where, as they said in Czechoslovakia: “We pretend to work; and they pretend to pay us.” No wonder they don’t want to be associated with Moscow.
- Furthermore, Soviet Union, or their allies, all had to enforce the communism by force: by military invasion. In Hungary, in Czechoslovakia…even in Poland in the eighties. This is not ancient history. There are people alive who were living when Austria-Hungary was still extant, whose entire lives were framed by world wars totalitarianism and the Cold War.
- Before the War and the selling down the river by the Great Western Powers, which was compounded by the “deal with the devil” Roosevelt and Churchill made with Stalin Czechoslovakia had one of the top ten economies in the world, per capita, and considered “Western" at the time.
- the Czech Republic has been industrialized since the 19th century: it was the heart of industrial Austria. But the other countries in Central Europe have rapidly industrialized in teh post-Cold War era.
Beyond the insulting associations with Russia, there is just that European thing: a thing where each country automatically looks down (a little) on the country lying to its east. This is because much of Eastern Europe, with the notable exception of Bohemia, which is now the Czech Republic, was historically (and in some countries, still is) more rural and relatively unindustrialized; and thus poorer and probably a bit less educated, other than the Jews who at one point made up a significant part of the population. And of course, it also has do with racist pseudo-scientific beliefs that were so prevalent in the late nineteenth, early twentieth centuries. The same beliefs that empowered and justified the Holocaust.
I hire people from abroad. Right now I have a Swiss woman, an English woman, an Englishman, a German-American, and three Americans working for me(along with about a dozen Czechs.)
And I have noticed, that it is the Western Europeans who seem to be the least open-minded about Central Europe. There is (almost) always the upturned nose, the gloating, the disdainful sniff, the ho-hum-ming of this or that architectural marvel or natural wonder.
And I have noticed, that it is the Western Europeans who seem to be the least open-minded about Central Europe. There is (almost) always the upturned nose, the gloating, the disdainful sniff, the ho-hum-ming of this or that architectural marvel or natural wonder.
Gee, I wonder why somebody wouldn’t respond well to that kind of thing?
So there there is a bit of a chip on the shoulders of some of the people due to this attitude. Perhaps in American terms, it might be seen similarly as to how some New Yorkers look down on “flyover country”. Flyover Country naturally has a bone to pick with that.
Now, I know that the tone of this might seem rather harsh, so I want to make it clear: I literally said the same thing when I first moved here: What’s wrong with calling it Eastern Europe? Aren’t these countries obviously different from the relatively well-oiled, gleaming, blinking,blooping, antiseptic Germany? I asked my student (and later good friend) Alan.
He admitted they were. And then he pretty much told me what I’ve just written here.
We all start off ignorant.
So your (our!) ignorance is understandable. What the hell do we know of “Central Europe” beyond some Hollywood-constructed nightmare? Let’s face it, “The West”knows sweet fuck all about most of the world. I include Western Europe in that, because it’s to some extent true.
For all I know, my image of Russia is similarly off, though at least it is taken from accounts I’ve heard first hand from people who have actually worked or lived there or done business there and not based on fiction.
Anyway the point is, these countries in Central Europe are very different than Russia, even though they were all Communist countries.
Their history stretches back just as far and it is different. In the vaster frame of history that Europe operates on (compared to say, the USA) 40 years of Russian-imposed Communism is a mere blip.
