Sovereignty and the Misery of Small Eastern European Nations

It has been said that countries in East-Central Europe have their own brand of constitutionalism which celebrates the idea of national sovereignty. I shall argue that, when the question of sovereignty is treated in the framework of cultural imaginaries, we realise that this region’s constitutionalism is actually much less archaic than it might seem. Despite all the diversity encountered in East-Central Europe, there is a recurring cultural theme running through it: the idea of being a small nation that has suffered great historical tragedies. Yet no political or legal position with respect to sovereignty follows from the mere observation that the nation is small and in need of protection. As the history of East-Central Europe shows, depending on the kind of threats that are thought to besiege the nation, state sovereignty may appear either as a protective shield or an obstacle precluding membership in some larger political community. Even supposing that countries in East-Central Europe share a collective mentality centred on the category of the nation, it does not follow that they should be especially attached to state sovereignty in any traditional sense.