Regional imagination between two refugee crises

The chapter analyses Central European imagination of the region between the refugee crisis in 2015 and the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. For explanation of the development, the chapter traces older strata of debates about Central Europe or “New Europe” in the 1980s and 2000s, as well as in the 19th century or interwar period. The analysis is based on the relationship to Others – primarily differentiation from the West, and secondarily the negation of Muslim and Russian Others. The chapter identifies three roles that Central Europe has sought to play in relation to the West: (1) a saviour from external peril and internal decline, a role that the neo-nationalists after 2015 and, in a different form, certain intellectuals from previous decades wanted to carve out for Central Europe; (2) a mediator offering the West innocence and/or menial and low-paid labour while at the same time acting as a bridge to the countries of even more distant Eastern Europe; and finally (3) a vanguard that, in the face of a renewed Cold War front, adopts a stance it expects the rest of Western Europe to emulate.