Echoes of Moscow: National Populist Discourse and Kremlin Narratives in Central Europe

This thesis examines how national populist parties in Central Europe, specifically Germany's AfD, Austria's FPÖ, and Slovakia's Smer, utilise pro-Kremlin discourse and narratives following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Building on the theoretical framework of hybrid warfare and the typology of pro-Russian discourse by Erlich and Garner (2023), the thesis identifies political, military, economic, and cultural-historical narratives in the rhetoric of selected national populist parties. Using the qualitative content analysis and the Discourse- Historical approach of critical discourse analysis (Reisigl & Wodak, 2009), the empirical part of the thesis then analyses party leaders' statements reported in national media outlets across two timeframes: immediately after the invasion in February 2022 and exactly three years later in 2025. The findings demonstrate that while national contexts strongly shape political discourse in Central Europe, common challenger narratives remain anchored in similar anti- EU, anti-liberal, and anti-Western worldviews. It also reveals limited use of economic mismanagement narratives and strong nationalist rhetoric in post-Communist Slovakia, as well as prominent anti-immigration discourse in Western cases, especially in the case of FPÖ. The study contributes to...