COURSE SYLLABUS

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By analyzing historical sources, analytical and theoretical interpretations, students should become acquainted 1) with different historical, political, mental-geographical ideas of the region often called East-Central Europe (and at times: Eastern Europe, Central Europe, Zwischen Europa, etc); 2) with different notions about its distinctive features, and 3) with the political-cultural heritage of regional empires, nation-building processes, territorial conflicts, social and economic transformations.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Students are required to prepare for classes by reading the relevant assigned texts, to attend classes, and are also kindly asked to turn on their cameras whenever it is possible and actively participate with questions and comments to make the classes more interactive, lively, instructive and fun.

EVALUATION

Grades will be based on a written exam at the end of the course. The exam will consist of five short answer questions about the subjects discussed during classes (and related to the obligatory texts). To each question an answer of a few sentences is required for a maximum of 2 points. Altogether 10 point can be earned.

60-100% => Pass

Less than 60% => Fail

·        Milan Kundera: The Tragedy of Central Europe. The New York Review of Books. Vol. 31, No. 7 (April 26), 1984, https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2016/MEB404/um/Kundera_1984.pdf

o   Szűcs, Jenő (and Julianna Parti): The Three Historical Regions of Europe: An outline. Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. Vol. 29, No. 2/4 (1983), pp. 131-184 

·        Theodor Herzl: The Jewish State (1896). In: Hertzberg, Arthur, ed. The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1997, pp. 204-226

o   Beneš, Edvard: Detruisez L’Autriche-Hongrie. Paris: Librairie Delagrave, 1916

o   Brian Porter: When Nationalism Began to Hate. Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth-century Poland. Oxford University Press. 2000. Conclusion 231-238. o.

o   Paces, Cynthia: The Czech nation must be Catholic. Nationalities Papers, Vol. 27, No. 3, 1999

·        Bartošek, Karel. Could We Have Fought?: The Munich Complex in Czech Policies and Czech Thinking. In: Norman Stone, Eduard Stouhal (eds.). Czechoslovakia: Crossroads and Crises, 1918-88. Palgrave Macmillan Press. 1989

o   Bibó, István. The Miseries of East European Small States.  Ch. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. In: Bibó, István, and Iván Zoltán Dénes (ed.). The Art of Peacemaking   : Political Essays by István Bibó. World Thought in Translation. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. 2015, pp. 130-180.

·        Beneš, Eduard: The Organization of Postwar Europe. Foreign Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Jan., 1942), pp. 226-242

·        Otto of Austria [Otto von Habsburg]: Danubian Reconstruction. Foreign Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Jan., 1942), pp. 243-252.

o   Wandycz, Piotr S.: Czechoslovak – Polish Confederation and the Great Powers, 1940-1943. Indiana University Publications. Slavic and East European Series. Vol. 3. 1956. Chapter One: Czechoslovakia and Poland Between the Wars. pp. 1-32.

Snyder, Timothy: Holocaust: The Ignored Reality. The New York Review of Books. July 16, 2009.

·        Nyyssönen, Heino. “Salami Reconstructed: ‘Goulash Communism’ and Political Culture in Hungary.” Cahiers Du Monde Russe 47, no. 1/2 (2006): 153–72.

o   Szczygieł, Mariusz. Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia. Brooklyn: Melville House, 2014. pp. 78-103.

o   Kolakowski, Leszek: My Correct Views on Everything. The Socialist Register. 1974. http://www.socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/5323#.WqUPjmrOXIV

·        Hanley, Seán. Intro and The right in post-communist Europe. of Ch. 1. (Getting the right right in post-communist Europe) In: The New Right in the New Europe: Czech Transformation and Right-Wing Politics, 1989-2006. London; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2015. pp. 1-8.

·        Przeworski, Adam: The "East" Becomes the "South"? The "Autumn of the People" and the Future of Eastern Europe. Political Science and Politics, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Mar., 1991), pp. 20-24

o   Bruszt, László, and George K. Horvath. “1989: The Negotiated Revolution in Hungary.” Social Research 57, no. 2 (1990): 365–87.

o   Ágh, Attila. Radical Party System Changes In Five East-Central European States: Eurosceptic and Populist Parties on the Move in the 2010s. Baltic Journal of Political Science. December 2015, No. 4.

o   Janos, Andrew C.: From Eastern Empire to Western Hegemony: East Central Europe Under Two International Regimes. East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures. Vol 15, Issue 2, 2001

·        Brubaker, Rogers: National Minorities, Nationalizing States, and External National Homelands in the New Europe. Daedalus, Vol. 124, No. 2, What Future for the State? (Spring, 1995), pp. 107-132

o   Bunce, Valerie. Peaceful versus Violent State Dismemberment: A Comparison of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. Politics and Society, Vol. 27 No. 2, June 1999. pp. 217-237

·        Central European Futures – Five Scenarios for 2025. Visegrad Insight (special edition) 1(12) 2018. https://visegradinsight.eu/app/uploads/2018/10/VI-CEFutures-spec2018-single-FINAL.pdf

o   Krekó, Péter and Zsolt Enyedi. Explaining Eastern Europe: Orbán’s Laboratory of Illiberalism. Journal of Democracy, July, 2018, https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/article/explaining-eastern-europe-orb%C3%A1n%E2%80%99s-laboratory-illiberalism

o   Quo vadis Central and Eastern Europe? ASPEN Review, 04/2017 https://www.aspen.review/article/2017/quo-vadis-central-eastern-europe/

o   Rupnik, Jacques. Populism in Eastern Central Europe. Eurozine. 10th September 2007. https://www.eurozine.com/populism-in-eastern-central-europe/

·        Kapor, Momo. A Guide to the Serbian Mentality. Belgrade: Dereta, 2014. pp. 22-26, 243-246, 302-306.

·        Berka, Petr, Aleš Palán, and Petr Stastny. Xenophobe’s® Guide to the Czechs. London: Xenophobe’s guides, 2013. pp. 1-28.