The Rediscovery of Central Europe Author(s): Tony Judt Source: Daedalus, Vol. 119, No. 1, Eastern Europe...

Central Europe... Europe (Winter, 1990), pp. 23-54 Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20025283 . Accessed: 24/10/2011 17:47
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The Rediscovery of Central Europe

Tony Judt

Wha

hat Central Europe means has shifted with shift

ing borders and rule. Western imagination

mapped its cultures with Germany through the first half of this century, and with the Soviet
Union sweeps more as political recently. Now change is "rediscover the West the continent,

ing" the region.No longer the displaced persons of some imaginary landscape, for the present at
themselves are project least, Central Europeans to the watching ing their cultural geography world.

Leontes: Where
Bohemia.

is Bohemia? Speak!
?Act V, Scene ii III, Scene iii Tale country ?Stage From William near the sea. direction, Act Shakespeare,

A desert

A Winter's

In the cultural baggage of the West, Central Europe has long been an extra. This is especially so in the case of the English-speaking optional world, but the French have been little better. For the opinion makers and political leaders fromWilliam Shakespeare toNeville Chamber
Tony Judt is Professor of History in the Institute of French Studies at New York University.

23

24

Tony Judt
of the more timorous Carolingian monarchs. And what

lain, the frontiers of civilization did not extend beyond the territorial
aspirations

was already a restricted vision in 1938 became positively myopic after 1945.
In large measure half the European But in cultural this was continent. of the Soviet conquest the consequence and lands East of Vienna, peoples mattered for of of

which little had been known now disappeared from sight altogether.
disappearance terms, what of Germany, even more was the perhaps and their it was the Germans,

East language, that had served as the vital conduit inEurope between andWest, at once unifying and dividing the identity of the landmass
Russia and the Atlantic.

between

Until 1945, the term Central Europe had a peculiarly Germanic in the ring to it, reflecting the hitherto dominant German place FromMetternich, who first developed the theme, to Friedrich region. Naumann (whose 1915 work Mitteleuropa codified its modern
of the very concept on the problem parasitic usage (in nineteenth-century to referred Central Europe usage), hagen to Trieste. an area of the work a broadly called of Europe unification. German of Friedrich central In was its mid

List, for example), union economic conceived

based in Prussia and the Austrian lands but extending from Copen
So long as the form and territorial extent of a united estab and with no other nation-states remained unclear, Germany center could lished in the region, the future of Europe's geographical in many different ways.1 be imagined scotched by Prussia's defeat of the Austrian All such dreams were war of of the Franco-Prussian at Sadowa in 1866, the outcome army of a Prussian-centered establishment and Bismarck's empire. 1870, and center of gravity shifted eastward, and political Europe's military in concordance, conflicts of empires and nations moved the unresolved

with Central Europe now describing the lands between Germany and
the Russian empire, focused on Vienna. Naumann's own conception

reflected this development. His Mitteleuropa still included Germany (the book was published at a moment of close German-Austrian World War I)but moved military and diplomatic collaboration, during
the frontiers candidate rate and

as a Central Europe to the Vistula, eastward proposing union that would for an economic incorpo simultaneously since the that had arisen tensions the national resolve of the German Empire to its west.

establishment

The Rediscovery
a result of the war, The reemergence obsolete. As and Yugoslavia, to small states, Central Europe

of Central Europe

25

vision was rendered however, Naumann's of Poland, the creation of Czechoslovakia the reduction to give of Austria the prewar In the face meaning. and Hungary idea of a unified of ethnic and

together with all combined a quite new

national pride and the territorial claims and insecurities of the new
was at best an anachronistic countries, Mitteleuropa utopia, a stalking horse and economic for the military hegemony of the Austro-Hungarian Of what (a truly momentous now consist? What at worst of Ger event

many. Even the term itself had become imprecise. The disappearance
Empire in

European history) left a huge gap in the conceptual geography of the

continent. did Central Europe was East,

what West in a landmass whose political divisions had been utterly and unrecognizably remade within a single lifetime?
In one comprise French the countries taken important study of 1931, were Austria, Hungary, Central Czechoslovakia, Europe to

Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Italy.2 Such a list ignored the newly established Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (whose capital Vilna is the birthplace of some of today's best-known Central European intellectuals), but more immediately it left out
Weimar French but This exclusion reflect the interwar may well Germany. to forget the very existence of their German wish neighbor, to the view of many it hardly contemporary corresponded for whom were open the new terrain and and vulnerable of German influence. countries economic Nor was to their for dreams revival, such a

Germans, southeast territorial perspective treating backyard interwar Many

expansion, confined Central became and

geopolitical to Germans. Until Southeastern

the military of implications as Germany's natural Europe

and scholars of the inescapable, Western diplomats were not averse to such a future for the generation region. of them saw German domination there as the key to contain that of the Ver the world

ing the Soviet Union, and most would probably have agreed with the
economist Elem?r Hantos contemporary Hungarian in that part sailles settlement was radically unstable

to accept Western readiness the status quo in (mutatis mutandis, even at the price of Soviet control there, is a Central Europe, modern to similar fears of instability in the area between what had response historically been nation-states).3

26
With ceased

Tony Judt
the defeat of Hitler, all such German-centered to be credible. Moreover, as a result of Nazism, perspectives they also lost

their historical legitimacy. And thus, from 1945 until quite recently, "Central Europe" became invisible to the West. Obviously, this
proposition taken literally is a trifle tendentious. Politicians and

diplomats in the United States, Britain, and France took note of events in the area of Europe that fell under Soviet domination in the years 1945-1949 and watched closely for signs of rebellion, if only as a card to play in the great diplomatic game with the Soviet Union itself. But in the domestic politics of theWestern allies, and in the world of the "thinking classes," the notion of an entity called Central
from Europe disappeared and political imagination, synonymous the Western with consideration. In the Western intellectual after 1945 became reconstructing Europe economic and diplomatic cohesion among creating allies and the reconstructed countries of Western Eu

rope. At best, Europe became the dream of Jean Monnet

followers, consecrated There was a sort of reduced in the Treaty certainly Naumannism, The supranational "lands between"

and his
economic

union but confined to the beneficiaries of theMarshall

of Rome.

Plan and
entered into

cultural limbo and Russian political tutelage.4

Western overdetermined about this process. nothing writers and Western and scholars had a long public opinion history of concern about the rest of Europe, dating at least as far back as the outcry over the tsars' treatment in the first of Polish uprisings

half of the nineteenth century. British liberals and their electors had a
long and honorable involvement in the revolutions and revolts of the and Hungarians, Czechs, Serbs, and Poles had all years 1848-1918, or Paris for support and encourage at some point looked to London ment. States from this region to the United The mass emigration

around the turn of the century had produced a small but well organized electorate in cities likeCleveland, Chicago, andNew York,
and American Central and of independent for the creation support to their Eastern owed Europe something states presence. in

Serbian losses during the FirstWorld War and the abandonment of Czechoslovakia at Munich in 1938 did not pass unnoticed in the Western press, and the rise of fascism had helped mobilize a
generation political of Western freedoms in East intellectuals and West in defense alike. Not and democracy was shocked everyone of

into collaboration at the prospect of dying for Danzig.

The Rediscovery
The

of Central Europe

27

of of this part of Europe from the consciousness disappearance an 1945 thus represents after the Western astonishing intelligentsia

act of collective cultural amnesia, matched only by the delight with which the other half of the continent was rediscovered in the late
1970s. rassing indeed nalism This has rediscovery of intellectual degree only by an embar accompanied a sense that Central hubris, Europe in those moments when Western thinkers happen itself been in a speech in Lisbon, by Susan Sontag, at the inMay 1988. "Central an anti bloc were it.... It

exists

to imagine it into being. This sort of solipsistic geographical nomi

is rampant, for example, Conference International Writers'

Europe," Russian

"was an American she declared, [sic] metaphor, to explain that the countries of the Soviet concept

not appendages of the Soviet Union but some even preceded was a very useful concept for non-Russians."5 ical circumstances of the postwar years. In France,

The context for such breathtaking ignorance is the peculiar polit

Italy, Britain, and

the United States (the countries with which I am concerned in this essay), the only people who consistently spoke of and for the lands from Vienna to Vilna were the political emigres of the Cold War era.
The democrats latter ranged across the political to nostalgic monarchists In the decade following social spectrum from embittered but were in their anti united the end of the war, this stand

communism.

rendered them virtually inaudible to the intelligentsia of the Left who dominated public discussion of politics in France and Italy and also
exercised Britain a and in literary and academic circles in influence determining a lesser extent) the United States. But even writers and (to

thinkers of the political Center and Right were less interested in the
in the strength than in the role it played as a global power. When exiles from the Eastern bloc spoke or wrote of the enslavement of Poland, the 1948 in Prague, the political and the popular coup protests, persecutions, in right-wing circles and the conservative they certainly got a hearing But they deluded to themselves press. (as some of them came fate of the region as such ening of the Soviet Union

appreciate) if they supposed that their audience cared deeply about

the condition of their homelands. For anti-Communist intellectuals,

what was happening in Budapest or Prague was just the logical extension of what had already happened years before in Moscow and Kiev. Events in Poland and Romania might further strengthen the
case forWestern vigilance and military superiority, but eyes remained

28

Tony Judt

firmly fixed on the Kremlin. Itwas part of the tragedy of the postwar emigres that they could never fully grasp the marginality to which such geopolitical concern consigned all their efforts to enlighten the
free world. Intellectuals well of of the Left, on the other hand, sought only the Soviet Union. Communists and non-Communists to think alike,

they projected onto Stalin and his heirs the Socialist dreams frustrated and unfulfilled in the industrial and American-dominated West.
Between the glory attaching to the "victor of Stalingrad" and the

heartfelt desire to find in the East the future of a Utopian project stalled in the lands of its birth, theWestern intellectuals of the postwar years had little time for news from the laboratory inwhich
experiment should Europe the was conducted. That Central and being be the industrial frontline of Soviet advance resource base for Nazi Left For the Western Eastern so soon was until

after providing the agricultural a matter of small consequence.

conquest from 1945

the early 1960s, the Sovietization of Eastern Europe was both good in itself and the best guarantee of the survival of the Russian
revolutionary state.

After Stalin's death, and more especially following the crushing of

in 1956, In Revolution there were the Hungarian signs of change. the increasingly attitude of the Communist party independent Italy, in a variety of its identification with the Soviet Union itself, nuancing it easier for "right-thinking" of the Left to intellectuals ways, made from the Soviet bloc without themselves them distance rendering to charges of having sold out to the Americans. In selves vulnerable

Manichaean habits of the Cold War Britain and theUnited States, the
declined, making own governments order of things it possible for socialists and liberals to criticize their for the without apologia offering an accompanying in France, where in Prague or Moscow. the Only

cultural hegemony of the Communist party had not yet diminished, was criticism of the Soviet invasion of Hungary (by Sartre, for example) still ritually followed by a reaffirmation of faith in the
possibilities of communism.6 these at the developments, events of 1956, and Central out the momentary remained Europe Notwithstanding burst of anger

essentially invisible toWestern thinkers. For with the diminished credibility of the Soviet utopia (notably as a by-product of Khruschev's revelations at the Twentieth Congress), the intelligentsia of the Left in

The Rediscovery
the West to project quence, turned

of Central Europe

29

and began instead away from the region altogether world. As a conse their hopes onto the non-European on Algeria, with attention and centered Ghana, Cuba, because longer because for all but the most of dis

(eventually) the Far East, the Soviet satellites closer to home became
an embarrassing irrelevance?irrelevant hard-bitten of Communists they no postrevolutionary served as prototypes they offered

societies, embarrassing reminders of the achievements concertingly proximate ism in its European homelands.

of real social

If anything, the gap between East andWest

1945 became wider still after 1956.

that had opened up in

postwar years,

In the immediate

some intellectuals in the Soviet bloc (notably in Hungary and Czechoslovakia) still spoke the same language as their Western
colleagues, criticizing their own governments in the name of a

socialist ideal. But after 1956, intellectuals in Poland and elsewhere turned increasingly critical of theMarxist regimes they had helped
create, revisionist critiques offering of the peoples' democracies impasse to accept and the terms of debate distaste for mainstream of the political and economic even less inclined and becoming

Similar

description officially approved. Communist the practice produced had nothing but critics in Prague revisionists accounts had for the

New Left in France and Italy during the 1960s, but there the parallel
Left in Paris or Rome ends, for the anti-Communist scorn for the concerns of the reformist "bourgeois" or Warsaw. It was this fear that the East European abandoned Stalinism only to embrace liberalism that lukewarm response in many radical circles of Soviet tanks in August Spring. The appearance with near-universal but Western condemnation, sorbed in their domestic conflicts and mobilized

in the West

to the Prague 1968 met of course ab intellectuals, in the war against

had been far from enthused by the moderate of Vietnam, aspirations a Dubcek.7 As for the student protests of March 1968 inWarsaw,

they were drowned out by the debates in the Sorbonne, while the
anti-Semitic in Poland repression subsequent in opinion-making in the West. circles It is thus not revival served of cultural further to absurdly counterintuitive aroused to suggest hardly an echo

that whereas these of

1956 and 1968 in Central Europe marked staging points in the

and political remove self-consciousness from in these the lands, attention

West. years had a depressingly contrasting effect in the

Central Europe

In effect, they

30
Western

Tony Judt
intellectuals by rendering it progressively less relevant to

their concerns. Just as in 1950 the other half of Europe had been treated simply as a reflection of the Soviet Union, so the latter's fall
from grace (in part as a result of its actions in the region) dragged

Central Europe itself away from the focus of attention. By the early 1970s, following the emergence of Gierek in Poland and Hus?k in Czechoslovakia, and with the "independent" policies of K?d?r and
Ceau?escu, Central and Eastern Europe appeared once again to be

stable; the events of the 1960s had been followed by "normaliza

tion," and interest, such as it was, had dissipated. It is thus all the more remarkable that in the space of less than a once again on the agenda of the West. is Central Europe generation,

Editorials in the major dailies of Britain, France, Italy, the United

States, and of course West of opinion Germany assign are devoted whole issues to the theme. subject. Significant journals to the

Colloquia are held from Berkeley to Berlin on the geography, history,

culture, politics, lands of Eastern and meaning and Central from all the of the very term. Emigr?s are called upon to offer their Europe

views, and prominent names authors whose a few years before. similar Vienna, with Prague century). (anticipatory Exhibitions

of literati expatiate upon the works confidently and countries they could not have pronounced There has been a spate of studies on fin-de-si?cle books for pre-1914 and their way Budapest of our own nearly completed echoes, perhaps, on the art, architecture, and society of early on

around the Central Europe have traveled halfway twentieth-century we are all Central Europeans. What world. happened? Today, a list of events from the 1970s. One answer might simply consist of

Between the publication of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago in 1973 and the declaration of martial law in Poland in 1981, there intervened the Helsinki Conference and Agreement of 1975, the strikes in Poland in 1976 followed by the creation of KOR (Workers'Defense Committee), the announcement the following year of the birth of
Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, and of course the remarkable emer

gence of Solidarity in Poland in the summer of 1980. In the local

context, moments, series of catalytic these might be seen as part of a cumulative in East Berlin in 1953. But for the with the uprising starting with correspondingly dramatic effects.

West

the developments of the 1970s and 1980s came as if from

nowhere,

The Rediscovery

of Central Europe

31

news items from abroad such a litany of significant Nonetheless, them at home. cannot accorded in itself account for the reception in recent years is intellectuals One reason for the response of Western

the shift in the domestic political balance. During the 1950s and
1960s, writers anticommunism of the northern was most of marked countries among the West?notably scholars West and Ger

In the south (e.g., Italy, France), where strong local Commu many. was the dominant nist parties flourished, left-leaning intelligentsia from the Center, much less the critical voices undiluted by largely

Right (witness the fate of Raymond Aron, ignored in Paris formost of his career but lionized in the Federal Republic and the United
intellectuals Since most postwar Western took their cues from to events in the Soviet bloc the pattern of intellectual response Paris, as described was much But from the mid-1970s above. on, the States).

Communists have been in decline in Latin Europe (precipitate in France and Spain, steady in Italy),with moderate Social Democratic
parties more replacing sympathetic them on the left of the domestic toward Soviet and political actions. spectrum. The peace

If anything, it is the left intelligentsia of northern Europe that is now

policies

initiative of 1979, coinciding as it did with the coming of Cruise and Pershing missiles, received a friendly hearing in political and aca
demic circles and Britain. in Scandinavia, West of contrast, By way in particular interest the Benelux countries, Germany, anti-Communist the increasingly

of France intelligentsia listened with growing satellites. Rome If this explanation are once again

turned a deaf ear toMoscow but to news and views from the Soviet

in Paris or helps us see why men and women to their east, it does in developments interested for this fashion, which has we should begin perhaps

not in itself account for the positively modish taste for talking about
in particular. To account Central Europe now spread to the United States as well,

with Milan Kundera. In articles that appeared between 1981 and 1985 in American, French, and British journals, he decried the impending disappearance of Central Europe, the deleterious effect of
Russian whole.8 European Kundera domination In Kundera's writers. and had of the region, wake came and Western a veritable ignorance of the vital

significance of the central lands for the survival of Europe as a

In many even been they saying much cases baggage had been the same train of Central around before sort of thing. But

32
now more

Tony Judt
in the West they were noticed of specialists than a minority for the first and fellow time by nationals. something Important

works by historians and philosophers from Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia were translated into English (translations into French
and Italian had come a little earlier in most cases, and into German

earlier still), while accessible writings hitherto published only in emigr? journals likeZeszyty Literackie, Listy, and Svedectvt received
and recognition and Canada. States, is a peculiarly Czech Kundera's rapid translation skeptical, American culmination suspicious, self-critical, in Italy, France, vision and of Central insecure, Britain, the United

Europe?gloomy, in which and the way

it colors his polemics has undoubtedly

understanding of a process. before

in turn affected the Anglo

is also the of the concept. But his own work concerned with Central Europe Periodicals work accelerated interest in them,

(such as Alternative
States) existed

in France and Cross Currents in the United

Kundera's

although the writings of 1984 in particular certainly provided a stimulus for other publications (Autre Europe, begun in 1984,
in 1986). In established and East European Reporter, Micro-Mega,9 to emigr? and dissident in the West accorded the reception general, to have been a process of accumulation. Those who writers appears or Poland in 1968-1969 took nearly a decade to left Czechoslovakia and and Austria, where Vienna receive a hearing (except in Germany,

Munich proved hospitable to exiles of the Left in particular). Even in

the rare instance to the contrary, interest was not always of the most

welcome

kind. Leszek Kotakowski,

revisionist

the Polish philosopher

and

interest aroused thinker of the 1950s, among leading on Marxist for his magnum intellectuals more Western opus thought on theology that and ethics, a preference than for his many writings concerns of radical of the very different confirmation is indirect intellectuals in the two halves of Europe.

a little By the time Solidarity appeared, however, the ground was more fertile and intellectual celebrities likeAdam Michnik could get as in the under published and read almost as rapidly in theWest at home in Poland.10 Sympathy with LechWalesa and ground press
his movement (during, but especially after, its public successes) was

notably marked in political and labor circles in France and Italy (and a result, Polish significantly tepid in Britain orWest Germany). As and exiles of the 1981 vintage integrated almost immediately emigres

The Rediscovery
into the inner circles

of Central Europe

33

Even though their of the Parisian intelligentsia. and the enthusiasm for their cause subsided, initial welcome they to the sort of marginal and near-pariah have never been consigned status accorded their predecessors. the way to a more sympathetic Another factor in opening reception in recent the early 1980s was the increase in academic by exchange years?notably with an older now to the benefit of Hungarian from scholars, 1956 who came to

Western countries, reestablishing the link teach and lecture in all the
of whom of Hungarians generation senior positions hold exchanges between in American their own and after, many in universities academies and

particular. Prominent figures like Gy?rgi Ranki, the lateHungarian

historian, organized

Western
and were economists and least

institutions (Oxford University, the University of Indiana)

accompanied who debated of in their endeavors with their Western Hungarian the virtues counterparts economic model. This Eastern at inevitably produced in the socialist for affairs by numerous

otherwise some

involvement

the Hungarian inWestern academic Western

discussions concern

reciprocal in contrast with the abstract lands, a concern both real and critical, and somewhat abstracted of sympathetic leftist scholars of an gaze earlier generation. The reference to academic of Western exchanges consciousness has

suggests that some role in the been played in the raising by events Soviet bloc itself?more on cer eased restrictions communications, tain categories of professional travel, new lines of official thinking on a new generation economic of nonideological dissidents (but policy, not Gorbachev, who late in the process). is of There appeared only in this, but at best it accounts for the ease with can now be converted which the renewed interest in Central Europe as an account into knowledge. Its significance of the interest itself should not be exaggerated. There have been d?tentes before. Indeed, truth course some

almost everything thatwas on offer from Central Europe in the 1970s

and been Central 1980s had come for ... around example, before. by Kundera's the Romanian anticipated, Europe] own writings had Mircea Eliade, Does to

writing inPreuves, inParis, in 1952: "These cultures [that is, those of

are on

not Europe feel the amputation of a very part of its flesh? Because, in
are in Europe, the end, all these countries the European community."11 all these peoples belong

the eve of their disappearance....

34
Yet Western

Tony Judt
when Eliade moralists wrote those culture looked past like Emmanuel words, him. Neither the master neo-Marxists ignored thinkers the contem of like Sartre

nor Christian

Mounier

porary imprisonment of the eastern half of Europe. Indeed, they acknowledged and disapproved of it. But they and their contempo raries on the Left (with certain honorable exceptions like Elio Vittorini and Ignazio Silone) looked beyond Budapest and Bucharest, their eyes firmly fixed on themetahistorical justifications for present
Soviet misdemeanors. ities received exception The in France, salient factor, Moral appeals to common Aron little echo anywhere (Raymond but then he too was only then, was not altered European stands sensibil out as an in in Paris

rediscovered

the early 1980s!).12

circumstances in the East

but changed sensibilities in theWest. When Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago was published, it offered nothing except rich detail that
was not already known about the Soviet system of forced labor

camps (down to the very term gulag, used by Kravchenko in 1946). Any number of memoirs and essays had been published during the
and thereafter, and the fact of the camps' existence was no as it had once been.13 Itwas the timing that counted. longer disputed, late 1940s

When

the Gulag Archipelago arrived in theWest,

it encountered an

to be in profound be pleasing intellectual flux. It would community able to say, with the Yugoslav writer Danilo Kis, that the sympathetic to Central Europe accorded has arisen from the Western reception

discovery "that it had lost a part of its own heritage and that it had
been thereby impoverished."14 identity (Hungarians But this is naive. with Czechs, some Poles, and

Hungarians have long lookedWest

European met with

in search of confirmation of their

and but Poles that ambiguity to any

perhaps). That they should now, beginning in the late 1970s, have
collective Marxism and a response is gratifying, sense of loss. Western is little owing

What had been lost, notably in France and Italy,was the faith in
(it is a matter of some thrives among occasionally for this reason among still survives that Marxism curiosity in the and academics intellectuals

English-speaking world, where

purchase;

it has never acquired any political

others, Central Europeans feel more

at home in Latin Europe). The spell cast over the radical intelligentsia ofWestern Europe byMarxism from 1945-1975 was not of course
dissipated overnight. The trajectory of French intellectuals is para

The Rediscovery
digmatic

of Central Europe

35

so in that during the theirs was these years (the more in 1956, most there came the followed). First, commonly example on Hungary, blow of Khrushchev's double speech and the attack of Marxism-Party-proletariat. the consubstantiality Then, ending was exported, with spontaneous peasantries ostensibly

Marxism

replacing organized workers in the driving seat of history. Only when thismyth in turn lost its credibility (somewhere between the Cultural Revolution and Pol Pot) did intellectuals return their gaze to Europe,
a continent contributed where the Soviet Union had once to the further undermining of its own in 1968, again, foundation myth.

By the time Solzhenitsyn appeared in French translation, the former epigones of Stalin andMao had adjusted their critical fire, first on
Marx, then on Hegel, progeny.15 and finally on all forms of Utopian or

system-building theories, deemed collectively responsible for their

totalitarian

In other words, itwas only when French intellectuals had found their own reasons (highly idealistic and abstract) for reclassifying
Marxism Eastern as a failed and faulted fantasy of nineteenth-century master

thinkers that they could look afresh at the Soviet Union (or a fortiori
Europe) ing ideological the Communists anchor. reasons for weigh and recognize more earthbound And even then, the mirage of Eurocommu

nism (a brief moment from 1975 to 1978 when therewas hope that
of France, Italy, and Spain would forge a renewed, Communist slowed down the process. But movement) Com decline all Western of domestic the coincidence (for political munist continued the invasion of etiolation, parties), ideological democratic

Afghanistan, and the rise and fall of Solidarity helped complete the
was in its former Western picture. By 1982, Marxism strongholds almost as dead as it is in the lands of its enthronement and a channel

of communication had opened up. Once they stopped sounding like

to speak and began Party bureaucrats Central European counterparts, Western hear what the latter were saying. The element rights reference here to language is not the same intellectuals language could as their begin to

phers the grounds "nonsense

Another entirely gratuitous. was in the pan-European the reemergence of convergence inWestern For most of this century, philoso political theory. and political theorists have disdained "rights talk," either on that on be logically grounded (Bentham's rights cannot or else because circum stilts") they are historically

36
scribed, timeless usually

Tony Judt
the product of circumstance and legal practice, rather than and essential. And for Marxists, of course, the term was preceded by a pejorative adjective (e.g., "bour qualifying

geois"). But a number of seminal English-language works of political thought published during the 1970s began the task of replacing rights at the center of ethically based political argument, supported in this
by numerous language special-interest of rights in support to appropriate groups seeking of their claims ("women's rights," the etc.).

Although these writings have only recently begun to be translated into French and Italian, the growing local interest in analytical political philosophy as a substitute for discredited continental meta
physics is unmistakable.

It does not always follow from this that the language of rights now in vogue in theWest corresponds tidily to the sort of rights that dissident intellectuals inCentral Europe have been claiming formany years.When Central European dissidents talk about rights, they often
mean something both larger and more precise than the sense con

tained in the more restricted philosophical discourse of Western theorists (though here the Italians and French serve as something of
to see in these it does not seem unreasonable Nonetheless, of a common of political the emergence developments language claims and duties.16 One effect of the new Western enthusiasm for rights talk (an at least, is on occasion in Paris enthusiasm and in which, demagogic inverse offer to previous interest proportion a way of undermining the cultural of others culture. in the subject) has been so fashionable relativism to in a bridge).

Western writings of the 1960s and early 1970s, that very particular
to criticize the ways refusal name of one's own political neo-Kantianism offers of others the and in the abhorrent) (however revival of a variety The of

shortcomings the experience of Central Europeans, instead of denying directly with of their own them the very evidence senses, as in the past. This are still is not universally however. There observation applicable, writers who of cling to the philosophies are not also the and Sartre where they suspicion, But it is significant of Derrida. that Western intellectuals followers form less of a bloc than at any time since the war; there are to today and teachers in the West heirs to Heidegger found, scattered from Milan to Michigan, followers of Marx,

of condemning the ethical possibility to deal has enabled Western writers

be

The Rediscovery

of Central Europe

37

and Jesus as well Gramsci, Foucault, Nietszche, Popper, Proudhon, as those who none of the above. Or, to take just one follow important

contemporary figure, it would

Habermas and his communitarian respect among indeed.17 the mainstream

have been unthinkable for J?rgen

liberalism intellectual Left to attract widespread until very recently

If the death of Marxism constitutes the fundamental reference point in the new Western empathy for Central Europe, and if the fashion for rights has provided at least the illusion of a common
political was language, other factors have also played their part. For most

of the period 1948-1973,

colored heavily war itself, during the

the cultural identity of Western Europe

in Britain by anti-Americanism. Beginning at the privileged American resentment ("over

paid, oversexed, and over here") took off during the combination of economic jealousy and political opposition the frustration born of that same European decline that had the United States into its position of privilege. In France
matters American were exacerbated by Communist U.S.

1950s, a fueled by propelled and Italy

France) ment toward

the presence of an aggressively anti and by memories party strong in (especially of the ambivalent resent mood when during the Liberation, and policies presence role in the freeing to the American came to apprecia outweigh of these countries.18 alliance and the U.S. pres

tion of the American Although

opposition

ence in Europe declined following the end of theKorean war, itwas refueled by the conflict inVietnam, which coincided with a growing
sense of the reemergence of Europe as a world power. Defending the and the actions of the Soviet Union more as a counterweight to American than on ideological in power grounds, many Europeans to de Gaulle's the 1960s were vision of a Europe sympathetic to the Urals. But a Europe from the Atlantic so described, stretching Russia and its western diminished territories, paradoxically including the significance on Russia's of the Slav and other lands western borders by treating them simply as extensions of the mother country. no comparable relation to any West European nation Having (except claims

Britain, in the eyes of de Gaulle), theUnited Stateswas in these years

regarded as both an outsider in Southeast Asia. Inmore recent times, and an intruder, sentiment in Europe no less than has taken

anti-American

in Europe

cultural rather than political form. Just as Western Europe during the

38
music, ernize" minister

Tony Judt
(in clothing,
surfaced. 1981 the the and commerce), France of on so resentment toward this process as

1970s was becoming more superficially Americanized Although

the French Socialists today fall over themselves to "mod

the Californian Jack Lang, of American And have culture, model, spoke out popular as recently against aggressively culture. leftists Spanish

nefarious U.S.

mediocrity

sought the closing of American bases, partly in belated retaliation for

support disarmament amounts common of Franco. movements in northern nuclear Europe especially, to pursue their governments urged in international is affairs. But what of irritation the case toward in West the United

what

to neutralism demonstrations This

to these

States is theway inwhich they have increasingly been couched in the

vocabulary is effectively zone neutral States interests American is at of Europe. is particularly Germany,

where talk of Europe, not all of it confined to intellectuals of the Left,

with the desire synonymous between the superpowers. to create a nuclear-free

Here, and for the first time,West European dislike of the United
least potentially with the perspective and compatible of the other Europeans. the relatively mild anti Although sentiments of Italians and French still sit more comfortably neutralism of the British, in East Germany, Dutch, where and German a parallel activists peace move in

with the experience and instincts of intellectuals in the Soviet bloc, the
aggressive

END

(European Nuclear Disarmament) has found some favorable

especially

response, there were

ment has significant support in dissident and church circles. Initially

since to the ears of a Pole or a Czech, the difficulties, of someone like Edward Thompson echoes carry disturbing writings from the past. Calling down a plague on the houses of Washington and Moscow Soviet Only alike carries little conviction to those for whom the had army and its local quislings on peace the emphasis when are the only (i.e. Western reality that counts.

disarmament)

been matched by demands for rights and the restoration of liberties to unofficial peace activists in the East was some sort of fragile dialogue
established.19 What the more understanding. movements in the and their supporters radical of the Western peace is the removal of the United Green movements have always sought It remains a slim basis for mutual States from any military role in Europe. The presence of the United the exclusion such a Europe, States, and of Russia the disarma in

The Rediscovery
as being monumentally importance naive

of Central Europe
(an opinion division

39

ment of theWestern allies strikes Socialist bloc dissidents, however

sympathetic, the growing A common tacitly shared

by many on the Left in France and Italy as well, further evidence of

in Europe today). in some parts of opposition (expressed a refusal to undertake shared Eastern Europe service), by military and ecological and a certain puritan fears of nuclear catastrophe, in Czechoslo and political activists antimaterialism among writers of the north-south to militarism vakia and West

conver for example, point to a possible Germany, but not much more.20 gence of concerns In a sense, what we are seeing here is once again a projection of a vision onto an imaginary Central Western land radical European once itwas the fantasy of socialism, now it is the dream scape. Where

of "a united, independent Europe." If it cannot be achieved in the

West because of the presence and interests of the United States, then

let it be enacted further east, in some loosely defined Central Europe miraculously released from all historical and geographical con
straints. Western in the region, Indeed, the dissidents as interlocutors theorists and as eagerly living sought evidence out of by the

are also of their own projects, of a projection. plausibility something are ascribed a place in the Western radical's scheme of things, They the anti-American bent of the West serving to legitimate European own symmetrical anti-Soviet plan for the Continent by virtue of their

radical demands. It is a role that few dissident intellectuals inCentral

are equipped for or care to fill. Europe A final, circumstantial factor tending Western to favor interest in Central

Europe has been the steady decline in the polarities and tensions of
life itself. It is only a very few years since European political in the embrace of Left-Right and Spain were gripped France, Italy, on divisions with historical Communists and Socialists roots, deep one side, Liberals and Catholics on the other. Now, all is in flux. The most to, is the internal transfor aspect, already alluded important

mation of the old Left, although the ending of the romance with
Marxism has also opened opportunities for dialogue across the

ancient divide. Socialist parties in Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy have all governed or been part of a governing coalition in the course
of the past decade, and are now closer inmost respects to liberals and to whom moderates of the Center than to the Communists they were

once linked.

40

Tony Judt
parlance (reflected in interminable debates in France

This reduced importance of the terms left and right inWestern

European

especially about the "end" of the Left and so forth) has removed the
is a remarkable level sting from debates over Central Europe. There across the Western at least so far as of agreement spectrum, political it concerns the more dimensions of the meaning of superficial are as much Milan Kundera and Vaclav Havel European identity.

admired within one political family as they are in the camp of its opponents. This is an odd situation, and it is probably destined to crumble in the face of serious political choices about the future of
Central writers Europe. and But for the present there is agreement on the

essentials: Central Europe is part of Europe, it should be free, its

thinkers are interesting.

One explanation for this receptivity lies in the current fashion for "Euro-chat," the obsession with plans for the big bang of 1992, when
is due to remove all European Community its constituent tariff and human, between the barriers, parts. Beyond focus on taxes, customs and the levies, pricing policies, predictable as a whole. of real significance for the Continent there lie matters like, the twelve-member Over a the European has moved the last two decades, Community In the smaller of a federal system. the creation toward long way it is no but also in Italy, France, and the Federal Republic, nations, mere or a European cant to speak of Europeans outlook. longer in one recent poll the British There are of course internal distinctions; for the idea of a European and the Danes showed little enthusiasm parliament federal with true legislative arrangement.21 has responded readily powers. And But the same poll showed the

French (and especially the Italians) very much in favor of just such a
political the community have come in general the southern half of to the reduction of national positively to the idea (the Communist parties of

distinctions?after

the Italians and the French, it is the Spanish who

around most

France and Portugal have dragged their feet on this issue, but like the
within the British Labor party, their views no longer anti-Europeans count for much with anyone). the uncertainties of 1992, no less than its opportunities, However, on "the other Europeans." When have helped the focus attention European Community received expands little attention still further, in earlier as it surely must, years, if only whom all

will

it include? Austria

and Yugoslavia? And

after that? Such

because

questions

The Rediscovery
such visions were politically unrealistic.

of Central Europe
No longer cut off

41
from

West by Western Europe, with their economies already linked to the

the (in the case of the two Germanies), trade, and gifts loans, countries of East Central Europe have every reason to press for closer is no longer actively discour the Soviet Union links, at a time when moves. West to talking Europeans, already accustomed aging such can hardly transnational the prospects for a wider, about Europe,

avoid acknowledging these developments. The two Europes are still very far apart (and not just because of the East-West divide), and
much there of the conversation is a conversation But them is at cross-purposes. and the coming transformation taking place, Common Market will only intensify such exchanges. between

of the one-time

to account In offering for the renewed Western interest suggestions on the fiction of a common I have proceeded in Central Europe, a vision of Central Europe Western experience, informing Western reaction global detail been Austria as a whole. This of significance there are some noted. ifwe are to grasp the fiction, on the ground But the "rediscovery." and in distinctions. One of these has already telling there has been quite a remarkable is a necessary

In the last few years

revival of Germany (or theGermanies, all three of them, ifwe include

some such reemergence of the context). Without lands onto the center of the European stage, any German-speaking of the idea of Central Europe would have been incom rediscovery in this

plete (and perhaps impossible). But because of the peculiarities of the

and Austrian German Central situations, Europe a multiple resonance. than one meaning, on this question The German will perspective length in another essay in this issue. again has more at or

be discussed Europe

(See "Central

Mitteleuropa?" by Jacques Rupnik.) Here Iwant simply to draw attention to theway inwhich this perspective differs from that of the
Western what million million nations. When are now West ethnic German writers look at Central

see a region inwhich there lived, in addition to Germans living in

East Germany, Germany, Germans. After the last war, some of these left or were deported, some some 11 and Austria, to 10 9 million Demo

Europe,

they

to the German

most to the Federal Republic cratic Republic, of Germany. For a long a phalanx time they formed of conservative voters, preventing West or German from recognizing the postwar settlement governments with the satellite governments of the Soviet bloc. engaging directly

42

Tony Judt

The impact of that experience is now all but absorbed, but ithas been
replaced by an equally important concern with the past on the part of a new generation are coming to terms with of Germans who the

history of the present divisions.

Here, as in the nineteenth intellectuals century, Central look Europe as a theme for a solution has to

become inextricably intertwined with debates over German identity.

Left-wing and activists eastward

the dilemma of a divided nation, the nationalism of theGreens and of some Social Democrats feeding off a political neutralism and the
the German pres already noted.22 On the Right, center in Europe's is part of another the revisionist debate, raised by the historians Andreas and Ernst controversy Hillgruber For these writers, Nolte. the "legitimate" fear of annihilation by the anti-Americanism ence

Soviets explains (and helps justify) themilitary actions of theNazis, which thus become defensible even though they had the incidental effect of buying Hitler timewith which to kill more Jews. As part of
an updated German strategy in the continuing struggle to survive favors the "reconstruction" Soviet challenge, Hillgruber especially a lost Central Europe, and he is not alone.23 too. The renewed contacts with There are other considerations, GDR, and the anticipation of an expansion of the Federal Republic's the of the

role in the economic life of the region date back to Willy Brandt and the Ostpolitik of the 1960s. With the coming of Gorbachev and the
increased themselves these matters European in recent Soviet enthusiasm as the natural forWestern interlocutors see links, theWest Germans in the region. Discussion of in some sort of Central for Germans much space in the German press as these are far from unconten are themselves Central is part of the problem. Europe Is the

and of a place have occupied community But

years.

tious, domestically. ans in this sense, that their own

such prospects For the Germans

identity

Rhineland inCentral Europe? IsHamburg? Certainly not in theway that would be true of Bavaria or Saxony. It is only by historical
as part of the vagaries of German (or, put differently, can be said to be actors in the rediscovery that the Germans history) is the German has really been disinterred of Central Europe. What accident problem and non-Germans alike), and that iswhy (for Germans discussed by Germans. subject sounds so utterly different when context. Here, The same applies to the theme in its Austrian look different. Austria might well have gone the way this

things

too, of

The Rediscovery

of Central Europe

43

Czechoslovakia in 1945. That it did not was its good fortune, but it left the country (as in 1920) with no natural center of gravity. Now,
with expanding have contact once across the Hungarian frontier in particular

(andwith Mariahilfestrasse
Austrians again

themain shopping artery for Budapest),

an economic and a begun to look East for some sense they never lost it?Vienna is still cultural constituency (in a terribly important for Eastern Europeans, their stepping-stone city to the West It is and a vital source of news as well as commodities). that it is a figure in the conservative People's party, surely significant Erhard Busek, who has raised afresh the idea of an Austro-centered

more restrained than Naumann's but geographically Mitteleuropa, to the thinking of an earlier generation with similarities remarkable Otto Bauer the "Austromarxists" and Rudolf of Austrians,

Hilferding.24 To the extent that theAustrian vision of Central Europe

has something the over term in common than are with those ideas French reason. includes circulating or American cultural in Prague writers continent. and who

Budapest, it ismore truly in keeping with the indigenous understand

ing of enthuse Austria Europe, a more abstracted for another Erewhon-like

is different as seen

from Vienna, the term Central

The rediscovery of Central a region almost ne wholly has a special local resonance.

Western debates. For Austria is a neighbor of Yugoslavia, glected in

and there, too, Europe

West Whereas for Czechs itmeans seeking to rejoin the West, and in
it is a movement away from the (American-dominated) Germany so in Yugoslavia it is about regional autonomy. The republics of West, Croatia and Slovenia latter especially) have always felt uncom (the fortable as part of a multinational federation dominated by Serbs and groups who were never part of a are subsidized European empire and whose failing economies by the more prosperous north (echoes of similar resentments in Italy). Here, are a way about Central of expressing then, discussions Europe anti-Serb opinions and are also part of a longer, larger debate between including poorer, southern national

unity and particularism. For many Slovene and Croat intellectuals it is a question of peripheries. Of which center are Zagreb and Ljubljana
the fringes?Serbian-dominated Yugoslavia or the Central Europe to

which
Austria

they once belonged in the old Dual Monarchy? The link to

is obvious: the Austrian has a significant region of Carinthia Slav minority, in particular are at least as much a part of and Slovenes heartland as, say, Slovakia. any Austro-centered European

44
Western

Tony Judt
discussions is of course of his an ironic country tribute from to Tito's that of success the in

That Yugoslavia should until very recently have been left out of
the experience separating Central and Southeastern attention rest of

some Europe. Only to this matter, and that for a very special reason: in Italy, is in part a domestic matter. In this respect Italy too, Central Europe in Italy has there been

West as commonly defined.Much of stands aside from the rest of the northern Italywas until fairly recently part of the Austrian Empire. Lombardy was only liberated in the war of 1859-1960, and the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia was Austrian until 1866 and even
and Slav minorities. Like other significant German today contains in recent years, it has sought to expand Italian regions its regional and assert a local identity. But unlike other such regions of autonomy to secure its distance the northeast the country, has sought from Rome cultural Carinthia, icance of the country. through the formation of a transnational Friuli-Venezia region for mutual collaboration, comprising The and Croatia. known Austrian Giulia, and economic signif is necessarily

Slovenia, this collaboration,

political as Alpen-Adria,

limited, but it has colored perception of the Central Europe debate in Italy is in any case different in other ways aswell. Like the Federal Republic, it has welcomed dissidents from the Soviet bloc for many
and Poles as well, but Hungarians have years. Czechs especially, held elected and appointed taken up posts in the universities, offices, in the print and other media. When and been prominent Alexander came to accept an honorary of Dubcek degree from the University inNovember 1988, his presence Bologna The role of of national prominence. functioned as a conduit reformers the and his speech were matters is Italian Communists

relevant here. For a long time the Italian Communist party (PCI)
ern Communist the West discontented between for negotiations center to which and the Moscow they still Berlinguer, condemned the declaration of

owed formal allegiance. In 1981, however, the popular leader of the

party, late Enrico

martial law in Poland, just as he had openly splitwith Brezhnev over the invasion of Afghanistan. Ever since then, the PCI and its national daily paperVUnita have served as privileged outlets for dissident and West. As opposition thought within the Soviet bloc as well as in the a result, the left-leaning Italian political community has been kept
unusually well informed about ideas and events in Poland, Czecho

The Rediscovery
Slovakia, and Hungary and a theme with which

of Central Europe

45

in particular, is a place and Central Europe Italian readers are well acquainted. contrast with the French, Italian intellectu Finally, and in marked over their writings als have less reason for guilt and embarrassment the Stalinist and post-Stalinist years. They have during time atoning for past sins and have been less thus spent rather less extreme in their abandonment of all past affiliations. They are thus as their Parisian not quite so apt to have flights of pessimistic fancy and actions and they may have a better-informed colleagues, not realistic in the future of Central is Europe. theirs than and probably more enduring writers. that of British or American is a closer that and the rediscovery of Central view At of what the same is and time, the region

concern with

Nonetheless,
continents

it is precisely along the Atlantic seaboard of both

Europe has been most

touted. Is it a passing fashion, the vacuum left byMarxism

and filled

for the recognition of by nostalgia fantasy, by cost-free demands an expanded human rights and cultural tourism? What future is there for "Central from the prospects for the place (as distinct Europe"

itself)? To begin with, it should be acknowledged that if there is indeed a

wider led Western to a deeper acquaintance with Central (in this Europe, respect it has not Kundera's so far plea, understanding

addressed toWestern intellectuals, has fallen on ground little more fertile than thatworked byMitosz25 and Eliade in an earlier genera
the case of the universities. The academic study of the or literature of the region between Germany and the history, politics, a minority taste. Very Soviet Union remains in few universities or North Western America teach the languages of Central, Europe or Southeastern courses on the region exist, Eastern, Europe. Where treat it as a subordinate field in the wider category of they normally tion). Take Soviet Few studies students (or Soviet history take such courses, or Russian fewer and Slavonic literature). still learn any of the relevant

languages, and only an infinitesimal minority give serious thought to specializing in the region. One reason for this is the generally poor quality of the instruction they are likely to receive. A disturbingly high proportion of the
teachers are exiled nationals of the countries knowledgeable The older ones came in the 1950s, a middle region. generation of the dates

from the Polish and Czech exodus of 1968-1969,

and a smaller

46
number

Tony Judt
left and came West in the Soviet bloc does after the suppression of Solidarity. If the not suddenly deteriorate, this supply

situation

is likely to dry up. The education of theWest in the history and culture of half of Europe will come to depend on professors trained
in other Europe presence areas, itself. with at best only a secondary interest in Central

This situation is superficially alleviated in France and Italy by the

in universities and institutes of professional experts, men

and women with a genuine interest in the subject of Central Europe but often with no firsthand knowledge of it and trained in something
(even linguistic competence in the subject interest where history else an optional extra). In Britain, on the Continent, is lower than the is often

and politics of at least eight separate Central or Southeastern states are commonly in Soviet affairs, European taught by experts treat Eastern Europe as an adjunct to the study of who unabashedly saw the same who the Soviet Union (echoing an earlier generation region as a mere footnote in that case Germany).26 study States that of Central Europe to the study of another "historical" nation, In Oxford and Cambridge, for example, the as a minor can only be pursued in option

courses devoted to the Soviet Union. Things are better in the United
it is an open secret but not by very much. And and Canada, to recruit in recent years it has not proved into East easy students. studies the very best graduate European of the reasons for the If I am correct in my earlier characterization of Central rediscovery focus is not surprising, of Western receptivity Europe, for most this of the factors lack of any concerted academic to the renewed leading

are negative?the end of Marx of the United States, ism, loss of faith in the Soviet Union, suspicion It is not, after all, as though there had been some seminal neutralism. in recent years that captures and transforms work on Central Europe intellectuals

Western consciousness. And I think, too, that this situation helps the
explain accorded something what we else, might Europe the call particularly the cultural reading reception sympathetic Eu of Central

rope offered by Kundera and by the Hungarian

Konr?d?Central vision as an idea, a state of mind,

novelist Gy?rgy
a worldview.

Kundera in particular was addressing himself to the West, and his

Central Europe accords most closely with the of a disappearing But whereas fin-de-si?cle. in the general European interest revived of Edward VII is compat for Proust's Paris or the London nostalgia

The Rediscovery
are still with

of Central Europe

47

iblewith an acknowledgment of present realities (Paris and London

of Freud, or Kafka's for the Vienna us), an enthusiasm cannot help but be bound up in a sense of regret and loss. Prague, of the Habsburg fonder memories Hence the understandably Empire, so reviled by most of its subjects. Milan Kundera is not of course once a revival of Kakania, the Austria-Hungary of Robert Musil proposing which has somehow entered Western mismemory as a fantasy

kindgom conflated from Johann Strauss and Graham Greene. But it

the is the Czechs, more than most, who have opened up for debate the multinational wisdom of destroying state, and their sense original as the most western of the lost is that it is Czechoslovakia, certainly from events since 1918.27 that has suffered the most lands of Europe, the Jewish experience Between this and the often-noted analogy with

(the Czechs frequently detecting an affinity in the situation and a

about the two peoples), precariousness is at stake of what Czech understanding As a consequence, within it is not in Central surprising Europe, that the and what for

has been lost, has been most influential in formingWestern opinion.

few of the newly minted Western enthusiasts

Central Europe care to learn too much about the deep historical rifts
now pay much atten writers the region. Not many Western to Hungary's that fol losses in the settlements for example, tion, lowed both world wars. Yet these losses of people and territory were

to the advantage and of Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia Romania, some 25 percent of the ethnic population To of Hungary. comprised of Polish the rather better understanding take another example, of certain Polish writers suffering and the prominence of does not in itself increase Western appreciation Central and thinkers the difference

between the Polish and the Czech understanding of what ismeant by

of Poland's poets and writers look East rather Europe. Many If they have than West for their roots, to Vilna rather than Vienna. a search for to Paris in particular, it has been in looked to the West,

not because and contact, any doubts they harbor understanding and legitimacy of their own national culture. To about the centrality take a final example, what now remains of it), there is Bucharest (or a city whose a having intelligentsia long saw themselves privileged

relationship with Paris, a relationship still echoed, albeit dimly, by the

uniquely French interest in Romanian matters. Yet for many Central (and not just Hungarians Europeans cu's treatment of ethnic Hungarians justifiably in Transylvania), bitter over Ceau?es Romania is not

48

Tony Judt

even part of the region, but is eastern, Is Romania, perhaps Balkan. a part of Central then (with or without its present dictator), Europe? How many Westerners, even today, know or care? More to the point,

do they know how much their own lack of concern is shared in Central Europe itself?
There more ans, is a Central European fantasy of a never-never of Czechs Europe of

tolerance, freedom, and cultural pluralism. It is held to be all the

in the consciousness firmly implanted for example, for want of the reality. this fantasy has To served perhaps But whereas as a necessary and Hungari for Central myth, it is

Europeans

Western odd to see it reflected in

expression. geographical was once a near-paradise riches, has been

fantasies about Central Europe, the

that this part of the Continent ethnic, and linguistic multiplic image in recent years. Yet such

suppose of cultural,

ity and compatibility, producing untold cultural and intellectual

part of the Western

imaginings take us back to Kakania again, when in truth Central White Mountain down to the present, Europe, from the Battle of the
is a region of enduring ethnic and religious marked intolerance, by on a scale and frequent bitter quarrels, murderous wars, slaughter to genocide. Western from pogrom Europe was not always ranging it has been luckier, which much better, of course, but on the whole is for Central Europeans, in almost as good. And it is surely reasonable

the light of their history, to dream a little of Sweden. But it is just as

to make for the West of Central inappropriate Europe or present. it smacks of bad taste, and is not Indeed, fantasy, past surely eastward The being in the 1950s. seems to be that Central problem of someone's a so

very different from the other sorts of political fantasies projected

is always at risk of Europe For many years it was imagination.

the product being Europe with

an ideological projection ofWestern

currently idealized in common articulate

radical thought. With

ideology

sold very short, of our cultural nostalgia.

Central

has become the Europe Because this has something

have chosen to dissidents the way certain prominent a dialogue to Soviet domination, has been their opposition remains a very But down on the ground, Central Europe struck up. sort of Central sort of proposition. Is some opaque European a future possibility? Is it sensible to envisage an expansion federation of the present Czechoslovakia? European It does to include, and say, Hungary Community seem improbable. 98 of the Commentary

The Rediscovery
idea of a Central federation,

of Central Europe
and starting with

49

current Czech criminal code explicitly forbids any propagation of the

European its veto of a

Balkan federation in 1948, the Soviet Union has always frowned

its allies, much between less upon that sort of bilateral relationship the European federal linkages. As to whether Commu multinational even more serious doubts members, nity could absorb peripheral have in certain quarters. Taking in Portugal, already been expressed created many has already difficulties?much and Greece Spain, and some local resentment. expense The most Europe have concentration salient still taken features rests on Central Europe as a cultural The entity shorn of

its immediate geopolitical constraints has entailed ignoring one of the

of its recent history. on extra-European Russia fact is that the future of notably the considerations,

intentions of the Soviet Union

to including

(which iswhy someWest Europeans

in the European equation, resolving

the difficulty by redefining it). Central Europe's future is still very

on the outcome And here a of events inMoscow. largely dependent curious paradox reforms pro begins to emerge. As the Gorbachev the Western ceed in the Soviet Union, attitude toward his country favorable. Whereas grows distinctly more just nine or ten years ago was seen by most in Europe the Soviet Union observers and the States as the brutal headquarters United of an imprisoned continent, it is seen by many as Central Europe's best hope. If only, the the rulers in Prague or Berlin or Bucharest would runs, argument follow Moscow's lead. But as a result of this shift in perspective, interest in the West has already Union. West toward the Soviet away from Central Europe begun to move seems as though intellectuals In this sense, it sometimes in the a limited tolerance news and opinion have for from the East. of the importance of Moscow is gained only at the price in the space between, interest just as the recent for Central Europe was secured at the price of a refusal to the continuing certain at best Soviet presence there. How many writ that of if the so now

Appreciation of diminished enthusiasm acknowledge to the

ers in Britain or the United States have responded comprehendingly

of opinion amounts perestroika Hungarian to nothing warn critics, who more than imitation

new economic model as implemented by K?d?r, then things look pretty bleak? This is not something that most people want to hear
just now. It becomes possible to imagine a scenario in which

50

Tony Judt
offers Central Europe de facto autonomy, thereby so

Gorbachev

raising the stock of the Soviet Union in the eyes ofWestern thinkers that they will lose all interest in listening to the views of the Central
Europeans Germans. themselves. German the present West government, little for the interests of the successor like states its as

Of course, no such hypothesis applies in the case of theWest

Although cares predecessors, the debate

such, and has always preferred to deal directly with

master, recent past and extent that it is of necessity

the puppet

on that nation's that has opened up in Germany not soon subside. And to the its future prospects will about the division of Europe, its causes

and meaning,

it is also a debate that will always be about Central

But here a further consideration intrudes. Any serious Europe. as it concerns a divided of the German resolution country, question in some newly constructed Mitteleu role for Austria any long-term ropa, would require the dismantling a prospect is not necessarily Such of the postwar settlements. one that all would favor. That

the Soviet Union would oppose any undoing of Yalta is obvious. The whole point of Helsinki and the human-rights concessions it entailed
was to secure international confirmation to But Western arrangements. and Washington, also have an abiding Paris, not to speak of London interest in the present stability?always assuming things do remain and on the condition of a reasonably stable Soviet benevolent postwar the permanence of from Rome governments, of the

leadership. Even Poles and Czechs might not look too kindly on
serious revisions. reconsideration would An opening raise for diplomatic up of the map of Europe too many it seems ghosts. Accordingly, to remain in place, nibbled dispensation in the name of some

fair to expect the present at the margins, and in no case away only Central European reestablished independence.

This, above all, iswhy thewhole subject remains in the hands of the Zivilisationsliterati, of East andWest alike. This is not such a
terrible thing, and it by no means consigns Central Europe to

insignificance. After all, the fashion will pass, but itwill at the very least leave in paperback translations a library full of works by authors, living and dead, of whom theWestern readerwas hitherto
ignorant. It has increased Western travel to Central and Eastern

Europe (which is probably just about a net benefit to all parties), and in Italy and France it has certainly enriched local cultural and

The Rediscovery
writers, actors, artists, philosophers,

of Central Europe

51

intellectual life through the presence of a host of exiled and emigr?

and politicians.

On the other hand, it is likely that interest in Central Europe will fade fastestwhere it is indeed only an interest in the literary output of
and the region and where firsthand acquaintance with Central Europeans is slim or nonexistent.28 culture and history their But where the

discussion of Central Europe forms part of other debates of enduring

as in Italy, or where, local significance, for whatever reason, there is a significant Central in Toronto), there itmay presence (as European to last. What as so often be expected this suggests is that, in the

checkered history of that part of theworld, its fate (or, in this case, theWestern echo of that fate) lies only partially in its own hands. This is no doubt particularly galling when it takes the form of
being reinvented existence, remaking enthusiasts their new work by those who until only recently although Central European writers may of our own Western Europe ignored one's very draw some ironic

satisfaction from the role they have inadvertently played in the

for Central audience. But what Western intelligentsia. so often miss is the beam of weariness

in the eyes of Polish or Czech writers as they explain themselves to

There here. Dissident But this does at is a sort of asymmetrical exploitation writers and thinkers from Budapest and War not mean

saw lookWest
moral). audience's view

by habit and necessity, for support (practical if not

of them or that

that they for one second accept the they define their own identity and or appreciation. via that audience's existence Sim acknowledgment the Western has in recent years used the concept intellectual ilarly, example of Central Europe to renew and recast cultural and

and

political debates at home, in Paris orNew York, conducting a kind of domestic housecleaning with imported equipment. It will take time to
overcome Meanwhile, that they were this historically conditioned Central Europeans may there long before state of semicommunication. take comfort from the thought were so rediscov they fortuitously

ered. Should they again be misplaced, they will doubtless survive.

ENDNOTES Friedrich Naumann, Mitteleuropa (Berlin: Reimer, 1915). On List, see "Fr?d?ric List et l'id?e de Mitteleuropa," in Jacques Droz, l'Europe Centrale, Evolution historique de Vid?e de "Mitteleuropa" (Paris: Payot, 1960).

52
2Ernest

Tony Judt
L?monon, La nouvelle Europe centrale et son bilan ?conomique (Paris:

Alean, 1931). 3See Elem?r Hantos, M?morandum sur la crise ?conomique des pays danubins (Vienna: St. Norbertus, 1933), and Der Weg zum neuen Mitteleuropa (Berlin: 1933). Mitteleuropaverlag, 4See JeanMonnet, M?moires (Paris: Fayard, 1976). York

5See report in "Soviet Bloc Writers Clash at International Forum," New Times, 9May 1988. 6See Jean-Paul Sartre, "Le fant?me de Staline," Les Temps Modernes (January-March 1957).

(129-31)

7In 1969, certain prominent intellectuals in the French Parti Socialiste Unifi?, the home of much New Left thought at the time, condemned their party's leaders (Michel Rocard and PierreMend?s-France) for supporting the Czech reformers.
The latter, they declared, were libert?, "victimes justice, consentantes progr?s, des suffrage bourgeoises (humanisme, id?ologies universel petites secret,

etc_)."

Quoted by Pierre Gr?mion in Paris-Prague (Paris: Julliard, 1985), 79.

Milan Kundera, "Quelque part l?-derri?re," Le D?bat (January 1981): 50-62; 8See "Un occident kidnapp?, ou la trag?die de l'Europe centrale," Le D?bat (27) (November 1983): 2-24; "A Kidnapped West or Culture Bows Out," Granta (11) (1984): 93-123; "The Tragedy of Central Europe," New York Review of Books, 26 April 1984.
its attention does not confine 9Micro-Mega it. But in this review the many articles exclusively by Central to Central Europeans, Europe?far notably from those

translated from theHungarian, suggest a particular interest in the subject within the nonparty Left in Italy. Alternative, founded in Paris in 1979, went under in 1984 but has since resurfaced as La Nouvelle Alternative, devoted exclusively to Central and Eastern Europe. Its first issue appeared in 1986. 10See, for example, Adam Michnik, Penser la Pologne (Paris: La D?couverte Maspero, 1983) and Letters from Prison and Other Essays (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). 11Mircea Eliade, "Examen Leprosum," Preuves 14 (April 1952): 29. 12Raymond Aron's M?moires were published in Paris in 1983 (by Julliard) to a fanfare of enthusiasm, in instructive contrast to the silence that greeted his
writings over the previous thirty years. For Vittorini, who crossed swords with the

leader Togliatti before leaving the Party, see Diario in Pubblico (Milan: Bompiani, 1957), notably the entries for January 1947. Among many writings by Ignazio Silone, see his speech to the International Conference of the PEN Club on 5 June 1947, "Sur la dignit? de l'intelligence et l'indignit? des (23-24) (August-September intellectuels," reprinted in Les Temps Modernes 1947): 405-12. Communist
13For a representative example of the available evidence, see Viktor Kravchenko, I

Chose Freedom (New York: Scribner's, 1946); and David Dallin and Boris Nicolaevsky, Forced Labor in the Soviet Union (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948). In the late 1940s in Paris, David Rousset sued two Communist journalists for libel. They had accused him of inventing the existence of camps in

The Rediscovery

of Central Europe

53

the Soviet Union. See David Rousset, Le Proc?s concentrationnaire pour la v?rit? sur les camps (Paris: Editions du Pavois, 1951). 14Danilo Kis, "Th?mes d'Europe Centrale," La Nouvelle Alternative 8 (December 1987): 6. 15For a detailed account of this process, see Tony Judt,Marxism and the French Left (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), chap. 4, passim. The process of precipitate retreat from social theory can be seen in the works of the Parisian "new philosophers" of the 1970s, notably Bernard-Henri Levy, La Barbarie ? visage humain (Paris: Grasset, 1977) and Andr? Glucksmann, Les Ma?tres Penseurs (Paris:Grasset, 1977). Although published after the appearance of the Gulag Archipelago, these books were of course the product of intellectual shifts predating Solzhenitsyn's Western publication. 16See, in this context, John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), and Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977). Although not published in translation until
some years later (Rawls was the first to secure a European audience), these works

of moral and legal philosophy have become well known in academic circles in Western Europe. They are taken to be about rights in a broader sense, which is more important formany of their readers than the philosophical debates towhich theywere in fact contributing. More directly concerned with human rights as such were the essays of Joel Feinberg. See his Rights, Justice and the Bounds of Liberty (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980).
17In this context, the most representative of Habermas's recent work is Autonomy

and Solidarity (London: Verso, 1986). 18SeeH. Footitt and J. Simmonds, France 1943-1945, The Politics of Liberation (New York: Holmes andMeier, 1988), and G. Madjarian, Conflits, Pouvoirs et Soci?t? ? la Lib?ration (Paris:Union g?n?rale d'?ditions, 1980).
19See the comments for a of Vaclav long time saw activists, visited Havel, who, frequently by Western as a vehicle movement the disarmament peace for the

diversion and neutralizing of theWestern Sv?dectvt 18 (1984): 631.

20For a more extended discussion of the

intelligentsia, in (tPolitika a svedomi,"

nature of contemporary intellectual

opposition in Central Europe, see Tony Judt, "The Dilemmas of Dissidence: The Politics of Opposition in East-Central Europe," Eastern European Politics and Societies 2 (2) (1988): 185-240. 21See the opinion poll taken by "Eurobarom?tre" Europ?en (Rome) 39 (2) (February 1988): 6. and published in Bulletin

22See, for example, Jochen L?ser and Ulrike Schilling, Neutralit?t f?r Mitteleuropa: Das Ende der Bl?cke (Munich: Bertelsmann, 1984), where Poland, Czechoslo vakia, and Hungary receive a total of ten pages, while Germany and its anomalous situation take up most of the book. The real interest lies in the
perceived threat of Central Europe as a nuclear war zone. See also the slim volume

by Karl Schl?gel, Die Mitte liegt ostw?rts: Die Deutschen, und Mitteleuropa (Berlin: Siedler, 1986).

der verlorene Osten

54

Tony Judt

23For details of this debate, which has deeply divided the German historical profession and been widely debated in the press, see thematerial collected inDer Historikerstreit, Chronologisch Geordenete Quellensamlung 1986-1987 (Augs burg: Fachschaft Geschichte der Universit?t Augsburg, May 1987). Nolte pleads his case in Das Vergehen der Vergangenheit, Antwort an meine Kritiker in sogenannten Historikstreit (Frankfurt:Ullstein, 1987), especially 13-68,171-79. 24Erhard Busek and Emil Brix, Projekt Mitteleuropa (Vienna: ?berreuter, 1986). Despite the heavy Austro-centered focus, this book has the virtue of acknowledg ing the many meanings of Central Europe, including the important role once played in the region by Jews. (New York: Vintage Books, 1981). course London University's School of 26The notable and only exception being of Slavonic and East European Studies. 27The debate among Czech historians, which has ranged from the wisdom of advocating national independence to the ethical impropriety of the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans in 1947, has gone much further in the direction of national self-examination than has been the case in Hungary or Poland, where the nation-state goes largely unquestioned. It should be noted that inCzechoslovakia such debate is usually conducted within the dissident community, official history being in a supine and depressed condition since the purge of the academy in See H. Gordon Skilling, "The Muse of History?1984," Cross 1969-1970. Currents 3 (1984): 30-42; Charter 77, document no. 11, 1984; "Pravo na d?jiny," Listy 14 (5) (October 1984): 11-76; Petr Pithart, "Let Us Be Gentle to Our History," Kosmas 3 (2-4) (Winter 1984-Summer 1985): 7-22.
28Even Thus, where an interest in "the other Europe" it is often persists, in a recent collection in Paris under of essays, published pro forma. merely the title of Lettres

25See Czeslaw Mifosz's

book, The Captive Mind

d'Europe (Paris:Albin Michel, 1988), the introduction by Jean-Pierre Angremy (pseudonym for a highly placed French Foreign Ministry official) speaks with rotund enthusiasm of the European ideal, "from Edinburgh to Sofia, from Lisbon to Leningrad." Having acquitted himself of this ritual bow in the direction of
Central reference and Eastern Europe, to the other Angremy Europe. then confines his attention exclusively to

an area delimited by the European Community

is made

(minus Portugal!). No

further

It is not uncommon to find this sort of cavalier inclusion or dismissal, inwritings from France especially, and such an approach is quite often (and not perhaps accidentally) accompanied by the assumption that Central Europe stretches to the Volga. As a rule, the larger the geographical area covered by the term, the shorter the span of attention paid to it.