Why Rethinking Europe?

Most commentary on Europe starts from a cold war perspective, which, almost twenty years after the end of the political division of the continent into east and west persists in both journalistic commentary and in historical writing. I don't wish to deny the importance of this division for thinking about what happened in Europe between 1945 and the end of the 1980s. Nor do I wish to deny the importance of its legacy - especially as far as the differences in living standards, and general levels of economic prosperity are concerned for the two halves of continent. What I'm really getting at is the ways in which commentators (including some historians) have sought to use this past political division to explain events/phenomena in ways which distort their reality.

I'll give an example of what I mean here. Not too long ago I was present at an academic conference where the participants began to discuss the relative political significance of consumerism in socialist Central and Eastern Europe, and capitalist western Europe. One participant argued that the difference was that east of the "iron curtain" consumption was politicized, while west of the dividing line it was not. Coming from the UK, where at least until the arrival of Tony Blair, Labour argued for the primacy of collective consumption (council housing, free state-provided health care, education, extensive welfare benefits), and the Conservatives challenged them by advocating a greater role for consumer choice and the private sector (council-house sales, half-hearted promotion of private health care, private pensions etc.) I found this a little difficult to accept.

The lesson I drew from this was that while there were important differences between "western" and "eastern" Europe, many of which still persist, the nature of those differences are still poorly understood by commentators and specialists alike. There is, therefore, a need for some form of discussion which advances understanding of these differences, and engages, however, partially in the task of both "re-thinking European history", and "re-thinking" what we mean by "Europe".

This has become a more urgent task since May 2004, and the beginnings of the "eastern" enlargement of the European Union. Four years on, there is a growing recognition of the radical implications of expanding the EU not only for the social, economic and political structures that exist across the continent, but for identities in the former "east", as well as the former "west". I also believe, unsurprisingly given my own professional background, that "History" is important in understanding the nature of this change.

As an academic I could have explored these theme through the traditional format of the publication of a programmatic article in a journal somewhere. I've opted for a blog for three reasons, which are interconnected:

1. The formats of academic publication would require to me to have well-formed, highly-polished answers to the questions that I am raising here, that I could defend. They would then be used to advance the discussion. I am not altogether sure that my ideas are as well-worked out as necessary.
2. My academic research and publication addresses these themes anyway through the medium of highly-specialized, focussed academic research (on workers in Hungary, and now the social history of the Austrian-Hungarian border). I wanted to do something different, more open-ended, and also more fragmented in content here.
3. I also wanted to experiment with the blog as a forum for advancing ideas, and engaging with these themes. I want to find out whether keeping a blog is a meaningful activity, and whether it is capable of advancing debate. How useful, therefore, is a blog, as a tool for the dissemination of ideas, and for discussion of them?

While the blog is focussed around large themes, it also reflects my local interests as a specialist of the history of modern Hungary, and of Central and Eastern Europe more generally. I believe that this focus can shed much light on broader European processes, and hope to be able to demonstrate that here. I don't believe that it is the only standpoint at all.

That is also why most of the resources have a Hungarian focus. Please do note that while I will write in English, not all of the resources posted here will be.