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National identity and the Other: imagining the EU from the Czech Lands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Daniel Esparza
Daniel Esparza*
Affiliation:
Department of Romance Studies, Palacký University, Olomouc, Czech Republic. Email: daniel.esparza@upol.cz
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Abstract

National identity is constructed through successive identifications with significant Others. This article discusses the phenomenon of change and continuity in Czech identity. It is focused here on the identification towards the EU, which has become the most significant Other of today in two ways: (a) (change) contributing to overcoming the identity crisis provoked by the drastic changes that occurred between 1989 and 1993 (change of regime, disappearance of the USSR and the break-up of Czechoslovakia), and therefore the subsequent drastic changes in relations with past significant Others: communism, the USSR, and the Slovaks; and (b) (continuity) reaffirming one of the fundamental elements during the national revival in the nineteenth century, democracy, upon which the various identifications towards the EU have been aligned. According to the differing interpretations of what democracy means, and three other criteria of the “levels of Othering,” the EU has been “imagined,” on the one hand, as an entity where Czechs can flourish in their identity and ensure their freedom and democratic values (positive Other), and, on the other, as an “oppressor” entity which portrays democratic deficit, restricts freedom, and threatens Czech national identity (negative Other).

Keywords

national identityCzech RepublicEUthe Other
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , May 2010 , pp. 413 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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