Reviving Traumas and Grievances: Geopolitical Codes and Political Culture in Central Europe

Abstract

Historical traumas and grievances greatly influence political culture and discourse, electoral runs, attitudes of society and voters' behaviour several years, decades, sometimes even centuries later. Such attitudes, reflected both in domestic political culture and discourse as well as on the international level, are not the exclusive domain of nationalistic, xenophobic or populist parties. They become, therefore, relevant mainstream issues. The aim of this paper is to analyse the role and intensity of selected events of the past in today's political culture and discourse, in chosen cases of Central European countries, i.e., the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. This region is rich in historical events of changing in size and shape of countries, or its geopolitical code, that seeded roots for further use of this 'heritage' in political movements. During the communist period, some of these historical traumas and grievances were artificially suppressed. However, after the 1980s they were free to emerge and become influential factors in electoral competition and political positions.