SLAVIC WESTERN WING BETWEEN BALTIC AND ADRIATIC: HISTORICAL, POLITICAL, AND CULTURAL ASPECTS

The western wing of the Slavic world (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Slovenes) was controlled by the Roman-German Empire for almost a millennium. The periphery was dominated by maritime powers: the Hanseatic League in the Baltic and the Republic of Venice in the Adriatic. Dynamic political processes created a highly fragmented political map. The formation of larger territorial units (lands) promoted the development of strong regional identities. The development of nationalism forced the social and cultural integration of the various countries into nation states. Most of this area was a part of the multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire, which, before the growing pressure of nationalism, switched to German-Hungarian dualism and avoided the Slavic idea of trialism. The Slavic peoples developed mechanisms of cultural defense. After the First World War, the shrinking of Germany and Russia and the disintegration of Austria-Hungary made way for predominantly Slavic countries. This ”Europe-in-between” became a politically sensitive area for many minorities and, during and after the Second World War, the scene of mass forced migrations and the dividing geopolitical line between West and East. After the collapse of socialism, the federal entities of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia became independent; the latter-one after a series of conflicts. The western wing of the Slavic countries is now part of both EU and NATO. During the centuries of political turmoil and geopolitical divisions and unifications in this area, they gained different experiences in living together with their western (Germanic and Romance) and eastern (mainly Slavic) neighbors: coexistence, cooperation, competition, and conflict. The working hypothesis of this paper is to what extent these experiences can be utilized under today’s conditions of a united Europe. We also examine whether and to what extent these experiences can serve as a bridge for cooperation with the wider Slavic world in Europe. When analyzing the leadership and policies of the EU, one gets the impression that the current political groupings have learned almost nothing from the series of disintegrations of multi-ethnic states.