By Kamile Vaupsaite
Last Thursday, Oxford University Lithuanian Society, in conjunction with Oxford Polish and Czech-Slovak Societies, hosted Edward Lucas, famous journalist and correspondent of The Economist. I bumped into him at the Lodge of Jesus College, and I was pleasantly surprised by his familiarity with Lithuania. He knew we do not speak Russian.
I got used to the British eyebrow-raising and their failed attempts to indicate the geographical location of my country or to tell the name of its capital. The closest shot usually ends up somewhere 160 miles away in Riga. More often, however, Lithuanians, for the British, live 'somewhere in the east'.
These blunders have made me forget that some people can have more than a fleeting interest in my country. Not only did Lucas know the capital of Lithuania, but he also felt at ease handling everything related to Eastern Europe in all its height and breadth. 'This talk,' Lucas began after the introductory speeches by the presidents of all societies, 'is about a concept that never really existed, doesn't exist now and certainly shouldn't exist in our "new normal" future. My aim is to persuade everyone in this room to stop using it.'
I got used to the British eyebrow-raising and their failed attempts to indicate the geographical location of my country or to tell the name of its capital. The closest shot usually ends up somewhere 160 miles away in Riga. More often, however, Lithuanians, for the British, live 'somewhere in the east'.
These blunders have made me forget that some people can have more than a fleeting interest in my country. Not only did Lucas know the capital of Lithuania, but he also felt at ease handling everything related to Eastern Europe in all its height and breadth. 'This talk,' Lucas began after the introductory speeches by the presidents of all societies, 'is about a concept that never really existed, doesn't exist now and certainly shouldn't exist in our "new normal" future. My aim is to persuade everyone in this room to stop using it.'
Three days passed after Lucas's talk, but I have just used the abstraction he had so fiercely condemned. The bogus 'Eastern Europe'. In Lucas's words, this label fits only the dustbin. It is a relict of the Cold War. A species of shorthand, applied to the countries that were behind the Iron Curtain, and practised by contemporary journalists, lazy economists and commentators. Laziness is not in my bones, but the Eastern European blood runs through my veins. And it would be idle not to admit it.
Lucas tried to take the concept apart by putting its constituent parts at stake. Are the countries of the so-called 'Eastern Europe' in the East? Not really. Prague is west of the 'western' Vienna, the Baltic States are on the same latitude as the 'western' Finland, and the 'western' Athens is more east than Vilnius. Are or were, then, the countries of the so-called 'Eastern Europe' ruled by the East (meaning, Kremlin)? Again, the answer is 'not really'. Yugoslavia and Albania had their own communist regimes even when the Soviet Union was still alive. And when it finally broke down, the hand of Kremlin slackened.
'The "Eastern Europe" as a category is an illusion and its use is not just anachronistic, but damaging,' said Lucas. According to him, the concept imposes erroneous images upon the countries it aspires to define. It connotes crime and corruption, poverty and backwardness, weakness and lack of freedom, grumpy faces and raw potatoes.
It certainly does, but, one has to add, the concept has also acquired positive connotations. Now, when Greece is performing worse than Latvia, Estonia is far more high-tech than Italy, and Lithuania has one of the highest women literacy rates in Europe, the concept 'Eastern Europe' has become, to some extent, flattering. Even the workers from Eastern Europe are renowned for their discipline, efficiency and industriousness.
Lucas tried to take the concept apart by putting its constituent parts at stake. Are the countries of the so-called 'Eastern Europe' in the East? Not really. Prague is west of the 'western' Vienna, the Baltic States are on the same latitude as the 'western' Finland, and the 'western' Athens is more east than Vilnius. Are or were, then, the countries of the so-called 'Eastern Europe' ruled by the East (meaning, Kremlin)? Again, the answer is 'not really'. Yugoslavia and Albania had their own communist regimes even when the Soviet Union was still alive. And when it finally broke down, the hand of Kremlin slackened.
'The "Eastern Europe" as a category is an illusion and its use is not just anachronistic, but damaging,' said Lucas. According to him, the concept imposes erroneous images upon the countries it aspires to define. It connotes crime and corruption, poverty and backwardness, weakness and lack of freedom, grumpy faces and raw potatoes.
It certainly does, but, one has to add, the concept has also acquired positive connotations. Now, when Greece is performing worse than Latvia, Estonia is far more high-tech than Italy, and Lithuania has one of the highest women literacy rates in Europe, the concept 'Eastern Europe' has become, to some extent, flattering. Even the workers from Eastern Europe are renowned for their discipline, efficiency and industriousness.
Instead of 'Eastern Europe' Lucas suggested three alternative groupings: 'Baltic Europe' ('Five Nordics, three Baltics, plus Poland and Germany'), 'Danube Europe' (Germany, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria, plus more if the whole Danube basin is included) and 'Roma Europe' (countries that share the fast-growing Roma population). 'All those categories are useful. They are labels with some kind of meaning,' claimed Lucas. They surely are but that does not mean that the label 'Eastern Europe' does not have a meaning too.
During his talk Lucas posed a question. Name the only country in Europe that corresponds to the following clues:
That country is Estonia. The so-called ex-communist 'Eastern European' country. Or maybe not?
In his article on the booming economy of Estonia ('Estonian exceptionalism'), printed in The Economist on 16 July 2011, Lucas concludes that 'the go-ahead Estonians' are ready to leave their neighbours: 'Goodbye ''eastern Europe''; welcome to the ''new north'''. In other words, Estonia has crossed the ideological border without changing its geographical location. Yet in his talk Lucas seemed to dismiss his six-month old conclusion: he claimed that 'Eastern Europe did make sense once, but it doesn’t now'. But if it really does not make sense now, to whom does Estonia say goodbye in Lucas's July article?
Edward Lucas's talk was persuading, well-informed and forward-looking, and his discussion of the problems of the region with the despicable name impeccable. And yet his conviction that the concept 'Eastern Europe' should be relinquished did not persuade me. One cannot simply 'drop it', for it would involve throwing into the dustbin part of your identity, crowds of grumpy faces that you have met on the streets and the raw potatoes that you have eaten with relish. Not to speak of the smell of mandarins that characterizes our pre-Christmas time.
What if instead of dropping the concept we would try to modify its connotations? If we only smiled more and learnt how to cook the potatoes?
During his talk Lucas posed a question. Name the only country in Europe that corresponds to the following clues:
- it is in the EU and it meets the EU's rules on deficit and debt;
- it is in NATO and spends 2% of its GDP on defence, as NATO requires;
- it is in the euro zone and in Schengen.
That country is Estonia. The so-called ex-communist 'Eastern European' country. Or maybe not?
In his article on the booming economy of Estonia ('Estonian exceptionalism'), printed in The Economist on 16 July 2011, Lucas concludes that 'the go-ahead Estonians' are ready to leave their neighbours: 'Goodbye ''eastern Europe''; welcome to the ''new north'''. In other words, Estonia has crossed the ideological border without changing its geographical location. Yet in his talk Lucas seemed to dismiss his six-month old conclusion: he claimed that 'Eastern Europe did make sense once, but it doesn’t now'. But if it really does not make sense now, to whom does Estonia say goodbye in Lucas's July article?
Edward Lucas's talk was persuading, well-informed and forward-looking, and his discussion of the problems of the region with the despicable name impeccable. And yet his conviction that the concept 'Eastern Europe' should be relinquished did not persuade me. One cannot simply 'drop it', for it would involve throwing into the dustbin part of your identity, crowds of grumpy faces that you have met on the streets and the raw potatoes that you have eaten with relish. Not to speak of the smell of mandarins that characterizes our pre-Christmas time.
What if instead of dropping the concept we would try to modify its connotations? If we only smiled more and learnt how to cook the potatoes?