'The Kidnapped West': Writing Modern Eastern Europe

Catalog description

Where and what is 'Eastern Europe'? To what extent was it invented by the West, and how has it been defined and redefined over time? Milan Kundera once called it the 'kidnapped West' - a swath of nations culturally European yet politically severed from Europe, condemned to be looked at, defined, and pitied from outside. But who did the kidnapping, and who did the looking? This course introduces key themes and debates in the history and historiography of modern Eastern Europe, treating the region not as a fixed place on a map but as an idea that was invented, contested, and constantly rewritten. Stretching from the Baltic to the Balkans and across the former Habsburg, Ottoman, and Russian lands, the region has been marked by shifting borders, overlapping empires, and competing national projects. Yet it has also been a contested concept, shaped as much by outside observers as by those who lived within it. Covering the period from the late eighteenth century to the end of the twentieth, the course examines empires and their legacies, national revivals and indifference, the collapse of multiethnic states in 1918, fascism and communism, collaboration and violence, borderlands and migration, and the politics of memory after 1989. Readings pair classic works that established the field with recent scholarship that has reshaped it, complemented by selected political documents, art, literature, music, and film. The course emphasizes not only what we know about Eastern Europe, but how and why its history has been written the way it has.