Historical legacies, re-interpretations of the past, and individual geopolitical preferences in Central and Eastern Europe.

Autor principal:
Ángel Luis Torres Adán (Institute for Sociology, Slovak Academy of Sciences)
Programa:
Sesión 4, Sesión 4
Día: martes, 23 de julio de 2024
Hora: 09:00 a 10:45
Lugar: RUTA JACOBEA (140)

This paper will focus on how historical legacies and current political narratives that reinterpret past events influence individual support for the EU and Russia. The study of historical legacies in connection with individual geopolitical preferences has enjoyed increasing popularity in recent times. However, most of the works in this field focus on post-Soviet countries. In the case of this paper, I focus on Slovakia, a post-Communist Central-European EU member country that presents itself as a perfect case study for individual geopolitical preferences. This is because the levels of support for the EU, Russia, and other ambivalent geopolitical orientations are much more balanced than in most other EU member states. My objective with this research is to answer two key research questions. First, how do personal links with the former Communist Party of Czechoslovakia influence current attitudes towards the EU and Russia? And second, how do attitudes towards different framings of past events influence current individual support for Russia and the EU? To answer these questions, this paper will rely on survey data to be collected in Slovakia in the Spring of 2024. The survey will include items on personal links with the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, attitudes towards several historical events (e.g., the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia), as well as support for current politically-motivated reinterpretations of these historical events (e.g., different reinterpretations of the Slovak National Uprising (SNP) as a communist, democratic, and/or nationalist uprising), and support for the EU and Russia.

Palabras clave: Historical legacies, re-interpretations of the past, and individual geopolitical preferences in Central and Eastern Europe.