The Concept of 'Eastern Europe'
in Selected English Language Print Media
and the Political Implications of its Use
May 1991



by Jansen Raichl, B.A. (Hons.)


"There could once perhaps have been something like a Central Europe, but you know, we rather blame you for the fact that it does not exist"

a Hungarian to a Western journalist
(Ash, p. 208)




1. Introduction


The purpose of this essay is to substantiate a contention that the consistent use by the Anglo-Saxon media of the concept of 'Eastern Europe' in preference to other possible labels is a reflection of particular political interests on the part of Britain and the U.S.

The theme of the essay can be summarized in the following way. The concept of 'Eastern Europe' is not merely a label but also an instrument used to define the political and economic structure of Europe to suit certain political and economic goals. I shall also argue that there is a widespread fear of the consequences of German re-unification on the Anglo-Saxon world and, as a result, we are witnessing a resumption of the policies of the Yalta Conference of February 1945. It may sound absurd in the light of the forty-odd years of Cold War, but the idea of an alliance between the Anglo- Saxon world and the U.S.S.R. against Germany appears to have survived.

In places, this work may sound like a polemic with Timothy Garton Ash's "Does Central Europe Exist?" (1986). Or it may seem that I am entering a debate which was presumably set rolling by publication of Milan Kundera's "The Tragedy of Central Europe" in 1983. If that was so, the claim made by Ash that the debate is of a recent date would be validated. In fact, however, I came across Ash's writings only in the process of analyzing the press, more precisely in an article in the November 27, 1989 issue of TIME (p. 33), and I first learned about 'Central Europe' at primary school in the early 1970s. English school children should also be familiar with the existence of 'Central Europe'; one can at least assume so as it is featured in textbooks, for example on page 42 of Philip's Modern School Atlas.

My motivation to write on the topic of 'Central' Europe originates from practical considerations. The debate is political in nature - it is not merely an academic exercise as Ash seems to suggest. The concept of 'Eastern' Europe is probably the biggest obstacle which Czechoslovakia and Hungary will face on their way towards economic and political redevelopment. It is a far bigger problem than the objective conditions of their economies. If the 'East European' countries are supposed to be "unstable" and "backward", hardly anybody can be expected to invest in them, to trust manufactured goods from there, or to travel there. From my correspondence with the publishers of tourist guidebooks I learned that many of them did include Prague in their series, but WH Smith showed no interest in ordering those for its shops.

If the countries of 'Central Europe' are to have any future, they will first have to return to their past and build on their pre-communist heritage. It would be wrong to ignore the forty years of history under the Soviet rule, but everything needs to be done to remove its negative consequences. 'Eastern Europe' did not emerge; it was created by the 'West' and by the U.S.S.R. What actually happened during the Yalta Conference in February 1945 is arguable. Some say that "at Yalta, Roosevelt and Churchill had little choice but to cede Stalin half of Europe that his Red Army had overthrown. (Newsweek, November 20, 1989, p. 31)" Another version "posthumously excoriates Roosevelt for 'giving away' Eastern Europe to Joseph Stalin. (TIME, December 4, 1989)" What is important, however, is that 'Eastern Europe' as a concept originates from there. In 1956, 'Eastern Europe' was given a concrete institutional form with the signing of the Warsaw Defence Treaty. It is often forgotten that the Warsaw Treaty was set up six years after NATO was founded as a response to the incorporation of Germany into the Western military alliance. The purpose of the Warsaw pact's existence was claimed to be containment of alleged 'aggressive goals' of NATO. Even today, Western insistence on keeping NATO intact may be aimed at ensuring the continuation of the Warsaw Pact. In spite of all the new political developments, 'Central Europe' endured under the disguise of Stalinist legislation. Objective conditions like geographic location, pre-communist history and economic conditions could not be changed. People's consciousness could not be significantly altered either. At least, I do not know of any mechanism which would achieve such a complicated task. Awareness of being in 'Central' rather than 'Eastern' Europe permeated the social life. Such is my experience of twenty-four years spent in Prague.

As soon as Soviet control started to break up, the nations of Central Europe began to reassert their identities. For uncertain reasons which I shall attempt to explore, the Western media organizations prefer to ignore this change. In doing so, they are attaching their own meanings to the events on which they are reporting. Whether somebody is a 'Central-European' or an 'East- European' is a subjective matter which should be decided by the person in question, and it is arrogant of a reporter to make assertions which attempt to supersede this subjective identity.

Since the media institutions are nearly the sole source of information about Central Europe - for some reason Britons do not travel there - their work has decisive influence on this country's policies towards that part of the world, and investors consequently avoid the area (The Guardian, 25 January 1991, p. 26).

In this sense, Central Europe is now in a geopolitical 'limbo'. It is drifting away from the Soviet control, but at the same time it is resented by the EEC and 'pushed back eastward'. This process can be very subtle as I shall attempt to demonstrate by analyzing the way in which it is working in the Anglo-Saxon press. But the process can also take very open brutal forms, as in the case of Lithuania, a Central European country which refuses to remain part of the Soviet Union, but whose independence the 'West' is unwilling to recognize.

As the Polish author, Adam Michnik recognized, the difficult situation of the Central European nations was partly caused by their inability to cooperate and support each other (Ash, p.187).

It is essential to bear in mind that until 1945 the concept of Mitteleuropa was all that the Central Europeans were familiar with. So the problem appears to be how they could possibly succumb to the joint effort by the Anglo-Saxons and the Russians to turn them into 'East Europeans'. The answer lies in the historical opportunity provided to Germany's enemies by Nazism. It could be only immediately after the atrocities of the War that the peoples of those countries could regard Soviet domination as preferable to German control. It could happen only in the first years immediately after the War and in ignorance of the possibility of the Cold War. Ash's thesis seems to confirm that their readiness to accept Soviet authority was later deeply regretted by most Central Europeans. In my experience, the Central Europeans were disillusioned twice. First, there was disenchantment with the Soviets at the morally horrible system under which the latter had made them live. The Anglo-Saxon media do not pay sufficient attention to anti- Soviet moods in 'Eastern Europe', at least they did not in the period which I analyzed. Thus the population of England has been deluded with an idea of a harmony of interests between Central Europe and the Soviet Union. The second and more profound disillusionment has been the one concerning the role of the 'West' in the international arena. I would argue that this process still continues and that the Central Europeans have to brace themselves for a few more unpleasant surprises in this respect. Among Prague adolescents, I often encountered the perception of NATO as a potential 'saviour' of Central Europe. The argument held that NATO was supposed to be essentially anti-Soviet, as was the Central European population. The natural conclusion was that the Americans should come and liberate the "captive nations".

The first warning signs that this was not the case should have been the West's evident passivity during the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia and its reaction to the Lithuanian independence declaration in March 1990. In the last instance, there was initially outright Western approval of the Soviet actions, such as the oil embargo.

The issue of 'Eastern Europe' in this context is not so different from the situation of the Baltic states, Czechoslovak Ruthenia, the Ukraine, and other Soviet territories because a similar pattern has developed about these countries. They were 'wiped off' the map by the English press after World War II and their previous history was forgotten. A distinctive disparity between the 'Soviet' and 'Russian' forms of consciousness is beginning to be discovered, too. On the subjective level, this disparity may have existed for decades without being recorded. In one place, Ash complains of "Kundera's absurd exclusion of Russia from Europe. (p. 185)" In fact, in the text surveyed, I hardly ever encountered a case when the U.S.S.R. was included under the label 'Eastern Europe'. Philip's Modern School Atlas excludes the U.S.S.R. from Europe as well. It is deliberate, since when the whole of Europe is considered, the so-called 'Eastern' Europe actually lies West of the centre of the continent.

Nevertheless, Central Europe has already found a political expression in the Pentagonale Initiative, covering Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Italy and North Yugoslavia. The Initiative was started by the Italians in 1989 with the main aim to develop closer cultural ties between the countries. This attempt at strengthening ties between Central European nations from both sides of the former 'Iron Curtain' may signal some hope that the damaging concept of 'Eastern Europe' will gradually wither away. It will be extremely difficult for the Anglo-Saxon press to maintain the old notion of an Eastern political bloc if a new distinct grouping successfully asserts itself on the European political scene.

My thesis also raises the point that Germany is inextricably linked to Central Europe. It would require further examination of how the German identity was altered by the 'Allies' in the Federal Republic during the post-War years.


2. Definitions of the Problem and of the Key Concepts


Two Different Visions of Europe

My argument will become clearer if I start with a claim that one can identify two models, or visions, of structuring Europe which I have titled according to the parts of Europe where they are held.

1 The Central European Model sees Europe as having its cultural, political and economic centre in Germany. It places emphasis on pan-European 'values', the purest form of which can presumably be found in the geographical middle of Europe and in France. (Later in the essay, in a separate chapter, I shall show that the debate about 'values' is in fact quite futile). Since both England and Russia lie in the periphery of Europe, their political, cultural and economic importance is thought of as marginal. In other words, Britain and Russia are somewhat less European if not out-right outsiders. The German concept of Mitteleuropa forms a important part of this model. It roughly encompasses Germany, Switzerland, South-Western Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Northern Italy and Northern Yugoslavia.

In the following, under the term Central Europe (Mitteleuropa) I have included those territories which between 1790 and 1918 were under either Hapsburg or German control and which I have already listed. Mitteleuropa is a historical and cultural concept. It defines a specific type of consciousness, identity and way of thinking and is held to be related to a particular historical period. It appears to have ceased to exist in 1945 under the political pressures resulting from the partition of Europe into the spheres of Superpower interest. It may take on political significance when it is used by the countries involved to define their position within Europe. A full appreciation of this model is required in order to understand why, for example, the 'Central Europeans' so strongly support the idea of an increased role for the CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) as an alternative to the East- West political and economic division of the continent, and why in turn the attitude of the Western politicians towards the project is so frosty.

2 The West European Model divides Europe into the clearly defined 'advanced West' and 'impoverished East'. The divide is commonly referred to as the 'Iron Curtain'. Western Europe (or the Western World) according to this model has its power centre and the sources of its values in America, whereas the East is generally defined from Moscow. The West European model is clearly incompatible with the Central European one. In the Anglo-Saxon press, we find this version reiterated by the consistent use of the expression 'Eastern Europe' (whatever it may mean). This vision is quite clearly reflected in the vision of the European Commission President, Jacques Delors, who talks of a "New Europe of concentric circles" forming around a democratic and prosperous EC, a second orbit of EFTA nations" and a third of the newly democratized countries (TIME November 27, 1989, p. 18).

In fact, the very idea of 'Eastern Europe' was born during the Second World War as a concept planned to replace Mitteleuropa in the wake of the defeat of Nazi Germany. Instead of Europe being a loose collection of sovereign states likely to fall under German influence again once Germany recovered, it was felt safer by the Anglo-Saxon politicians to divide Europe between themselves and the Soviet Union, which at that time appeared too weak to become a threat. A campaign was waged to anchor the European countries firmly in either sphere of influence. For this purpose, the Anglo- Saxon politicians actively encouraged a crude Soviet effort to invent a new artificial identity for the territories under its influence. The concept of 'Eastern Europe' is a tool which was used solely for political purposes. The 'East European identity' was to be imposed upon all the Soviet satellites. The 'West' did not oppose this process. The leadership of Yugoslavia and Albania subsequently resented it. It may be the subject of argument whether the latter two countries do or do not count as 'East European'. The press I surveyed tended to exclude them. Therefore, 'Eastern Europe' coincides with the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria.

Analogically, a new identity had to be constructed for West Germany. In the latter case, it was the Americans and their allies who defined it.

A Brief Reference to Timothy Garton Ash

As I have already mentioned, during the analysis, I became familiar with some of the work of Timothy Garton Ash, particularly through his essays in The Spectator. As a result, I decided to read The Uses of Adversity, a collection of essays dedicated to "the fate of Central Europe". I was surprised how close some of his observations were to mine. So much so that I think it is appropriate to make a brief mention of them.

For example, the first paragraph of the essay Does Central Europe Exist? starts like this, "For three decades after 1945, nobody spoke of Central Europe in the present tense ... In German- speaking lands, the very word Mitteleuropa seemed to have died with Adolf Hitler ... Even in Austria, as ex-Chancellor Fred Sinowatz has remarked, "Until ten years ago, one was not permitted so much as to mention the word Mitteleuropa." In Prague and Budapest, the idea of Central Europe continued to be cherished between consenting adults in private, but from the public sphere it vanished as completely as it had in "the West". The post-Yalta order dictated a strict and single dichotomy. Western Europe implicitly accepted this dichotomy by subsuming under the label Eastern Europe all those parts of historic Central, East-Central and Southeastern Europe that after 1945 came under Soviet domination. The EEC completed the semantic trick by arrogating itself the unqualified title of Europe. (p. 179)"

Ash agrees that there may be a valid claim that Central Europe forms a historical and cultural unit. In his words, Central Europe is "a territory where people's cultures and languages are fantastically entertained, where every place has several names and men change their citizenship as often as their shoes. (p. 188)"

However, contrary to my argument, in his view, "Eastern Europe is about objective conditions of states - political, military, economic, technological" and 'Central Europe' confronts 'Eastern Europe' only "in the internal, subjective condition of the individuals ... in the autonomous sphere of culture, in the kingdom of spirit. (p. 193)" Later in the essay, Ash asks, "Isn't the existence of an imaginary Central Europe finally dependent on the existence of a real Eastern Europe? (p. 208)" This disagreement is fundamental because what I am attempting to suggest is that in fact 'Eastern Europe' is the artificial foreign fabrication, a mental category residing in the heads of Anglo-Saxon people and Soviet policy-makers, whereas 'Central Europe' has the subjective as well as objective existence which had preceded any notion of 'Eastern Europe'.

For Ash, "this new Central Europe is just that: an idea. It does not yet exist. Eastern Europe exists - that part of Europe militarily controlled by the Soviet Union ... [Central Europe] will not be created by mere repetition of the words Central Europe as the fashionable slogan ... (p. 210)" Why not? 'Eastern Europe' was created in precisely that way.

Ash analyses the writings of dissident authors like Havel and Konrad and concludes that they engage in an "interesting division of labour. Both authors use the term Eastern Europe or East European when the context is neutral or negative; when they write Central Europe, the statement is invariably positive, affirmative or down-right sentimental. (p. 183)" He does not go as far as trying to find out whether this pattern is not a reflection of some underlying social phenomenon.

Although Ash seems to understand the 'Central European model' of Europe, he approaches it with preconceived notions taken over from the Anglo-Saxon culture. Therefore, his account holds 'Central Europe' to be little more than an idea.

My first objection against the use of the term 'Eastern Europe' is that it is a geographical expression but is used as a synonym referring to two separate political groupings - the Warsaw pact and COMECON. So, for example, Greece and Finland are quite Eastern geographically, but politically they are distinctly 'Western'. In the case of Greece, one can also argue about where it 'is' culturally.

But if the terminology merely reflects a different 'vision' of the political arrangement of Europe, then a problem arises of whether the media speak as often of an 'Eastern bloc' or 'Warsaw Pact countries'.

The Role of the Superpowers

'The West European Model' also implies a concept of Superpower. There are two Superpowers in relation to Europe, the Soviet Union and the Anglo-Saxon world. They are Superpowers partly by virtue of alone having control over the Security Council of the United Nations. It is convenient to treat Britain as an appendix of the United States for this purpose because unlike the rest of Europe, Britain's interests tend to coincide with America's. The Superpowers emerged at the Yalta Conference and I would describe the relationship between them as dialectic. By virtue of having comparable military and political might, they ensured a relatively long period of stability on the continent, partly through the so- called 'nuclear deterrent', partly by what Norbert Elias (1982) refers to as a double-bind. The Superpowers alone control the rest of Europe and the interests of one can clash only with those of the other. They did not allow the smaller states to develop independent foreign policies, as we saw on the examples of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, when the Soviet Union intervened militarily to prevent such a possibility from arising. It is essential to note that from the start, they were defined as Superpowers in response to Germany's influence in Europe. The fear and hatred of Germany characterizes their policies and unites them.

As a result of the revolutionary events of 1989, the 'West' started to question the roles of the Superpowers, or indeed whether the Soviet Union was still a Superpower. Newsweek (December 11, 1989, p. 19) even suggests "a mischievous thought: one of the triumphs of American diplomacy in the postwar years was to concoct the fiction of the U.S.S.R. as a superpower," and goes on arguing that, "it seems to look though, as if there's ... not just the decline of superpowers, but the decline of nation states."

The British and American newspapers and news magazines do not normally print articles written by Central Europeans themselves, so the reader is kept ignorant of Central European opinion. So, if the Central European opinion cannot be heard, Anglo-Saxon thinkers rush in to substitute for it. We may find prescriptive articles in the leading periodicals suggesting what the 'Eastern' Europeans should wish if they were sensible, as it were. This can be nicely illustrated from a letter by Henry Cord Meyer (The Economist, 2nd December 1989) expressing his consternation at the revival of "the German imperialist-racist Mitteleuropa concept of the 1940-45 era ... Have the Central Europeans quite lost their memory of what the old Mitteleuropa was really like?" It is interesting that the Central Europeans are instructed to discard the concept of Mitteleuropa which once helped them industrialize and attain a degree of prosperity and international respect in favour of becoming satellites of what Ronald Reagan described as the "Evil Empire".

However, the Western businessmen do not want to keep the market in those countries closed to themselves, particularly if it can become easy victim of exploitation. Commenting on General Electric buying Tungsram for $150m, TIME (November 27, 1989, p. 30) writes, "That is precisely the kind of help Eastern Europe needs." I found even better an illustration of this trend in The Economist. It was a photograph of a MacDonald fast-food restaurant in Moscow with a caption: "But there is hope" (18 November, 1989).

Not surprisingly, the English and the Americans also feel entitled to decide what the Germans should want. TIME (November 27, 1989) wrote that a "survey [of German public opinion], by a London firm, counted 48% against and 35% in favour of reunification." German readers, however, have at least been given some opportunity to reply. In a letter to Newsweek (November 13, 1989), Cyrill Wahler informs us that "hopes in Germany for reunification are growing. However, the ignorance of our wishes by the Western allies makes Germany feel that the division of our country is really a Treaty of Versailles of the Second World War."

Unlike their Central European counterparts, however, Soviet journalists are allowed to express their views in the Anglo-Saxon press. For example, in Newsweek, they are frequently given the whole Opinion section. Therefore, the audience is familiarized with the interests of the Superpowers to a much greater extent than with the attitudes representative of the dominated countries. This situation enables the Western journalist to substitute the goals of Central Europeans with hypotheses or wishes of Western policy- makers and completely disorient the reader.

One can find suggestions that the East Europeans are suffering from a condition akin to what Marx called 'false consciousness' - not knowing what their real interests are. One such example would be an article by Newsweek's European Editor Scott Sullivan (13th November 1989, p. l9), who seems to imply that the Slavs are not even aware that for a thousand years, they had been systematically "exterminated" by the Germans. To get this idea he again goes to an English historian, A.J.P. Taylor. Sullivan certainly did not expect that a native Slav would have heard of any extermination. Further on, he believes to have demonstrated that "so deep is the Slavic hatred, and fear of Germany" with the fact that a handful of carefully selected Central European expatriates chose to live in countries other than Germany.

About Values

One of the main distinctions between 'East' and 'West' which appeared in the press most frequently concerned an unqualified notion of 'values'. For instance, we learn that "reunification of Germany ... is probably not likely and perhaps not wise ... East and West Germany have developed different values. (TIME, November 20, 1989)"

This vague notion of 'values' which is not explicitly explained anywhere provides a most striking hint of stereotyping. Quoting from "The Anatomy of Reticence" by Havel about "a Central European mind, sceptical, sober, anti-utopian, understated", Ash adds, "in short everything we think of as quintessentially English. (p. 184)" He shortly continues with a claim made by George Konrad that "it was East Central Europe's historical misfortune ... that it came under Eastern hegemony ... of the Soviet Russian type. This prevents our area from exercising the Western option ... that represents our profoundest historical inclination." He could have equally mentioned the statement of Rita Klimova, the Czech Ambassador in Washington, that Czechoslovakia "is a country of Western culture. It belongs to the West because of its heritage and historical orientation. (Reporte'r, 3/90, p. 12)"

In a somewhat indignant tone, Ash remarks that "we are to understand that what was truly Central European was always Western, rational, humanistic, democratic and tolerant. The rest was East European, Russian, or possibly German. (p. 184)" Here he falls into the trap of attributing certain values or characteristics exclusively to his own culture. It may be argued equally easily that for the rest of Europe, England stands for arrogant nationalism coupled with insularity, imperialism, pretention and 'image-based' judgement and inability to read the press 'between the lines'. The issue of 'Eastern Europe' as treated in the press is precisely a case where English scepticism is utterly absent. The public seems to be taking on board the content along with the writers' sentiments. On top of that, Britain suffers a fairly violent nationalist problem in Ulster, and the demands made by the Welsh or Scottish 'separatists' are in no way different from those of the Slovaks, Croats, Slovenes or Moldavians.

However, on page 188, Ash approvingly summarizes what he found in the works of Central European authors as features of "specifically Central European history - for example, the experience of small nations subjected to large empires, the associated tradition of civic commitment of the intelligentsia, the habit of irony that comes from living in defeat - but above all it has to do with their own direct common experience of living under Soviet-type systems since Yalta." Further on, he mentions Havel in connection with the commonly held view that the distinctions between Left and Right, capitalism and socialism belong to a different era (p. 191). Ash is indeed constructing a stereotype, though he does it out of writings by indigenous authors rather than press reports.

The concept of 'value' is by its very nature subjective. The fact that it is futile to argue about 'Eastern' and 'Western' values is reminiscent of a discussion between George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev in Malta in November 1989 (Newsweek, December 18, 1989, p. 21). Gorbachev objected against Bush's repeated use of the expression "Western values" and claimed that they were presumably penetrating into Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland and Hungary. Bush asked, "Let's not get elliptical. What's the problem here?" Gorbachev replied, "Because "Western values" implies that they are different from Eastern values. It implies that you are winning in Eastern Europe." Bush went on insisting, "When you talk about glasnost, that's a Western value." Or is it? And so Bush and Gorbachev agreed to differ about a shared value.


3. Methodological Remarks


The basis of this study is textual analysis of European news sections and leading articles in The Economist, TIME, Newsweek and The Spectator in the period between mid-November 1989 and mid- January 1990. The choice was made of influential large-circulation periodicals, two of which are English and two American. All of them carry analyses as well as reports. Since the four so heavily dominate the market in news magazines in England and America and thence set the trend for others to follow, it is possible to generalize the results. The chosen period was particularly rich in events behind the Iron Curtain which included the breach of the Berlin Wall, revolutions in Czechoslovakia and Rumania, resignation of the Bulgarian government, the Malta Summit, disturbances in Armenia and Azerbaijan and others. In this respect, the sample was not representative of the proportion of news coverage devoted to 'Eastern Europe' in other years. In several of the copies of Newsweek and TIME, reports from the Warsaw pact countries took the whole European news sections often running for more than a dozen pages. In the two British magazines the focus was not as sharp.

Given the particular time period, the volume of coverage of developments in the Warsaw Pact countries typically amounted to two thirds of European news sections and of the leading articles. Particular attention was paid to the proportion of the sections devoted to the Soviet Union and interpretation of the role in the events ascribed to Moscow, and in particular to Gorbachev. The number of instances in which the terms 'Eastern Europe', 'Eastern bloc', 'Warsaw Pact' and 'Central Europe' were used was recorded. Additional attention was paid to grouping the 'East European' countries for the purpose of generalization. Signs of interest in preservation and justification of the Warsaw Pact existence were also noted, as were instances in which the idea of an 'impoverished East' was expressed.

In the process, the aim of the study shifted a little. In the beginning, I was interested in the possibility of reconstructing a stereotype of 'Eastern Europe' used by those periodicals. However, new issues arose soon and this led me to formulate of a new hypothesis involving Germany.

It was The Economist, which gave me the impression that it expressed distinctive sympathies towards the U.S.S.R. and aversion and fear of Germany. I used this impression as a lead and reformulated the hypothesis, incorporating the idea of Western fear of increased strength of Germany. I pursued the idea and discovered considerable evidence of such fears expressed in connection with the idea of German reunification.

In order to give the study a proper theoretical grounding, one would have to investigate and discuss broader issues of control of the press and its relationship to the respective countries' foreign policies. This would have widened the scope of the essay beyond the limit of its purpose, but at the same time, it would have enabled me to make more general claims about the character of Anglo-Saxon politics. Ash, as a journalist, admits that those who shape Western policies towards 'Eastern Europe' regard the debate about 'Central Europe' "as marginal pie-in-the-sky. (p. 208)" However, I do not think the question of press ownership is central to this debate. The fate of Central Europe as an issue is too remote to the domestic power struggles in Britain or America. The internal political configuration has, therefore, little bearing on the form of reporting about the subject. I believe that the determining factor is a concern with sales which dictates avoidance of controversial positions that would clash with sentiments which the editors assume are prevalent among the readers. The least controversial position are official NATO policies which the conservative press indeed tends to reflect.

This implies that what would have to be explored is the rapport which the editors have with their readers. It is indeed quite possible that the reporting style in the articles about Central Europe reflects English and American public moods towards those countries. Such a process would be extremely difficult to verify. Even if it was somehow confirmed, it immediately gives rise to questions about the origin of such moods and whether they are not themselves product of the reporting.

A lot of issues are, therefore, left open. For exactly this reason the purpose of the essay is rather modest. It is primarily to establish the particular way in which the selected periodicals tend to structure their notion of Europe. I shall also make attempts at interpreting possible motives for their choice of concepts and speculate about its implications.


4. Results of the Analysis


Among the most striking features was a disproportionately strong interest in the Soviet Union and support for the position of Mikhail Gorbachev, who several times appears on the cover. I interpret this as an endorsement of the Soviet interests at the expense of those of the Central European states. The coverage of the events exclusive to the U.S.S.R. typically counted for between a quarter and a third of the amount devoted to 'Eastern Europe'. However, the Soviet Union figured prominently also in articles dealing with other countries.

'Eastern Europe' was generally used more than fifteen times as often as 'Eastern bloc' or as 'central' or 'Central Europe'. However, there have been distortions caused by an interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, who consistently talks of "Central Europe", even if the question contains the words 'Eastern Europe'. Timothy Garton Ash in a series of articles in The Spectator tends to talk of "East Central Europe".

The use of 'Eastern Europe' as a geographical expression at the expense of 'Eastern bloc', which suggests a purely political arrangement, may be interpreted as a reflection of wishful thinking, of a hope that the present arrangement is here to stay because there are presumably good historical or geographical grounds for it. 'Eastern bloc' suggests a temporary arrangement; 'Eastern Europe' sounds more like a 'final' solution.

Writing central Europe alongside Eastern Europe, especially when quoting a speech by Vaclav Havel (The Guardian, December 11, 1990 p 10), amounts to provocation. The Editor of the newspaper is definitely aware the Havel is one of the authors who wrote extensively in defence of Mitteleuropa. He is also repeatedly referred to throughout "The Uses of Adversity", which was awarded the title of European Essay of the Year 1989 and which TIME regards essential for everybody who wants "to have more than a glancing knowledge of the subject. (TIME, November 27, 1989, p. 33)"

For example, in The Economist over the period studied, the expression 'central Europe' appeared altogether five times, whereas 'Eastern Europe' was used whenever referring to the European Warsaw pact countries. The record was nineteen occurrences of the latter in a single one-page article (9 December 1989, p. 13).

The general pattern of usage I found corresponds nicely with the following quotation from Ash. "If [the idea of Central Europe] merely reminds an American or British newspaper reader that East Berlin, Prague or Budapest are not quite in the same position as Vladivostok - Siberia does not start at Checkpoint Charlie - then it serves a good purpose. (Ash, p.180)" He implies that the notion of Central Europe should not be given any deeper meaning.

The Economist attempted to put up the case for preservation of the existing division of Europe in line with the 'West European model' in the least uncertain terms (17 November 1990). In an article titled "A Club for All Europe", it proposes

"Better to let those of Europe's institutions that have proved their worth build on what they do best [as against "institutionalization" of the Helsinki achievements]." ... "And why stop here? Grand designers talk of a Confederation of Europe, of European peacekeeping forces and of an all-European security system to replace NATO and the Warsaw Pact." ... "CSCE ... cannot be the foundation stone of a new Europe. ... "Nor can the CSCE wipe out the poverty line that still divides East from West." ... "The fatal weakness of the CSCE is ... that everybody can join ... Meanwhile, there are plenty of other institutions to join, from the IMF [in Washington] to the new European development bank [in London]." ... "Collective security does not work. If everybody is allied to everybody else, nobody is allied to anybody ... Such a system is a blueprint for collective insecurity, if not disaster. Which is why there will still be a need in the West ... for NATO. When it comes to real security, common values are the surest foundation."

The above is clearly a collection of unsubstantiated and illogical statements. Europe's Cold-War institutions proved their worth to very few nations. For the rest they meant political oppression and economic decline. Following the author's argument, even the United Nations has by implication a fatal weakness because everybody can join it and thus it is a blueprint for disaster. Moreover, we are sadly not informed which values the Warsaw pact is presumed to cherish. Nor it is explained how the so-called 'East Europeans' can be expected to share the values of the IMF and the London redevelopment bank so that those institutions may have some sure foundations.

On page 67 of the same issue, The Economist argues again for continuation of the present system. "What might NATO do? Unless things get much worse in the Soviet Union, it will not give these three countries [Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary] a public promise of protection; that would break the don't-irritate-Russia rule. ... The corollary is that democratic Eastern Europe will not poke fingers into the Soviet Union's agonies."

In its issue of November 20, 1989, TIME its position by titling an article by a simply "East is East and West is West". Outside the debate about Central Europe, a statement like this would appear obvious, but in this context it may be interpreted as a wish that the Soviet domination in Central Europe is a fact of life which is not desirable to change.

Several quotations illustrate the arguments which I have talked about. On the assertion that the 'West' was quite happy with the Cold War arrangements:

"Diplomats, blinkered by their prejudice in favour of the existing arrangements, ... are often the last to see what is happening. (George F. Will in Newsweek, December 18, 1989, p. 4)"

"Some Western Statesmen seem almost nostalgic for the old nuclear standoff ... and firm alliances." [Thatcher:] "When the ice breaks up, it can be very dangerous. (Newsweek, January 1, 1990, p. 28)"

"Then came collapse of communist rule in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria. Nominally, that collapse was what Western Europeans wanted. In fact, it will certainly complicate ... creation of a major Western European power. (ibid., p. 46)"

"Some hope [the EEC] will remain a restricted club of highly industrialized countries with a common democratic tradition." ... "[The CSCE] contrasts sharply with the model proposed by Jacques Delors, president of the European Commission. Delors envisions a Europe of "concentric circles. (ibid., p. 47)

"Over the long term, nothing is obvious; four decades of peace and unparalleled prosperity in the West had lulled us into believing that a convenient, though morally repugnant, world order would endure. ... The very last thing the EC needs now is a gaggle of new members that are both politically shaky and economically hopeless. (Newsweek, November 20, 1989, p. 26)"

[George Bush:] "...the process of reform initiated by the East Europeans and supported by Mr. Gorbachev" ... [TIME:] "Moscow will tolerate almost any political and economic system amongst its allies, so long as they remain in the Warsaw Pact. (TIME, November 20, 1989)"


On Western fears of increased German importance:


"[The EC politicians] worry about the Fourth Reich bestriding Europe with Berlin shoving aside Brussels as the centre of gravity. (Newsweek, December 18, 1989, p. 4)"

"All the elements of the new European dilemma meet in Germany, the richest, potentially most populous, traditionally the most expansionist state on the Continent. (Newsweek, November 20, 1989, p. 26)"

[Helmut Kohl's aide:] "Perhaps in time the U.S. will take care of places like Central America, and we will handle Eastern Europe. (Newsweek, November 13, 1989, p. 14)" ... "A more aggressive Ostpolitik, Bonn believes, will accelerate the decline of the old post-war order. The artificial division of Europe will end. (p. 18)"
5. Conclusions

On the basis of the material surveyed, it is difficult to establish any kind of fixed stereotype of an 'East European identity'. It may be simply because the journalists are aware that such a stereotype would be difficult to sustain. Instead it was possible to identify a clear tendency to create an impression that the Warsaw Pact countries constituted a region. It may be argued that this approach is a more effective way of putting up a case for preservation of the existing geopolitical arrangements. If those countries are alleged to share political values, culture, economic structures, then there is apparently no reason to look for alternative structures in Europe.

One issue which arises from this discussion is how the Western media could have succeeded in creating 'Eastern Europe' from a diverse collection of countries which until after the Second World War, had little in common. It would require a detailed analysis of media content in the years between 1946 and 1949 to find out whether some active process of rewriting the history occurred at that time. I am more inclined to believe that the factor which allowed for this development was that the general public in the Anglo-Saxon world is ignorant of European geography and history . When even the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain "knew nothing" about what was happening 600 miles from London, one can easily imagine a newspaper reader believing any stories which do not happen to carry internal contradictions.

The consequences of this media behaviour may be devastating, particularly in the cases of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, largely because a question of the effects the media have upon the formation of popular stereotypes among the general public and the business community. The form of news reporting using phrases such as "the Bulgarians in common with other East Europeans" or "in Rumania, just like anywhere in Eastern Europe" creates a ground for extension over the whole of the Warsaw Pact of the validity of individual negative events characteristic of particular nations. This has an especially devastating impact on Czechoslovakia and Hungary. In reality, they are by far the most industrialized and prosperous of the set precisely because they once belonged to Mitteleuropa. But since the whole of 'Eastern Europe' is assumed to be uniformly backward and culturally homogenous, they are constantly portrayed as parts of the bloc. For example, the Foreign Office makes no distinction between them in the case of economic policies, and consequently foreign investment is distributed roughly at random or the assistance is granted only to the poorest nations. Hardly any attempt is made to find out the causes of the evident unevenness. Since all those countries are assumed to be alike, the fact that some are more successful than others may then be explained away by such secondary factors as the introduction of a piece of radical legislation rather than by the existence of a developed industrial base and educated workforce.

Crudely speaking, the effects of the way of reporting described in this essay may be illustrated by saying that what, for instance, Czechoslovakia stands for to the average Englishman are actually the worst of Rumania's problems. In contrast to that, a Czech tourist commented on Peckham as, "It's not really England, because it's all immigrants." Asked what, in his opinion, was typical for England, he replied, "The City and places like Wimbledon." As I said, the media in the West do not adequately cover the anti-Soviet sentiments which many Central Europeans have. As a result, I had experience of meeting a number of English people who seriously believed in real friendship between the 'East Europeans' and the Soviets. Small wonder when The Independent (26 January 1991, p. 10) writes in connection with the recent danger of a Soviet refugee crises that "Czechoslovakia is less concerned now with a threat from its former capitalist enemy, than from its one- time ally, the increasingly unstable Soviet Union." In my opinion, allies do not normally invade each other, and as far as I know, Czechoslovakia has been concerned about a threat from the U.S.S.R. rather than from Germany for a much longer time.

There is also an interesting difference in how the "Peace Movements" see their objectives in the 'West' and in the 'East'. Whereas the 'Western' Left seems quite happy with the division of Europe and believes that all which is needed for geopolitical stability is reduction of the physical arsenal, the peace campaigners in the 'East' insist that arms reduction is an irrelevant or secondary issue for as long as half of Europe is occupied by the Soviet Union. In their view it is the antagonism between the Superpowers which is the source of tension in Europe and the recreation of some kind of a neutral Central European zone would help to solve the problem (Ash, p. 196).

Since the participants of the peace movement are normally associated with the 'Left' of the political spectrum unlike the periodicals I chose to survey which could all be labelled 'right- wing', it would be worth investigating whether there is any relation between, say, party allegiance and interest in preservation of the current division of Europe. In fact, in the past year, I was so annoyed at The Guardian's 'East-Europe bashing' that I was tempted to make another study comparing the portrayal of 'Eastern Europe' in The Guardian and in The Daily Telegraph. It appeared to me as if the latter which is regarded as a 'right-wing' newspaper tended to take a more careful approach. For example, I remember writing a complaint to The Guardian about out-right racist remarks in their sports section where they warned football club managers that 'East European' players were not adaptable to the 'Western' form of training (The Guardian, August 17, 1990).

For four decades, Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America were the main sources of news for the majority of the Czech public, and in this way the Czech public partly came to accept the 'West European Model'. This situation also conditions the work of the newly emergent indigenous non-communist media institutions, since the audience is accustomed to a particular style of reporting, including a different, foreign perspective. Some of their personnel have lived in exile. For example, the former editor of the East European Reporter, Jan Kavan, told me that the Ford Foundation originally refused to fund his publication if it contained the idea of Central Europe. He was thus forced to change the title to incorporate the concept of East Europe to secure the funding. Today, Kavan works in Prague.

Ash informs us that "the Communist authorities have done everything in their power to discourage the debate about Central Europe. (p. 211)" But so does the 'Western' press.

A more fundamental problem is why the Anglo-Saxon world has so great an interest in preservation of the notion of Soviet-dominated 'Eastern Europe'. I think that at this time, it is largely fear that economic control over the area would strengthen Germany's competitive edge.

Finally, it is clear that the recent changes in Central Europe are bound to produce long-term implications for the future development of the whole Continent. If the 'Western' nations want to avoid rising discontent and instability in the middle of Europe, they should express regret at their dealings at Yalta and stop labelling the Central-Europeans with stigmatized names. The ideology of 'Eastern Europe' worked well in the Cold-War era, but it is not sustainable at the time when the old order has eroded. After the fall of totalitarian regimes, the issues of geography and culture will regain preeminence, because the old political distinctions will not make sense any longer.

For the Central European nations themselves, the best thing to do would be to heed Adam Michnik's advice and to confederate. There is no hope for them to be admitted into the EEC or to be allowed any respectable role within the established 'Western' institutions, which will remain paralysed by the old style of thinking for a long time to come. On the other hand, the dangers coming from the Soviet Union are bound to remain overwhelming for some time. The only way forward for them is to build up a strong and united Central Europe by themselves and for themselves.




BIBLIOGRAPHY

Timothy Garton Ash - "The Uses of Adversity - Essays on the Fate of Central Europe", Random House, New York 1989

Norbert Elias - "State Formation and Civilization" - 2nd volume of "The Civilizing Process", Blackwell, Oxford 1982

Elie Kedouri - "Nationalism", Hutchinson University Library, London 1966