Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PANIC (Pan-Ideologies in Central Europe: Paradoxes of Right-Wing Self-Orientalism.)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-09-01 al 2025-08-31
This research project was conceived at a time when Hungary had already undergone significant authoritarian transformation under a right-wing populist regime, while Slovakia’s political trajectory remained uncertain. Despite their differences, both countries demonstrated a growing revival of panideological traditions—such as pan-Slavism and pan-Turanism—rooted in their Habsburg and interwar legacies. The project set out to explore how these ideological frameworks are mobilised across institutional settings, particularly in the context of cultural policy, public memory, and political performance. Its comparative, ethnographic approach combined long-term fieldwork and participant observation with discourse and institutional analysis.
During the course of research, the invasion of Ukraine and the intensification of Russian soft power initiatives in Central Europe significantly reshaped the field. These geopolitical shifts brought into sharper focus the interplay between nationalist mythologies and global imperial ambitions, particularly the role of smaller states in legitimising broader neo-imperial projects.
The project’s central analytical concept is self-orientalism—the internalisation and reproduction of colonial epistemologies from the subaltern position, often reframed through narratives of historical victimhood. In Hungary and, increasingly, in Slovakia, this takes the form of adopting externally imposed civilisational imaginaries and strategically reworking them into political tools that grant symbolic authority and moral capital. Rather than rejecting dominant colonial discourses, these regimes invert them, casting themselves simultaneously as victims and guardians of ancient civilisational missions. This subversive reappropriation serves to justify authoritarian governance and cultural homogenisation.
The research demonstrates how such self-orientalising strategies operate through discursive and performative mechanisms, including historical revisionism, the ritualisation of trauma, and the transformation of cultural institutions into ideological apparatuses. While effective for mobilising emotionally charged public sentiment and reinforcing populist legitimacy, these strategies also produce significant unintended effects. Chief among them is recursive polarisation—a dynamic in which populist regimes fragment their own support bases through escalating internal divisions and ideological rigidity.
Ultimately, the project reveals how political actors in Hungary and Slovakia adopt the identity of the ‘other’ not to resist the epistemology of othering, but to occupy a privileged position within it. This strategy, while powerful in the short term, undermines longer-term political cohesion and exposes the fragility of populist consensus in an increasingly polarised and volatile regional landscape.
During the course of research, the invasion of Ukraine and the intensification of Russian soft power initiatives in Central Europe significantly reshaped the field. These geopolitical shifts brought into sharper focus the interplay between nationalist mythologies and global imperial ambitions, particularly the role of smaller states in legitimising broader neo-imperial projects.
The project’s central analytical concept is self-orientalism—the internalisation and reproduction of colonial epistemologies from the subaltern position, often reframed through narratives of historical victimhood. In Hungary and, increasingly, in Slovakia, this takes the form of adopting externally imposed civilisational imaginaries and strategically reworking them into political tools that grant symbolic authority and moral capital. Rather than rejecting dominant colonial discourses, these regimes invert them, casting themselves simultaneously as victims and guardians of ancient civilisational missions. This subversive reappropriation serves to justify authoritarian governance and cultural homogenisation.
The research demonstrates how such self-orientalising strategies operate through discursive and performative mechanisms, including historical revisionism, the ritualisation of trauma, and the transformation of cultural institutions into ideological apparatuses. While effective for mobilising emotionally charged public sentiment and reinforcing populist legitimacy, these strategies also produce significant unintended effects. Chief among them is recursive polarisation—a dynamic in which populist regimes fragment their own support bases through escalating internal divisions and ideological rigidity.
Ultimately, the project reveals how political actors in Hungary and Slovakia adopt the identity of the ‘other’ not to resist the epistemology of othering, but to occupy a privileged position within it. This strategy, while powerful in the short term, undermines longer-term political cohesion and exposes the fragility of populist consensus in an increasingly polarised and volatile regional landscape.
The research project combined training, ethnographic fieldwork, and dissemination of results to both academic and wider audiences. Fieldwork was carried out in Hungary and Slovakia and included participant observation and expert interviews. Findings were presented at several international conferences and congresses. A special issue titled “Paradoxes of Historical Revisionism in Authoritarian States” was published in the Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe (Summer 2025). In collaboration with the Institute of Social Anthropology at Comenius University, a workshop entitled “Culture as Propaganda: The Transformation of Cultural Institutions under Populist Regimes” was held in Bratislava in Winter 2025. Several publications emerged from the project, and a book proposal was developed based on the research findings.
This project advances the state of the art by introducing a new framework for understanding how right-wing populist regimes in Central Europe use self-orientalism—the strategic adoption of colonial narratives from a subaltern position—to legitimise authoritarian governance. Unlike prior work that treats self-orientalism as a passive identity issue, this research shows its active role in cultural policy, historical revisionism, and populist mobilisation. Through comparative ethnographic fieldwork in Hungary and Slovakia, the study reveals how panideologies (e.g. pan-Slavism, pan-Turanism) are revived and institutionalised in ways that support neo-imperial narratives and deepen social polarisation.
Key results point to the urgent need for locally grounded, historically informed civic education that can resist the misuse of historical analogies and imperial nostalgia. The project identifies further research needs in the emotional and performative dimensions of authoritarian cultural governance. To ensure uptake, outcomes will be translated into educational resources, academic publications, and public engagement formats. A book proposal has been developed, and international collaborations are planned to extend the research. Findings are relevant for EU democracy-support programmes, offering tools for cultural resilience against populist manipulation.
Key results point to the urgent need for locally grounded, historically informed civic education that can resist the misuse of historical analogies and imperial nostalgia. The project identifies further research needs in the emotional and performative dimensions of authoritarian cultural governance. To ensure uptake, outcomes will be translated into educational resources, academic publications, and public engagement formats. A book proposal has been developed, and international collaborations are planned to extend the research. Findings are relevant for EU democracy-support programmes, offering tools for cultural resilience against populist manipulation.