The Borders of Orientalism: “Europeanization” in Hungary and Ukraine

Abstract

In recent English-language social science, “Europeanization” has been used to refer to institutional transformation and it has also been treated as synonymous with processes related to the EU. The mainstream of the relevant literature does not distinguish between “Europeanization” as a process and “Europeanization” as a concept. The institutional/practical and the mythical/ideological dimensions of “Europeanization” are conflated in politics, which provides people with a social myth and a powerful tool for manipulation. We distinguish the two dimensions of “Europeanization” and use the cases of Ukraine and Hungary to illustrate that the concept of “Europeanization” becoming a myth may hinder the process or exist without the real process, thereby creating a simulacrum of “Europe”. We also show that advancing in the process (e.g. achieving EU membership) does not change the dynamics of the concept (Orientalism and its self-imposed varieties).

Notes

¹ This, incidentally, supports findings about the impossibility of constructing a “true” “Europe” and the discursive challenge of identifying the “self” of the EU (see Kovács).

² For a skeletal outline and some important dates of Hungarian history in English, see <http://www.fsz.bme.hu/hungary/history.html> (accessed Feb. 11, 2008).

³ The quote may be found at <http://www.mfa.gov.hu/kum/en/bal/foreign_policy/hungary_in_the_world> (accessed Feb. 11, 2008).

⁴ Two aspects of note about the quotation and the promise it entails, are: “European integration” is described as ongoing after achieving membership in the EU; and the reunification of the nation is necessarily something that will have to transcend existing state borders and therefore it presents an interesting conflict between statehood and nationhood.

⁵ <http://www.day.kiev.ua/260184/> (accessed Feb. 20, 2008). Some seven million Ukrainians live abroad.

⁶ Government Portal: Ukrainian Diaspora. <http://www.kmu.gov.ua/control%5Cen%5Cpublish%5 Carticle%3Fart_id=236194&cat_id=32672> (accessed Feb. 20, 2008).

⁷ Throughout this project, we the authors have produced our own translations of texts in the original languages.

⁸ The Agency website carried the news on its homepage, which also features the symbol of the EU. The news item is available at <http://www.nfu.hu/content/962> (accessed Feb. 11, 2008).

⁹ This article also goes into quotes from right-wing former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán about how the opening of (some) borders is the true end of the legacy of state socialism. It can be found at <http://www.kitekinto.hu/bem-rakpart/2007/12/21/schengen_a_varva_vart_hatarnelkuliseg&s=rss> (accessed Feb. 11, 2008).

¹⁰ The FigyelöNet article is available at <http://www.fn.hu/kulfold/20071229/fico_schengen_ nem_jelenti> (accessed Feb. 11, 2008).

¹¹ These derogations could be seen as not offending against principles of equal treatment only if there was a certifiable single path of progress that all countries or at least all EU countries are progressing on. The existence of any such single path of development is not supported by any evidence and therefore derogations are tools of second-class status.

¹² “Lets build Europe in Ukraine!” was a key slogan of the Socialist Party of Ukraine headed by A. Moroz during the election campaign to the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine) in 2006.

¹³ On the deployment of coloniality in the dynamics surrounding the EU, see Böröcz and Kovács, and Engel-Di Mauro.

¹⁴ American historian Allen writes about Ukraine: “Under Vladimir the Saint (980–1015) and Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054) the Kievan State—a historical phenomenon in the highest degree peculiar and even strange—reached the stage of its full expression in less than a hundred years. Rostovtsev, the historian of the Greek and Iranian synthesis of South Russia, could not resist the temptation of concluding his work with an outline of Kievan Russia. “The extraordinary difference which existed between Kievan Russia and WESTERN Europe to this day appears inexplicable. In the West—agriculture and feudalism; in Russia—trade and the city-state” (11).

¹⁵ <http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/ukraine/2006/ukraine-060201-rferl01. htm> (accessed Mar. 15, 2008).

¹⁶ The term originated in a number of articles and books by Ryabchuk (e.g. “Ukraine: One State, Two Countries?”).

¹⁷ These numbers come from <http://euvideo.mti.hu/news.asp?newsid=1585> (accessed Dec. 27, 2004).

¹⁸ The material reviewed in this section is part of a larger project presented at the Midwest Political Science Association Conference in April 2005 under the title “So that Accession will be No Question: Ontologies in Promotional EU Accession Materials in Hungary.”

¹⁹ What is translated here as “Hungarians” here is “magyarság,” the term whose literal meaning is “Hungarianness” and that refers equally to the trait of being Hungarian and the ensemble/community of all people who are Hungarian. Because of the meaning related to the group as well as the characteristic, this term is one of the most loaded and most frequent tropes of Hungarian political discourse.

²⁰ See Kovács.

²¹ Please see Note 20 about “Hungarianness” and its attending translation issues.

²² See Wolff.