Emil Brix: We Have Too Much History

Do you think that mentally we, as Europe, have managed to overcome the Iron Curtain?

I hoped for that after 1989, but now I see that we didn’t succeed. I blame, at least partly, the structure of the European Union.

The structure of the European Union has a Western European notion: Western European countries still make the most important decisions, we still have the idea that the cooperation between France and Germany is politically the most important one.

This structure has a Western European notion: Western European countries still make the most important decisions in the field of economics, we still have the idea that the cooperation between France and Germany is politically the most important one, etc. There have been too few attempts on the Western European side to include Central European countries in that golf club. And this is not only about economics or politics. In the EU we speak a lot about European values, but we are not ready to discuss it with Central European states.

Does the West treat Central Europe as something worse? In the book, you quoted data according to which fish fingers in Austria contain 65% of fish while in Slovakia only 58. There are plenty of similar examples. Why is this so? It looks like Western Europe treats Central Europe as something inferior.

This is the consequence of the market economy. When we confront some companies with these figures, they answer that it has to be done, because the taste of Central Europeans is different from the taste of Austrians. But what they are really saying is that the logic of capitalism is to sell the same product at different prices or different products at the same price if this allows them to make more profit. They use similar capitalistic tools that were used in the colonies for a long time. You cannot build equal relationships as long as this form of economic logic continues. This creates resentment. This is much more important than the idea of Ivan Krastev who claims that the real problem is that the East was only imitating the West and resentment emerged when the East realized that this is nothing but imitation.

Professor Jacek Purchla wrote in his introduction to Mitteleuropa Revisited: “Not accidentally Austria was the only western country that did not see itself before 1989 as part of the East”—was that the case? Even Poland? You didn’t have that concept of two Europes?

This is absolutely correct. But it was not because Austrian politics was more advanced. It was a question of experience. At least for the political elite in Vienna, it was clear that we have a geopolitical situation that is not genuine and natural. Moreover, it was easier for Austrians to cross the Iron Curtain. We also knew how to help dissidents in Poland or Czechoslovakia after 1968 or 1981. We had our historical experiences. Also, as a neutral country, we had a different position. Just look at the fact that it was Austria which was the transit country for the migration of 300,000 Jews from the Soviet Union to the free world.

You underline historical links but it happens to be quite challenging. Countries like Russia still suffer from the so-called post-imperial syndrome. Hungary also experiences very strong so-called Trianon syndrome. Does Austria—which is only one country that used to be an empire at the beginning of the twentieth century and now is not a leading world power any longer—also suffer from this disease?

No, you cannot find post-imperial trauma within Austrian society and politically this does not exist at all. My feeling is that, different from Hungary, Austria never saw itself as only a victim of the past.

How did you manage to avoid this self-victimization?

Because of the good economic development between 1945 and 1989. Becoming a prosperous country helped us avoid developing this idea that we have always been victims. Austrians don’t feel bad about lost territories, not even all that much about the loss of the German-speaking South Tyrol (Alto Adige).

Secondly, Austria is one of the few countries where national identity was able to develop although we have a neighboring country where the same language is spoken. This is something unusual in twentieth-century Europe. It also helps us avoid post-imperial syndrome.

You cannot find post-imperial trauma within Austrian society and politically this does not exist at all. My feeling is that, different from Hungary, Austria never saw itself as only a victim of the past.

You mentioned special ties between Austria and Germany. I’m wondering when the willingness of at least part of Austrians to unify with Germany disappeared entirely?

Immediately after 1945. It was very clear that the only way to gain independence was to end the German dream in Austria. To erase this dream, the occupation of four World War II allies up until 1955 also helped. Today this is not a question at all— most Austrians would agree that it would be better to restore the Habsburg monarchy than unify with Germany.

In the book, you underline how important it is to cover all the terras incognitas in one’s history. Poland is trying to do this right now but it’s going slowly and painfully: an example is an ongoing discussion on the Polish attitude towards Jews during the war. Did Austria manage to deal with its historical dilemmas like Kurt Waldheim or Anschluss?

Yes, but it took us a long time. We succeeded because in our economic system w were able to develop a strong middle-class and an active civil society that pushed for looking into history in a much more open way than it was before. Take a look at what is going on in Belarus. The economic situation there is not bad. They still have cheap energy from Russia, and they produce the best chips for computers for American companies. But they are missing the Central European part. More and more people in Minsk are asking: how can we develop a strong middle-class civil society which we need to develop a national community that is acceptable for the majority of the Belarussians and that may help them take part in the political process? This is the experience that we have in Central Europe and we can share it.

But why is history so important in our region? Conflicts over the past burst out over and over again, much more often than in the US or the UK. How can we get rid of these constant dilemmas?

We have too much history in Central Europe. There are so many layers, experiences, approaches, perspectives, the identity situation is simply much more complex. Arguments about the past have a direct connection with building a national identity. Western countries like France or Britain managed to build a common collective identity from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, sometimes brutally. In Central Europe, it took us much longer and we even up until now face the challenge of building common ideas about our past within our societies. As a consequence, we have many more issues that need to be discussed. Nation-building processes are as a rule finished in most Western European countries, but are still dynamic in Central European ones.

But this is not only the case in our region— take a look at Spain for instance. They struggle with their past in search of commonalities. This concerns how to judge the Franco period but also how to ‘manage’ the past and the future of the Catalonians.

It was very clear that the only way to gain independence was to end the German dream in Austria. To erase this dream, the occupation of four World War II allies up until 1955 also helped.