Commentary: Central Europe Is Elsewhere

Abstract

Paul robert magocsi has written an informative and intelligent article about the relationship between the various nation-states of central Europe that found themselves behind the Iron Curtain and their respective national diasporas in North America. His comparison of the relationship between the countries and their diasporas at the “temporal nodes” of 1918 and 1989 suggests that the real difference between the two was that in 1918 the ideal of the nation-state was in the ascendancy, both in America and among the various central European national groups, whereas in 1989 the American diasporas were still beholden to the nation-state ideal at a time when their counterparts “back home” had moved on from the outdated nation-state ideal to embrace the supranational—or at least multinational—ideal of the European Union. This explains the relative importance of the diasporas in 1918 and their unimportance in 1989. Given the parameters of his subject, this is in general a useful and thoughtful thesis. There are, however, some points of detail that I would like to address; and, particularly for those who are interested in Austrian history and notions of Central Europe (with a capital “C”), there are broader aspects to the question, outside the given parameters, that merit discussion. It is to these broader aspects, centering on what we mean by “central European diasporas” and indeed “central Europe,” that the following commentary is mainly devoted.