Mobilizing National History against Refugees: A Czech Polemic on Migration

Abstract

Abstract The article analyzes the radical anti-migration ideas promoted by the respected Czech historian Jaroslav Pánek and the debate around them as a case study in how history is used, or not used, to substantiate anti-refugee and anti-migrant policy and emotion. Starting by outlining the arguments in Pánek’s book European Migration Crisis, a response to the migration “crisis” of 2015, the article further discusses the broader context of reactions to refugees in the Czech Republic and the controversy that developed after its publication. The final section analyzes Pánek’s longer intellectual trajectory and traces the roots of his anti-migration positions in his earlier historical research. While many of Pánek’s views can be easily dismissed as fabrication, conspiracy theory, or nationalism, it is essential to read such arguments carefully in order to understand the backlash against refugees in the formerly Communist countries. His book is an example of how national and regional history can be mobilized to negate the transition from emigration to immigration societies. Pánek’s choice of usable past demonstrates how nationalist historiography complicates the discussion of refugee reception in the region with the experience of uncertain democracies, ethnic conflicts and cleansing, and a history of emigration.