Introduction to the Borders and Boundaries edition of eSharp

David Smith and Richard Berry, Central and East European Studies, University of Glasgow

Borders and Boundaries in a 'New Europe': Beyond the East-West Divide and the Nation-State?

The end of the Cold War and the ongoing deepening and widening of the European Union have often been seen as synonymous with a fundamentally new vision of Europe. In the initial euphoria which accompanied the fall of the Berlin Wall, many commentators hailed the end of the 'artificial' East-West political divide and the prospective emergence of a Europe 'whole and free'. For American academic Francis Fukuyama, the fall of the Berlin Wall constituted nothing less than the 'end of History' - henceforth the former socialist countries would have no option but to embrace the values of the West and join an expanded Euro-Atlantic community.

This discursive recasting of geopolitical boundaries coincided with equally far-reaching claims concerning the future of the nation-state. In this regard, it was suggested that the old Europe of clearly-bounded sovereign states was giving way to a 'New Medievalism' characterised by a complex pattern of overlapping jurisdictions and authority at many levels. The growing supranational authority of the European Union is cited as a key factor in this development, whilst the model of the homogenous and unitary nation-state has also been challenged simultaneously 'from below': the management of ethnic and cultural diversity - including demands for greater autonomy on the part of national minority groups and sub-state regions - has become an imperative for all European states, both East and West.

Whilst the above vision is often seen as unique to the post-Cold War era, it was in fact discussed with equal if not greater vigour during the 1920s, when the clear shortcomings of the post-World War One peace settlement intensified the quest for a 'New Europe'. In the context of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in particular, the end of the Great War brought no durable regulation of regional affairs. The peace settlement not only failed in its stated aim of satisfying all groups seeking national self-determination, but also excluded the neighbouring great powers of Germany and Soviet Russia from the new League of Nations framework. The new borders that were established following the collapse of empires were both detrimental to regional economic development and a bone of political contention. Recognising that redrawn borders alone could never 'solve' the national question within the multiethnic patchwork of CEE, a determined group of liberal minority activists set out to undermine the notion of ethnically exclusive control over territory which sat at the heart of the nation-state model. They believed that by recognising the rights of national minorities to non-territorial cultural autonomy it would be possible to separate culture from politics - just as previous European settlements had helped to separate religion from politics - and redefine the state as a 'shared territorial space' of the different ethnic groups residing within it. The achievement of a pan-European guarantee of minority rights on this basis was in turn viewed as one of the essential prerequisites for the construction of a 'United States of Europe' in which borders would be rendered 'invisible' and nationalities as well as states would constitute subjects of international law.

The prospects for realising these goals would appear far better in the contemporary era, where the nation state is more contested and the idea of transnational political organisation no longer a distant utopia. Yet, in many respects, the vision of a united Europe 'beyond the nation-state' seems as far away today as it did between the wars. In their approach to the question of minority rights, for instance, the EU and other International Governmental Organisations have yet to challenge the principle of state sovereignty, having confined themselves to a basic framework document which allows individual states to define the term 'national minority'. Minorities thus remain objects rather than subjects of international law, subject to differential treatment according to their status (note here the distinction that is drawn between 'historically-rooted', 'national' minorities on the one hand and 'new', 'immigrant' minorities on the other), while double standards are clearly discernible in the demands placed upon western and post-socialist states respectively.

The vision of a 'Europe whole and free', meanwhile, raises the obvious question of how 'Europe' is defined. Here, significant debates remain concerning geographic boundaries and the issue of which states can rightly claim membership of the European Union. As security analyst James Sherr has noted, EU (and NATO) policy in Eastern Europe has been informed by 'two powerful impulses: enlargement and exclusion'. In this regard, the Union's recent expansion to include CEE has created a new category of 'outsiders' in the form of Russia and the western CIS states, countries which have no realistic prospect of admission despite the fact that 'Europe' is integral to their self-definition. In the wake of enlargement, these 'new neighbours' find themselves divided from the EU by the hard external border which is the corollary of the Schengen provisions for free movement within the Union (This border, incidentally, is routinely referred to as the 'New Berlin Wall' by adjacent communities on both sides). Thus, whilst the ideological conflict that underpinned the Cold War has now plainly been laid to rest, the emergence of the 'outsiders' underlines the continued power of the imagined East-West division of Europe which can be traced back to the 18 th -century Enlightenment. Even those CEE states that recently entered the EU have not been accorded an immediate status of equality with the 'old' members. Rather than hailing the enlargement as a historic step towards the reunification of Europe and the banishing of a conflictual past, media, and political circles in the existing member states all too often framed it in terms of an unwelcome encroachment by the 'Eastern Other'. Suggestions that enlargement would trigger mass migration from the acceding countries have brought into focus the continued gulf in living standards between East and West (often conceptualised as a 'silk / silver curtain') but have also highlighted the 'securitisation' of debates on migration which has intensified in the West following 9/11.

As the geographer Graham Smith noted in 1999, it would be deeply unwise to regard the post-Soviet transition as somehow pre-ordained. Smith's work on this subject is dismissive of Fukuyama 's rosy triumphalism, yet it also emphatically rejects those accounts that view the cultural divisions and ethnic conflicts of the past as equally inevitable (in this connection, he refers especially to Samuel Huntington's 'clash of civilisations' thesis). Above all, notes Smith, it is 'essential to acknowledge the possibility that differing and overlapping forms of identities are in the making, which refuse to follow the totalising contours of such essentialist theorising'. This statement, I think, neatly conveys the essence of the 'New Europe' that is emerging.

David Smith
Central and East European Studies
University of Glasgow

To mark the emergence of the 'New Europe', eSharp has devoted its third edition to the theme of Borders and Boundaries. This theme has inspired a variety of interpretations, with contributors discussing issues of boundaries in terms of politics, literature, music and the media. Many are concerned with how borders and boundaries, acting as frameworks or barriers, define and delimit expressions and conceptions of identity.

From a historical perspective, Leslie Dodd makes a compelling case for a re-examination of the complexity of barbarian identity in post-Roman southern Gaul . She investigates the ways in which different barbarian groups emphasised or attempted to erase cultural boundaries between them and native Gallo Romans in order to preserve their sense of self. This article serves to show that the question of multiple identities is not new, but part of the flow of history.

Current debates on European identity centre on the EU. However, as Heather Baird points out, the EU does not encompass all of Europe : Bulgaria and Romania aspire to membership, yet there is no guarantee that their joining the EU will end the East/West divide which still makes itself felt on the continent. The economic dominance of the 'gang of six' continues to create a boundary between existing and new members.

In the post-Cold War world suppressed regional identities have resurfaced and have become the object of scholarship as Muller and Schultz discuss in their recent work, 'National Borders and Economic Disintegration in Modern East Central Europe'. These issues are taken up by Sergei Jakobson-Obolenski who examines Kaliningrad's double-periphery status in Europe, comparing its position to that of the Baltic States . These issues are taken up by Sergei Jakobson-Obolenski who examines Kaliningrad's double periphery status in Europe in light of the recent accession of the neighbouring Baltic States to the European Union.

Research into nationality and identity has produced considerable research, including David J. Smith and Marko Lehti's 'Post-Cold War Identity Politics - Northern and Baltic experiences' (2003). Other research has concentrated on Globalisation and its impact on sovereignty, including Erszbet Szalai's 'Post Socialism and Globalisation'. Here in Scotland we have been forced to confront notions of identity and nationhood as evidenced by the creation of the Scottish parliament and what this means for the population as a whole, an issue examined by Murray Leith. Ever changing notions of national sovereignty and international political movements are examined in Kerri Woods's timely paper on the issue of a global green politics agenda in a world of nation-states.

Of course people can have multiple identities, based not just on nationality, but also sexuality, gender and ethnicity, and this edition of eSharp addresses many of them. Francesca Stella examines the complex world of sexuality and diversity, and its portrayal in the press in post communist Russia , while Laura Cashman looks at the experience of the Roma in the Czech Republic.

These are incredibly fluid environments which are made all the more important when we consider these issues in yet another aspect of boundaries: that of human rights.

Boundaries are also to be found in culture. Colin Vernall examines the impact of the reunification of Germany on art in Berlin, arguing that despite the disappearance of a physical border between artists, a boundary continues to exist within the community as an elite section of artists enjoy the majority of opportunities in the city. The fact that cultural boundaries are not static is evidenced in the reinterpretations of Wagner in Yoon Park 's piece. Park examines the ways in which Wagner crossed religious boundaries to draw on Buddhism and Christianity when exploring the concept of redemption.

James Landau complements this theme in his reinterpretation of Frankenstein. Arguing that a realistic reading of Frankenstein, in which Victor and the monster exist independently, is a trap, Landau suggests that instead the monster must be seen as part of Frankenstein's process of mourning for his lost loved ones. Further questioning of boundaries between genres can be found in Kirsty Jardine's work on I. B. Singer's 'The Mirror', in which she examines why Singer used a fairy-tale style, and that key fairy-tale symbol, the mirror, in a short story written for an adult readership. Jim Ferguson's poetic contribution can make one think of the old adage that poetry is at one and the same time the most national, even local, form of identity but one that also manages to be intrinsically international.

The wide range of papers and themes makes for a stimulating and informative contribution to the multifaceted issue of borders and boundaries.

Richard Berry
Central and East European Studies
University of Glasgow

eSharp issue: autumn 2004. ISSN 1742-4542.