Czech geopolitics: Struggling for survival

 

Petr Drulák, Institute of International Relations, Nerudova 3, 118 50 Praha 1, Czech Republic, drulak@iir.cz

 

Introduction

 

The intellectual landscape of international relations (IR) is usually framed in terms of great debates whereby a particular intellectual position is presented in a dialectical unity with an opposite position (e.g. realism vs. idealism, rationalism vs. reflectivism). Even though the very social reality of debate is often illusory, the dichotomial frame brings some heuristic benefits. Thus, it is easier to define a position when a convincing foil can be found. Also, apart from situations of unchallenged hegemony, an assessment of the significance and dynamics of the position in the discourse is best done with respect to its alternatives.

          On this basis, I use the dichotomy of geopolitics and anti-geopolitics to assess the role of geopolitics in Czech political thinking and to explain why the revival of geopolitics in the 1990s was rather moderate and less significant than in some other parts of post-communist Europe. The explanation itself is based on evaluation of four factors which are expected to impact on the current role of geopolitics in the given national context (Guzzini 2003). A brief discussion of these factors is in order.

          Firstly, intellectual tradition of national political thinking matters. A strong revival of geopolitics can be put down to a materialist political tradition. On the contrary, an anti-materialist tradition, if there is any, can experience revival of its own marginalizing geopolitics. In this respect, the Marxist-Leninist historical materialism may need to be reckoned with as facilitating geopolitical revival in Central and Eastern Europe. However, it may also be useful to look further in the past examining the political thinking in the period since the 19th century when modern national politics started taking shape.

          Secondly, the construction of national interest matters. Geopolitical arguments are likely to be raised by governments which percieve themselves as great powers. Similarly, governments which are dissatisfied with the territorial status quo may use these arguments as well. On the contrary, ceteris paribus, small states with no territorial grievances should have no special affinity to geopolitics.

Thirdly, identity matters. Geopolitical arguments are part of foreign policy discourse and as such they are mutually constitutive with the national identity construction. In this respect, it is important how the significant others, to which the national identity relates, are chosen and conceptualised. Are they put in abstract or functional terms (democracy, electricity, communism, high tech, past crimes) or are they territorialized (East, West, Centre, river, mountains)? The territorial constructions of the national identity and its significant others lay ground for geopolitical reasoning, while at the same time being results of geopolitical reasoning. On the other hand, the functional approach is likely to encourage anti-geopolitical arguments.

          Finally, the academic field matters. How is the foreign policy knowledge produced? The institutional and economic background against which research takes place impacts on which themes are researched and how they are researched. In this respect, an institutional and financial independence of the research field from foreign policy-makers is likely to generate an academic discourse which is alternative to the official one no matter whether geopolitical or anti-geopolitical. On the other hand, the lack of independence is expected to reinforce the official discourse. 

          Now, I argue that the weakness of the Czech geopolitical revival can be plausibly explained by these factors. Firstly, anti-geopolitics dominates in the tradition of the Czech political thinking. Secondly, both Czechoslovakia and Czech Republic percieved themselves as small states being satisfied with their territorial conditions. Expectedly, it is at the times when these conditions are at stake that geopolitics tends to be briefly revived.

Thirdly, Czech(oslovak) identity and its others has been constructed in functional terms primarily. However, the construction is open to a territorial, and thus geopolitical, reading as well. Finally, a tradition of independent research is quite weak which means that traditionally the discourse of the foreign policy field is not confronted by an alternative discourse of the academic field. However, at the individual level, one cand find marginalized academic voices which offer either a geopolitical alternative to official anti-geopolitics or anti-geopolitical alternative to the official geopolitics.     

          I take three steps to substantiate these claims. To start with, I introduce the concepts of geopolitics and anti-geopolitics, pointing to geopolitics as one of the default theories of international relations which informs much of the common sense of international politics. Then, I define the anti-geopolitical position showing its significance in the Czech political thinking. Finally, I present the most important contributions to Czech geopolitics arguing that its intellectual peaks are linked with periods of territorial uncertainty.      

 

Geopolitics, anti-geopolitics and common sense

 

Given that geopolitics “is notoriously difficult to define” (Ó Tuathail, Agnew 1992/1998: 79), a brief introduction of basic concepts is in order. To start with, I introduce the concept of geopolitics together with the opposite concept of anti-geopolitics. Following this, both concepts are contextualized within the IR debates. Finally, I point to the significant contribution of geopolitics to what is usually seen as common sense in international relations. This close connection with common sense makes us distinguish practical geopolitics from formal geopolitics. Moreover, it turns geopolitics into one of the default theories of IR which are difficult to avoid when thinking and speaking about international politics. 

I understand geopolitics as “a policy-oriented discourse about a state inspired by its position on the map” (van der Wusten, Dijkink 2002) which raises several claims. The central claim of geopolitics is about its own objectivity which is supposed to be guaranteed by its focus on “the enduring conditions of the physical environment” (Basin 1987: 120 quoted in: Ó Tuathail, Agnew 1992/1998: 79). On this basis, geopolitics claims to provide an impartial perspective on international politics cleansed from ideology and from any discursive factors in general. In this sense, geopolitics is “a foil to idealism, ideology and human will” (Ó Tuathail, Agnew 1992/1998: 79) representing a determinist discourse, which analyses politics on the basis of geography evoking its unchanging, natural features.[1]

In contrast, anti-geopolitics (Routledge 1998: 245-254) stresses the role of ideas, human agency and the possibility of change despite the constraints of objective conditions. Moreover, it shows how deeply ideological the geopolitical claims can be; it reveals “the hidden politics of geopolitical knowledge” (Ó Tuathail 1998: 3). The distinction between geopolitics and anti-geopolitics can be contextualised within the IR debates. Firstly, geopolitics is on the side of realism and anti-geopolitics on the side of idealism in the first great debate. In this connection, geopolitics represents an offshoot of realist thinking, conceptualising realist struggle for power in more specific terms as a struggle for territory. Secondly, the anti-geopolitical critique of geopolitical determinism and materialism has a common denominator with a reflectivist critique of neoliberalism and neorealism (Ashley, Walker) which itself often relies on geopolitical arguments (Mearsheimer, Walt). 

Geopolitics also shares with realism an important function in the public discourse about international relations.  Like realism, it contributes to what is usually seen as common sense about international politics, providing taken-for-granted claims about international relations, which inform much of IR thinking.[2] Guzzini (1998) shows that realism as a discipline of social research represents an attempt by Hans Morgenthau (Morgenthau 1948) at translating what used to be a common sense of European diplomacy into the language of American social science. The neorealism of Kenneth Waltz (Waltz 1979) is then but another step towards the formalisation of the common sense of international politics. This observation helps us understand the great extent to which the language of practitioners of international politics and, indeed, of significant parts of the IR research, is realist (Beer, Harriman 1996: 6-7).

          A similar case can be made with respect to geopolitics in the sense that it formalises beliefs about a decisive function of physical space in international politics. Geopolitics can often point to powerful political figures such as Napoleon or Bismarck voicing these beliefs. In this connection, a distinction can be made between a practical geopolitical reasoning, “of a common sense type” (Ó Tuathail, Agnew 1992/1998: 79) and a theory-based, formal geopolitical reasoning. The very existence of practical geopolitics can serve as evidence of the important role of geopolitical thinking in the common sense of international relations.

The presence of geopolitical arguments in the common sense of international relations has several consequences. Most importantly, common sense functions as a discursive structure that makes one kind of statements possible or understandable while precluding other statements. In this respect, it facilitates geopolitical arguments while discriminating against anti-geopolitical reasoning. Hence, like realism, geopolitics serves as one of default theories of international thinking. Their grasp over international thinking makes realism and geopolitics to some extent inevitable in the public discourse, especially in the case of the discursive contributions, which advocate a specific opinion and are aimed at general audiences or at the audience of practitioners of international politics.

In this respect, even thinkers whose theoretical background is anti-realist and anti-geopolitical sometimes use the language of realism and geopolitics when trying to reach a wider audience. Jacques Derrida and Jürgen Habermas refer to the realist, balance of power vocabulary when arguing that Europe should “balance out the hegemonic unilateralism of the United States” (Derrida, Habermas 2003) despite the fact that their own theoretical work is clearly at odds with what realism stands for. Similarly, Václav Havel, a text-book example of an anti-geopolitician (Routledge 1998), claims that “our geopolitical position cultivated in us the sense for a moral dimension of politics” (Havel, Parliament, 23.2. 1993).

These clashes between practical geopolitics and formal anti-geopolitics should makes us methodologically aware of the fact that occasional embraces of geopolitical language cannot be equalled with the speaker‘s adherence to geopolitical thinking. On the contrary, the language of geopolitics can be used to support reasoning that is basically anti-geopolitical. This needs to be taken into account when assessing the role geopolitics in politicial thinking on the basis of what is said or written by key actors. Thus, geopolitical statements in the discourse of these figures needs to contextualised with respect to the basic tenets of the thinking of these figures, as they are revealed on other occasions, and with respect to the audience which is targeted by these statements. Such a contextualization makes it possible to distinguish between geopolitical discourse which is embedded in a true geopolitical thinking from geopolitical rhetoric which rellies on commonsensical templates to drive anti-geopolitical arguments home.  

 

Anti-geopolitical mainstream

 

The dominant tradition of the Czech thinking about international relations is anti-geopolitical. This argument is substantiated by a review of four highly influential figures, all of them being both public intellectuals and politicians, who have shaped both political thinking and practice in Czech countries since the second half of the 19th century: František Palacký, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Zdeněk Nejedlý and Václav Havel. I start with introducing each of them explaining his contribution to the Czech political thinking. Following this, I outline the most important anti-geopolitical arguments which have been shaping the mainstream of Czech political thinking.

 

Figures

  

František Palacký (1798-1876) was the great national historian whose History of the Czech nation, published in 1836, still informs the prevailing understanding of Czech history, based on the view that the Czech history is defined by a never-ending contacts and struggles between Czechs and Germans. Moreover, he was a political leader of the Czech liberal conservative party, who was seen as pater patriae by his contemporaries, at the time when Czech countries belonged to the Austrian Empire. He is also a member of the pantheon of national heroes worshipped by all important forces in the Czech society, including communists, still being seen as a source of inspiration for Czech political thinking.

Palacký greatly inspired Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1937) who transformed his legacy into a political program for an independent Czechoslovak state (Šolle 1999: 473). Masaryk started as professor of sociology, however, he turned into the political and intellectual leader of the Czech emancipation movement before the World War I. During the war, his exile negotiations with the Entente contributed to the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the rise of Czechoslovakia, whose first president Masaryk became. His influence is nicely captured by Gellner (1995: 49) who observes that Czechoslovakia “dominated by the spirit of Masaryk [...] had a foreign policy based on [his] philosophy.”

Zdeněk Nejedlý (1878-1962), Masaryk’s students, was historian and musicologist.[3] Before the World War II he was an influential public intellectual who defended the Marxist-Leninist perspective on a variety of political, social and cultural issues in the public discourse. After having spent his war years in Moscow exile, he became the first communist minister of education and social affairs in the Czechoslovak government. In the 1950s, he headed the Czechoslovak Academy of Science supervising research activities. In these functions, he was responsible for the Stalinisation of Czechoslovak education and research. When communists took over, Nejedlý was their most prominent intellectual and the only person in the communist top with a scholarly background. He layed grounds for the official Czechoslovak communist ideology being based on the Marxist-Leninist interpretation of Palacký and his former mentor Masaryk.

Václav Havel (born in 1936), playwright, anti-communist dissident and the democratic president of Czechoslovakia and Czech Republic, felt inspired by Masaryk with whom he also shared the fate of fighting against undemocratic regimes in the name of the truth, democracy and morality.[4] Even though Havel‘s influence over political thinking has never been as strong and uncontested as Masaryk‘s, he exercised a clear leadership in foreign policy discourse and practice throughout the period of post-communist Czechoslovakia (1990-1992).         In many respects, these figures are strange bedfellows. Still, they have several features in common. Firstly, each was recognised, at least for some time, as an ultimate authority in the public discourse. Hence, their work gives us insight into how the orthodoxy of the given period looked like. Secondly, they are related to one another to some extent. Both Masaryk and Nejedlý considered themselves as students of Palacký each of them reinterpreting Palacký‘s reading of Czech history in a particular way. In addition, Havel was keen on drawing on what he saw as Masaryk‘s legacy after having become the Czechoslovak president. Thirdly, the thrust of their thinking is anti-geopolitical, being based on either religious, moral, or social perspectives. Still, geopolitics is not totally absent from their discourse, especially, when they address general public or decision-makers in times of crisis.     

 

Arguments

 

The main argument of the Czech anti-geopolitics is traditionally based on a particular interpretation of the Czech history which identifies the Hussite period in the early 15th century as the greatest Czech historical achievement and the ultimate benchmark of the most important political projects. This reading of history makes little sense from a geopolitical perspective. The Hussite period is not connected with important territorial expansion of the state, unlike the Great Moravian period or the period of the rule of Přemysl Otakar II, nor with the peak of its political influence which most likely took place during the rule of Charles IV. In contrast, the Hussite period was the time of civil war, huge material destruction and foreign intervention. 

Why is it so highly valued then? Palacký considers Jan Hus’s attempt at reformation of the Catholic Church as an avant-garde of the European reformation a century later. This makes it possible to interpret the Hussite movement in universalistic terms as an early advocate of humanistic and democratic values (Válka 1999: 95). In this respect, Palacký also makes a careful distinction between Hussite movement in terms of the battle of ideas which he considers so highly, and the destructiveness of Hussite wars which he harshly criticises (Čornej 1999: 131-133) while approving that they were driven by ideas rather than by material interests (Bednář 1999: 64; Palacký 1868: 65).

Masaryk elaborates on this conception arguing that the Czech reformation introduced democratic ideas into theocratic Mediaeval Europe. The opposition between democracy and theocracy is central to his political thinking. While the former is defined in moral terms as individual responsibility and self-limitation, which does not need any external enforcement, the latter is associated with the worship of hierarchy and power politics as embodied by the Catholic Church or by what Masaryk calls the Prussian caesaropapism which according to him overwhelmed German culture, politics and thinking in the period (Masaryk 1925: 410-420). 

 He interprets the ongoing World War I as a fight of democracy (France, UK, and USA) against theocracy (Austria, Germany) with Czechs siding with democracy due to their Hussite tradition. Moreover, Masaryk understands history in a teleological way as a march from theocracy to democracy to which Czechs were early contributors.  This contribution allows Masaryk to argue for the Czech independence from the Austrian Empire from an ethical perspective and not from geopolitical or economic perspective.

Nejedlý shifts the interpretation of the Hussites a bit interpreting the Hussite movement as a revolutionary force in a reactionary Europe (Nejedlý 1951). In this respect, he replaces Masaryk’s liberal dichotomy, and teleology, of democracy/theocracy with a marxist dichotomy, and teleology, of revolution/reaction. Hussites turn from early democrats into early revolutionaries striving for a classless society. Moreover, Marxism-Leninism defined itself as anti-geopolitical, rejecting any kind of geographical or cultural determinism while replacing it with the teleological determinism of world revolution leading to a classless society.

After decades of a heavy abuse of the Hussite movement by the official communist propaganda, Havel does not make any attempt at resurecting its Masarykian interpretation. More generally, he is sceptical about great theories as such “put[ting] his trust, not in overall historical theory, but in the eventual victory of simple decency” (Gellner 1995: 55). Instead, his anti-geopolitics develops on Masaryk’s concept of democracy as being based on morality (Gellner 1995: 66). In this sense, Havel has offered his personal credo of “Living in Truth” with which he fought against the communist regime and which is also close to Masaryk‘s favoured slogan “Truth Prevails.”

Thus, Havel argues that politics has to be anchored in the moral awareness of individuals and of the responsibility for the world as a whole. Therefore, it cannot pursue the narrow interests of the particular country at the expenses of others. What he calls the “spirit of our foreign policy” is defined as a campaign for human rights and their universality and indivisibility (Havel 1999a: 487).

Even his comments on contemporary events are full of explicit rejections of geopolitical templates. The indivisibility of freedom provides him with grounds on which Havel defends Czechoslovak participation in the first Gulf War or his meeting with the Dalai Lama. He warns against “collective hatred in the shape of nationalism”, claiming that Central and Eastern Europe needs time to get used to the “otherness” (Havel 28.8. 1990). Havel also stresses friendship with Germany. He considers Germany as a pillar of European spirituality, appreciates that Germans started tearing down the wall dividing Europe and he even equates traditional anti-German feelings with anti-Semitism (Havel 15.3. 1990). All in all, Havel tries to avoid any externalisation and territorialisation of the negative other. Instead, he constructs the other (of hatred and intolerance) as being inside individuals and therefore it needs to be suppresed by their responsibility.

Now, this does not mean that none of the four figures would completely avoid geopolitical arguments in his discourse. All of them occasionally use geopolitics strengthening their arguments by refering to realities of map and physical power. However, they mostly do this with little consistency when reacting to territorial challanges of the day in newspaper articles, speeches and pamphlets.   

Thus, when Palacký proposes federalisation of the Austrian Empire, he argues that the Empire has been functioning as a geopolitical shelter of Central European nations, including Czechs, first against Turkish threat, and later against Prussia and Russia. However, when his proposals fail, Palacký comes up with the idea that the Czechs should act as a bridge between West and East calling for closer contacts between the Czechs and the Russia. Similarly, when pushing for the break up of the Austrian Empire during the war, Masaryk presents a variety of isolated geopolitical arguments (about Slavic alliance, against pan-Germanism, or defending the particular shape of the Czechoslovak borders) targeting leaders and diplomats of the Entente, as well as Western public opinion (Krejčí 1993). However, these arguments do not add up to any consistent geopolitical perspective of international politics which could be compared to his anti-geopolitical thought.

On the other hand, Masaryk’s very conception of history and democracy was open to geopolitical reading. The conception suffers from a contradition between a positivist, Comtian law of history (transition from theocracy to democracy) and a moral and metaphysical understanding of democracy (responsibility and human agency) (Patočka 1991). The contradiction made it possible to read Masaryk in a purely positivist and geopolitical manner (Gellner 1995), namely, that “the Spirit of World History” (in the shape of a march to democracy) was located in the West and the Czechs pragmatically chose alliance with the Western powers to be on the winning side of history. The geopolitical reading of Masaryk also facilitated an intellectual acceptance of the communist regime by a slight redefinition  of “the Spirit of World History” as done by Nejedlý. In this reading, the Spirit of History (in the shape of the march towards classless society) was located in the East, and on this basis the Czechs pragmatically chose an alliance with the Eastern power to be on the winning side of the history again.

Even though Havel gives up on any kind of simplified teleology, he occasionally uses geopolitical arguments as well. This is to some extent connected with the audience. In Poland, Havel argues for Central European cooperation “to fill the power vacuum which came after the fall of the Habsburg empire” (Havel, Polish Sejm, 25.1. 1990). Similarly, he reminds the American audience that Czechoslovakia is in the centre of the continent, and its political stability is important for Europe (Havel, U.S. Senate, 21.2. 1990). Moreover, the geography becomes unavoidable when the end of Czechoslovakia is discussed. Thus, warning his fellow citizens against splitting up, he points to such threats as floods of immigrants from the East, doubts about borders, or the revival of divisions in Europe (Havel, Federal parliament, 10.12. 1990; Havel, TV, 2.6. 1992). However, none of these statements refer to any underlying principals comparable with his conception of human freedom.

 

Czech geopoliticians: lingering on margins

 

Even though anti-geopolitics tends to prevail in the mainstream of Czech political thinking, this generally anti-geopolitical mainstream has had its own geopolitical margins. And these were occasionally quite broad. It was especially in times of territorial changes that geopolitics briefly gains some influence. In this respect, three periods are especially important: the foundation of Czechoslovakia (1918), the destruction of Czechoslovakia by the Munich conference (1938) and split up of Czechoslovakia (1992). During these turmoils, geopolitical arguments emerged which justified the existence of the state in terms of forces and geography rejecting the anti-geopolitcal mainstream which stressed norms and ideas.

          In the early 1920s, Viktor Dvorský (1882-1960), a leading geographer, member of the Czechoslovak delegation at the Versailles conference, and the founder of formal geopolitics in the Czech environment, provided the arguments for the existence of sovereign Czechoslovakia against the claims by Austria or Germany. In the late 1930s, Jaromír Korčák (1895-1989), economic geographer and the founding father of Czech demographics, is motivated by the belief that the official Czechoslovak anti-geopolitical thought is unable to engage the German geopolitical claims which doubt Czechoslovak sovereignty and territorial integrity (Korčák 1938: 7).  

As the the crisis of the Czechoslovak state deepens in the early 1990s, the anti-geopolitical mainstream, shaped by Havel, is challenged by geopolitical arguments again. This is connected with a change in ruling elites. The former dissidents surrounding Václav Havel were succeeded by pragmatic economists led by Václav Klaus. Although their worldview was mainly shaped by neo-classical economics, they were much more open to geopolitical reasoning than the previous dissident elite. The brief embrace of geopolitics by this political elite can be explained according to their need to differentiate themselves from the previous elite, which they criticized for neglecting Czech interests and for stubbornly insisting on keeping Czechoslovakia together. Hence their geopolitics came into being as a negation of Havel’s anti-geopolitics while also providing justification for the split up of Czechoslovakia.

In contrast, a dissident geopolitical perspective of Oskar Krejčí, who draws on pre-war Czechoslovak geopoliticians, heavily criticises the decision to split Czechoslovakia. Krejčí rejects both Havel’s anti-geopolitics and official geopolitics seeing both of them as pro-German ideologies jeopardizing the very Czech national existence. Despite his rich publishing activity, Krejčí has been barred from any academic job in the Czech Republic since 1990 because of his close connections with the communist establishment and intelligence services in the 1970s and 1980s. In this respect, Krejčí represents that part of Czech society that perceives the fall of communism and transition to liberal democracy as a loss.

 

Viktor Dvorský: Czechoslovakia as a newcomer on the map 

 

Dvorský, who acknowledges his debt to Ratzel, turns against the Masaryk-dominated mainstream in several respects. Firstly, geography and force rather than norms and ideas dominate history and politics. Secondly, the identity of the Czechoslovak nation does not stem from the Hussite movement but from the Great Moravian state. Thirdly, the tension between Czechs and Germans is basically irreconcilable. 

Dvorský presents geopolitical reasoning as part of a new “science about states”, or “biology of nations” (Dvorský 1918: 63). He is dismissive about international law in general and about the League of Nations in particular, particularly if they do not respect geography, arguing that borders change by force and not by law. Dvorský believes that territories are the true agents of history, having decisive influences upon the evolution of states, and it is “states that make nations” and “not nations that make states” (Dvorský 1923: 19). Each territory has its natural boundaries; all formal borders are only temporary unless they correspond with natural ones. His discussion of borders is based on the distinction between basin states, whose centers are around rivers and their borders in mountains, and dorsal states, which occupy mountains and have their borders in valleys. Plainly, two neighboring entities of the same kind can easily agree on their shared borders, whether the mountains or the basin between them. However, basin states and dorsal states will have trouble existing side-by-side as basin states will seek their borders in the centers of dorsal states and vice versa.

 With respect to Czechoslovakia, he sees it as a perfect geomorphologic unit with clear natural boundaries with Germany in the shape of mountains, and which is open to the Slavic East and the South-East (ibid. 16-19). That is why the nation on the territory is Slavic and why Christianity came from Byzantium. The key national territories of the Czechoslovak nation are three basins: the Moldau-Elbe basin, the Morava-Thaia basin, and the Danubian basin. The Morava-Thaia basin gave rise to the Great Moravian state in the 8th century, where the Czechoslovak nation was born. After the Hungarian invasion in the 10th century the Great Moravian territory was split and the centre of the Czechoslovak nation moved to the Moldau-Elbe basin in the northwest, which was better protected by surrounding mountains. The Czechoslovak state with its center in Prague on the Moldau is thus “a restitution of the Great Moravian state in the same sense as current Italy is a restitution of the Roman Empire” (ibid. 22).

Unlike Masaryk, Dvorský does not derive the modern Czechoslovak identity from the Hussite movement but rather from the Great Moravian state. In this respect he is rather critical about the Hussite reformation, as he argues that it destroyed religious and national unity, thus bringing about the end of the Bohemian kingdom. Moreover, the tension between Czechs and Germans is interpreted as a clash between basin and dorsal states rather than a clash between democracy and theocracy. Dvorský claims that the Czechoslovak western border is a place of tension between the German dorsal strategy (to draw the border inside the Elbe-Moldau basin), and the Czechoslovak basin strategy (to draw the border in the surrounding mountains). The Czech-German tension is thus seen as geographically inevitable.

 

Vladimír Korčák: Czechoslovakia disappearing from the map 

 

Korčák provides a geopolitical analysis of Central Europe that points out the geopolitical weakness of the region, the geopolitical unsustainability of the Austrian empire, and the natural shape of Czechoslovakia. However, his theory is also skeptical about the future of liberal democracy, praising some aspects of its totalitarian challengers.

Korčák considered himself a disciple of Dvorský. However, besides the Ratzelian influence (Ratzel 1899/1921), Korčák also drew from the French geopolitical thinking (Vidal de la Blache 1910; de Martonne 1930; Demangeon 1932; Ancel 1936; Brunhes 1920), which prompted his interest in human geography. This human dimension is strongly reflected in the central concepts of his theory. Thus he introduces the notion of the “tribal area” (kmenová oblast), which is a geographical area with a very long continuity of human settlement where a distinctive ethnic group had been formed under influence of both physical geography and migratory waves (Korčák 1938: 16-17). It serves as the “genetic kernel” of the nation. “Action centers” are established tribal areas with an especially high concentration of people. They influence their greater neighborhoods emanating “geopolitical energy” (ibid. 39-40). There are four such centers on the European continent: the Eastern Mediterranean, Italy, Western Europe (between the Rhine and the Seine) and the Baltics.

          However, Central Europe, defined as the Central Danubian floodplain, has never been an action centre because it is sharply divided, lacking an integrating central area. This is the case because a large chunk of its territory actually does not fit in (ibid. 45-47). Korčák contends that Alföld, (the great plain East of the Danube containing most of Hungary’s current territory) is completely different from the European plains that host European action centers. Geologically, it is comparable with the Asian steppes, which are not suitable for a sedentary life based on the cultivation of land. As a result, Alföld was inhabited by nomads for millennia, failing to develop sedentary life and European urban culture. Thus, instead of giving rise to a specific tribal area it served as a passage for the repeated Asian invasions that disturbed European progress. On this basis, Korčák argues that the basin is not a natural geographical unit and, therefore political bodies which try to unify it, such as the Austrian empire, are doomed.

Still, there is a powerful tribal area in the Central Danubian floodplain, which is located at the intersection of several important passages. This is the Lower Morava River floodplain (the central part of Czechoslovakia, and northeastern part of Austria)—an important tribal centre since the Neolithic period (ibid. 53) and tribal area of the Czechoslovak nation. This area gave rise to the Great Moravian state, which fell after the Avarian invasion from Alföld. The invasion brought about what Korčák calls “the greatest geopolitical loss” of Czechoslovak history (ibid. 101), namely, the split of the Morava River floodplain in the 11th century, whereby an important part of the area came under direct control of the Holy Roman Empire, becoming the cradle of the Austrian state.

However, drawing on Dvorský, Korčák identifies two other Czechoslovak tribal areas: the Elbe River Lowlands in Bohemia and the Danubian lowlands in Slovakia. Korčák argues that both tribal areas are very well connected with the Moravian tribal area, from both geographical and demographical perspectives. Firstly, the mountains separating the areas are rather low and easy to pass. Korčák also claims that from Moravia it is even easier to connect with Slovakia than with Bohemia (ibid. 80). Secondly, all three areas were connected by the Celtic inhabitation, making them receptive to later absorption by the Roman culture and by Slavic migration.

In this respect, he pictures Czechoslovakia as a natural geopolitical entity, whose appearance in 1918 is only the renewal of what had existed a millennium before and had been destroyed by Alföld. Similarly, he emphasizes the connection between the Czech lands (Bohemia and Moravia) and Slovakia, which was increasingly doubted in the late 1930s. However, the very same Alföld prevented the geopolitical unity of the Austrian empire, making it quite an artificial construction.

The admiration of physical force which comprises part of the geopolitical theorizing of both Dvorský and Korčák translates into Korčák’s ambiguity about Nazism. On the one hand, he sees Nazi Germany as a mortal threat to Czechoslovakia, while on the other hand he admiringly identifies Germany with the Baltic action center, which is the youngest and the most dynamic of the four European action centers (ibid. 158). Therefore Germany is also a source of inspiration as a new, dynamic Europe. In this respect, Alföld, which is seen as a negative influence in general, turns out to be beneficial. Korčák argues that the loosening of the links with West, brought about by Alföld, prevented Central Europe from developing some Western weaknesses connected with the “effeminacy of urban life and an excessive interest in material welfare” (ibid. 160). This makes Central Europe “young”, and able to learn from the mistakes of the West.       

         

Official geopolitics in the early 1990s

 

The public discourses of prime minister Klaus and foreign minister Josef Zieleniec frequently relied on a variety of geopolitical arguments. This new discourse delimited itself against the Czech anti-geopolitical tradition. Thus, not only has Klaus often criticized Havel for his idealism, but he also took on Masaryk, reproaching him for focusing too much on normative theory without standing up for the national interest (Klaus 200). The definition of national interest was very much a matter of geopolitics, which the foreign minister saw as “the most important factor of foreign policymaking” (Zieleniec 1993).

Despite these claims, the geopolitics of the new elite was not embedded in any systematic geopolitical theory. However, the geopolitical statements were a matter of political expediency, justifying the split of Czechoslovakia and demonstrating the belonging of the Czechs in the West. It was thus claimed that after the split the Czech Republic re-orientated itself towards the West, losing contacts with the post-Soviet and Danubian spaces, making the state more stable and more transparent to the West (Zieleniec 1992a; Zieleniec 1993). Similarly, it is often emphasized that the Czechs “have been part of Western Europe for 1000 years, with the exception of 40 years” (Zieleniec 1992b), which is occasionally supported by a contestable claim that Christianity came from Rome, and not from Byzantium (Klaus 1992). The Western orientation of the official geopolitics also included good relations with Germany, as Klaus proclaimed the St. Wenceslavian tradition (named after the Bohemian sovereign who strove for accommodation with the Holy Roman Empire) the basis of Czech national existence (ibid.).

The official geopolitics also had support in academia. Bořek Hnízdo lecturer in Political geography at Charles University, who introduced Anglo-American geopolitical theories to Czech students and researchers (Hnízdo 1995) provided several geopolitical arguments supporting official policy. Hence he argued that the Czech Republic is in Central Europe no matter how the region is defined, and that due to its location Central Europe has to be included in any scheme of pan-European integration (ibid. 85). Similarly, he argued that the communist Eastern orientation was unusual in Czech history, and that it was Slovakia which drew the Czech lands to the East. Therefore, the split of Czechoslovakia was beneficial in bringing the country to the West. In this respect, he argued that the building of a new oil pipeline from Germany, and the connections to West European highways networks are likely to facilitate a “geopolitical transition” of the Czech Republic from an “East European” to a “West European” country (ibid. 96).

 

Dissident geopolitics

 

Krejčí (1993) mainly draws upon the Czech geopolitical thinking of Dvorský and Korčák, while also presenting Palacký and Masaryk as geopoliticians.[5] His analysis of Central European region relies on Korčák. Therefore, he pays great attention to the period from the 10th to the 11th century when, “Czech statehood had taken its fundamental shape”, and when “fundamental geopolitical givens had arisen” which persist until the present day (ibid. 26).

This period starts with the fall of the Great Moravian State after the Alföld incursion the late 10th century. Krejčí considers the Great Moravian state the greatest achievement of Czech history: the state controlled vital, pan-European merchant routes and was able to balance the German influence by intensive contacts with the Byzantine Empire. Its fall brought about several adverse effects, which shaped Czech statehood for centuries to come. Firstly, the core of the state shifted northwest from the Moravian tribal area, where conditions had been optimal, to the Elbe plain, which was harder to control and consolidate. Secondly, the Czech and Slovak territories were split. Thirdly, the Hungarian-German alliance cut off the Czech state from the Byzantine Empire, making the German empire the exclusive focus of Czech politics. In the 16th century, Alföld again intervened. Under the Turkish threat, the Empire was centralized, and the Czech state completely lost its autonomy.

On the basis of his geopolitical reading of history, Krejčí identifies three traditional orientations for Czech foreign policy: German, Western and Eastern (ibid. 120). The German tradition is least desirable—it consists of embrace of pan-German ideology and the subordination of Czech interests to German ones. In contrast, the Eastern tradition fares best. Drawing on the Great Moravian connection with the Byzantine Empire, the tradition boils down to a quest in the East (Russia) for allies against Germany. The Eastern block, cemented by Slavic ideology or proletarian internationalism, is deemed unbeatable. The Western tradition is second best, to be applied only when the Eastern great power is too weak or when it allies with Germany itself (ibid. 121). It also balances against Germany, but does so by looking for allies behind Germany (France, UK). 

Krejčí observes that after the split of Czechoslovakia and the fall of the Soviet Union, the Czech Republic came inevitably into the German orbit. Krejčí bemoans that contemporary Russia is too weak and too distant to matter in Central Europe. In this connection, he claims that the current Czech political elite is unfit to pursue the national interest as it pushes the country further into German hands by rejecting a Slavic orientation, and by relying on France and Britain, which are weak, or on the USA, which ignores German dominance as long as it is not military.

 

Institutionalism: anti-geopolitics strikes back

 

So can we conclude that Czech political and academic discourse is currently dominated by geopolitics? Not really. After its heyday in the early 1990s geopolitics faded away. No new geopolitical conceptions have appeared, and the ones that were presented were hardly elaborated upon. Geopolitics returned to its usual place in the margins. Instead, the Czech political discourse is dominated by a broadly-defined institutionalism, connected with the study of and accession to NATO and the EU. Hence the focus is on institutional reforms, procedures, and policies rather than on the spatial dimension of international politics.

This is hardly surprising. A brief review of the Czech geopolitical thinking of Dvorský, Korčák and Krejčí showed that this kind of geopolitics is difficult to reconcile with the unquestioning respect for democracy and international law which constitutes Czech political thinking after 1989. Although the official geopolitics of the early 1990s did not draw on this undemocratic tradition and, therefore, did not clash with democracy or international law, it did not develop any alternative concepts which would make it attractive, instead staying at the superficial level of political statements. Moreover, its main message that the Czech Republic is climbing out of the Danubian mess might have been good PR in 1992/1993, but it became redundant when most of the Danubian countries were also invited into NATO and the EU.     

 

Conclusions

 

The embrace or rejection of geopolitics can be seen as a rejection or embrace of human agency. Czech political thinking has tended to be rather anti-geopolitical in stressing religious, moral, legal, or social perspectives. This tradition also emphasized freedom, responsibility, and agency at the expense of determinist constraints of the geopolitical kind. The best example of this focus is Palacký’s interpretation of the Hussite movement, taken further by others, as a free expression of democratic ideals and a high point of Czech history. These ideas have also been sedimented in the Czech identity construction to some extent thus facilitating the acceptance of anti-geopolitics.   

Still, geopolitics has been an important undercurrent in Czech political thinking, coming to brief moments of dominance in times of turmoil when the territory of the state was re-defined. Czech geopolitics represents a determinist discourse drawing on the German geopolitical tradition. While anti-geopolitics celebrates the Hussite movement, most geopoliticians consider the Great Moravian State as the defining moment of Czech history. In their accounts geographical factors and quasi-natural migration patterns call all the shots, while agency is totally absent.

To sum up, in Czech political thinking, a discourse stressing human freedom and responsibility dominates in stable times, while a more determinist discourse takes over in times of turmoil. Moreover, given the revival of geopolitics in other post-communist countries it can be argued that this link between a lack of political stability and a rise of geopolitics represents a more general phenomenon which can also be found elsewhere. Although the question as to why this is so has yet to be properly addressed, it may be argued that a return to geopolitics offers a return to the perceived certainties of a common sense whose particular construction is deeply ingrained in our modernity. Hence times of uncertainty may induce the embrace of geopolitics as a bulwark of certainty.  

 

 

 

         

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[1] These features may refer to physical geography (rivers, mountains, resources). But as Huntington shows,  they can also refer to cultural geography.

[2] Ó Tuathail (1996: 168-169) makes a brief observation on the links between geopolitics, realism and common sense about international relations.

 

[3] Basic information about Zdeněk Nejedlý can be found at www.libri.cz/databaze/kdo20/ search.php?zp=2&name=NEJEDL%DD+ZDEN%CCK

[4] Masaryk is the person Havel referred to most frequently in his speeches in the 1990s (Havel 1999b).

[5] This, however, leads him to ignore the normative parts of their work, which clearly dominated their thinking. Krejčí’s selective bias is strengthened by his focus on their contributions to the political discourse rather than on their scholarly works, where it is much more difficult to find traces of geopolitical thinking. The case for Palacký being a geopolitician rests mainly on his newspaper articles, open letters and pamphlets. In the case of Masaryk, Krejčí focuses on his publications from the time of WWI, rather on his previous scholarly work

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