1(7)|2015

ISSN 2084-8250 | gbp€4.99 | euro€6.00 | PLN 16.00 innovators raising

Szilvi Koleszár Rafał Flis /Skool/ /Social Wolves/

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1 (7) | 2015

circulation: 6,000 frequency: twice a year

editor-in-chief Wojciech Przybylski (Res Publica, PL)

Assistant Editor Anna Wójcik (Res Publica, PL)

Economy Martin Ehl (Hospodářské noviny, CZ)

Intelligent Mind Éva Karádi (Magyar Lettre International, HU) Marta Šimečková (www.salon.eu.sk, SK)

Contributing editors Katarína Kucbelová (SK) Máté Zombory (HU) Marek Sečkař (SK)

Associate Editor Juraj Čorba (Stredoeurópska nadácia, SK)

Language Editor Vera Schulmann (USA)

Photo Editor Jędrzej Sokołowski (Res Publica, PL)

Social Media Editor Szymon Grela (Res Publica, PL)

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Published by Fundacja Res Publica im. H. Krzeczkowskiego Gałczyńskiego 5, 00-362 Warsaw, Poland 0048 22 826 05 66, [email protected]

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Webpage: www.visegradinsight.eu

We kindly thank Res Publica intern Karolina Jesień for her work for this issue. On the cover Szilvi Koleszár (Skool) and Rafał Flis (Social Wolves) photographed by Jędrzej Sokołowski

Visegrad Insight is published by Res Publica Foundation with the kind support of the International Visegrad Fund. The magazine maintains full editorial independence and opinions expressed in the articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily have to reflect or represent the official position of the International Visegrad Fund, the Visegrad Group or the publisher. EDITORIAL

For generations, countries of Central Europe have invested in a great change of education – from primary schools to universities, doors and minds have been Raising the opened to free thinking and a truly liberal education. It’s time to ask how to raise the talents of tomorrow to at least sustain the long lasting effects of that strategic talents of reform. In the last issue of the Visegrad Insight we announced the New Europe tomorrow 100 project, a list of challengers – one hundred people from the broadly understood region of Eastern Europe who are the drivers of the world's innovation. From sci- PIOTR BEKAS PIOTR ence to business, from civic activism to politics and administration we are proud to identify and then meet in person many of those talents. No doubt, that the project was a great success, much owed to the individual and collective sum of achieve- ments we identified – after last year’s edition we were more than encouraged to repeat it every year.

Hence, together with the team of Res Publica, Visegrad Insight’s publisher, we had a long session of critical thinking. Indeed, the New Europe has been trans- formed by an unprecedented progress brought about by cooperation of such in- novative challengers as that one hundred and several more that we hope to identify and announce in the years to come. But the obvious question is: for how many more years will we be able to make such lists? What will help the number of nominees grow and what will narrow it down to the non-exceptional margin of society? And the obvious factor turns out to be education.

We decided to focus on education in this issue, acknowledging it to be the most strategic policy area in respect to innovation. How to ensure that our school- ing system will inspire open minded, innovative and courageous citizens? As we cannot know ourselves what the next 25 years will bring, we cannot program some definite tracks to follow. Yet, we must make a decision in respect to both potential economic demand and outputs as well as the ambition to be among the leaders of the free, democratic world.

Wojciech Przybylski This discussion is not new. To the contrary, regardless of political circum- Editor-in-chief stances, history has recoded countless political debates like this – from classical Plato’s academia and Rousseau’s ‘Emil’ to the recent clash between Obama’s call for technical education for utilitarian ends and Fareed Zakaira who responded The spirit of innovation springs with a romantic praise of liberal education. The Central European debate is just as out from the courage to experi- timely. We dream of pursuing the societal and economic progress further. We write ment and to think critically. on the best ideas to make it happen.

Read more about the challengers ne100.org

3 contents illustration: Jan Bajtlik illustration: europe Educational alternatives Assembly 6 Survey: What sort of education? Zoltán Balog, Pavel Bělobrádek, Benjamin Cunningham Włodzisław Duch, Peter Pellegrini, line Filippo Addari 12 Assembly line. Education and the information age Benjamin education Cunningham 17 In praise of the liberal arts Iván Szelényi and the 22 Looking for Hercules, or the quality of higher education in Slovakia Oľga Gyárfášová 26 A Case for the Visegrad College for Advanced Studies Leszek Koczanowicz information 28 Watchlist: educational initiatives

age page Economy 21

How universities pay off Jan Bajtlik illustration: 32 Of money, quality, and love Martin Ehl Of and on what motivates people to pursue money, quality, love higher education. 35 It is foreigners who help us survive Martin Ehl Julie Daňková and Martin Ehl what motivates 40 Who’s coming to study in the V4? Matteo Tacconi people to pursue higher page 44 Inquiring minds before all Richard education 32 Berkley photo: SAMUEL KUBANI/AFP/EAST NEWS KUBANI/AFP/EAST SAMUEL photo:

Interview Scenarios for Ukraine 48 Decentralization must happen. Iveta must happen Radičová talks scenarios for Ukraine with Wojciech Przybylski

Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk 54 Questions at dusk: or the reciprocity of progress and regression Péter Nádas 64 Where are the faces? Borders, Nations, and Banknotes Aleš Debeljak Iveta Radičová New Europe 100 talks scenarios Innovative minds for Ukraine 70 Digital catch up is not enough with Anna Wójcik Wojciech Przybylski page48

4 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 contents photo: Ulf Andersen/Getty Images Ulf Andersen/Getty photo: Visegrad Abroad CE disrupted Questions at dusk 72 Losing faith. What is Visegrad to Poles? Wojciech Przybylski or the reciprocity of progress 76 CE disrupted. Where does the and regression disagreement come from? 78 Were we defeated in Slavkov? Jiří Schneider 80 It’s getting crowded Henry Foy 82 The group and the press Eric Maurice 84 Towards mixed development profile Zsuzsanna Végh

Culture Inciting debates 86 Translators’ guide to new fiction Tomasz Grabiński and Margit Garajszki Péter Nádas page 88 Book reviews by Aleksander 54 Kaczorowski, Michal Musil, Juraj Kušnierik, Imre Bartók illustration: Ola Niepsuj illustration: 94 Poland’s controversial Oscar Filip Mazurczak Central and 98 Central and Eastern Europeans in Eastern pirate libraries Bodó Balázs discusses in Europeans knowledge diet in the digital age Pirate 103 Technology: the best new apps 104 Let's talk, neigbourhood. New “We Four+” talk show Štefánia Košková 106 The world through a V4 lenses. The Bodó Balázs page Libraries 98 phenomenon of the Opava Institue of Creative Photography Katarzyna Sagatowska Bára Prášilová Bára

World through V4 lenses The phenomenon of Opava Institute of Creative Photography

Katarzyna Sagatowska page106

5 Europe Educational alternatives

[survey] What sort of education?

6 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Educational alternatives Europe

The higher education of the future should not only serve the needs of the economy, but should stimulate growth as well. Necessary conditions include reinforcing the connections be- tween higher education and economic actors, and establishing interaction and mutual feedback between the two parties. An obvious way to address this is the introduction of a dual vocational training (DVT) system, one that is known in Europe but has not been introduced everywhere.

Zoltán Balog Cooperation to foster economic growth Minister for Human Resources The foundations are in place; from September 2015, 1,100 stu- in the Viktor Orbán government dents were able to start their education in a DVT system in Hungary. Institutions of higher education have signed part- nership agreements with about 350 external partners working in the fields of economics, mechanics, IT, and agriculture, and As a member of the European these programs are all open to future students. Twenty-one Union and the Visegrad Group, higher education institutions will offer DVT courses in 79 BA and one MA programmes from September this year. To fur- Hungary’s task is to face the challenges ther develop DVT programs before their launch, higher edu- affecting the European community. cation institutions have access to more than 7.3 million euro If Hungary addresses questions of provided by the EU. European education and employment What the future holds Hungarian higher education reform has set a goal of having a well, it may be advantageous for minimum of 8% of students starting university studies in DVT the whole region. BA programs by 2020. Even in the first year, both institutions offering DVT training and programs starting in September are quite popular amongst applicants. Nearly 7% more students ne of the most important missions of Hun- have applied to these as compared to 2014. gary for the future is to provide training Based on the amount of applications, the popularity of for the next generation that is tailored to DVT programs has increased by 14%, by nearly 12% and by individual abilities, ensuring appropriate 8% in the fields of IT, mechanics and economics, respectively. job readiness. Our currently developed The Hungarian answer to the European questions of edu- training system aims to link the economy, cation and employment lies within the harmony in between education, training, and higher education the economy, higher education, and training. Hungary is mov- even more closely. ing in the right direction.

TOhe starting point While Hungarian higher education is among the world’s high- est performing in some areas, there are still a number of areas in the system that do not provide marketable skills or knowl- edge. We have to address these problems. We want to substi- tute these “seedling-trees” of the current system with training that provides the opportunity of a career and a workplace from the very beginning. To achieve this, we need an even more close connection between higher education, the economy, and the job market. This will also foster innovation.

7 Europe Educational alternatives

What sort of education?

tion. Last but not least, young people are not prepared for de- manding studies due to a poorly functioning school system. What to do? A number of competitions and prizes like Česká hlava attempt to return the engineer title of M.A. in phys- ics to its former prestige. I also make an effort, but this is a long distance run. My priority is to improve cooperation between scientists and industry. I also believe that – thanks to a new law in support of science and the creation of a department of sci- ence, research and innovation, which I am building – we may Pavel Bělobrádek make some progress with this problem. The key is to increase Deputy Prime Minister for Science, Research the motivation of companies to use research institutions to in- and Innovations and Chairman of the Christian troduce innovation, as well as scientists to commercialize their Democratic Party, Czech Republic discoveries and ideas. With regard to education, the problem starts not in in high school, as is often thought, but already in elementary school. It is here that we have lost twenty years. If we do not teach chil- Innovation has been a kind dren mathematics, physics, and especially critical and logical of political mantra for at least ten thinking already in elementary school, it cannot be made up in high school. The trend of replacing grammar schools with years, as knowledge society was vocational schools to “satisfy market needs” is only in reaction before. How it is possible, with all to the limited knowledge of elementary school graduates. In reality, the people who succeed on the market tend to be those this emphasis on the potential of who have had a general education as long as possible, not those innovation and education, that we still who specialized already at the age of fifteen. To sum up, if businessmen in technical fields complain lag behind technology leaders? about a lack of undergraduate and graduate engineers able to bring about innovation, they are right. They could improve on urprisingly, the main problem is not money, this by investing more in Czech research and development. The even though there could be more. Neither is state would then be forced to vastly improve the education sys- a lack of brainpower, although our universi- tem from scratch. ties could be higher in world rankings. The If we would again like to become an innovation tiger again, main problem is an effective use of resourc- we should be better at using our resources; not wasting money es – both financial and intellectual. on research that brings about no results and not letting good Nobody doubts that we need more brains leave – either abroad or for the humanities. This is easily graduates in the natural and technical sci- said but much harder to implement. ences. We cannot really expect industrial innovation from stu- Sdents of the humanities. The question is how to bring about Translated by Martin Ehl greater numbers of mathematicians, physicists, chemists, and engineers? I do not much believe in state planning or coercion. Even today – thanks to the activities of individual schools – some technical universities offer superb stipends, well-paid practical experience and the best and most motivated teachers. So why don’t students go to technical schools en masse? Firstly, because law and economics are much more prestigious. Secondly, we lack the ability to put scientific results into prac- tice, and potential students have only a relatively small number of really successful models – Professor Holý is truly an excep-

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What sort of education?

universities, which would allow for a better understanding of the possibilities of this rising medium. For too long we have focused on catching up with more developed countries in well-established fields, and neglected investment in emerging disciplines. This has to change. At the same time, if we want creative industries to flourish, we have to appreciate the humanities, as they play a pivotal role in educat- ing top professionals for breakthrough industries: the gaming industry needs storytellers to develop engaging narratives, com- Włodzisław Duch posers and musicians to compose and register musical scores, Undersecretary in the Polish Ministry and graphic designers to take care of the visual aspects of their of Science and Higher Education product. The National Center for Research and Development concentrates on investment in biotechnology, the pharmaceu- tical industry, and energy, yet it is open to collaborating more with creative industries in the future. Introducing entirely new solutions Unfortunately, the Polish research system adapts to op- happens rarely . We therefore usually portunities at a slow pace, partially due to bureaucratic loops. For example, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education ap- understand “innovation” to mean proves the list of scientific disciplines and allocates the corre- improving already existing institutions, sponding research funds. It ultimately holds up the creation of new, interdisciplinary fields. Both the academic community and organizations, processes, and products civil servants are well aware that this issue has to be resolved, to achieve greater efficiency and have but so far to no avail. Ministries do not employ futurologists. Civil servants a more sustainable impact on our are, however, listening to discussions taking place in the Polish surroundings. Academy of Sciences and at universities. They would also ben- efit greatly from participation in strategic conferences devoted nnovators are frequently faced with obstacles, rang- to the future of technology and emerging industries. It is our ing from a lack of understanding and support from responsibility not only to monitor new challenges concerning their professional and personal environment to vari- healthcare, the environment, or energy, but also to develop the ous legal, organizational, and technological difficul- framework to meet them. There is room to maneuver, as we ties. Facilitating communication between people must adapt historical structures to a fast-changing environ- with ideas and people who can put them to prac- ment. Still, the system we have established thus far gives a great tice is one of the core challenges we currently face. deal of opportunities to researchers and developers alike. Hence the popularity of incubators, clusters, and hubs, settings designed to foster creative processes, to give This is abbreviated version of a longer interview published in full in Res Ipeople the benefit of the doubt, and the space for experimen- Publica Nowa 3 /2014. tation. Several have been already established in cooperation with universities in Poland and I hope their numbers will grow Translated by Anna Wójcik in the coming years. There is great potential in networking scientists with individuals and companies who can scale up their ideas. Despite past efforts, there are still industries that need more support from the government, for instance the fast-de- veloping area of interactive media. The gaming industry has become more attractive for global investors than the film in- dustry, yet it still lacks cohesive support in Poland. I strongly advocate for research on different aspects of gaming at Polish

9 Europe Educational alternatives

What sort of education?

early at school and helping them develop a passion for sci- ence and technology are vital. It is absolutely crucial to create conditions that enable young people to develop their abilities and talents naturally. This task can be accomplished only by involving teachers, parents, the state, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector alike. In order to secure growth based on innovation, we should also direct our energy and capacities toward innovating and improving the education system and aligning it more closely Peter Pellegrini with the needs of Europe’s rapidly modernizing economy. We Speaker of the National Council need to change the way we educate students. Young people of the Slovak Republic need to understand the issues that our world faces, how they affect us, and how we can address them. In order to succeed in the information age, they need a mixture of different skills applicable in the 21st century, such as presentation and com- Education is universally munication skills, the ability work in a team, creativity, flexibil- regarded as a key driver of social ity, and the ability to use technology. Today’s society requires people to take initiative. We need to teach students to set and and economic progress. This is one meet their own goals. This will be a long-term and complex reason that education is so high on process requiring the right mix of investment in modern tech- nology, infrastructure, digital content, and expanding the e- the political agendas. Governments skills of teachers. Additionally, companies need to be more everywhere, including in Slovakia, involved in the education process, not only at the university level, but also through cooperation with secondary schools. want schools and colleges to better prepare young people to live and work in a rapidly changing society.

nfortunately, Slovak schools and univer- sities are a case study – of which there are many more examples around Europe – in producing an excess of graduates in professions for which there is currently relatively low demand, and not enough technical workers. We have a lot of highly educated but ill-qualified graduates. We live in a world being transformed by technology. More Ubusinesses than ever are looking for workers skilled in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math. These disciplines are at the heart of modern societies, leaving no field untouched, from agriculture via medicine to aviation. Ana- lytical and problem-solving skills are becoming increasingly valuable. Young people who can innovate and cooperate with others could drive the nation’s innovation and competitiveness by generating new ideas, new companies, and new industries. If we want more young people who are interested in science and technology, we should – dare I say it – make science both “sexy” and cool. Getting young people involved in science

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What sort of education?

of their actions. This may result in thinking about the economy in a long-term perspective, and making people more open to change, more creative, and more entrepreneurial. Institutional innovation is another issue. The meaning of the term is twofold: it often refers to institutions such as gov- ernment agencies or think thanks that promote innovation in various fields, but I am more interested in the second meaning of the term, namely how institutions can transform themselves in innovative ways. We are currently witnessing a debate on the Filippo Addari future of universities, which is a good example of this type of Director of International Strategy and Head thinking. Another would be microcredits, an institutional inno- of EuropeLab at the Young Foundation vation in the economy providing access to credits for the most unprivileged people. Institutional innovation is transformative; microcredits have changed not only millions of individual lives, but have progressively changed banking by introducing some- In discussing education, skills, thing new to the banking sector. innovation, and business we sometimes Inducing established financial institutions to step into microcredits results not only in the development of new finan- lean toward parody, especially when cial products, but also enhances the profile of microcredits. As we expect people to be like iPhones. a result, both bankers and the poorest citizens have changed their minds. This helped undermine the old assumption that ortunately, humans are not machines that can poor people were poor because they were economically igno- continuously be made more functional. We rant. Actually, they tend to be more economically savvy than cannot just upload our skills, desires, and moti- the middle class, but they were not equipped with instruments vations like we upload new applications to elec- to improve their condition. The introduction of a new financial tronic devices. This is a completely wrong way product eventually led to the creation of an entirely new mar- to frame this discussion. At the same time, hu- ket, and insight into the condition of the most disenfranchised mans have an extraordinary capacity to learn, people, triggering new thinking and new policies. and to learn collectively, passing knowledge The goal is to educate young people that institutions are beyond personal experience across generations. social products, and that we can transform them. This is a new FCulture is a very concrete example of our collective iden- agenda for civic education. Young people should learn about tity. We should not limit it to individual, personal self-improve- the constitution; at the same time, they should learn how to ment, but discuss it in broader, more holistic terms. The current transform it. They should know how finance works, but they discussion on the future of the humanities is a good example. should also learn how to transform finance. We need the humanities to ensure an outlook beyond the economic paradigm. I am of course not against the economic dimension of human activity, but in order to unleash human potential, we need to take into account motivations and dynam- ics that are beyond economic rationality alone. This is especially valid in thinking about innovation, as in- novation processes are collective processes with a high risk of failure. At the individual level, failure is a tragedy. When you look at the complexity, failure is the norm. If we want a dynamic, entrepreneurial, innovative economy and society, we need to educate people to look at the world and understand themselves and how they operate from this complex-system-perspective, in relation not only to themselves, but also the rest of the society, the world, and their pasts and futures. The implication is that we start educating people about the long-term consequences

11 Europe Educational alternatives Assembly

line education

and the in formation illustration: Jan Bajtlik

12 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Educational alternatives Europe line education and the in formation

age

13 Europe Educational alternatives

Those orderly rows of desks, the incessant queuing, and bells that indicate the start and finish of the school day are ample evidence of present-day public education’s foundations in the industrial revolution.

Benjamin Cunningham

hose orderly rows of desks, the incessant queu- ing, and bells that indicate the start and finish of the school day are ample evidence of present- day public education’s foundations in the indus- trial revolution. Compulsory education began in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu- ries as society sought to transform farmers into workers. By the mid-twentieth century, educa- tion had become inextricably linked with national economic Tdevelopment, and the world’s most dynamic economies were predicated on industry. This is no longer the case. Whereas industry accounts for 40% of GDP in Iran, it is less than half that in Denmark. Manufacturing accounts for 42% of China’s annual earnings, but just 28% in so-called in- dustrial powerhouse Germany. Science, diets, fashions, jobs, hobbies, and even national borders have changed in the past century, but what students are expected to do in the classroom each day has stayed very much the same. One study by the consulting firm McKinsey found that while most OECD coun- tries doubled or tripled their spending in education between 1970 and 1994, many also still saw results that stagnated or declined. Even if schools are not actually worse than they used

illustration: Jan Bajtlik to be, they are worse suited to contemporary needs.

14 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Educational alternatives Europe

In Central Europe education systems carry the additional States does per student per year, but its fifteen-year-olds fair burden of entrenched bureaucracies that date from the com- about 13% better on the Program for International Student munist era. This adds additional challenges, but also offers an Assessment (PISA), which gauges mathematical, reading, sci- opportunity for a more radical rethink of education – who ence, financial, and problem-solving literacy. is doing the teaching, what subjects take precedence, and McKinsey breaks national school systems into four cat- should education be concentrated in a person’s younger years? egories: poor to fair, fair to good, good to great, and great to Interviews with a number of the region’s leading innovators, excellent. All four Visegrad countries fall into the middle of drawn from the New Europe 100 list, found a variety of ideas the good to great category. By McKinsey’s reckoning, im- of how it should be done, but a surprising consensus on the provements within this stage are based on interventions that ideal end result: education that emphasizes problem-solving ensure that “teaching and school leadership is regarded as a over memorization, adaptability instead of routine, more in- full-fledged profession.” Reforms are meant to create “career teraction with practicing professionals, and less specialization. paths to ensure the profession is as clearly defined as those in “The industrial age really profited from process improve- medicine or law.” ments and economies of scale,” says Peter Arvai, CEO of Prezi, In other words, priority is placed on branding teaching the cloud-based presentation software company founded in as a viable profession, and investments are meant to target the Budapest. “The information society values creativity over hiring and training of professional people. This contrasts with experience.” the emphasis on organizational systems that is the priority in Despite differences among education systems in the less developed educational environments, or the experimenta- Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, most sub- tion in peer-based learning systems that is recommended for stantial critiques strike at the very ethos of the school systems, the highest performing school systems – in Estonia, Finland, and most find parallels in all four Visegrad countries. The big- South Korea, Switzerland, and parts of Canada. The goal is gest weaknesses in all four systems go beyond technical and to get motivated, talented people to teach and to continue to bureaucratic complaints. educate them even as they work – a plan that mirrors how There are too few “practical activities,” says Patryk many think a twenty-first-century educational system should Strzelewicz, founder of Poland’s Dice+, maker of a Bluetooth- also serve the public. enabled dice for digital games. The process of hiring teachers “It is important to give teachers systemic support in their and principals is “not set up to attract talent,” says Stanislav personal development and to set out a path that makes this a Boledovič, CEO of Teach for Slovakia, a group that seeks to career,” iSen’s Jelínková and Říhová say. “This is then associated place high level university graduates in some of the country’s with greater freedom and autonomy for schools themselves.” weakest schools. Perhaps most significant, however, and a vi- One obvious incentive to draw more talented people into tal starting point for reform, is that “education is of marginal teaching is to raise salaries. “I don’t think we need a dramatic interest to the government and to the public,” according to Iva increase, but our starting salary is half what other graduates Jelínková and Lenka Říhová, founders of iSen, a Czech group are earning,“ Boledovič says. “Still, a job with a bad reputation, that helps educators and parents use technology to work with even if paid well, still doesn’t draw top people. Opinion leaders special-needs students. need to make role models of teachers.“ “Politicians do not compete in who has a better education Other shifts in mentality, driven by policy or vice versa, policy,” Boledovič agrees. Ambitious politicians may line up to could draw new people into teaching. At the university level, be ministers of finance, justice, defense, or foreign affairs, but for example, financing in the Visegrad region is still tied to the yeoman’s work of sculpting the next generation of think- the number of students being taught. Advanced degree pro- ers, workers, and innovators is often viewed as a thankless job. grams have their accreditation and funding based on program “The Education Ministry is usually given to a smaller party as guarantors. These are usually people with the longest tenure in part of a coalition deal,” says Ivan Stefunko, a Bratislava-based academia, and thus the least exposure to practice in the out- angel investor and venture capitalist. “A top-notch politician side world. “In most cases the programs would lose funding has never been minister of education.” if they brought in younger practitioners to teach,” says Peter If creativity, adaptability, and collaboration are the skills Komornik, CEO of Sli.do, a company that seeks to create a a twenty-first century education system is meant to provide, more interactive experience at conferences and workshops. then institutions like ministries, schools, and classrooms “You need to have incentives to get these other people into “need to be run by people that have these same kind of mind- the classroom.” sets,” Arvai says. Low tuition fees can pull more money into the university system, but so too could improved processes for harnessing Talented teachers revenue from intellectual property that results from research Even if public pressure succeeds in pressuring political leaders at a given institution. Stanford University in the United States is to place added emphasis on education reform, new dilemmas an extreme example of converting student and faculty discov- emerge. Governments are quick to cite a lack of funds as an eries into patents and revenue, but there are also success stories impediment to improved educational systems, but evidence closer to home. The Czech Academy of Sciences finances about shows the amount of money is less important than where the a third of its overall budget with income earned by patents from money is spent. As the aforementioned McKinsey study indi- its Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry. Currently, cates, there is no direct correlation between bigger spending much of the region’s research is subsidized by universities and better schooling. Hong Kong and Spain spend about the before the discoveries and their resulting revenue migrates same amount per student on education but have widely diver- elsewhere. “With technology transfer offices, universities can gent results. Finland spends less than 80% of what the United create their own spin-offs,” Stefunko says.

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Beyond specialization The degrees themselves, contrary to the region-wide phenom- In addition to Slovakia, Komornik of Sli.do has studied in the enon of cramming as many acronyms as possible onto a busi- United States, Norway, and South Korea, giving him varied in- ness card, are less valuable than they used to be. While Dice+ sight for comparing a variety of educational approaches. “The founder Strzelewicz concedes that the teaching of foreign whole point is to analyze problems, not to find the one right languages has improved in recent years – about 30% of Poles answer,” he says about his most valuable experiences. claim to speak English enough “to be able to communicate,” Increased emphasis on problem-solving and analytic according to a recent poll by CBOS – he also says new hires skills is too important to leave to teachers, even if they are “basically have to start from scratch to be useful in a company.” highly trained. Like Komornik, Michalea Jacová has ample “You make a hiring decision based on character, if they international education experience. A graduate of Princeton seem willing to work hard,” Strzelewicz says. “Then you hope in the United States, she completed her master’s degree in to teach them and that they will learn quickly.” Komornik says Switzerland. Today, she is the founder of Slovakia’s Startup he primarily looks at what young people are doing outside the Awards and an investment manager at Neulogy Ventures. classroom when deciding whom to hire. “Perhaps they are “When it comes to creativity in business, you somehow need organizing something in their home town to try and change a combination of complementary skills in a team to make it something,” he says. “That shows leadership skills.” work,” she says. “How students [abroad] interact on a col- The dominating more-degrees-are-good mentality leads lege campus means different people with different interests many young students to study for a master’s degree or fur- interacting.” ther before ever working full time. “It is fine if you only have a By Jacová’s account, the specialization Visegrad students bachelor’s degree,” says Peter Badík, co-founder of Greenway are asked to take on early in their educational process stunts Operator, a Slovak company providing on-demand electric this interaction with diversity, and with creativity more gen- powered delivery vans for rent. “Stop, try to find a career path, erally. Indeed, students often study at schools specifically and once you find your way, then spend six months getting oriented to technical or economic fields. Even university dor- more educated.” mitories are often segregated based on fields of study, curbing Such behavioral changes could spur change from below, the interplay between different ideas during leisure time too. whereby the declined value of a master’s degree leads to fewer “It is insane to ask a nineteen-year-old to choose their career,” students opting not to study for advanced degrees that provide Jacová says. “The job I do now is so far from what I studied, but little intellectual nor practical benefit. Fewer students would all of those things I studied were transferrable.” force a rethinking of how higher education is funded, and so If interviews are any indication, many making the hiring forth. Changing schooling in Central Europe “is a mindset decisions at the Visegrad Four’s most innovative companies question above all, not a resource or geographical question,” are largely disinterested in formal classroom achievements. says Arvai of Prezi. Theoretically, in a functioning democratic system, elected officials are forced to react to altered expecta- tions if they wish to stay in office, but much pessimism about Spending on Students and Classroom the state’s ability to adapt remains. Achievement “After 1989, I had hoped the changes would make people more brave and innovative, not just that we would take things from the West,” Arvai says. “We should not be looking to emu- Country spending PISA late the West, but thinking about how to create something better. That is seemingly missing from the conversation.” Indeed, most of the region’s biggest educational short- Brazil 2416 402 falls are fairly similar to those experienced elsewhere in the China 1593 NA developed world; all is not lost. In fact, Polish fifteen-year- Czech Republic 5895 500 olds outperform their German counterparts in PISA scores, despite half the spending per student. This is hardly a sign Denmark 11788 498 that Europe’s purported economic motor has its own school Estonia 5982 526 system sorted out. When it comes to questions about how best Finland 9463 529 to educate people in the information age, the answers are still out there. Germany 9155 515 “There is a huge opportunity here,” Arvai says. “I don’t Hungary 5136 486 think anybody has completely cracked the nut on this yet.” Japan 9673 540 The author writes about Central and Eastern Europe for The Economist, Poland 5134 521 The Christian Science Monitor, Time Magazine, and others. Slovakia 4447 472 Switzerland 14977 518 United States 14923 492

Spending is annual spending in US dollars (PPP) PISA scores are an average of science, math and reading literacy scores from 2012

Souces: OECD, PISA,

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Is this system sustainable? I hope so, although I am afraid it s probably is not. t r a  f l o a e r s e i b a i l r p e h n I illustration: Jan Bajtlik t

17 Europe Educational alternatives

Iván Szelényi

he U.S. system of liberal art education is often the subject of intense controversy in Europe. The Bologna system, which is close to the British system and is sort of half-way to the continental, especially German/Rus- sian/Soviet, system of education, is arguably a bad compromise and has intensified criticism of the U.S. system by educators who feel they were coerced into the Bologna agreement. I am not a scholar of tertiary education (an important field of schol- arly inquiry), but I taught in the German/Russian/Soviet system for five years. I have an additional five years of experience with the British system in England and TAustralia, and have taught for thirty-five years in the U.S. system, most of the time in the best U.S. research universities and liberal art colleges (University of Wisconsin-Madison, UCLA, Yale, NYUAD).

This piece should not be read as a scholarly contribution, but rather as a “confession” by a person with an unusually broad experience. In this paper I would like to achieve two goals:

I want to make the strongest possible case for the idea of liberal arts education 1and the superiority of the U.S. system of tertiary education; At the same time I want to cast doubt on the sustainability of the U.S. system of tertiary education. Fifty years from now we may recall the U.S. system nos- 2talgically and complain bitterly that we forgot (or can no longer afford) how to educate our youth. illustration: Jan Bajtlik

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programs (Boston College, Dartmouth Introductory Institutional College, etc.), and there are some institu- tions called universities that hardly offer remarks design any respectable graduate programs (for instance Southern Connecticut State Let me start with a brief laudation of the While everyone is expected to complete University, for all practical purposes a U.S. system. First, in my experience, this high school in the U.S., some eight or four-year college, which offers a number is the most open system (at least as far so percent of students drop out of high of usually highly applied M.A. programs as its institutional design is concerned). school and become prime candidates to but does not have a Ph.D. program). There is substantial and growing class re- join the “underclass,” the poorest of the The professional schools, especially production in the U.S., and I wish I had poor, the unemployed; and many end medical school and law school, are im- time to address its causes in some detail. up in jail – race and class are primary portant for all ambitious universities. There is a universal high school system determinants of who will drop out of There are very few leading research (there is little vocational tracking before high school and only 70% of high school universities without medical schools, high school graduation), where all high graduates use the opportunity to enroll as these are vitally important for fund- school graduates qualify for admission to into college. So while the system is open, ing purposes. UCLA, for instance, college; if they do poorly in high school many fall through the cracks and class re- admits something like 15,000 fresh they may not get into the “right” college production works intensively. undergraduates annually, while admis- but if their grades improve they can al- Nevertheless, most kids complete sion to the medical school is about 175. ways transfer to the very best universi- high school and most of them enter Nevertheless, half of the 4,000 UCLA ties. Community colleges are especially college. At that point they have three members of faculty work at the medical wonderful institutions in this respect, choices: they can enter community col- school and they generate more than half combining vocational training with edu- leges (where admission is basically open of all research funding. cation that can lead back to the very best and instruction is inexpensive – in some Although the professional schools institutions. states free), they can apply for admission make universities into universities, the Second, liberal arts colleges (and to four-year “liberal arts colleges,” or they core of the operation is nevertheless the undergraduate programs of the best re- can apply to “undergraduate programs” “college” (usually called something like search universities) place emphasis on at universities – in both latter cases they “College of Art and Sciences”). In many education (Bildung), rather than training earn a bachelor’s degree. universities – this was certainly the case (Ausbildung). College students do not There are some 20 million “uni- at Yale – the dean of the college is the have to make a fatal vocational choice versity” students in the U.S., with about intellectual leader of the institution. The at the too-early age of eighteen; they are half of them studying in 1,700 commu- chancellor or president (called by differ- exposed to a broad range of disciplines, nity colleges. While some community ent names) mainly does political work so the decision of whether to become a colleges are starting to offer four-year (e.g., fundraising); but the dean sets the doctor, lawyer, philosopher, or critical degrees, typically one receives two-year intellectual direction. There are usually critic can wait until they are twenty-two, instruction at community college and a four divisions in each college: humani- when they can make a well-informed de- certificate or diploma upon completion. ties, sciences, life sciences, and social cision about what they want to do with While most students who enroll hoping sciences. The Ph.D. programs of these the rest of their lives. It is true that at Yale, to transfer after the second year into a divisions determine the national rank- Princeton, and Reed, college students do “proper” university, only some 10-20% ing of the organization, which is vital for not get as much “technical training” as manage, and the rest receive vocational universities’ funding. It would be rather they would get at most European uni- training. This strikes me as a far superior unusual in the U.S. for an institution with versities, but arguably they will be bet- system in comparison with the German just one or two such divisions to be called ter “educated” people, better prepared to one (which also operated under social- a university. choose their vocational destination and ist times and seems to be gaining trac- Professional schools (with the be more responsible citizens. tion again in post-communist Central exception of engineering) only admit Third, at the graduate level, from its Europe), which separates students into students who have completed their “un- separation of terminal M.A.-level pro- academic and vocational tracks at the dergraduate studies,” namely those who grams (from medical and legal training to age of fourteen. Some 10 million students have earned a B.A. or B.Sc. degree. The MBA and an infinite number of profes- study in 2,700 four-year colleges or in un- “major” in undergraduate studies may sional M.A. degrees oriented to labor mar- dergraduate programs at universities. have some importance, but it is certainly ket needs) to Ph.D. programs, which offer It is not easy to draw a clear distinc- not decisive. One can major in English you the highest quality training to become tion between universities and four-year or Philosophy and nevertheless be ad- teachers/researchers in the Ivory Tower of colleges. In principle, institutions only mitted to medical school or law school; sciences, social sciences, and the humani- qualify to be “universities” if they also of- admission to a sociology Ph.D. program, ties. No Ph.D. program in the world can fer “professional schools,” such as medi- in my experience. Sociology undergradu- match the quality of training that the top cal school, law school, business school, ate majors are often not particularly de- twenty-five or so U.S. university depart- a school of public health etc., and offer manding, so majors in mathematics or ments provide for their students. various graduate programs both at M.A. even in engineering or physics were often and Ph.D. level. But there are exceptions: viewed with great sympathy by admission some colleges offer respectable graduate committees.

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Engineering is an exception. Schools form exceptionally well during two years exceptionally well. Furthermore, students of engineering usually do not require an of instruction, and students whose initial also have to take courses outside their undergraduate degree. In my view, this has interest may have been in the humanities majors in the last two years. Typically, a lot to do with the relatively low prestige can shift to the sciences at graduate level one-third of courses are in their majors, of engineering in the U.S. Historically, oth- and vice versa. one-third in general education, and one- er professional schools – even medicine or third are electives. law – were open to high school graduates, Those who complete a major with but more prestigious schools began to re- twelve to fourteen courses in that disci- quire some undergraduate background, Liberal arts pline at a U.S. university are not special- and as far as I can tell, prestigious medical ists, of course; they are not “economists,” and law schools now demand a full, four- education or “biologists.” The extent of the “return year B.A. or B.Sc. There is a similar trend on education” they have is disputed in Australia, which follows the British When students enter college, they do not among economists, sociologists, and model, where one can enroll in medicine declare their majors. It is only at the end scholars of education. Unemployment after high school. But some new universi- of the second or at the beginning of the among college graduates is much lower ties, like Flinders University, have adopted third year that students begin to major in than unemployment among those who the U.S. model and demand a full under- “economics,” “chemistry,” etc. For the first complete only high school. Nevertheless, graduate degree. two years, students are expected to take some analysts suggest that 50% of col- Unlike France or Germany, where “general education” courses often driven lege graduates either do not get jobs after engineering is the most prestigious occu- by some interdisciplinary problem or graduation or are overqualified for the pation, engineering prestige is low in the concern, and they have to fulfill certain jobs they have. It of course depends on U.S.; some plumbers or electricians like “breadth requirements” of courses in all what is meant by job skills. Undoubtedly, to be called engineers. In France, higher of the four major divisions. In addition, most U.S. college graduates – there are ranking public servants – even if they are the emphasis throughout all four years exceptions, in the sciences or economics economists or lawyers, prefer to be called is not on memorization but on critical – do not have the technical knowledge “Mr. Engineer.” Some schools of engi- thinking, depth, and undergraduate re- they need to perform their jobs. Many do neering, for instance MIT or California search. Students are therefore required to gain the “cultural capital,” that employers Institute of Technology, are ranked take relatively few courses. One can earn may value, like better writing skills. They among the leading universities, but both a B.A. or B.Sc. with just 32-36 courses. A know how to communicate with stran- MIT and CalTech have developed their typical course is worth 4 course credits, gers and how to adapt to new situations. “colleges” to become major places of re- so in four years one must earn 128-136 An employer may prefer a college gradu- search in the sciences, and even in the credits. In the Bologna system, students ate over a high school graduate not be- social sciences and humanities. are required to fulfill 180 credits to grad- cause she has more technical know-how, The key point is that the institu- uate in three years. U.S. students usually but because her education will enable her tional design of U.S. universities offers take four courses per semester and need to perform better in any job. exceptional mobility. Students with poor the dean’s permission if they want to take In the better liberal art colleges and high school grades may be able to trans- a fifth course. This permission is usually in the best research universities, there is fer into the best universities if they per- granted only to students who perform also a great deal of emphasis on under-

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graduate research. The best programs that offer applied skills and would not their lives and people better prepared as – four year colleges or research univer- count towards a Ph.D.). In my view, the professionals. sities – are “honor colleges,” they expect future for U.S. education rests with com- I strongly that believe that the U.S. students to complete their studies with bined B.A./M.A. programs. Currently, system of liberal arts education and its an independent piece of work, called a there are few programs like this, but they combination with specialized, vocation- “capstone project” or “senior thesis.” At are likely to become more popular. In ally oriented M.A. programs and very Princeton and Yale, for instance, most such programs, students in their third selective but research oriented five-year majors require such a thesis, and students year of college can apply for an M.A.; if Ph.D. programs is a better system than in their last year of studies work in semi- accepted, some of the coursework they the 3+2+3 Bologna system. The Bologna nars with a small number of students un- do in their fourth year counts toward the system started off in the right direction der the supervision of the best research M.A., which may then be reduced to a but made too many compromises, and its faculty. Some such honors research can one-year program (offering professional implementation was even worse than the be outstanding. I once hired a young fac- skills). initial idea. ulty member at UCLA who was an hon- I have spent thirty-five years of my ors student at Columbia University, and life teaching in the American system, so published his senior thesis with Oxford Concluding of course I have to like it or concede that University Press. I have wasted my life. There are certainly Given the excessive tuition burden, remarks big problems with the U.S. system, but it I would not venture to claim that invest- is at least an institutionally open system, ment in an undergraduate degree can be European critics of the U.S. system often with many high quality institutions. It recovered in one’s life-time earnings. In claim that college is just extended high remains to be seen whether it is sustain- most cases, it probably cannot. But a B.A. school, compensating for the poor quality able. It is a very expensive system and it or B.Sc. is an entry ticket into graduate of U.S. high schools. This is fundamen- is becoming less and less affordable as education, and with a M.A. degree or tally false, but there is a kernel of truth to we speak. Between 1980 and 2010, the Ph.D. there is a good return on educa- it. Yes, there are some very bad Ameri- cost of living increased threefold, medi- tion (it also depends on which institution can high schools, but there are also some cal expenses sixfold, and tuition tenfold. grants the degree). formidably good ones. Those from bad The size (and salaries) of university bu- The following is a very important high schools tend to end up in commu- reaucracies are out of control and mind- feature of the U.S. tertiary education sys- nity colleges; to get into the Ivy Leagues, less competition for academic superstars tem: the Bologna agreement created a one should have gone to a “prep-school,” are driving their hiring costs through the 3+2+3 system. This strikes me as a poor which may be as good as the best gym- roof. Taxpayers are increasingly reluctant compromise between the traditional nasium. Are those attending four-year to contribute to these expenses. UCLA is continental and the U.S. system. In the colleges just wasting their time with four a “public” university. In 1978, 37% of its continental system, one could expect more years of high school? In some cases budget came from the State of California. graduates to have substantial exper- – at less privileged colleges or universi- It is currently down to 10% or less. tise with a five-year degree. Now, in the ties – yes. But in better institutions, ab- U.S. universities are going “global.” Bologna system, students have to declare solutely not. My colleague at Yale, Bob About 700,000 foreign students (many a major on day one, but three years is not Shiller, has just received the 2014 Nobel from among China’s new elite) study in the enough to become a “specialist.” At the Prize for economics. He teaches the un- U.S. and pay full tuition. Many U.S. univer- same time, however, they are too spe- dergraduate introduction to the financial sities send their students abroad to study cialized to get a “liberal arts education.” market course. Just google “Open Yale” for a year – in countries where the cost of These are “half cooked products.” It could and type in “Bob Shiller” to watch his education is a fraction of that in the U.S. be argued that they become experts in the videotaped lectures. Is this high school Is this system sustainable? I hope so, two-year M.A. program, but to achieve teaching? You decide. True, not every in- although I am afraid it probably is not. this and a Ph.D. in three years requires a structor at Yale is Bob Shiller and not all major compromise on what the M.A. is. U.S. colleges or universities are Yale. But The author is William Graham Sumner Emeritus If the M.A. is vocationally oriented, it is there are many excellent institutions that Professor of Sociology and Political Science, poor preparation for an academically ori- recruit high quality research and produc- Yale University. ented Ph.D. The U.S. system offers a neat tive members of faculty. solution: the few applicants who are ad- In some ways, the college is an ex- mitted to an academically oriented Ph.D. tension of high school, but arguably in a program are directly accepted without a good sense. Knowledge has exploded in prior M.A. They will have five years to the twenty-first century and four years of complete their programs, and in the first high school education – no matter how two years they will earn an “on-route” good – simply cannot provide enough M.A., in which they gain the theoretical general education. Even more important- and research skills that academics need. ly, it is a mistake to force young people Those who are vocationally oriented can to make decisions about their vocation instead apply to highly specialized and at the age of fourteen, or even at eight- professionally oriented M.A. programs een. Give them more time: the result will (these tend to be “terminal” programs be people with more satisfaction with

21 Europe Educational alternatives

Oľga Gyárfášová

n Slovakia, education and training are not issues Much delayed debate that are high in the ranking of the most urgent on the quality of higher social problems. The public has long lived under the illusion that its education system is good or education system in Slovakia even excellent, and there is no need for change. This myth was carefully constructed in the times has finally kicked off. of socialism, expressed in the quantity of factual knowledge that students can demonstrate, and by the occasional successes of the talented few in international Istudent competitions. As a consequence, in the last twen- ty-five years, no political party has treated education as an important political agenda. Moreover, the top leaders have

22 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Educational alternatives Europe

Looking for , Hercor the qualityules of higher education in Slovakia photo: Boensch/PAP/DPA

never occupied the relevant ministerial post in the case of On the one hand, the marginalization of education can coalition governments; it often went to the junior partner be seen as a logical consequence of the transformation pe- rather than the major party. For example, the Slovak National riod – social and economic issues had higher priority; further- Party held the position of education minister in the 1990s as more, the country has been resolving crucial questions of its a junior partner of Mečiar’s HZDS, but also in 2006-2010 geopolitical direction and, last but not least, education is not as a partner of Fico’s Smer-SD. The center-right government an issue for one electoral cycle. On the other hand, neglect- of Prime Minister Dzurinda “donated” this post first to the ing education is a “cardinal sin” against the country’s future. post-communists and then later to the Christian democrats. Competitiveness cannot be measured by the number of formal Both used the Education Ministry more for their ideological diplomas if they are not backed by modern skills, research, purposes than to enact reforms or innovations. Since 1989, and cutting edge performance. Without this we would remain there have been nineteen ministers at the helm of the Minis- a country of industry halls represented by the statement: try of Education; the current minister joined in autumn 2014 “made in Slovakia,” but without more of the added value, “in- as a nominee of Smer-SD, replacing another Smer-SD nomi- vented in Slovakia.” nee, and he will have been in office for just over a year, before Many questions about the current education system in the next parliamentary election in spring 2016. Slovakia remain open, and have been accumulating in recent

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years. Now, however, there is some light at the end of the tun- in peer-reviewed journals, and reviewed publications pub- nel. Let’s take a closer look at the key problems of Slovakia’s lished nationally, etc. Entry to the registered database could university education and highlight the debate that has recently be achieved by publishing in an allied or even co-owned pub- emerged. lishing house. “I for you, you for me:” the principle of mutual approval, is in the background of many publications, enhanc- Quantity over quality ing only quantity, without producing quality. In the past twenty years, we have witnessed a boom in the number of universities, colleges, and institutions of higher Brain drain, gain, exchange education. A country of 5.4 million inhabitants has thirty- The share of foreign students at Slovak universities has almost six universities and colleges, including thirteen private ones. tripled in the past ten years; in 2014 it was close to 4%. This Ironically, the slogan, “a university for each smaller town” has growth is slow but steady, and means that even little Slovakia been fulfilled. Currently, there are about 160,000 university is gradually opening up. But is it much or a little? Certainly, in students, of which 35,000 are enrolled in their first year. This the UK, the proportion of foreigners in higher education ex- is 2.5 times more than in the early 1990s. This “massification” ceeds 15%, while in the more comparable Czech Republic it is peaked in 2006-2008, due in part to stronger population age 11%. Even more importantly, more than 6% of students in the cohorts. “In 2007, 74% of young people in the age cohort of Czech Republic are from Slovakia; there are more than 23,000 18-19 years enrolled in colleges and universities. In the same young Slovaks studying in the neighboring country, a number year, 39% of 24-25 year old young people successfully com- that increases from year to year. This is a true warning sign for pleted their university education.”1 This is a positive indica- Slovak university education – many motivated and talented tor, as Slovakia had lagged behind in the proportion of people students go abroad. The Czech Republic is the most frequent with university diplomas, compared to other European Union destination for Slovak students for obvious reasons: there is countries. In 2007, the share of the population that had com- practically no language barrier, the countries are culturally and pleted tertiary education in the age group of 24-65 years was historically very close and, last but not least, Czech universi- 14%, while, for example, in neighboring Poland, it was 18%. ties (especially in Prague and Brno) have a very prestigious It is clear that the level of qualification affects the labor mar- reputation. From the Czech Republic’s perspective, the Slo- ket and the share of jobs with higher added value. However, vak influx of students solves at least two long-term problems. there is a discrepancy between the profile of graduates and the First and foremost, the capacity of university education (the needs of the labor market. The demand of the labor market for growth trend has been similar to that of Slovakia, and today graduates from technical or IT fields significantly exceeds sup- the number of students continues to fall due to demographic ply, while in the case of the social sciences and humanities, it is decline). Secondly, there are benefits to attracting “brains;” exactly the opposite. In other words: the growth in the number Slovak graduates are a welcome and important external source of graduates does not bring about the desired effect, because of highly qualified workforce. The number of Slovaks studying the distribution of graduates does not meet the expectations at home universities is thus gradually decreasing, while the and needs of the labor market. Czech student population is still showing an upward trend. The trend in the number of applicants for higher edu- In general, Slovakia is losing in the international cation has, however, changed dramatically in recent years. A global competition for “brains.” The brain drain vs. brain recent evaluation report by the Academic Ranking and Rating gain equation is very asymmetrical. The OECD report3 Agency (ARRA)2 points out that since 2006, the number of came to a similar conclusion as the ARRA: in 2009, only registered and enrolled students has been continuously de- 6,300 students from OECD countries studied in Slovakia, creasing. As expected, universities responded to this declin- while there were nearly 28,400 students in those countries. ing interest by a gradual softening of their admissions criteria. Among the threats and challenges to the Slovak higher educa- In spite of this “strategy,” in 2014 only about 88% of planned tion system are education emigration and declining numbers admissions were carried out. of high school graduates. This is the generation born in the Now let’s look at another indicator of quality vs. quan- 1990s, when Slovakia faced its greatest population decline. tity of universities and academic performance in Slovakia: It would seem that mass development at the expense of quality scientific publications. The ARRA report indicates that the cannot be controlled. But there are policy tools – for example, number of publications registered in renowned interna- when it comes to budget distribution and subsidy criteria – tional databases (e.g., Web of Knowledge), has increased by ensuring that the weight of so-called capitation (money given 130% over the past decade. In comparison, internationally, according to number of students) should be reduced, while the there has been a 60% increase. Quality scientific effort is -ex impact of other indicators – such as scientific publications, pressed by its citations, on average 5.5 for Slovak scientists the number of Ph.D. students, international grants, etc. – is and university teachers, although this is only half the world increased. The Higher Education Council – a representative average (11.1). Moreover, Slovakia’s score grew more slowly body of universities – repeatedly proposes such changes, so in global comparison. This means that we approach global far without any success. scores mainly in the quantity of publications (starting from very low numbers), rather than quality. Flying professors Let’s add that quantitative growth is a consequence of The capacity of qualified academics and university professors extremely formalized reporting of scientific performance and had no chance of meeting the needs of the accelerated growth efficiency. If you aspire to an academic degree, you have to of universities and colleges. Schools need not only teachers report at least one monograph, a certain number of studies but also remunerated guarantors of individual fields of study.

24 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Educational alternatives Europe

Some professors and associate professors therefore lecture at I am certain we have long to wait before a Slovak politician two or three sites in different parts of Slovakia. The phenome- campaigns on an education platform. But there are some signs non of “flying professors” has proliferated greatly. In principle, that time are changing. There is criticism from below, from it may not be a problem, but can such people perform at full the staff of the largest Slovak university, Comenius University. capacity in several workplaces? This proliferation was recently Matej Navrátil admitted in SME that “Slovak higher educa- addressed by a new law stating that a lecturer may not have tion system looks like the Augeas stable”, which is a strong and more than one full-time job, and such employment has been expressive metaphor. Perhaps without such a harsh criticism made transparent through the creation of a university staff academic community wouldn’t have kicked off the debate on registry. It is not surprising that the greatest share of flying reform, which it delayed for years. Navrátil criticizes several professors' work at newly established private universities; in characteristics of the current higher education in Slovakia, in the case of one university, more than half of its lecturers fly in. particular the domination of form over content, “Potemkin” publishers, low demands on students and teachers, the in- Money, money, money, must be funny terconnection of different services, and the considerations in Lamentations about the education system generally start return – reviews for papers, publications, and grants applica- and end with money. There are, of course, good reasons for tions. The result is that the most talented go abroad. that, and this is the case in Slovakia in particular; public Further impetus for the debate was an advertisement by funding for education is lower than in other V4 countries. a company that explicitly listed the universities from which The GDP share of spending on public universities stagnates graduates need not apply. The advert was brutal and certainly at approximately 0.6%, while the rest of V4 is above 1%. The discriminatory, but it also accelerated the much-needed and Higher Education Council persistently warns that subsidies to much-delayed debate. It has yielded the important conclusion universities do not create conditions for their development, that we have schools that manufacture only diploma holders, leaving them at a level of pure survival. Given the long-term rather than educated and skilled graduates. underfunding of public universities, the situation is critical. The public debate is opening up. Some believe in im- However, it appears that the ministry is either deaf to these proving systemic policy measures as a recipe for change, concerns or unable to convince the Ministry of Finance to in- which can only be carried out by the ministry and the ac- crease the education budget. creditation commissions appointed by it. Others say that we cannot wait for changes from above because they will Public discourse opens up never come. They say that the “healing” process must begin As I said at the beginning, education was not the focus of pub- at the individual level.5 Our response should be neither one lic or political discourse until recently. It has not been a salient nor the other. It is important that pressure for substantive issue; the notion of winning an election or at least raising pub- change go both ways. Quantity is not enough, and public de- lic awareness with the slogan, “education, education, educa- bate could spark more pressure. Without that can we enforce tion” has been entirely unrealistic. In his campaign for second global competition for competitiveness? All in all, we need a term in 2001, Tony Blair introduced a “Manifesto about new Hercules to clean the Augean stable, but also self-regulatory and bolder horizons in education.”4 He said, “Our top priority mechanisms of the academic environment and evidence of was, is and always will be education, education, education. […] the academic integrity of all who are involved. Quality of ed- To overcome decades of neglect and make Britain a learning ucation is the future of the entire society; only when political society, developing the talents and raising the ambitions of all representation understands that this is not just a catchphrase our young people.” can we move forward.

The author is a sociologist and assistant professor at the Institute of Eu- ropean Studies and International Relations, Faculty of Social and Eco- nomic Studies of Comenius University in Bratislava, and a researcher at the Institute for Public Affairs, a public policy research think-tank.

REFERENCES 1. Kureková, Lucia (2010): ĽUDSKÝ KAPITÁL: Školstvo a vzdelávanie. Správa o stave podnikateľského prostredia v SR. [HUMAN CAPITAL: Education sys- tem. Report about the entrepreneurial environment in Slovakia]. CEU Budapest, CELSI, Bratislava. Available at: http://alianciapas.sk/wp-content/ uploads/2013/03/sspp_2010_01b_skolstvo.pdf (accessed February 5, 2015). 2. HODNOTENIE FAKÚLT VYSOKÝCH ŠKÔL 2014. Ranking fakúlt vysokých škôl v SR na základe porovnania ukazovateľov kvantity a kvality vzdelávania a výskumu. Akademická rankingová a ratingová agentúra (ARRA). [EVALUATION OF HIGH SCHOOL FACULTIES 2014]. Available at: www.arra.sk/sites/ arra.sk/files/file/ARRA_Sprava_2014.pdf. 3. OECD (2012), International Migration Outlook 2012, OECD Publishing.http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/migr_outlook-2012-en. 4. Speech by Rt Hon Tony Blair, The prime minister launching Labour’s education manifesto at the University of Southampton. http://www.theguardian. com/politics/2001/may/23/labour.tonyblair. 5.  Navrátil, Matej: Ako vyčistiť Augiášov chliev v školstve. [How to clean up the Augeas stable in education]. SME, 29. 1. 2015. Available at: http:// komentare.sme.sk/c/7616967/ako-vycistit-augiasov-chliev-v-skolstve.html#ixzz3QxKrbCsK.

25 Europe Educational alternatives A case for the Visegrad College for Advanced Studies photo: Polaris Images/EASTphoto: Polaris NEWS

Leszek Koczanowicz

Visegrad nstitutes for advanced (IAS) principle of autonomy. Although the in- study play a crucial role in con- stitute is situated in the spatial vicinity of should use the potential temporary science. The model the renowned Princeton University, it re- of its researchers institution was established in mains independent in management and, Princeton in 1930 and has been most importantly, the research interests and establish idea hubs the epitome of academic excel- of its members. The core idea of IAS is radiating throughout lence for ninety years, with to guarantee senior academics the genu- Albert Einstein, Kurt Gödel, ine freedom of their intellectual pursuits. Europe and Robert Oppenheimer, John von Neu- There are two categories of membership: Iman, Cliffort Geertz, and George Kennan permanent fellows are responsible for beyond. among its former fellows. The institute in setting the program for departments, and Princeton imposed a certain modus op- visiting fellows are recruited to pursue erandi for its counterparts, built on the their proposed research programs.

26 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Educational alternatives Europe

In the 1950s, the Center for This brief sketch of the impact of Basing VCAS in Poland, specifically Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences IASs provides a background for emphasis in Warsaw, a center of growing political, (CASB) was established at Stanford. of the importance of establishing a similar economic, and intellectual importance, Again, it was designed as an independ- institution in the framework of Visegrad would not only strengthen the inter- ent institution affiliated with Stanford cooperation. There is only one genuine nal flow of people and concepts in the University, although today it operates IAS operating in the V4 countries – the framework of Visegrad cooperation, but within the framework of the univer- Institute for Advanced Studies, affiliated also reach out to Scandinavian and Baltic sity. It was the 1970s and 1980s that saw with the Central European University. academic centers, and even Eastern genuine expansion of institutes for ad- The institute in Budapest was established Partnership countries. The lack of such vanced study, a trend that remains ongo- in 2011 and is therefore still shaping its an institution in this part of the conti- ing all over the world. The institutes first program, with a focus on developing the nent is self-evident in looking at the dis- sprung up overseas in Western Europe humanities, social sciences, and law. In semination of institutes networked in the – the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Prague, the Center of Research in Social EURIAS program. Furthermore, VCAS Study in Wassenaar, Wissenschaftskolleg Sciences (CEFRES) networks junior would serve as bait for junior and senior zu Berlin, and the Swedish Collegium for scholars with parallel objectives. Finally, researchers from the V4 who received Advanced Study in Uppsala, to name just the renowned Institute for Human their qualifications abroad and would a few. European counterparts, in general, Sciences (IWM) in Vienna has long been welcome the opportunity to pursue their applied the original Princetonian model a crucial reference point for thinkers in advanced research back home, contrib- with a significant modification – they the region. uting to the sustainable and innovation- were closely intertwined with prestig- The idea of a distinct Visegrad based development of the region. ious universities from their inception. College for Advanced Study (VCAS) The loss of independence was balanced arises from this intellectual landscape. Translated by Anna Wójcik out by greater influence on current aca- Let’s imagine it as an idea hub focused on demic life, as these institutes are more showcasing intellectual output specific to The author, Prof. dr hab. Leszek Koczanowicz, involved in research carried out by moth- Central Europe; an institution both em- in 1997, was a Senior Fellow at the Institut für er universities or university consortia. bedded in the V4 and attuned to the global die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (IWM), in Today, European Institutes of Advanced development of the sciences, founded on 1998, a TRIS Fellow at the Netherland Institute Study are networked in the EURIAS the conviction that currents of thought for Advanced Study (NIAS), and a Senior EURIAS Fellowship Program, which includes cent- should flow freely outward and in. Fellow 2015-2016, elected to the Helsinki Col- ers in Edinburgh, Cambridge, Uppsala, To achieve these ambitious aims, in- legium for Advanced Study (HCAS). Helsinki, Wassenaar, Delmenhorst, Berlin, stitutional solutions must follow. VCAS Freiburg, Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Bologna, should be an independent scientific in- Vienna, Budapest, and Jerusalem. stitution affiliated with the consortium Setting aside the specificities of the of the most prominent universities of American and European models, insti- the Visegrad Group. The member states tutes for advanced study constitute a vital of the V4 should ensure its funding for element of contemporary scientific life, at least ten years, a period necessary to promoting focused, self-directed work by establish and implement sound research top-class researchers. Where does their policy. The VCAS Council, consisting popularity stem from? The answer is ap- of representatives of universities and parent. The institutes are beneficial to governments, would determine the ob- the academics they attract, the universi- jectives of the institute, appointing its ties with which they are affiliated, and the managing board and supervising it. The countries whose profiles they enhance. Scientific Committee appointed by the They foster communities of excellent Council would distribute the fellowships. researchers who freely discuss ideas and It seems reasonable to guarantee a cer- exchange research outcomes. As a result, tain number of fellowships for research- IASs build natural platforms for the inter- ers from the region. In addition to being a nationalization of science, accommodat- center of advanced research, VCAS could ing top-class academics from a variety of also serve as a didactic center, enabling fields and research centers. Furthermore, Ph.D. students from Poland, the Czech institutes for advanced study serve as an Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia to es- important supplement to the predomi- tablish ties with scholars of global promi- nant grant model of research funding, nence, a prerequisite for an academic and to some extent compensate for its career in our times. In the longer perspec- shortcomings. tive, a Visegrad Doctoral School of Social Sciences and Humanities could follow.

27 Europe Educational alternatives Watchlist educational initiatives photo: Jędrzej Sokołowski

f Social Wolves: Marcin Bruszewski, Paula Bruszewska, Rafał Flis

ioneering educational programs are shaping a generation of think- ers, activists, and entrepreneurs in the V4. Visegrad Insight presents seven outstanding idea and leadership hubs designed to have a last- ing impact on Central Europe in the decades to come. Not only do those initiatives inspire outside-of-the box ap- proaches and provide participants with the knowledge, key skills, and attitudes to develop jobs and industries of the future. By pro- moting inclusiveness, equality of opportunity, and responsibility for individual and shared futures, they are set to influence social, economic, and political arrangementsP in the region in the long run.

28 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Educational alternatives Europe

POLAND

Zwolnieni z teorii Rok szkoły zawodowców Exempt from theory The year of professionals’ school www.zwolnienizteorii.pl www.men.gov.pl/rok-szkoly-zawodowcow

What: First nationwide social entrepreneurship competition What: Mapping vocational schools all over the country and for high school students in Poland improving the perception of a career in crafts, trades, and services Who: The Social Wolves foundation Who: Polish Ministry of National Education Why: To improve the perception of volunteering and encour- age social entrepreneurship among young Poles Why: To eliminate the unfair stigma of vocational education and familiarize secondary school graduates with the benefits How: Teams of high school students develop projects address- of technical training in securing future employment ing the most pressing issues in their communities. They com- pete with each other for the main prize and are being awarded How: Informing teenagers and their parents of the offer of lo- project management certificates in the process. Introducing cal vocational schools as previously they were provided solely the elements of gamification and competitiveness to the pro- with the overview of high schools. The campaign emphasizes gram proved attractive – Zwolnieni z Teorii has become the that a university diploma no longer guarantees a successful third most popular high school Olympiad in Poland in its first career. Meanwhile, information systems technicians, chefs, year. nutritionist therapists, and mechanics are in high demand in “Volunteering is all too often considered a waste of time Poland. Moreover, internships in the biggest companies and by high school students in Poland. We aim to change that per- Chambers of Crafts are presented as a crucial asset of voca- ception, arguing that it gives people precisely those skills that tional education. make them stand out on the job market,” says says Rafał Flis, “I have been named the campaign’s ambassador to show co-founder of the Social Wolves foundation. the choice between high school and technical school from actual young person’s perspective. I’ve been a video blogger since I was thirteen, and I am now training in a vocational school to become IT technician. This was an obvious choice, as I always enjoyed manual work and practical approach more than theory,” admits Remigiusz “ReZigiusz” Wiezgoń, gamer, vlogger and the campaign’s ambassador.

29 Europe Educational alternatives

SLOVAKIA

LEAF Teach For Slovakia www.leaf.sk/en www.teachforslovakia.sk

What: Educating the future shapers of Central Europe What: Attracting talented university graduates to careers in education Who: LEAF, a non-profit organization focusing on education and the development of young individuals Who: Stanislav Boledovič, founder and CEO, New Europe 100 challenger Why: To increase the leadership potential of 13-19 year olds from the V4 Why: Highly-qualified and motivated teachers are a key factor in improving students’ overall academic performance How: by establishing an international school for promising teenagers, who demonstrate not only academic excellence, but How: By helping talented graduates launch their successful also leadership potential and are inclined toward entrepre- careers in education. Participants go through extensive train- neurship and civic engagement. The school attracts students ing, with a focus on developing communication skills and from different socio-economic and geographical backgrounds networking. Then they work for two years in partner educa- thanks to its scholarship program. Problem solving and a tional institutions. Financial support is provided and alumni hands-on approach in addressing today’s most pressing is- networks ensure long-term mentoring. sues distinguishes the school’s curriculum. Students will be “The most important issues that we need to solve lie encouraged to set up their own initiatives and participate in outside business – in areas of a desperate need of ethical and internship programs from an early age. capable leaders. I believe that if we wish to improve our soci- “LEAF’s goal is to build an educational institution that ety for our children, we need to redirect part of our energy to develops students’ character, excellence, and drive for change,” these areas,” argues the program founder Stanislav Boledovič. claim program organizers.

THE CZECH REPUBLIC

Aspen Young Leaders Program Architekti ve škole | Architects at school www.aspeninstitute.cz/en/news/young-leaders-program/ www.architektiveskole.cz

Who: The Aspen Institute Prague Who: Kristýna Stará, Ondřej Teplý, Aleš Hamhalter, Josef Čevora Why: To network up-and-coming Central European influencers Why: To increase kids interest in shaping the urban environ- How: A diverse group of young people active in politics, busi- ment and public space ness, media, and culture explores the meaning of leadership during seminars and workshops in the Tatra Mountains. The How: Workshops for elementary, secondary, and high school program is targeted at young professionals who have already students are led by accomplished architects, urban planners, proven themselves or showed a capacity for leadership in their and designers. They aim to introduce the youngest citizens respective fields. to issues of public concern: politics, aesthetics, and the social “At first, I was really surprised to be invited to the pro- fabric of the urban environment. gram – I imagined all the board members, politicians, and “The way we approach the landscape is an expression of CEOs, and I was afraid I would not fit within this group. But the cultural level of our society. We should elevate it and there- then I came here and understood that it is all about meeting fore push forward the country’s culture in general,” Architekti different people from various sectors, exchanging knowledge ve škole argues. and experience and motivating each other. And I am thrilled to be part of this,” sums up Yemi A.D., a renowned choreogra- pher from the Czech Republic.

30 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Educational alternatives Europe

HUNGARY

SKOOL | Yes, she codes

www.skool.org.hu photo: Jędrzej Sokołowski

f Skool: Zsófi Major, Péter Guzsaly, What: Encouraging girls to pursue careers in IT Szilvi Koleszár

Who: Foundation for Technology Education

Why: To promote inclusiveness and diversify the technology ecosystem in Hungary

How: Creating a community that facilitates the participation of women in technological innovation. Girls aged from ten to sixteen are invited to participate in workshops introduc- ing them to the future-oriented field of IT. Discussed topics include robotics, mobile applications development, computer animation, and web design, among others. “Why is this good for us? Because there will be a time when we will be very proud to hear cool computer scientists, th reputable business women, and company executives speaking  – about their career: I started at Skool, too!” says Szilvi Koleszár,  co-founder of Skool. www.res.publica.pl/festival

31 Economy How universities pay off illustration: Jan Bajtlik

32 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 How universities pay off Economy

Of money, quality, and love

In looking at the relationship between business and education, an important observation by Liviu Matei, provost of the Central European University and expert on education, comes to mind: If we look at the most prestigious universities in the world, there are many private universities, but no for-profit ones,he says.

Martin Ehl

his could hardly serve as a strict guideline for students or parents with regard to how much a good education may cost, but this observation is worth some thought as an indicator of the relationship between the quality and expense of education. Matei also points out that, “The line between private and public schools – in how they make money – is disappearing.” One need not explain to young Hungarians the relationship between expense and education; in the wake of recent changes they must pay heav- ily at state universities. Hungary is also specific because the offer of private institutions Tof higher education is the lowest among all the V4 countries. In quality versus expense, private universities and colleges are competitive only in Poland, and only to a limited extent. The most prestigious and highly ranked institutions are largely public, and cost less than their private counterparts (with the aforementioned exception of Hungary). On the other hand, studying at private schools is usually more comfortable, and programs are more flexible and “student-friendly.”

33 Economy How universities pay off

love and quality, money, f O

Private schools were originally founded after you do not need an expensive laboratory to read 1989 to cover high demand for university education in political theories or stretch management skills. the region; they did not build quality. Public institutions Demography and the labor market have found their way to different international programs – such as shown in the past year that the easy decision to go Tempus – very quickly after the fall of communism. They could to relatively cheap (in terms of money and effort) pub- send teachers abroad, acquire know-how, and learn the best lic or private schools for the humanities or economics has practices from Western Europe and the U.S. its risks: there are already too many sociologists, psychologists, All this could change. Demography works against the and journalists. Such a diploma could in many cases amount to business of education, and we are seeing an ever-lower number an expensive but worthless piece of paper – just ask thousands of students. About forty private higher educational institutions of young jobseekers in Poland. closed just in Poland last year. Voices of fear can also be heard The cost of good education is already climbing. It is not from employees of private schools in the Czech Republic and necessarily those that are the most expensive on the market that Slovakia. “It is hard to survive, let alone make a profit,” said a are the best (customary as in any business), but a cost/profit high-ranking official of one of the leading Czech private schools analysis is necessary – and less customary – in deciding on in- under condition of anonymity. vestment in one’s future. Under such circumstances, it should be easy for students Politicians in all four Visegrad countries from time to time and parents to make decisions on the basis of quality versus raise the question of whether it is worth having so many uni- expenses, but because schools – public and private alike – are versity-educated people. Setting aside the different motivations pressed for additional income, students will pay anyway. behind such remarks, one should look at interest – and demand The issue of quality versus expense is complicated further is still there. The wave of state administration officials who were by new trends in which local and small universities and colleges forced to finish a degree is probably over, but young people have narrowed their scope and become more specialized, with still see their chances of getting good work being dramatically surprisingly good results. There is an interesting trend in the higher with a good education. “We see that higher education re- Czech Republic based on unique research by the Czech daily mains highly valued, there is no less interest than ten years ago; Hospodářské noviny, which published rankings of fifty-nine fac- on the contrary, interest is growing,” says Liviu Matei, although ulties in seven areas of education. There was significant posi- CEU is not a typical university in Central Europe. tive shift in quality among regional (not in Prague) universities, Only those who can persuade future students that this mainly in Brno and Liberec, this year for the first time. What this investment is worth it despite growing expenses, will not only means for the student in search of a good education at a reason- survive but thrive, bringing academic and intellectual profit able price is clear: the cost of living in Prague is always higher. to society. There is another hope for colleges and universities. A decentralized but high-quality education can be ob- Unlike in the Anglo-Saxon world, Central European culture tained in Poland, where there are traditionally strong universi- simply loves academic titles. ties and colleges not only Warsaw, but in Krakow, Wroclaw, and Poznan. There were only four Warsaw institutions in the top The author is a contributing editor of Visegrad Insight and the Chief Inter- twenty in the ranking of Polish universities last year, published national Editor of the Czech daily Hospodářské noviny. in Perspektywy monthly.. Hungary and Slovakia both rely on their capitals in terms of quality. There are, of course, other factors that contribute to the quality/expense dilemma. Technical universities offer better prospects but are more demanding in terms of effort. Simple math dictates that it is easier to get into those schools because there is higher demand for the humanities and economics, as these have flourished in the public and private sectors in recent years. From the business point of view they are also cheaper, as

34 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 How universities pay off Economy It is foreigners who help us survive

Education business is on the rise in Central Eu- rope. This has become increasingly evident for the last generations who benefitted from free public education: they are now witnessing both private and public schools being forced to look for additional income following budgetary cuts and demographic decline. Education costs and the market are tougher than ever.

35 Economy How universities pay off

The most ambitious students leave Visegrad for Western Europe, Julie Daňková and Martin Ehl the U.S., et’s first take a look at the The ranking of Polish private higher once-thriving private sec- education institutions is dominated by and Asia. tor of so-called diploma Kozminski University in Warsaw, with factories.” Private higher the University of Social Sciences and But that education schools began Humanities in Warsaw (SWPS) in second to emerge in the coun- place. “Its name does not suggest it, but is another tries of the V4 during the this school has the widest range of sub- 1990s, experiencing real jects and quite famous teachers who are story. expansion after 2000. They catered to the often quoted,” declares one of its former Lhuge demand for higher education that students. came in the wake of socialism, when only The success of Kozminski University a small and select part of the population is unique in Central Europe. For exam- could study. Many people did not get a ple, in the Financial Times Ranking, chance at a title due to high competition which covers the best European Business or inappropriate “class origin.” Schools, it takes forty-first place, the best Moreover, these private institutions among the schools of Central and Eastern introduced the opportunity to study new Europe. It has acquired the prestigious in- subjects such as management, market- ternational accreditations of AACSB and ing, and IT. Gradually, the demand for EQUIS. “Unlike private schools in the higher education from employers in both Czech Republic, Kozminski University the private and public sectors grew. For decided to follow the Western model of example, nurses were obliged to get uni- elite education. It has concentrated on versity degrees, and the Czech state paid building a prestigious MBA program school fees for nursing students to private and adult education programs, which colleges and higher vocational schools. they provide in cooperation with foreign This environment has created huge schools,” says Hana Machková, rector business potential and private schools of the University of Economics Prague. have boomed. They have served as an Polish schools are, however, a prime ex- alternative in offer and capacity to pub- ample of demographic decline, which is lic schools, and they have filled market affecting all V4 countries. “Just last year, gaps. For example, in the Czech Republic, about forty private schools were closed there is no public college for the hotel in Poland,” says Piotr Arak, an analyst of business, and, therefore, this demand is the Polityka Insight think tank. “Private met by the private Institute of Hospitality schools in Poland focus on economics, Management in Prague. humanities, and IT. Prices are compara- Acccordingly to its size and popula- ble with those offered by public schools. tion, Poland has the highest number of Cheaper schools want only a few thou- private colleges and universities in the sand zlotys. In general, the majority of region. Their quality varies, but although schools have financial problems and debt, the highest-ranked are public schools, but there are no official reports and such there are also some high-quality schools troubles are quite often hidden.” among the private schools.

36 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 How universities pay off Economy

It increasingly looks as though pri- rankings do not go to private schools, been more discussion of cost-sharing in vate schools are a second choice. The end but to big state universities like mine,” higher education – from parents, fami- of conscription in 2009 was a huge blow to says Gábor Halász, professor of educa- lies, and foundations,” says Liviu Matei, private schools in Poland, as they were no tion at ELTE University in Budapest. provost and vice-rector of the Central longer in demand as havens from the draft. Government policy is not helpful to European University in Budapest. private schools in Hungary. “The policy For example, in Poland pay those environment is quite discouraging. The who study in evening or on the week- government says quite explicitly that it end or postgraduate studies have to pay. The end of the does not like private services in educa- “Those who pay for their studies, pay a tion. It does not even like the term ‘ser- few thousand zlotys for humanities or golden age vice’. There has even been a linguistic tens of thousands for medical and phar- change in legislation: we are ‘serving’ so- maceutical faculties. Technical schools There are more private than public ciety (as in civil service), not ‘selling’ to do not ask because it would be too expen- schools in the Czech Republic, but not society,” says Professor Halász. sive for Polish students,” says Piotr Arak. more students in them. There are forty- Public universities in the Czech four private colleges and universities with Republic and Slovakia receive some in- almost 44,000 students, but there are come from adult education and foreign- more than 300,000 students at twenty- How to make language programs, which are fully eight public and state schools. Czech pri- covered by all students. “Slovak schools vate schools also offer mainly economics money were quite active in making money on and the humanities, which are cheap. foreign students. They have lobbied for While some interest remains, the Private schools are struggling to improve the provision that programs in any lan- golden age of private schools is over in their standing and secure their future. guage other than Slovak be paid. In 2013, the Czech Republic. For example, the big- Their number one priority is attracting schools in Slovakia received more than gest private Czech university, Jan Amos foreign students. “When there is a lower 23 million euros from foreign students,” Komensky University Prague had almost number of high school graduates, there said Renata Králiková, an analyst for the 10,000 students in 2011, and its pretax is the possibility of attracting foreign stu- Slovak Governance Institute, an NGO. income was around 350 million crowns. dents,” explains Petr Kolář, vice-rector of We see the same trend in Hungary. But in 2013, it had 6,600 students and Jan Amos Komensky University Prague. “There is competition and a market for a pretax income of 237 million crowns. Another possibility is building a adult education that is profitable, some- Such a good result is an exception among whole education system under one um- times significantly so. Higher education Czech private schools; the profits of oth- brella. The University of Finance and institutions are also entering this mar- ers do not exceed ten million crowns and Administration, a private school from ket; my university also provides such some schools are in the red. Prague, has brought this model to the programs. These are typically vocation- “For some time, education was fi- Czech Republic. It offers education from oriented,” says Gábor Halász. Technical nancially attractive to founders of private kindergarten to elementary and high universities also have the opportunity schools and they had good economic re- school, through university. This idea has to gain income from projects with the sults, but now, public schools cover more already been put into effect by the Ostrava commercial sector and from spin-off or less the same educational areas and Business School. “We have opened a pri- companies. many private schools do not have enough vate business academy at high school lev- Among regional public schools, the students to continue their work,” says el. This strategy works, I meet the same most motivated to search for additional Professor Peter Baláž of the University of people later in the corridors,” says Rada income are those in Hungary. This is an Economics in Bratislava on the general Jünger, executive director. absolutely necessary condition for them situation in the V4. Many schools also offer special- to operate, as the state budget covers According to Rector Machková, it ized courses of interest to companies and only two-thirds, or even less, estimates was a strategic mistake that Czech pri- public institutions, which private schools Professor Halász. “Sources of income in vate colleges during the boom did not are able to prepare quickly and tailor to order of significance are: fees from non- concentrate on institution-building, but specific needs. At least two of the afore- regular students (those studying part- on profit. “Unlike Kozminski University, mentioned strategies – attracting foreign time), research (typically acquired under private schools in the Czech Republic students into paid programs and devel- competition from the state budget), and went the way of the highest possible cost oping adult education – have also been lastly EU funds and development pro- cuts. Their primary investment was not implemented by public schools, which grams. Increasingly, regular students big enough, they tried to attract as many likewise need to improve their financial must also pay. The system is such that the students as possible, and did not built picture in the face of overall cuts to public state defines the number of ‘state-paid’ their own teacher teams. The result is budgets. And these can offer better rank- students. Typically, educational institu- that the majority of staff teaches there on ings and stronger traditions, and have at tions take more students, but there are a part-time basis and naturally does not least part of their budgets secured from areas in which the state has completely invest real interest in building the institu- the state. halted support; for example, programs in tion,” says Machková. “There are only a few countries in economics are completely without state The situation in Slovakia and the world that fully cover higher educa- funding. All students in economics pay Hungary is similar. “The most prestigious tion. In recent years, in general, there has fees,” explains Gábor Halasz.

37 Economy How universities pay off

League tables of higher Foreigners welcome here! education institutions It seems that one of the most important factors for the survival of higher edu- in Central Europe cation schools are foreigners who pay. Schools from the V4, both private and public, are fishing in the same waters. Students from the West are most often in- terested in medicine, those from the East QS TOP Universities mostly in economics. Medical schools have the longest tradition in teach- 1. MIT (USA) 2. University of Cambridge (UK) ing foreigners. According to the Polish 3. Imperial College London (UK) Ministry of Education, the international 4. Harvard University (USA) success of medical schools has been sig- 5. University of Oxford (UK) nificantly supported by the fact they have accreditation from schools in the United 244. Charles University (CZ) States. Polish technical schools have also 335. University of Warsaw (PL) 371. Jagiellonian University (PL) taken this path to make themselves more 411.–420. Czech Technical University in Prague (CZ) attractive to foreigners. Czech medical 551.–600. Masaryk University (CZ) schools harness the good reputation of 651.–600. Brno University of Technology (CZ) medical education in the Czech Repub- Warsaw University of Technology (PL) lic. Interestingly, Norway has calculated University of Szeged (HU) 601.–650. Eotvos Lorand University (HU) that paying for medical education for University of Debrecen (HU) young Norwegians in the Czech Repub- 701+ University of Economics, Prague (CZ) lic is less expensive than increasing the Lodz University (PL) capacity of domestic schools in Norway. Nicolaus Copernicus University (PL) However, some examples from Slovakia University of Wroclaw (PL) have recently shown that the education Corvinus University of Budapest (HU) of foreigners should have its limitations. Slovak Denník N daily has shown huge Academic Ranking of World Universities 2014 differences between conditions of admis- by Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai sion for Slovaks and foreigners to public Jiao Tong University (ARWU, World Top 500 universities. While admission require- Universities) ments for Slovaks remain quite tough, foreigners – mainly Greeks – are usually 1. Harvard University (USA) all admitted. 2. Stanford University (USA) 3. MIT (USA) Public schools have even started to 4. University of California-Berkeley (USA) cooperate in attracting foreign students. 5. University of Cambridge (UK) The rectors of five public schools in Prague recently agreed to cooperate in at- 201.–300. Charles University in Prague (CZ) tracting foreign students. A result of this is 301.–400. Eotvos Lorand University (HU) the shared web platform “Study in Prague,” Jagiellonian University (PL) University of Warsaw (PL) which provides information about educa- tion programs and student life in Prague. “Study in Poland” is a similar program. The Financial Times European Business School Peter Baláž points out one specific- ranking 2014 ity among Czechs and Slovaks: “Czech schools cover the decline in numbers of 1. London Business School (UK) 2. HEC Paris (France) students to a certain extent by increas- 3. IE Business School (Spain) ing the number students from Slovakia 4. Esade Business School (Spain) (around 25,000) and other countries, 5. Insead (France) because Czech colleges and universities have the highest quality among the four 41. Kozminski University (PL) countries,” he says. 77. Warsaw School of Economics (PL) 77. University of Economics, Prague (CZ) 79. Corvinus University of Budapest (HU)

38 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 How universities pay off Economy

The end of expensive MBAs The Financial Times Master in Management Ranking 2014 The limitations of the education business have been clearly defined by MBA cours- 1. University of St Gallen (CH) 2. HEC Paris (FR) es. Prestigious and expensive programs, 3. Essec Business School (FR) such as MBAs, had to close because lo- 4. WHU Beisheim (DE) cals were not willing or able to pay such 5. CEMS (University of Economics, Prague) (CZ) high tuition. Poland is an exception with its size and greater potential clientele. For 35. Kozminski University (PL) 68. Warsaw School of Economics (PL) example, studying an MBA at Kozmin- 69. University of Economics, Prague (CZ) ski University costs 28,500 euros, while 70. Corvinus University of Budapest (HU) in the Czech Republic all expensive and prestigious programs such as the MBA program of Masaryk Institute of ČVUT Europe’s top 100 schools of architecture and Scheffield University, and the MBA and design by Domus Magazine 2015 program of CMC Graduate School of Prague Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design VSUUP Business in Čelákovice and DePaul Uni- was the only establishement from CE which made the prestigious versity in Chicago have been closed. list. The most ambitious students leave Visegrad for Western Europe, the U.S., and Asia. But that is another story. Top Schools for Animation, Gaming and Design by Animation Career Review 2012 Julie Daňková is journalist, currently spokesper- son of Economic University in Prague. 1. Sheridan – Oakville, Canada 2. California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) – Valencia, California Martin Ehl is a contributing editor of Visegrad In- 3. Gobelins – France sight and the Chief International Editor of Czech daily Hospodářské noviny. 83. ANOMALIA – Czech Republic 97. The Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) – Prague, Czech Republic

Top 15 international film schools by The Hollywood Reporter 2014

1. National Film and Television School – London (UK) 2. Lodz Film School – Lodz (PL) 3. La Femis – Paris (FR) 4. FAMU – Prague (CZ)

39 40 Ec onmy Ho Foreign students wuniversitiep a y off VIsegrad insght 1 (7) | 2015 in central europe

photo: Dominik Gajda/REPORTER The (q T of Poland’s late-comer status. aninternational infostering sivity culture are the mainroots of communism, homogeneity, institutional pas and acertain the legacy barriers, that argues language of Polish universities, strengthening the with international image tasked ganization Foundation, ofthe Perspektywy tive director or anon-profit execu Siwinska, Bianka education. ofhigher interms country internationaluncomfortable the V4 paradox least of being economy, developed andthe most region Poland the exhibits republic. the Soviet former in crisis by the military caused students inflow ofUkrainian mainlyonthe impressive depend they overestimated because 2014-2015. However, outcomes should notbe positive these of7,000students –continuein 2013-2014–anincrease in should thechallenge surge record the soon, recorded Czech foreign students. consider immigrants second-generation office ofSlovakia’s ofEducation. Ministry 10,856,accordingIn 2014their reached number to the press presence the offoreign students. with smallest country pean although it sawremains the Central afivefold increase, Euro which (189%) and Slovakia, Republic greater in the Czech even 21% and 80%, to 18,850and 22,925, respectively. was Growth andPoland by offoreign studentsnumber inHungary rose thatfrom 2005 to 2011, the reports TheOECD revolution. by this affected Central European countries have been also (OECD). andDevelopment nomic Cooperation comprehensive for bythe Eco Organization study published according99% worldwide, to Education at aGlance 2012,a by increased education intertiary of foreign students enrolled than ever.ing abroad easier From 2000to 2010the number 2012. This as 2012. This the count is questionable, tend authorities to according to Eurostat there were 39,455 foreign students in Poland, with its 35,000 foreign students, is expected to expected is Poland, 35,000foreign students, its with champion; regional is Republic the Czech By contrast, Despite having the largest number of universities inthe having the ofuniversities number largest Despite is coming tostudy coming is zech record record Czech uestionable) of these changes; globalization has madestudy has globalization changes; of these aconsequence as twodecades inthe last curred oc education tional student mobilityintertiary large in interna extent, the tremendous increase be stopped. cannot course, butsuch flow To a of still exist, Borders nations. move across money, andideas goods, broad, andpeople, more Europe growing is he world globalized, is in theV4? in M atteo T Who acconi Ho w universitie p

a y off Ec ------onmy 41 Economy How universities pay off

Achievements and weaknesses Figures are booming in all V4 countries, but that does not mean that internationalization is proceeding at a uniform rate. Each country has its own education system and different pub- lic strategies to attract foreign students, although EU mem- bership has done a great deal to level differences and provide common frameworks. CMYK 30|30|90|10 Nevertheless, there are someRGB 180|160|50 trends that can be found in each corner of the region. One of these is high mobility rates from neighboring countries. Ukrainians and Belarusians represent 52% of foreign students in Poland.CMYK Slovaks 30|30|90|10 are the biggest foreign group in CzechCMYK Republic, 0|80|0|0 RGBwhile 180|160|50 Czechs rep- resent half of the international RGBstudents 250|80|210 in Slovakia. Hungary attracts many students from Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, and the former Yugoslavia. CMYK 0|80|0|0 The overall picture is oneCMYK of a 90|0|0|0Central-EasternRGB 250|80|210 European space for research and education,RGB but 0|160|255 at the same time it proves that V4 nations are lagging behind pre-enlargement Europe in terms of internationalization of tertiary education, as they have CMYK 30|30|90|10 CMYK 90|0|0|0 yet to become attractive to studentsRGB 180|160|50 from counties other than those of the region itself and theCMYK post-Soviet 0|0|100|5RGB area. 0|160|255 The reasons behind thisRGB deficit 250|240|0 are manifold. Among these, the aforementioned communist legacy and language barriers are the most critical.CMYK In effect, 0|80|0|0 Communism kept CMYK 0|0|100|5 RGB 250|80|210 Central Europe from developmentCMYK and 65|0|100|10 imposedRGB 250|240|0 respect for the Marxist-Leninist doctrine in universities,RGB 15|200|0 forcing V4 countries to rethink their education systems after 1989. Encouraging re- sults have been achieved so far, and the quality of education CMYK 90|0|0|0 CMYK 65|0|100|10 and research has advanced considerably.RGB 0|160|255 Charles University in Prague, the University of Warsaw,CMYK the 0|90|85|10 JagiellonianRGB 15|200|0 University in Cracow, Comenius UniversityRGB in 255|50|0 Bratislava, and Corvinus University in Budapest have all built solid reputations, but their international rankings stillCMYK fall short.0|0|100|5 CMYK 0|90|85|10 RGB 250|240|0 Countries whose languagesCMYK are 100|75|0|0 widelyRGB spoken 255|50|0 outside their own borders, like the U.S.,RGB Great 0|0|195 Britain, France, Spain, and Russia, have a clear competitive advantage. V4 nations, on the contrary, have no alternative but to offer programs in CMYK 65|0|100|10 English (but there are also classes in GermanCMYK and100|75|0|0 Russian). FESTIVAL RGB 15|200|0 Many universities have made effortsCMYK 0|40|100|0 to fillRGB this 0|0|195 gap, although OF IDEAS more should be done. In Poland,RGB 255|170|0there are more than 400 programs in English. Universities in Prague have taken up European ForumFESTIVAL Alpbach the challenge seriously. AmongCMYK them, 0|90|85|10 the Czech Technical RGB 255|50|0 CMYK 0|40|100|0 #InEquality | 19.8. – 4.9.2015 University provides the most programs inRGB English, 255|170|0 accord- Get a glimpse into Europe’sOF future together IDEAS ing to www.czech.cz. Slovakia is also working to improve with renowned speakersEuropean from across the Forum world. Alpbachstandards; eight universities have implemented programs in English, www.studyin.sk reports. Register#InEquality now: www.alpbach.org | 19.8. – 4.9.2015 CMYK 100|75|0|0 There are also many opportunitiesRGB 0|0|195 to study in English Get a glimpse into Europe’s future togetherin Hungary. Semmelweis University in Budapest is a regional with renowned speakers from across the world.pioneer: it launched programs in foreign languages already FESTIVALRegister now: www.alpbach.org in the early 1980s. Classes in German were started at that time, and English was introducedCMYK right0|40|100|0 after the fall of the OF IDEAS Berlin Wall. RGB 255|170|0 European Forum Alpbach The attractiveness of medical schools #InEquality | 19.8. – 4.9.2015 Efforts made by Semmelweis University to bring in students from abroad have been described by The New York Times in Get a glimpse into Europe’s future together with renowned speakers from across the world. an article published in August 2013. The article focused on the growing number of young Americans and Western Europeans Register now: www.alpbach.org heading to Central Europe for medical and dental degrees, which are the most attractive fields for foreigners studying in the region.

42 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 How universities pay off Economy Borders still exist, of course, but such flow cannot be stopped.

photo: Bartosz KRUPA/EAST NEWS

The OECD database (2010) shows that 42% and 45% of for Western Europeans, they usually pay higher fees in Central foreigners enrolled in Hungary and Slovakia, respectively, are European medical schools than they would at home or those paid studying in the fields of health and welfare. Figures in Poland by locals, but this is softened by lower rent, food, and energy bills. are lower (30%), but they exceed the OECD average. The Czech The question of fees also raises another factor. Basically, Republic is an exception (15%). The social sciences, business, it helps to understand the different approach of Central and and law are the most appealing (40%) in Prague and Brno, the Western Europe to the internationalization of higher educa- two biggest and most respected university poles of the country. tion. While V4 countries perceive foreign students as a fi- Why are medical schools so popular? There is no straight- nancial resource (their fees help deans draft better budgets), forward answer. There are many other contributing factors, a universities in pre-enlargement Europe usually ask the same strong regional background in scientific disciplines among tuition fees of national and international students, who are them. Another issue that cannot be ignored is the fact that seen as the future workforce. young people living in Western Europe are increasingly inter- It would be unfair to omit measures implemented in ested in discovering the V4 region, which has been a positive Central Europe to keep foreign students in the region once effect of European enlargement. they receive their degrees. A working paper released in 2014 The key to success rests with issues other than those pre- by the Centre for Migration, Policy and Society (Oxford sented here so far. Admission to medical schools in the U.S. and University) cites the example that from 2005 to 2010, foreign Western Europe is highly competitive, so some of those who students graduating from Czech universities could ask for per- do not succeed start looking for opportunities abroad. Central manent residence after two and half years, if they had a prior Europe is a good alternative, as its degrees are often recognized job offer. in students’ countries of origin and the balance between fees and cost of living is even, especially for American students. As The author is an Italian journalist covering Central and Eastern Europe.

43 Economy How universities pay off

why? Inquiring

Innovation is the result of inquiring minds that never stop asking, “Why?” It often works best when unleashed from the restrictions why? of the education industry.

Richard Berkeley

nnovation often comes about through the exchange of ideas through discussion with others or an internalized process that leads to a new way of looking at something. Discussion de- pends on language and on the ability to express ideas with why? clarity, commitment, and enthusiasm. IHowever, education systems that depend from start to finish on the transfer of facts from the teacher to the student and then regurgitation from the student to the teacher via the examination paper do not encourage the thinking that innovation requires. Agreed, they do make life easy for the teacher, there are only two pos- sible answers in the test, but the process is hardly thrilling for anyone. Education should be thrilling!

44 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 How universities pay off Economy why?

above all Inquiring minds

why?

that mattered were the great man’s exact therefore essential. A surprising number Learning by words. This was a long time ago, but how of graduates leave universities without many students would recognize this style the ability to express themselves cogently heart and its of teaching today? Not so many, perhaps, in English or even Eurish, Euro-speak. although some Polish law graduates still In a world in which communication is discontents claim their theses were judged by weight becoming ever more verbal than writ- rather than content. Clarity of thought ten, this is a huge disadvantage. Startup The Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote and expression do not seem to be priori- meetings, teleconferences, and presen- that the worst decision of his student life ties, but if you cannot express an idea in tations all rely on the ability to present was to leave Vilnius, which at that time your own terms that other people can un- and argue ideas in English. Good ideas had one of the most outstanding uni- derstand, where does that leave you, and get lost. Educational institutions must versities in the region, to spend a year at what hope is there for innovation? develop forums in which discussion, de- the law faculty in Warsaw. There he was bate, and rhetorical skills are developed. “taught” by a professor who had written If this does not start at primary school, a booklet on the law that his students the potential of a generation is under- were obliged to commit to memory. The Language mined. The consequences of this neglect end-of-year exam consisted of an exami- are evident everywhere, whether in inter- nation based on the booklet. Students and ideas national consultancy firms, corporations, were expected to quote the professor’s or small firms. Undeniably, many young original text verbatim in their answers. For students in the global market there people speak English extremely well, but Failure to do so resulted in penalty. Their is an additional twist: English is the lan- speaking a language and being able to ex- own ideas, their own way of expressing guage of business and science. The ability press complex ideas in it are not the same the same ideas, counted for nothing. All to express ideas coherently in English is skills.

45 Economy How universities pay off

Intergenerational exchange Bismarck must be turning in his grave. When he introduced the pension sys- tem in Germany, his vision was that a worker who had toiled until he was six- ty-five could have two or three years of well-earned rest before he died. He did JUNE 4-6, 2015 not intend for people to live for twenty or thirty years at the state’s expense after retirement. Today, many people spend the first twenty-five years of their lives EXPLORE THE TECHNOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL taking from the state, they contribute in BOUNDARIES BETWEEN MAN AND MACHINE AND ENJOY 3 DAYS OF LIVELY DEBATE, ART AND MUSIC IN STUNNING taxes for thirty-five or possibly forty years VENUES IN THE HEART OF BUDAPEST. and then become dependent for another twenty or thirty years. The math is clear. 50 SPEAKERS, including What does not appear in these figures is the cost societies incur by persuading RICHARD FLORIDA older people to leave the workforce. Old- Author, The Rise of the Creative Class er people are an untapped source of in- SUGATA MITRA novative ideas. They know where the gaps TED Prize 2013 are through experience. Statistics from VICTORIA SWEET Britain show that if older people were Guggenheim Fellow 2014 kept in the workforce, either by continu- ing their jobs or by retraining for others, PHILIP ZIMBARDO they would not take jobs away from the Founder of The Heroic Imagination Project young – which is the usual excuse given KEN GOLDBERG for encouraging people to retire. Instead, Professor of Robotics, UC Berkeley they would create new jobs for the young, TINA SAABY in partnership with the young. With the Chief City Architect of Copenhagen rapidly aging populations of CEE, build- ÁDÁM SOMLAI-FISCHER ing bridges between the generations must Co-Founder and Principal Artist, Prezi become a priority for governments and businesses, or these economies will be- SARA DAVIDSON come basket cases. Retraining the over- Founder and CEO, Hello Fearless 50s and combating ageism are essential DANIEL EPSTEIN elements of innovative societies. One of the World's Most Impactful Entrepreneurs But what do we mean by innova- BJØRN BOLSTAD tion? Asking ourselves why we do things Headmaster of Ringstabekk School the way we do them is a start. American EILEEN BARTHOLOMEW business has discovered that inviting Senior Vice President at XPRIZE teens into their businesses for work expe- rience pays off. It is a win-win situation. VLADIMIR SUCHA The teen gets an idea of what he or she Director of EU Science Hub may or may not like in a career and the PIA MANCINI business is often challenged to explain Democracy Activist the logic of a process that evaporates un- der the critical eye of a sixteen-year-old. GET YOUR TICKET NOW! This results in a rethink. Rethinking of- BRAINBARBUDAPEST.HU ten leads to innovation, greater efficiency, and profit. How many businesses have opened their doors to schools? For that matter, how many universities are work- ing with businesses? They have so much to learn from each other. Where are the mentors? In retirement? And what about career advice for the young?

46 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 How universities pay off Economy

taught that there are only two answers the problem lies not with them, but with Unleashed mind to any problem, the right and the wrong, our concept of education. what are we left with? We are certainly One of the ways in which govern- The role of education is to open and not encouraged to ask in school, but ask- ments have tackled youth unemployment stretch the mind through shared experi- ing is essential to innovation. is to encourage the higher-education in- ences, to inquire where enquiry has been dustry. There is logic to the theory that ignored, to exercise the imagination the more educated a work force, the where complacency has bred acceptance. more productive it will be. Unfortunately, There is no age limit on the process but Keep asking practice does not bear out the theory. it is usual for the more experienced, usu- University education does not neces- ally the older, to teach and guide the less “why” sarily result in skills that have a place in experienced, the younger; however, there the economy, or in more open-minded is no fixed rule. Most of all, we must un- We all know the problem of hand drying and flexible people. Over-education may derstand that innovation, the result of an in public toilets: the embarrassment of even render a graduate unemployable. inquiring mind, does not come easily, nor making other people wait or leaving with Although there is still a lot of snobbery are we all original thinkers – perhaps too wet hands because, for years, no one had associated with university degrees, it much emphasis is put on young people come up with a better system than the is becoming increasingly apparent that becoming “innovators.” The good news machines that blow air everywhere ex- many people would be far better off hav- is that we may not need to be. What cept where it is needed. Incredibly, these ing a job or apprenticeship upon leaving we need is the courage to ask questions machines are still in production and have school. They would learn practical skills. where none has been asked and to perse- a market. Rethinking this problem took It has been suggested that as many as five vere until we get the answer, even though Professor Dyson far longer than it should out of six people who currently go to uni- the answer might not be the one we an- have done, but thankfully he got there versity would be better served by having a ticipated. The process requires repetition eventually. The Dyson hand dryer was a job and not bothering with university un- and grappling with a problem until a eu- revolution in hand drying, simple, obvi- til they really needed additional training, reka moment presents itself, or simply ous, and truly innovative. A reinvention or have shown a genuine interest in a sub- passes us by. The process can be disheart- of the wheel? Yes, an innovative rethink ject. Of course, this raises the problem of ening and tedious. The aspiring striker of something right under our noses, an what to do with all those people in the who spends his free time practicing his answer different from the accepted solu- education business. Someone has to lose. shots, the painter mixing colors, the tion – so successful that other manufac- A further challenge is that schools musician searching for the right sound, turers are copying it. It might have been and places of higher education must all require courage and perseverance marked “wrong!” Thank goodness Dyson become central to their communities. with no certainty of success. Great ac- kept asking, “Why?” Instead of closing their doors at the end tors visibly grow into their roles through of the school day, they should become repetition, maturity, and understanding; meeting places for the whole community however, without guidance, without a – community centers where skills and coach, most of us will not achieve much. Clash experiences can be exchanged across the What makes the difference is the exam- generations. The curriculum must also be ple. And where are the examples? Where with education broadened: a liberal education with the are the opportunities to learn the value of arts, humanities, sciences, and sport as revisiting a subject if all that is needed to industry integral parts is the right of every child move up the ladder is the regurgitation of and essential to the development of a facts to pass an exam? Far too many teachers lack the experi- broadminded and informed approach Whether in sports or the arts, per- ence and skills to teach effectively. The to life. Quality teaching and facilities are formers use morning warm-up exer- world is moving too fast for them to keep paramount. Yet how many governments cises to get the brain and body working up. They are no longer the only source of in the Central European region have in harmony and to fire up team spirit. knowledge. Some try to copy programs made education a priority? Education is A common acting exercise is to put an and techniques that are used elsewhere, the future of every nation, but it rarely object in the middle of the room and but without the vision that has driven makes the front pages of the newspapers. ask team members to demonstrate what their development. Others simply hang Governments can cry out for innovation, uses it could have in addition to the one on to what they know, truths that have but whilst they remain obsessed with it was designed for. Small children have long since died. How many have attend- the PISA exam league tables rather than no problem with this, but executives in ed training courses since they took their quality education, innovation will remain business trainings often find it very hard degrees and diplomas decades ago and, on a very short lead. to move away from the idea that a chair when they have, taken them seriously? is for sitting. Turn it upside down, and A teacher must have two attributes: an The author is education coach, promoter of you have a seesaw. But turning it upside endlessly enquiring mind and a generous chamber music, and director of Fundacja Nowa down requires an act of courage and im- spirit. Milosz’s law professor had neither. Orkiestra Kameralna. agination, and a lot of self-confidence. It If teachers cannot bridge the gap between requires the ability to look at a problem themselves and their students, perhaps from a different perspective. If we are

47 IntervieDecentraw Scenarios for Ukraine lization must happen

Ukraine

A conversation with Iveta Radičová,’s economy former prime minister of theis Slovak like Republic, andS alo leader vakia’s of the International Republican in 1998 Institute’s delegation (IRI) to monitor voting and ballots in the recent Ukrainian parliamentary elections on 26 October 2014.

photo: Associated Press/East News

48 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Decentra lizationScenarios for Ukraine Interview must happen

Ukraine

A conversation with Iveta Radičová,’s economy former prime minister of theis Slovak like Republic, andS alo leader vakia’s of the International Republican in 1998 Institute delegation (IRI) to monitor voting and ballots in the recent Ukrainian parliamentary elections on 26 October 2014.

’s

49 Interview Scenarios for Ukraine photo: SAMUEL KUBANI/AFP/EAST NEWS

by Wojciech Przybylski

Could you tell me why you are here in Kyiv? and with the result as it was, the prime minister, David Cam- I am not only a citizen of the Slovak Republic, but also of eron, reacted with: “Yes, I understand. You need to have more Europe. And Ukraine is part of Europe; it is our neighboring own competences, just as you have different preferences in dif- country. What’s going on in Ukraine is also an issue of the ferent parts of Great Britain.” Look at the level of decentraliza- future of Europe and the future of bilateral relations between tion in the United States, where only a small part of common the Slovak Republic and Ukraine – that’s the first reason. politics takes place at the federal level. But others, together The second reason is that I’m a sociologist, so monitoring and with taxation, are totally different from state to state. So there observing elections is part of my profession, and I try to par- is a way to fulfill the expectations of different groups in the ticipate in several countries when it’s helpful to offer support country and keep the state together. This is one dimension of there. the problem. Last but not least, these elections are crucial not only for Another dimension is that Ukraine really is de facto in default Ukraine, but even more for the stabilization of the situation economically. This is highly comparable to the situation in the in Europe. These are the three main reasons why I am here. Slovak Republic in 1998. Our banking sector was in collapse, we had 20% unemployment, and a terrible situation in the What are your impressions of the observation mission and country. As you know, the European Union told us: “Sorry, the political outcome of the elections? you can’t be a member state because you haven’t consolidat- First of all, people are very sad and angry. Some of them are ed democracy, you have a pseudo-democracy, so you have to distrustful; they don’t believe anybody. After several attempts make deep reforms to be an equal partner, and fulfill the cri- to change this society to fight corruption, to increase the teria of human dignity and democracy.” And we did it; it took standard of living, it’s very understandable that part of the us six years. And this is the challenge for Ukraine. They can population does not believe that it’s really changeable. And do it. We also used the support of the International Monetary they don’t believe in the powers and possibilities of govern- Fund (IMF) for the banking sector. It was during my govern- ance. On the other hand, I have seen people crying in the ment in 2011 that we paid back the last part of the loan for the fields, and the first sentence I heard was always: “Please, peace. restructuring of the economy and banking sector. We need peace. Help us to have peace.” These were patriots. And it is true that Ukraine, like many other countries, is di- Could you evaluate the results of the Ukrainian parliamen- vided. Europe is a typical, multicultural society with several tary elections that took place on 26 October 2014? ethnic groups, different religious groups, etc. So the only way The turnout of 52.44% means that around 47.5% of the popu- by democratic instruments and measures is true decentraliza- lation decided not to participate for various reasons: because tion, giving competences to different regions, so that they feel of distrust, because of the choice of different political parties, comfortable in the country. and also because they really want to have a totally different po- litical program. But the democratic principle is that the results To regions, or local governments, or both? are not only legal, but also legitimate. Three new issues have To both. To give more competences to local governments is arisen as a result of the elections. part of the democratization process – together with financial First, a new political subject, Samopomich, which means self- decentralization. And it makes sense, just look at Great Brit- help, was the biggest surprise of the elections, as nobody ex- ain. In September 2014 there was referendum on Scotland, pected such support for a party with the platform: “Don’t wait

50 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Scenarios for Ukraine Interview

for the state do something for you, you have to something for yourself.” So, this was against state paternal- ism, but based on civic activism. Second, this is the first time in the history of Ukraine that there are no communists in parliament. This is an extremely significant result. And finally, complete reconstruction of the parliament and government, which under Viktor Yanukovych was pro- Russian, is now the opposite, with a pro-European and pro-reforms oriented parliament and government. This is a deep change. The question is still on the table whether the parliament and government will really start to act and not only talk, and talk, and talk, with slogans. On the one hand, there is pressure from two

51 Intytułterv działuiew Sc erozwinięcienarios for Utematukraine

Politics is always about talking and the deci- sions are always in written form, but actual implementation is another matter. What would be a sign of positive change that would show that things are going in the right way, apart from the peace process in the East? Perhaps we can show this through some concrete examples. First, the promise to change the election law was not fulfilled be- fore the elections; so now, after the elections, is the time to change this law. The current law creates opportunities for criminal behavior in elections. So, we will see if the first step really is to change the election law, because there is a chance of having a constitutional ma- jority. Second, decentralization has a chance, because of the constitutional majority, to change and give the competences to the regions that are un- satisfied. Third, there are anti-corruption laws that are already prepared in parliament; we will see whether they are passed, what these laws really contain, and how they can be implemented by the current state administration. Lastly, there are economic reforms, which are the most complicated sides: from international organization, such as the IMF, the and which need to be carried out hand-in-hand with social EU, the World Bank, etc., and Maidan. People have shown that reforms. The Ukrainian government has had many offers from they will no longer be silent, and that they expect change. So other governments and countries in the vein of: “We have ex- these two forms of pressure, together with the will of the new perience and we are prepared to help,” so why repeat mistakes political establishment, may give some guarantees that they when there is plenty of experience of what really works and will really begin to “re-start” Ukraine and “re-construct” trust what does not. in the country. But I would not like to be the prime minister of Ukraine, because the circumstances are extremely difficult The Ukrainian government has introduced a new lustration and complicated: the war, Russia’s position, division in the law, how do you see it and what does the law consist of? country, and the overall economic situation in the country. And are reforms of the judiciary and law enforcement to be It’s really complicated, too complicated. expected?

52 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Scenarios for Ukraine Interview

Implementation is always a big problem. The Slovak Republic face and the other a national face, because then the people also had a lustration law that never really worked and ended see double morality and double standards. So if the politicians in silence. I will be very, very blunt: in looking at the list of are not clear, they re-open the floodgates for the opposition to candidates of President Petro Poroshenko’s bloc, I believe we shared solutions. Sure, that’s fine if your politicians are danc- won’t see real implementation of the lustration law. There is ing between two different positions, or saying two different Samopomich, but radicals will really want to implement the things in the same sentence. It’s really cognitive inconsistency. law, so we will see who the winner in this fight will be; it will So, why should we expect cognitive consistency of the people be a battle of strength. if the politicians don’t have it? But they try to keep stability and social peace at home. The second point is globalization – And the judiciary and law enforcement reforms? economic space is so open that every step has an immediate They need to do it; take another example from the Slovak reaction. Every step in one country has an immediate reac- Republic. An anti-corruption program without deep changes tion in several other countries, especially those countries that to the judiciary system will never work. Our anti-corruption are economically stronger. Remember what happened when package was interconnected with changes in twelve of the Lehman Brothers collapsed. The whole of Europe had prob- most important laws. Immediately, the opposition sent it to lems. In Slovakia, we immediately lost 100,000 jobs. Every- the Constitutional Court. We had to wait three years, but the thing is totally interconnected and interrelated. I know we are Constitutional Court decided that the laws were fine. So now talking mainly about sanctions against Russia, because this is they have been implemented. Sometimes the procedure needs the crucial discussion moment and point. And, yes, every such more time, as we have a democracy and the opposition has step has had immediate consequences at home. But I am sure the right to take such steps. But it also shows that the oppo- that in the middle term or long term, there is no way forward sition wasn’t interested in an anti-corruption program. I’m other than with a rigid position toward Russia. There is no oth- not sure people always understand such steps in this way, and er way. And, yes, each such decision has a cost. Nothing is free. it is up to us to interpret why they didn’t want to have an So, yes, there are different attitudes mainly toward sanctions, anti-corruption system. Because if they had wanted to have also among the V4, but I think there is a clear, common posi- such a system, why did they take this step, when according tion concerning Ukraine as a part of the EU. The differences to the Constitutional Court, the laws were fine? So, reform of are mainly in attitudes toward Russia, not toward Ukraine. the judiciary and law enforcement might need more time. I don’t think that people really understand that some laws need Iveta Radičová was the first woman prime minister of Slovakia from 2010 time to become stable, without changing every two or three to 2012. She led a coalition government in which she also briefly held months. This is the duty of the elite and NGOs to interpret, so the post of Minister of Defense in the last five months of the coalition. people understand that some things can be changed quickly, while others need more time.

Let’s look at the reverse perspective. What does the last year in Ukraine mean for Central Europe and the Visegrad Group? There’s been a very good message from Ukraine that the pre- sent government, parliament, and the majority of the country are pro-European and that Ukraine is prepared to start fulfill- ing the Maastricht criteria and joining some of the most developed countries in the world.

But how would you comment on recent discussions, which have been quite intense in recent months, as to whether the Visegrad Group is coherent when it comes to helping Ukraine, and when it comes to its position toward Russia? This is not only a problem of the V4. We are in a deep crisis, and it’s not over. And we have to explain at home that if you support another country, the normal question from ordinary people is “We have 14% unemploy- ment at home. How can you help others when we have such a problem at home?” And it’s not easy to explain the very logi- cal and vital stabilization process that will ensure a stable Eu- rope. Other countries are for ordinary people farther than their own homes. And it’s normal for politicians to explain. The worst thing is to have two faces: one half is a Brussels

53 54 Intelligent ions Quest

Mind Ques tions at dusk at at VIsegrad insght 1 (7) | 2015

photo: Ulf Andersen / Getty Images dusk : Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk Questions at dusk Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk: or, the reciprocity of progress and regression

Péter Nádas

ack when Berlusconi’s rejected the next. It seems that not much Why does populism was rag- has changed, and dictatorship inevitably ing, I made several follows democracy. If one believes in the the grass grow, attempts at quizzing sovereignty of the people, how could one my Italian acquaint- not respect the will of the people? It’s an- only to die? ances about just what other thing altogether whether one un- it was that fed the derstands what drives them, yet another why does it Cavaliere’s popular- thing whether one approves. And if one ity. If only to understand, because you does not approve, because one detests wither, only Bcan’t vote out the electorate, however tyranny in all its forms, then what is one much the long-suffering members of the to do? That, too, is a burning question at to grow again? Politburo would like to do so. Secretly, of dusk. I can maybe understand the ele- course, what I was interested in was how ments behind the popularity of Putin, populism would fare in Hungary. Pop- who is pursuing the interests of Greater Mihály Babits, ulism as a phenomenon has been with us Russia with the most underhanded se- A Question at Dusk since classical antiquity; the passions of cret-service methods; just as, years ago, the free Athenians and free Romans were I believed I understood the popularity of also liable to twist and turn, and their Slobodan Miloševiċ. The overwhelming orators twisted and turned to find their majority will, on occasion, choose itself a favor. What they had approved of one dyed-in-the-wool crook with a pathologi- day – say, democracy, for example – they cal propensity for lies.

55 Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk

This means that democratic elec- underground networks rely on the active rect the stock markets with computers tions may not, in themselves, be the sole help of the police, public prosecutors, and algorithms, or even automatically. prerequisite for democracy. A believer and the judiciary. And if yesterday they Their software is designed by the finest in popular sovereignty cannot avoid were beneficiaries of that help (in return mathematical minds. This impersonal, this issue when examining the roots of for some baksheesh), because for a cer- inter-continental system publicly robs a local, or even the global, shift towards tain percentage of the profits, their busi- the American and European taxpayer populism and the lessons it carries for de- nesses could count on the active support of sums so astronomical that they make mocracy itself. If the majority of electors of the democratic parties, no one should domestic corruption in Hungary look now and then get fed up with a chaotic be surprised that Hungarian democracy paltry. If one person makes a profit in a system underpinned by a mass of thiev- is nothing more than an empty shell by pyramid scheme, it is necessarily to the ing oligarchs, fed up with the corruption now. Democracy needs democrats, after detriment of the others. Economists can that robs the treasury blind and breaks all. produce their impressive theoretical down the state itself, and wants instead One fine day, the corrupt citizen – turns all they like, but they still can’t di- a dictator, a strongman, an autocrat to who would prefer to present himself as vorce the financial markets from actual make things right, then the regressive innocent – wakes to find that though the economies. And the extra-legal function- turn is upon us. One might think that apparatus of the state has been expanded ing of the financial markets does not have the chances for democracy lasting would to embrace everybody’s friends and rela- a cleansing effect. Quite the opposite, in be higher in highly developed industrial tions, its direction was taken over, ten or fact – the markets’ isolated raison d’être societies. Where there is a lower level more years ago, by organized crime. He serves to increase the distance between of urbanization, and where democratic himself has been left out of this criminal appearance and reality. With the various institutions have been built up not as system. The early bird gets the worm. constructions known as financial prod- the result of revolution, but of necessity But systems of corruption can ucts, the economy legitimizes criminal (for want of anything better, in the mid- corrode democratic institutions even activity, or at least extra-legal activity, dle of the dissolution of a dictatorship), in a highly developed industrial soci- and forces governments into accumulat- the functioning of democracy, it seems ety. Another question at dusk might be ing more and more debt. When the time to me, is merely formal – even in a pro- whether America’s famous democracy comes to pay interest, the by now fully- gressive stage of development. Or rather, is still functional at all? The enduring fledged populist governments of enlight- it maintains its form only until the sys- extra-legal workings of hedge funds, de- ened nations take the interest payments tems of corruption, directed by the so- rivatives traders, and investment banks due on these astronomically increasing called democratic parties, do not have at do not differentiate between night and sums from the least well-to-do sectors of it; do not devour its very innards. These day, between secret and public. They di- the population. No one will ever be able

EUROPE FROM THE INSIDE

→ international range → world-renowned contributors → high quality design

A bilingual English-Polish quarterly published by the International Cultural Centre is a unique forum for discussions on Central European heritage, culture, our times, and the future. www.herito.pl 56 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk Questions at dusk Intelligent Mind

to pay off the debt entirely. Or rather, international organization or national the only master. People are criminals, they make this daylight robbery up to parliament. There is no institution capa- the fantasists cry. Which might even be their own people by stealing most of the ble of keeping tabs on it. There is no way true, if it weren’t a self-absolving illu- money they lack not from their own poor, that these inconceivably large networks sion. Meanwhile, these very same bed- but from the poorest of the poor – those – opposed one against the other, each time stories reinforce the population’s in the Third and Fourth Worlds. And with huge apparatuses at their disposal belief in that magical illusion – far more when the deed is done, when, say, they – could not shake the foundations of the ancient than this genre itself – that peo- have devastated an entire continent with rule of law in democracy. They not only ple with god-like abilities, using their their profitable endeavors (for example shake it, they create the image that in the powers of rational thought and with the Africa), they surround their borders with barbed wire and give the coastguard the order to fish as few of the shipwrecked out of the sea as possible. Living things, of course, invented daylight robbery a long time ago. There’s nothing new in the no one should be principle of “might makes right.” At most, we could say that there is something new in American biologists using evolution surprised that Hungarian to justify the all-powerful nature of ex- ploitation. The populist governments of the most enlightened powers have had democracy is nothing one new idea and no more. They won’t build inflation, for that would provoke their darling hordes of investors (choosy more than an empty shell and quick-to anger), but are resorting to deflation to take the required sum from people’s modest savings. However, the by now. Democracy needs electronically organized hordes of inves- tors are not grateful for this considera- tion; they make faces instead and ratchet democrats, after all. up the debt spiral. If today we’ve man- aged to blackmail governments, we’ll do so even more effectively tomorrow. They now shake the political stability of not only individual countries but also entire end, everyone has to be secretly watched help of modern technology, are able to regions with their threats. This is their because everyone is a criminal or evil- see through and uncover this criminal way of forcing democratically elected doer. The only difference between people activity. Which is something not rein- governments to give them guarantees of being, then, that few of them can afford forced by national statistics anywhere in payment, behind which there is no work to be criminals publicly. Whoever can’t the Western hemisphere. The number of and there are no reserves – in the same afford to be doesn’t count for anything. unsolved crimes is always far higher. In a way that the investors’ money is also On the global level, populism means the psychological sense, however, the genre purely virtual. Theatrically speaking, it’s a legalization of criminality. According to itself has become an apologia for crimi- bluff. But everyone on the stock exchange the rules of my own profession, it seems nality and an important tool in the infan- breathes a sigh of relief that the dear in- to me that this is the more dangerous ele- tilization of society. It is now not only the vestors are reassured and are back once ment among the shocks to the humanist toolkit of the Enlightenment that can be again. If the investors don’t invest this af- political tradition. The rates change on swept aside, but sinking even deeper, the EUROPE FROM THE INSIDE ternoon, then by morning it will become the stock exchange, but the way the rates toolkit of humanism itself. clear that their money vanished into thin work nonetheless remains more perma- But I could not – could not – un- air long ago, for the populist governments nently in the consciousness than the facts derstand what the Italians, renowned the → international range promised as collateral nothing more than of a particular operation or another. world over for their intelligence, were thin air, or rather the future slave labor of Because I can understand why so expecting – in their highly industrial- → world-renowned contributors the masses who work like slaves. many people of a peaceful evening in the ized and industrially well-differentiated Similarly, one could hardly include bosom of their family need such an in- country – from such a fantastically → high quality design within the rulebook of democracy tax- ordinate number of tales of criminality face-lifted fool. The uncouth shadow of payer-financed institutional snooping and infantile horror stories to consume the Duce sat on Berlusconi’s shoulders, on the private conversations of citizens, along with their beer and crisps. I can and his popularity was therefore doubly or their storage and processing accord- understand the source of the renaissance unseemly. I also could not understand A bilingual English-Polish quarterly ing to secret criteria. Or the financing, of these fantastical genres. They prepare why their meaningful response to this published by the International Cultural Centre from this same secret purse, of a global everyone’s mind for the legitimation of was the ranting of a professional clown, is a unique forum for discussions web of surveillance and interception, nei- the realities of a dual society in which a Beppo Grillo. My distinct impression on Central European heritage, culture, ther regulated nor authorized by a single general and all-pervasive criminality is was that my Italian acquaintances didn’t our times, and the future. www.herito.pl 57 Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk

understand either. Or at least, they had actions of the Hungarian government of the sinking, dying nation, of unique- no really convincing ideas. Either that, or are endangering not only democracy in ness and supremacy. The story of three they didn’t want to share them with me, Hungary, but are also a threat to the se- interrupted processes of modernization, because it would have reflected poorly curity of the region. Which is true. But two terminated by world wars. Why on their nation. As discreet patriots, then what are we supposed to do with the would they feel, as it were, upon their they could hardly come out and say that results of the democratic elections? Or if own backs, the centuries of permanently among their beloved and famously intel- in a democracy it is not electoral results low levels of urbanization? The criminally ligent people, the idiots were now in the that guarantee the legitimacy of a parlia- low level of public health and education? majority. It’s not something I’d like to ment, then could they please tell me what The passion for accumulating real estate? The chronic lack of capital and a culture of investment? The chronically low level of general culture and the incredible cor- nucopia of techniques of indoctrination? I could hardly begin by explaining about It is now not only the font of Hungarian constitutional- ism, the Tripartitum, or the defeat suf- fered at Mohács at the hands of Suleiman the toolkit of the the Magnificent, because then I would have to explain about the Turks: how many they were, where Mohács is, who Enlightenment that can be Werbőczy was, where the Csele stream flows from, how it floods, how the last Hungarian king drowned in it and how swept aside, but sinking they found him; and how the Turkish oc- cupation destroyed the monastic tradi- tion of work and reflection. even deeper, the toolkit If people ask me, I reply, but I can still only offer pre-fabricated phrases. The original accumulation of capital is of humanism itself. hardly possible in the age of the global flow of capital, especially not in the space of twenty-five years. Without a pros- perous middle class, bourgeois society cannot function. The response to two decades of unfettered robber capitalism come out and say, either. They mused on guarantee there is for democracy at all? was restoration of the pre-Modern. Thus, the deficiencies of their understanding of In a world that is compulsively cen- the development of Hungarian society democracy, the deficiencies of democra- tered on success, another person’s inca- once more reached a regressive phase, cy itself, but even that in a general sort of pacity to act becomes proof of my own throwing itself back – as it were – into way, awkwardly, by the by. I actually quite success. All at once, the reflection in a an earlier state. That is something I’m not liked their embarrassment and reticence. distorting mirror shows me how well happy about, because I am not a believer It made clear what a trying task it is to this democracy of mine is working. Only in regression; but at the same time, I have remain a democrat in the midst of an in- my Swiss and Swedish acquaintances to accept as reality that that’s the way it fantile consumer mass with no historical were more careful, or at least devoid of happened, and the majority of my fellow- awareness. all-too-human schadenfreude. And in countrymen are pleased at this turn of But it was not much longer before response, I really did produce the same events. The role of the loser, with all the I was in the same boat as my Italian ac- awkward hemming and hawing as my illusions that that entails, is a familiar quaintances. “What on earth’s come over Italian acquaintances had before. “How one. We will spend a goodly amount of the brilliant Hungarians?” I was asked. should I know?” “I’m just one of many.” time in this recidivism, though – strange Why have they lost the plot so dramati- “I’m not now, nor have I ever been, the as it may seem – it still doesn’t mean we cally? Where is their army that strikes fear Hungarian government.” “Don’t ask me, will reject the necessity of moderniza- into the hearts of the enemy? Where have ask José Manuel Barroso, or Angela tion. The need for modernization has they been hiding their massive natural re- Merkel; ask the European People’s Party been one of the most important subjects sources until now? There were many ways – it’s they who support and defend the of general agreement since the period of I could have replied, but when one has a Orbán government’s policies in the in- great reforms in the 19th century, even lot to say, one can never do so on the spur terests of their blessed party politics, not though it can’t be reconciled with the of the moment. And I didn’t really want me.” But after all, why would they under- needs of pre-Modern restoration. Mind to, either. The Americans and French stand the cyclically returning Hungarian you, it was hardly reconcilable with the and Germans who were asking, mostly affliction that is this adoration with a tenets of robber capitalism, either. And it wanted to hear what they themselves religious fervor of suffering and failure? would be a pity to lose sight of the weighty happened to think about this already. The The several centuries-old misguided cult reason for that. The arbitrary and heavy-

58 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk Questions at dusk Intelligent Mind

handed ideas now widespread among mulation, there is no capital. Or rather, true, but they cannot compete on the in- the population are a brake on the pace of what little there is simply cannot com- ternational market with their small sums development, and may even demolish the pete in the global market. The obstacle of capital. But the success or failure of the infrastructure of development previously facing Hungarians with wealth on the development of a Hungarian bourgeoisie erected. It is the very same population international stage is not one that can be is dependent, even in this second go, on that desires this process as the one that overcome by native wit alone. Where the how they are able to invest, whether they hopes to benefit from the myriad bless- moneyed class that had developed over can withstand global competition, and ings of the highest state of moderniza- time was robbed blind by two regressive whether they can go out into the wider tion; nonetheless, it prefers illusions to a regimes, killed, and dispersed, there is no world and develop systems of production pragmatic understanding of reality. I can’t bourgeoisie; and where there is no bour- and import that, with perhaps decades or help any of that; it’s a cyclically returning geoisie, where there is no middle to soci- even centuries of hard work, will yield a paradox that has been around for centu- ety between its extreme flanks – there is bourgeois middle class with capital to ries. At most, I can try and deal with it to no bourgeois society. The lack of one can invest. In other words, it is dependent some extent in my own work. be got around in the short term, however, on whether they are able to consolidate The contrast and reciprocity of pro- only with populist political ideas of vari- the positions of power they’ve so force- gress and regression work more strongly ous portents. fully carved out for themselves at an in- in the eastern parts of Europe and less Original capital accumulation, inso- ternational level. I trust they can. Either strongly in the western. No one has man- far as it happened at all in the first fifteen that, or with all their stolen riches, they aged to bridge Europe’s regional differ- years of the progress following the transi- will one by one go to the wall – quietly or ences, neither those between the North tion to democracy, happened without a amid great fuss – and then the common and the South nor those between the culture of investment. That is to say that weal will have suffered at their hands not West and the East, although in theory what capital was accumulated flowed im- once, but twice. That’s the worse alterna- many people would like to. The short mediately away, left the country, or went tive. At the moment, they’re still ruling bursts of progress, devoted heart and to the purchase of real estate. As a result the roost, but too many of them know soul to modernization and the rule of law, of this less-than-intelligent process, the too much about piling up real estate, are followed by various kinds of regres- entire population of Hungary was re- while far too few know anything about sive periods. These last longer, and want structured for the third time in a century. investing in agriculture or trade. It’s as to undo almost to the very last every little This was too much for it, and the way it if they were all clamoring that they want accomplishment of progress. They rarely happened was hardly how anyone, based no competition, either at home or in the succeed; this is my only hope. There is no on their ideas or illusions, had ever im- wider world. They want to stay capital- idiot who can’t tell a German refrigera- agined it would be. It was not the way ists, but they don’t want a global market. tor from a Hungarian. The need for mod- the newly-minted industrialists – the It’s crazy talk, but it has its logic, and ernization is stronger. Everyone would nouveau riche, throwing their money the Hungarian government has served choose a German fridge, although only a around unthinkingly – and the old head and maintained this crazy talk for the few would accept the complete system of thieves imagined it; nor was it the way the third electoral cycle now. The Hungarian values that produced it. Regression will Kádárist petit-bourgeoisie, driving out to government is using EU money to place happily chase away the most dynamic their weekend houses in their Trabants, these new Hungarian rich above all oth- principles of progress; the response to belching poison, imagined it. In the last ers. Its anti-capitalist, Eurosceptic, and this is another fall in the country’s gen- phase of its experiment with moderniza- anti-American rhetoric – meant for in- eral level of culture. Nonetheless, I see tion, which is to say its third, Hungarian ternal consumption – responds to the the cyclical recurrence of the need for society stepped out of the framework of disappointment and perpetual desire of regression and the restoration of the pre- state socialism, and in a quarter of a cen- the impoverished, and in certain layers, Modern as a regional ill and not some- tury has become somewhat more differ- destitute population, to resist. thing unique to Hungary; although it is entiated; this is really is a great step for it While it is true that the regression true that in Hungary, regression really to have taken, but that doesn’t change the is political in nature, I would nonethe- has ended up being emblematic more fact that there is no middle to society. It less say that its causes are not so much than once. has no bourgeois middle class with capi- economic as psychological. Previously, Because of its regional nature and tal to invest and savings. Its governments I termed the political forces behind the security implications, it is nonetheless until now have also failed to notice how pre-Modern restoration, brewing for fif- better not to judge the regressive phases dangerous that is from a political point of teen years, “national conservative.” Now, hastily, en bloc, and from a purely party view. They have not helped, but hindered however, I have strong doubts that this political standpoint. It is better to try and small enterprises, which seemed hard to movement has anything to do with the approach regression descriptively, if for tap by corrupt means. They were also oc- national idea or even conservatism. It no other reason than to enable us to see cupied with the building up of their own serves the interest of a narrow little mon- that it is something that has been with us systems of corruption. But without a eyed class; it has nothing to conserve ei- for centuries. But in the age of electronic bourgeoisie, bourgeois society looks just ther in the moral or the financial sense modernization and the global movement like a democracy without democrats. The of the word. Perhaps the most appropri- of money it has become threatening – as richest Hungarians, with the fortunes ate concept to use would be “national in, for example, the chronic and cycli- they’ve amassed using their systems of populism.” In the interests of the finan- cally problematic lack of capital. Where corruption at the expense of the poorest cial success of the richest, the national there has been no original capital accu- taxpayers, can rub their hands in glee, it’s populist government and its parties are

59 Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk

performing one very ill-written farce for

CONFERENCE & AWARDS their own electors and another for the INTERNATIONAL PRESS TOUR European Union. Much like the socialists before them, who adopted the guise of social democrats, all the while following Transforming the Future the interests of a moneyed group that had 11 June 20015, Hotel Sofitel Warsaw Victoria grown out of the nomenklatura of the former governing power and was busy accumulating original capital for itself. What’s more, they did so using extreme neo-liberal means. They have thrust their party into lasting political meltdown with this farce, and the governing parties thus have no political opposition now. They have not been able to acknowledge their failure, or examine its causes; if they had, they’d know that the success of the na- tional populists depended primarily on a faction of their richest representatives. This faction had previously supported them, for they had almost all emerged from the nomenklatura of state socialism. They brought their techniques of daylight robbery, their knowledge of economics, and their network of contacts with them from the state socialist version of daylight robbery – the so-called “third economy.” To be precise, it rose from the industrial activity associated with the agricultural collectives, tasked with filling, or at least reducing somewhat the shortages cre- ated by the state’s centralized control of the economy by semi-illegal means (or in other words, using the methods of the black economy). Their mental develop- ment has not, to this day, exceeded the level of the director of an agricultural co-operative who’s particularly talented at navigating life outside the law. I have now had the opportunity of observing for a quarter of a century what the socialist or national populist governments and the Bringing together Polish great international concerns would make of each other, and as far as I can see the and international business leaders great international concerns have a per- from the most successful verse predilection for corruption. And as far as the part of the media industry that and fastest-growing companies is under German or Swiss influence is in Poland to share their concerned, that predilection extends – if insights and experience there’s a little profit involved – to political collaboration. The umbrella of progress, and to forecast what in any case, extended only until the for- lies ahead for the Polish market mer governments and parties, in com- plete parity, devoured all the innovative and financial resources of society using their own underground networks in the interests of their own individual accumu- www.poland-today.pl lation of capital. In my own life, I have lived through three periods of political regression. I have now seen the cream of three genera-

60 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk Questions at dusk Intelligent Mind

tions hobble out of the country. During someone forever fidgeting with the edge should once and for all get to the end regressive periods, the blessed popu- of the carpet or tablecloth. The silent of the restoration. Regression does not lus trusts to some extraordinary luck, majority, of course, doesn’t go anywhere only aim – in the interests of finishing waits for some boon, hopes for a deus ex even in these situations – they don’t go off this pre-Modern restoration – at the machina. While its government fills the abroad, they don’t go and vote, but they re-arranging of the structures of own- program with productions that are “na- also don’t go crazy; they just shift from ership, the constant re-writing of the tional” in spirit, the blessed populus com- “living mode” to “survival mode.” They constitution, the re-drawing of the insti- pulsively reduces its creativity to zero. It’s do everything that the authorities re- tutions of the state, or the re-ordering of not worth it, anyway. What’s the point? quire them to do in the interests of re- hierarchies, but attacks society head-on. Not for this lot, at any rate. Someone will think of something anyway, they’ll find a solution; there’ll be a little left over for us. The god-forsaken populus is behaving, in a great mass, exactly the way a neu- rotic individual would. Their problem is The story of three real, dramatic, and well defined. There is no bourgeois society without a national bourgeoisie, and if there is a permanent interrupted processes lack of a center to society then it will per- manently lack the stability and rule of law necessary for bourgeois construction. of modernization, two Where this stability and rule of law are lacking, there can be no modernization. The neurotic individual flees the irresolv- terminated by world able conflicts in their life for their obses- sions. And who needs democracy for that? Instead of a real country, they imag- wars. ine a different country, a different society, anyway; at the very least, they covet the objects and gadgets of another society, because their obsession says that by own- ing those, they can make the other, the alizing some prevailing notion. They Everyone and everything. It would, how- better, the greater whole theirs as well. dutifully demolish what they built yes- ever, be a mistake to think that the re- It is a mystical fantasy, and it’s become terday, or visit upon themselves all the sistance to regression is necessarily and impossible to tell who’s imagining it. Is dark wish-fulfilling prophecies of their automatically progressive. Because of the national populist government alive to own regressive urges. In “survival mode,” the longer phases of regression, passive the obsessions of the populous, or have the very basic functionality of society is resistance has at least as rich a tradition the people become stuck in the muck of guaranteed not by government, nor the of building on obsessions as that of the the populist government? They cannot opportunism of the populace that has regressive outbreaks and excesses of col- acknowledge the causes of the trauma lost itself in the wonder of obsession, the lective neurosis, and therefore it doesn’t they share, and thus idolize, decry, and ritual pleasure of naming and punishing hurt to know that passive resistance is deny one another. Instead of meaning- criminals, or even the joy of destruction, hardly realistic, either. The day-to-day ful acts, they must keep repeating ges- but by the diminutive structures of the functioning of this passive resistance, tures and rituals so complicated as to be centers of opposition. founded on a sort of “survival mode,” incomprehensible to the outside world. Professional rules no longer ap- does not allow it to comprehend (or even They always want something other than ply, as society once more is called upon understand the reasons for) its own dis- what they’re forever saying, and thus at a to labor on squaring the circle in the torted nature, and thereby enable it to stroke, they forfeit their mother tongue. service of yet another new idea, but avoid – if possible – participating in the They grow isolated together. They must strangely enough, there are still quite a elaboration of obsessive and erroneous once more remake the inner structure lot of people who – driven by the need beliefs. It’s not a quest for understanding of society in the name of their isolation. for modernization – try and follow not that lies behind it, nor some pared down They must take from them, and give to the rules of the farce in their daily work, professional ethos, but opportunistic those others. There are plenty of ideologi- but the rules of their own profession. tactics, short-term group interest, in- cal justifications to be found for doing so Even if the administration run by the dividual trickery, and heroic posturing. in the worship of this isolation. farcical government constantly tries to In regression, those faithful to progress Every progressive phase develops trip such people up – winding things – whether they like it or not – identify an organically constructive structure that down, developing them, making people with what they’re opposed to, although regression disassembles. Progress builds happy, chucking them out on their ear, they don’t notice. Even if they did notice, it, regression demolishes it. Which is, for and firing them; trying to forever secure they wouldn’t understand. They should society, a far more dangerous symptom their beatific isolation. We didn’t man- acknowledge a very straightforward of obsessive neurosis than a facial tic or age to finish off modernizing, but we psychological necessity; instead they

61 Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk

grope about among historical, ethical, The butler, to the greatest pleasure of the from what is desired and they are there- or political themes. In order for people maid, spitting in the master’s soup. With fore plunged into depression. Something to understand regression, they must first the pattern of their neurosis, they are fol- they themselves cannot understand. discover it (in almost all its elements) lowing their earlier regressive or resistant Something the external world can’t un- and live it in themselves; in other words, patterns of behavior. They cannot extract derstand, and above all, makes no effort they must observe and judge their own themselves from their neurosis under to keep track of. Not because the external regressive tendencies at work. One can their own steam, which is to say they are world is evil or stupid, but because obses- ask nothing more terrifying of a neurotic waiting for salvation or revenge. They’re sive neurotic acts are individual and have who has slipped into passive resistance, not even aware they have a problem. They no useful moral for the rest. At most, the conclusion that people on the outside can draw is “not that way;” “the road runs out there, it’s the edge of the cliff.” “The country, or the region, has once more become detached from the great streams A constitution can do of successive modernization.” This is a fact. It stays with the several centuries- old neurotic sense of, and cult of, defeat, no more than proclaim loss, failure, and lagging behind. This, in terms of the real future, means that the butler and the maid will try, the day after political liberty; only tomorrow, to recommence the work of social construction in precisely the place and precisely the way in which one can- individuals can actually not recommence, or even commence, the work of constructing a society. Someone will once again spit in the others’ soup make themselves free. and gloat over it. The real hero and model for the re- gressive phase is the heroically infantile personality that not only overvalues its early experiences – its, let us say, banal individual traumas – but projects them, fallen back on theories of collective free- reject therapy. They, too, see a sole reason generalizes them, fills them with frus- dom, all the while picturing themselves for the anomaly in the actions of a group trations; in other words, exchanges its in the guise of a moral hero. They want of people, or even of a single person. They whole emotional life for a life of frustra- to solve on an ethical or political level curse János Kádár and Viktor Orbán all tions. This personality plucks the rites what they should themselves resolve on day long; they never get bored. Just so of revenge and demanding satisfaction a purely psychological level by means long as they don’t have to acknowledge from the family of patterns of conduct- of self-knowledge. A constitution can that complex system of prerequisites that ing personal life, and dumps them into do no more than proclaim political lib- lifted the accursed individual or group the repertoire of political life. Until now, erty; only individuals can actually make from the great mass of those who ap- the generally accepted opinion in society themselves free. prove of, and put into practice, regressive has been that we are neither animals nor Regressive thinking is highly reduc- thinking. criminals. It now maintains that we must, tive. It busies itself not with the totality In a political sense, regression al- indeed, be animals and criminals, lest the of causes and effects, but with a single ludes to the restoration of a former his- animals and criminals next door be great- cause; not with a system of prerequisites, torical state, or possibly a joyous and er animals and greater criminals. This but with a single one. In “survival mode,” illusory future. But either way, like all its means that in the interests of survival, it the people who remain subject and the regressive predecessors, it has not man- has to be an even greater beast than man, people who resist – in their role of heroic aged by its own actions to scrape together an inhumanly great beast. It is a recur- members of the resistance – sadly do ex- the wished-for and the real. The wished- ring and generic property particular to actly the same. They do not differentiate for proves to be nothing more than a pipe regressive politics that – despite lacking but make awkward generalizations; they, dream; or even worse, a nightmare, above even a basic knowledge of psychology – it too, are incapable of abstraction. They all in the eyes of those who are forced to moves unfettered between the individual disengage their most valuable possession, carry out the demands made in the inter- and the collective consciousness. There their empathy, in their constant, rough est of what is wished for. In regression, are transitions between the two, but not generalization and defensiveness. They almost everyone keeps on pushing the in terms of frustrations or even emo- regard their political opponent as an en- desirable future before them; this leads tions. The regressive political movement emy, and openly declare that they don’t to members of society losing their in- conjures an archaic, mystical, or mythi- even want to try and understand them. dividual creativity. They cannot act ac- cal, but anthropologically undoubtedly Or they pose, make faces, and entertain cording to their own needs, but they can real, level of consciousness dormant in themselves (and others in the process). see clearly enough how far the reality is the collective unconscious that it can

62 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk Questions at dusk Intelligent Mind

never again squeeze back into the bottle. sions. A few eggheads cannot set them Cold War it managed, in the interests of It does not do so because it’s cunning or right. Collective forgetting cannot be maintaining its own primacy, to regulate because it’s evil, but because it is psycho- made up for by individual remembrance. the economy with democratic policies logically ignorant, ignorant of itself. It is Remembering and forgetting are theoret- and the institutions of power-sharing, convinced that everyone is not different, ically in a double union. The hypertrophy reining in (so to speak) its expansionist and it’s almost right. For, everyone has of one or the other is the neurotic symp- instincts, thus securing its long-term ad- frustrations. Everyone clings tenderly to tom itself and as such also belongs to the vantage over the established Socialist sys- his infantile ego. There is no one who is given reality. When we have reached this tems, but only and exclusively in Europe. free of banal trauma or shameful secrets, point of regression, we should no longer Not so in the United States and even less which is to say free of embarrassments, necessarily be surprised if events cannot so in the Third World. In Europe, it pro- defeats, failures, and, what’s more, disas- be described in terms of publicly useful duced effectively and was at the same trous debacles. There is no one in whom political concepts and generally accepted time effectively social. Since the fall of the desire for getting satisfaction, and economic trends that are intelligible to the Berlin Wall, the order of priorities from time to time the raw desire for re- the general environment. has been turned around, and even within venge, are not working away. This is even At the same time, the infantiliza- national boundaries it is not political will so if they manage to keep their infantile tion of public life is not a specifically that directs the economy, but an econo- egos in check, which is to say they try to Hungarian phenomenon, but a massive my functioning over and above national achieve a certain balance between their global trend. frameworks that directs local and nation- pre-personal, personal, and trans-per- The compulsion of globalized rob- al politics. Banks and investors, with their sonal levels of consciousness. Regressive ber capitalism for the maximization of regressive politics, have everywhere de- politics spreads – makes general, as it profit has found a common denominator molished the great achievement of Cold were – its own infantilism, based on the in the infantile level of consciousness of War policy, the social market economy; most personal traumas, through a pro- peoples living in widely different cultures the very same people who had built it. cess of projection. Regressive politics is and levels of development. It was not The unreflective change of course has something pursued by infantile beings en malice, but the ostentatious global suc- made democracy unsuitable for global masse. Their desire, arising out of their cess of pop music that made them realize regulation. great need, is finally to be able to make that a common level of consciousness of their lack of self-awareness universal. this sort even exists. Formerly, only peo- Translated by Mark Baczoni They are also right that reflection ple like Carl Gustav Jung or Ken Wilber would detract from the power of their were aware of the collective ties and sub- The author is a writer, playwright, and essayist. actionism, would slow them down in stance of the individual consciousness. their desire to act. Therefore they have There’s another unavoidable ques- an intrinsic hatred of reflection and all tion at dusk, which is whether the com- those who cultivate it. Regressive politics pulsive need for profit maximization in feeds its electors with frustrations and capitalist economies is compatible with appeals to aggression, and there are in- common sense and reason – qualities deed periods when those susceptible to we do, at the end of the day, expect of such appeals (since they do not cultivate them. My assumption is that capitalism reflection themselves) are in the majority tied to the creed of constant growth and and remain in the majority for some time. the compulsion for maximizing profits Regression builds a league not of political can only be compatible with common or economic forces, but of aggression; if it sense occasionally and in certain places. is successful, then it has managed to cap- Capitalist economics today build up and ture and realize the infantile ego of the operate global systems that are sensible majority, and from that moment on we only in certain places or on occasion; they must consider this league of aggression a are sensible only in isolation. But with the political reality, no matter our opinion of collateral damage they do, they threaten it. The store of frustration of the mass of the global survival of the very people who people perpetually dissatisfied with their are meant to operate these globally sized situation can be politically channeled, the mechanisms for growth. Democracies language of thievery can be incorporated working within national bounds are no into the everyday discourse of regressive longer able to regulate capitalism within politics, when the series of catastrophes a global framework, and such sensible that went before is no longer alive in the regulation is not even in their interests. memory of the masses. And if it is not There is no causal relationship between alive, if the memory of the masses has capitalism and democracy; capitalism not retained it, then it must have had a can do very well for a time even in a dic- good reason for not retaining it, or do- tatorship. Perhaps the most we can say ing everything possible to avoid and in defense of the intellectual capacities mask it; the lack of emotional response of capitalism is that in the most highly is the result of a series of personal omis- developed industrial states during the

63 Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk

WHERE ARE the FACES?

Borders, Nations, and Banknotes Borders, Nations, and Banknotes

64 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Intelligent Mind Ques tions at dusk

Ques tions at dusk Intelligent Mind 65

ilustration: Tymek Jezierski Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk

What is a nation?

Aleš Debeljak

ourtesy of IWM, I recently moved into the Europe than borders and territory, than land and its guard- ninth district of Vienna. Many notable Eu- ians. Alas, Europe is in this regard far worse off than urban ropeans have lived and worked in the ninth districts such as Alsergrund, with their sharply drawn and district. Austrian composer Franz Schu- unquestioned frontiers. bert was born here in 1797, Jewish profes- In order to conceptualize Europe’s imaginary totality, one sor Sigmund Freud treated his patients in must employ the tools of physical geography, yet the absence this neighbourhood until his exile in 1938, of a strict natural border on the eastern flank of the continent German musician Ludwig van Beethoven has created the need for another standard, the kind provided died here in 1827, and Slovenian writer Ivan Cankar tempo- by symbolic geography. Europe‘s external boundaries have Crarily resided here in 1899. This is but a small sample from a shifted over time with changing political circumstances and long and illustrious list. socio-historical periods. As a rule, however, these shifting Like anyone who has just adopted a new residence, I had borders have always been predicated on the “other” that must to get my geographical bearings. It is good to know the limits remain outside. Over the course of its history, whoever spoke of one’s habitat. Alsergrund, as the district is known, is well for Europe defined it as “civilized” and thus the antithesis of served in this regard. It has clear and unambiguous borders, the “barbaric” regions and religions, tribes and peoples, king- delineated by the Gurtel in the northwest, the Danube Canal doms and nations outside its walls. At various times, Europe’s in the east, and Maria-Theresienstrasse, Universitaetenstrasse, exterior border has run along the Oder and Neisse rivers, the and Alserstrasse forming its borders in the south. ridges of the Carpathians and the Ural Mountain ranges, the There is a park across from my apartment beside the coasts of the Black and Caspian Seas, the Iron Curtain, and, Lichtental parish church. The children and many of the su- most recently, the Schengen lines. pervising adults who gather in the park to enjoy the sunny weather of early September probably could not care less about the borders of the district. German, Polish, Turkish, and Croatian idioms float through the balmy air, and I’d Fear of the “other” wager that many of these weekend strollers, idlers, and chatterers of immigrant background crossed far more sig- The smallest common denominator in communal integration nificant borders before they even reached Vienna. Indeed, is fear. In the collective mind of the peoples claiming member- if Europeans are defined as people of a continent who can ship in Europe, the West and the East have come to acquire access more than just their own ethnic and linguistic stock polarized values. In the European rhetoric devised by medi- of meaning, then it is precisely these immigrants who are eval Christianity, Islamic culture was perceived as the “other”. Europeans par excellence. After the secular Enlightenment, it was Eastern Europe, the I sit on a neat green bench, my rented bicycle at rest be- Balkans, and the attendant communist ideology that assumed side me. I sit and watch, one anonymous European observ- this negative role. Today, Islam has once again become the ing his fellow Europeans. I watch. I daydream. I contemplate. “other”, being viewed across much of Europe as an anti-Chris- Nothing has caused more grief and trouble in the history of tian, anti-Western and anti-modern threat. Europe, in short,

66 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk Questions at dusk Intelligent Mind

It is understood as a distinct...

rambles on in the durable tradition of defining itself via nega- 1980s, economic fundamentalism ushered in the corporate tiva: that is, by pointing a finger at what it is not. homogenization of everyday life. Today, the political solidar- But does Europe know what it is in the positive sense? Do ity that was once virtually guaranteed by the welfare state we Europeans know what it means to be a European? The feeble and its social safety nets appears as much a part of ancient nature of contemporary European integration, embodied in the history as the Berlin Wall. European Union, was not caused by the worst economic crisis For true believers, the invisible hand of the market is engulfing the continent since the 1930s; it was revealed by it. trusted as a remedy for all ills. This became absolute doctrine The primary weakness of the elites who speak for Europe after the fall of the famed wall. Today, despite the economic today lies in their inability to offer a coherent collective narra- devastation of the current crisis, citizens of the European tive, the failure to provide an integrative template for the com- Union for the most part accept the market as the norma- mon imagination. In its absence, many offshoots of political tive condition of life. Although the 1995 introduction of the populism flourish. Fear-mongers in the political class and in euro as a new currency was clearly ill conceived, with most the forums of civil society excel at finding effective metaphors intelligent commentators insisting that political union should for a mentality of besiegement: full boat, fortress Europe, bar- have accompanied economic union for the project to stand a ricaded society. These conservative turns of phrase have only chance of success, the currency stumbles on. The jury is out; one goal, to hide the pursuit of profit behind the call for purity, our future – and more relevantly, that of our children –lies in to plaster ethnic slogans over economic interests. Appeals to the balance. the exclusivist concern for one’s own community seek to cover up the effects of globalization on the distribution of wealth, which has in fact contributed to the tragic erosion of what is arguably the most important European tradition: the tradition Missing faces of social democracy and the welfare state. In short, European political elites have proved them- The crisis of the euro notwithstanding, we have had plenty of selves unable to deal critically with transnational global cor- time to get used to daily transactions in the currency that is porations and complicit financial institutions, and have thus used and valued in the so-called Eurozone regardless of na- reached for tried-and-true methods of diverting public at- tional borders. But while the borders of nations still exist, the tention. They turn immigrants, foreigners, and refugees into borders of currencies have magically disappeared. What failed scapegoats. An enlightened segment of the public still recog- to disappear, however, was a lingering doubt in Europe as a nizes these methods as “fascism with a smile” and condemns common house of peoples and nations; yet this being Europe, them as unacceptable, but the key issue is that expressions doubt is self-reflexive and was therefore cleverly integrated of chauvinistic populism against the “other” cannot, alas, into the design of the banknotes themselves. be simply reduced to a deviation from the norm. They are a Consider: the five euro note features an image of a vaguely constituent part of the long-term process that was perceived ancient viaduct that could have been erected anywhere in the during post-war European integration as focused primarily Roman Empire. The ten euro note features a Romanesque por- on economic freedom and an unfettered marketplace. In the tal, while the two hundred euro note features an opaque glass

67 Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk

...and self-identifying ethnic group,

door and an anonymous bridge. Unlike the national currencies is nothing familiar that we Europeans can identify with in it replaced, the euro is too timid to tell a story. Not a single hu- these banknotes. They are useful, at least for the time being, man face appears on these banknotes. These banknotes are ut- but they are symbolically empty. terly incapable of inspiring meaningful identification and fail Just spending euros, however, will not make us to deliver on the imperative of de te fabula narratur. They are Europeans. To be a European means attempting to answer abstractions, perhaps suitably, like money itself. this crucial question: can Europeanism become a viable com- But, oh, how I miss the portraits of Erasmus, Shakespeare, mon collective narrative? We shall see. A European narrative Michelangelo, Mickiewicz, Velasquez, Newton, Goethe, and will have to be cross-generational. It will have to maintain a Andrić. In contrast, the columns and arches on these notes common cultural amalgamation of distinct ethnic traditions, hint at ruined empires, or virtual empires, ones that never ac- reinforced by shared memory and the promise of a common tually existed but have been transformed into eerie nostalgia future. It will need to provide symbolic order wherein a cen- for some sort of real connection and community. They echo tripetal force would be able to counteract, but not abolish, something lost in the sands of an irrecoverable past, a place centrifugal forces of primary identification that each of us feels with no foundation, no recognizable landscape. Indeed, there as a member of our nation.

Pism’s english language journal wiTh a CenTral and easTern euroPean foCus. iT Provides a forum for The analysis and debaTe of PQia inTernaTional affairs The_ Through a ColleCTion affairs Pl/ ism. of original, Peer Tional P reviewed arTiCles on erna inT www. a ConTemPorary Theme. eaCh issue feaTures Terly of a ColleCTion of original, Peer reviewed arTiCles Plus book reviews. The Polish Quar

68 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Intelligent Mind Questions at dusk Questions at dusk Intelligent Mind

and its Romantic desiderata

contain at least one indigenous ethnic minority, not to men- Consolations of the tion the plethora of more recent immigrant communities. The European Union has become emphatically multinational and absurd multi-ethnic. It is composed of various member nation-states that are, in turn, composed of various ethnic groups. What is a nation? It is understood as a distinct and self-iden- The absence of nationally specific figures on the bank- tifying ethnic group, and its Romantic desiderata. It is under- notes of the euro hints at a consensus about the ancient, the stood as a political form of collective power that represents a imperial, and the Christian legacy, while the more recent past genuine European invention and a dubious contribution to the of Europe is neglected. National diversity is the twin sister of world’s vocabulary and practices. While the roots of the nation conflict, and conflicts regarding collective memories are par- lie in the ancient Greek polis, its modern form was shaped in ticularly painful. It may arguably have been the best course to the 19th century, when ethnic groups asserted their distinct keep the design of euro banknotes vague and devoid of his- identities. In part, these groups were motivated by the idea tory, devoid of faces. But this very vagueness bears witness to of bourgeois emancipation, which was developed to counter a worrying truth: that the creation and maintenance of a com- the aristocratic empires. Following the collapse of the mul- mon narrative that would integrate the paradoxes of European ti-ethnic Habsburg and Ottoman empires, the nation-state diversity confronts far greater obstacles than the development Pism’s english language acquired enormous prestige and was elevated to the unit of and facilitation of a mere common market. journal wiTh a CenTral international political order. The pursuit of a common European narrative may in the and easTern euroPean But the nation-state was little more than a machine for end turn out to be a Sisyphean task. But then I think of the ethnic homogenization. Its dominant ideology was the ideolo- wise acceptance of the absurd that Samuel Beckett penned – “I foCus. iT Provides gy of the dominant ethnic group, better known as nationalism. can‘t go on, I must go on.” – and I am comforted. It is the only a forum for The It elevated the idea of national unity over all other collective good advice in hard times. analysis and debaTe of ia loyalties, identifications, and allegiances. The nation-states PQ inTernaTional affairs that emerged after 1918 rose on the ruins of the “European The author is a poet, culture critic, and professor of Cultural Studies at The_ Through a ColleCTion the University of Ljubljana. affairs Pl/ civil war” and subjected the state administration, education, ism. of original, Peer social, and cultural life to a specific ethnic norm. Nationalism Tional P reviewed arTiCles on erna took the culture of the dominant ethnic group as the supreme inT www. a ConTemPorary Theme. public good. Biological membership in the dominant ethnic eaCh issue feaTures group thus became the implicit standard for what was to be Terly of a ColleCTion of original, political citizenship. Those who did not belong to the domi- Peer reviewed arTiCles nant ethnic group were faced with assimilation at best, or ex- Plus book reviews. termination at worst. The Polish Quar One might think that the situation would be differ- ent today. After all, there is no nation-state in post-imperial, post-WWII Europe, except perhaps Iceland, which does not

69 New Europe 100 Innovative minds Digital catch up is not enough

Anna Wójcik

Investing in discrepancy between the ambitions and Modernization realities of modernization in the then- infrastructure and marginal and underdeveloped Central and its European country. closing the ICT skills When Poland joined the EU in 2004, discontents only 26% of households had access to the gap is important. Internet.1 A decade later still only half of At the same time, Poles aged from 17 to 74 use the Internet A computer room designed to meet on a daily basis and almost a third have the development the expectations of art school gradu- never tried it.2 This puts Poland below the ates working with new technologies was EU average, as 65% of EU citizens surf the of critical thinking opened in the respected Zachęta Na- web daily. The immersion in the Internet and civic education tional Gallery of Art in Warsaw in 2006. is significantly higher in other countries To curators’ surprise, invited artist Karol of the Visegrad Group: 85% of Slovaks, must follow. Radziszewski used the room to recreate 84% of Czechs and 79% of Hungarians the atmosphere of his parents’ small com- had some experience with cyberspace. In pany in the middle-sized city Białystok, comparison, a record 99% of Icelanders completed with 12 computer desks and have used the Internet at least once in file cabinets adorned with old-fashioned their lives. ferns. This tongue-in-cheek installation In recent years, Poland has invest- turned out a spot-on commentary on the ed in increasing broadband and mobile

New Europe 100 is a list of outstanding challengers from Central and Eastern Europe who are leading world-class innovation. NE100 aims to raise the profile of innovation that is taking place in the region. In the autumn of 2015 we will be announcing the second edition of the list.

We are waiting for your suggestions: Twitter: @NewEurope100 #NE100 E-mail: [email protected] We are looking for individuals or teams of individuals from Central and Eastern Europe who take advantage of new technologies in the Digital Age in their core activities or in order to boost their cause. Challengers should come from different backgrounds, including business, culture, media, politics, the public sector, social entrepreneurship, and technology. New Europe 100 is organized by Res Publica together with Google, Visegrad Fund, Financial Times and dozens of institutions from the region. 70 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Innovative minds New Europe 100

Internet coverage and the number of good results in the reading section stems Finland, and the UK (in 2014) only to be network users increased dramatically. from comprehensive educational reforms infused in different school subjects in the In 2015 the country jumped 4 places in introduced in the 2000s.6 The reforms in- way writing, analytical skills or public the World Economic Forum’s Global cluded longer compulsory education, the speaking have been so far. Information and Technology Report, adoption of a core curriculum and an ex- “Digital fluency” is defined broadly and is currently ranked 50th out of 143 ternal student evaluation system. At the as “the capability to use digital technol- countries.3 While its ICT infrastructure same time, they entailed standardized ogy and knowing when and how to use was considered as advanced and compar- testing which hinders creative and criti- i t .” 8 Digital literacy includes the ability to atively affordable, the report was alarm- cal application of knowledge and skills. use search tools, validate data and sourc- ingly critical towards Polish companies' When the science-fiction writer es of information, recognize kinds and potential to innovate, placing the country Isaac Asimov was discussing the precon- quality of information (for instance to in the 67th position in this category (the ditions of creativity back in 1959, he con- distinguish advertising and propaganda Czech Republic – 28th, Slovakia – 89th, cluded that innovative solutions come to from trusted sources), approach results Hungary – at far 126th). It turns out, ac- people with a good background in a given critically and effectively communicate cess to state-of-the-art infrastructure field, but who are at the same time uncon- them with others, and knowing how to alone is not likely to bring innovative so- ventional in their habits.7 Obviously, there reproduce content with know respect to lutions without users who can contribute is a contradiction in trying to meet the de- copyright. to its development. mand for discipline and to indoctrinate In fact, many “digital competences” students with the demand to shape them belong to the toolbox of “traditional” to be innovative, engaged, and audacious. competences, such as reasoning, identi- The dissatisfaction with the out- fying problems, making well-informed Smart digital comes of the test culture, combined with judgments and decisions. a growing urgency to adapt educational Drawing from the negative experi- reform programs to our changing interactions ence of test culture and taking advantage with the digital, allows for some experi- of the growing interest in adapting edu- mentation. There is a lot more to gain cational systems to the fast-developing While Poland has been cited as a champi- under the guise of improving students’ world, we should put critical thinking on of traditional literacy since 2012, when digital skills, than appears at the first back on the top of agenda. There will radically improved results of the OECD’s sight. be no innovation without people able to Program for International Student As- identify key challenges of their time and sessment (PISA) were published,4 it per- willing to use their knowledge, skills, and formed below average in similar tests The right mix other resources, to respond to them. measuring critical reasoning and creative problem solution. Among V4 countries, of skills Anna Wójcik is assistant editor at Visegrad only the Czech Republic was classified in Insight. the top tier in this respect, outperforming Germany and the US. Digital literacy is often misunderstood as The divergence between good equipping people only with skills specific reading skills and poor problem solv- to cyber environments, exemplified by ing among Polish teenagers is striking. the learn to code movement. However, it Unfortunately it cannot be attributed to encompasses much more than teaching any positive factor, such as a particular coding and programming during sepa- love for literature, as only 4 out of 10 rate ICT classes. Computing was added Poles read a book in 2014.5 Conversely, to national curricula in Estonia (in 2012),

REFERENCES 1. 10 lat w Unii. Jak zmieniała się Polska [10 years in the European Union. How was Poland changing.], Polityka Insight, May 2014. 2. Eurostat data on Information and Communication Technologies in the EU. 3. The Global Information Technology Report 2015. ICTs for Inclusive Growth, ed. S. Doutta, T. Geiger, B. Lanvin, World Economic Forum, Geneva 2015, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_IT_Report_2015.pdf. 4. PISA 2012 Results, OECD, http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results.html. 5. Izabela Koryś, Dominika Michalak, Roman Chymkowski, Stan czytelnictwa w Polsce w 2014 roku [The state of readership in Poland in 2014], http:// www.bn.org.pl/download/document/1422018329.pdf. 6. ECA knowledge brief: Successful Education Reform: Lessons from Poland, The World Bank, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUN- TRIES/ECAEXT/0,,contentMDK:22767787~pagePK:146736~piPK:146830~theSitePK:258599,00.html. 7. Isaac Asimov, How do people get new ideas, MIT Technology Review, published October 20, 2014, http://www.technologyreview.com/view/531911/ isaac-asimov-asks-how-do-people-get-new-ideas/. 8. Digital Agenda for Europe, Pillar VI: Enhancing digital literacy, skills and inclusion, European Commission, http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/ our-goals/pillar-vi-enhancing-digital-literacy-skills-and-inclusion.

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What is Visegrad to Poles?

Wojciech Przybylski

t took just a year for Poles to appreciate and next by the International Visegrad Fund, the only existing institu- to become rapidly disillusioned with the power of tion established in 2000 to sustain and develop genuine cross the Visegrad Group brand. In 2013 we all started to country cooperation of citizens, with some major resources. believe that we were really a part of a four country The fund spends 8 million euros yearly, 90% through grant community of shared interests and identities. By the schemes and scholarships distributed roughly already to more end of 2014, a conviction grew that those countries than 4,000 grantees and 2,000 scholarship holders. within the V4 didn't actually share the same fun- Even though one year is not enough to consolidate an damentals anymore. Today, tensions between the idea in public opinion, I would still claim that Visegrad has group’s members start to resemble the era before 1989, when built up a brand in our country – Poles at least have been ISoviet propaganda embittered one against another enforcing intrigued by the name, and of course the Polish leading po- the old maxim divide at imperia. sition in an international structure. The Ministry of Foreign Just a year ago, Poland opened a new chapter in the his- Affairs, on the other hand, has skillfully cloned PR activities tory of regional cooperation. Under a year-long leadership of from the EU presidency and communicated the leading posi- former Ministry of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski, Visegrad tion in Europe abroad – this time not of Poland alone, but of became a brand for promoting the political, economic, and Visegrad as whole. cultural potential of the region. The Polish yearly-rotating “A strong Poland in the EU also means a stronger Visegrad presidency of the group, which took place between mid-2012 Group. This is because Central Europe is no longer,” as Milan and 2013, has been an opportunity to repeat the successful Kundera once wrote, “a land of tragedy. It is more reminiscent scheme of the EU presidency chaired by Poland in 2011. of the dream, at last fulfilled, of the free and prosperous region At that time, we heard about all the possible dimensions described by the Hungarian writer György Konrád,” commu- of V4 cooperation. During the 12 months of the presidency, nicated Sikorski in the Polish Sejm in 2013 and abroad. “In Poland attributed the Visegrad brand virtually to everything: recent years, the growth rate of Poland, the Czech Republic, from cultural events, energy security – building gas intercon- Slovakia, and Hungary has surpassed the EU average. In the nections, infrastructural projects, consulting on EU strategy mid-1990s, the GDP of the four Visegrad Group countries – to development assistance served worldwide from us: the amounted to almost 270 billion dollars. Today, it is almost champions of transformation. four times larger. Together, we are Germany’s biggest trad- To be sure, all these areas are part of the cooperation ing partner. Pursuant to the still applicable law, in the Council forged mostly through a process of consultation at the highest of the European Union, our four countries hold 58 weighted political level (since its beginning in 1991), and practical lo- votes – as many as Germany and France combined.” cal, cultural, educational, and civil society cooperation, funded

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This message read clear – the region is booming and its ers - criticized the sanctions to be imposed on Russia by the time to drop the usual tone of nostalgia and complaints for the European Union; and even though they were adopted, Polish- more optimistic, hope-driven note. Sikorski delivered several Hungarian brotherhood has been shattered to the point that speeches in the region’s capitals marking new practice of that even right-wing admirers and apologists of Orbán in Poland sort in the history of the V4. Not surprisingly, his message reviewed their positions. Igor Janke, who wrote a celebrity- was most contrasted with the usual tone and best received in like biography of Orbán in 2013, was shocked by what his idol Budapest, even though Poland was already putting pressure thinks of potential cooperation with Putin. on the Hungarian government to change its current foreign Secondly, when Gazprom started to cut down gas sup- policy strategy, even though, as a famous Polish-Hungarian plies to Ukraine, to put pressure on political decisions made proverb goes, both nations share a special kind of imagined in Kyiv, the three bordering countries (Hungary, Slovakia, bond for being brothers in arms and in toasting. and Poland) agreed to deliver energy supply via reverse flow By the end of 2013, the through their pipelines. The group earned recognition biggest share could have from Chancellor Merkel, been from the start deliv- President Sarkozy, and ered through Slovakia, but Japan’s Prime Minister Abe, A strong Robert Fico’s government all of who attended V4 sum- delayed technical possi- mits with our heads of state. bilities far too long, quoting It meant a lot in diplomacy contractual penalties from and not any less in how Polish Poland in the EU its contract with Gazprom public opinion began to ap- as a formal obstacle. In the preciate the Visegrad Group end Gazprom indeed cut – previously, for a long time also means volumes and the Slovak not relevant in public debate MFA issued a statement that even when the common ex- they would continue the re- pression “Central and Eastern a stronger verse flow to give tangible Europe” was recalled. support to Ukraine, but this But already from the be- was not as much noted in ginning of 2014, Polish belief Visegrad Group. Polish media as the initial in the potential of Visegrad reluctance. has been undermined. It Thirdly, the most prac- came with policies of the This is because tical and de facto strongest three other member states bilateral cooperation be- that were not living up to the tween the Czech Republic expectations raised in the Central Europe and Poland was shattered by short period of 2014, during two processes, which have if which Poles began to believe not begun then intensified that Visegrad is one geopo- in the last year, and threaten litical entity with shared in- is no longer. to loosen the bonds in the terests and identities. future. Yet, a 2013 report Firstly, in January 2014, by the Institute of Public Budapest signed a contract Affairs in Warsaw on mu- with Moscow for expanding Milan Kundera tual perceptions of Czechs, their nuclear power plant, Germans, and Poles, which was backed by a suspi- showed that Poles have ciously low interest rate 10-12 billion euro loan from Russia. a very favorable opinion about Czechs, which was unmatched Because of its secrecy and surprise announcement as well as by Czech perception about Poles. timing, it was immediately perceived in Poland as Hungarian One of the two factors was the change of foreign policy backing for Russian foreign policy – including its involve- principles, which has mostly been attributed to the deputy ment in Ukraine. Then, when the events on Maidan unfolded, minister for foreign affairs, Petr Drulak, calling for lifting the Hungary made another faux pas that infuriated Poles political- human rights standards for the sake of economic diplomacy ly and emotionally engaged in Ukraine. Viktor Orbán demand- and questioning at first the sensibility of the Visegrad format ed again autonomy for the Hungarian minority in Ukraine. of cooperation as such – with ideas to include Austria, as well The timing was really bad, as it seemed to echo Putin’s as Slovenia in the project that was not recognized by other demands to federalize and therefore subordinate Kyiv to his partners among the V4. policy. This even sparked a public clash between Orbán and But the a drop that spilled the cup was a negative infor- Tusk during the annual GLOBSEC regional security confer- mation campaign in the Czech media carried out against any- ence in Bratislava in March 2014. This did not stop Hungarian thing branded Polish. It may have started with reports of some support for the eventually dropped South Stream pipeline pro- cases of low quality food delivered to the market by Polish ject that would encircle V4 gas deliveries. Then, the Hungarian producers at a time when Czech liquor stores were shutting Prime Minister - along with some of Slovak and Czech lead- down due to a threat of poisonous alcohol, distilled and sold

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at home. This could have been easily understood as a PR cover but foreign policy as a best practice and role model. Definitely up campaign sponsored by major Czech food producers, but a soft power success. later reports about deadly windows made in Poland and other Tomáš Strážay, Head of the Central and Southeastern threats from the Czech Republic’s northern neighbor were just Europe Program at the Slovak Foreign Policy Association and too much to simply blame on low quality of exported goods. coordinator of Think Visegrad – V4 Think Tank Platform, later Ironically, the shock came with a satire based advertise- concluded that despite “some analysts and journalists – once ment by T-Mobile using a stereotype of a shady Pole trading and again – do not hesitate to draw up dark scenarios regard- low-quality phones. It was widely reported and commented on ing the future of the V4. In fact, if the V4 was dead or at least in the main Polish media, such as Gazeta Wyborcza, and even dying, there wouldn’t be so many viable initiatives and plans involved social campaigns in social media based on mems and for the future. The dead can dance only in cheap, third class virals to influence the official authorities. The Polish ambas- horror movies – reality is different. The V4 is alive and kicking, sador to Prague, and former deputy minister of Foreign affairs, and ready to serve as the core for broader regional initiatives Grazyna Bernatowicz, perhaps misfired when she issued an in many areas. There is no need to look for its replacement official protest note and demanded that the advert would be by a new initiative, there is just a need for its continuous taken off the screens of public TV, but it just proved the level development.” of disappointment felt across the border with our much liked Indeed V4 cooperation was almost politically insig- neighbors – friendship we learned again that it is not always nificant in 2008 when a major gas crisis revived it, and if we returned, nor easily earned. It is worth adding that the food could survive through 2014, then 2015 would give the promise and products negative information campaign has been a long- of new hope. The cooperation, in both the fields of internal term strategy mastered by sanitary services of the Russian cohesion and international democracy assistance is actually Federation progressing. The number of cultural, scientific and technical As the negative sentiments grew and Polish beliefs cooperation exchanges is growing and gradually generating about the possibility of cooperation diminished, such trends potential for more understanding. Moreover, the cooperation empowered right-wing bloggers such as Marcin Kędzierski is exploring new areas, recently in the realm of economic di- from the Jagiellonian Institute, to write in autumn 2014 that plomacy, promoting V4 as a region of innovations and start- “the V4 does not have a present; it even does not have a close ups (in which Res Publica’s project New Europe 100 plays a past.” Such claims came both from old neo-imperial nostalgia significant role). still fueling the Polish right scene, but would not have been What we must overcome, however, is the new negative prompted if not for the disappointments of 2014. All this de- information campaign that so often resembles a variation of spite eventual adoption of common positions by V4 leaders infowar that keeps us from understanding and pushes us to- – after long battles – in key issues involving Ukraine, gas se- wards quick hasty generalizations based on emotions. Just like curity, and even upholding plans for the creation of a Visegrad after the Solidarity movement in 1980s, when Soviet propa- battlegroup in 2016. ganda would embitter its satellite nations using the power of There are many other such voices of disillusionment from gossip and negative stereotypes, today we allow the gutter more recognized experts across the political spectrum includ- press to do the same. It’s time to say – never again! ing Edward Lucas from The Economist, and former FT editor Judy Dempsey expressing their - perhaps misdirected - dis- The author is Editor-in-chief of Visegrad Insight and Eurozine. appointments with the lack of common geopolitical perspec- tive of the V4, which simply echo Polish in-country heated debates on the future of the region. Perhaps a soothing com- ment was provided by Igor Merheim-Eyre from the Global Europe Centre, University of Kent, saying that the “Visegrad Group helps to amplify influence when possible, but this pro- cess happens neither at all times nor at all costs. … We should therefore not criticize the regional framework for something that it is not, or expect it to behave as our own imaginations would like it to.” In fact, several new significant accomplishments have only been dimmed by the shadowy future of Ukraine and Russia. As Marta Szpala, an expert from the Eastern Studies Centre in Warsaw (OSW), noted on the 31st of October on the Visegrad Insight website;: “The ministers of foreign affairs of the Visegrad Group reaffirmed their support for European Union and NATO enlargement, underling that conditional- ity and the merit based approach should be applied but that both the EU and NATO should respond appropriately to the progress made by aspirant countries. The V4 also supported the idea of establishing a Western Balkan Fund modeled on the International Visegrad Fund, which is considered one of the best models of regional cooperation of the countries in transition.” The V4 continued to influence not only domestic

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CE disrupted Where do disagreements in V4 come from?

CULTURAL IDENTITY AND PREFERENCES ATTITUDES TO RELIGION A historical divide between Western types of Christian- Slavic nations – Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks – share a sense ity – Catholicism and Protestantism – prevailed in the re- of mutual ethnic and linguistic roots. Poles and Hungar- gion. The Bohemian and Hungarian Reformations played ians also declare their exceptional mutual understanding, significant role in shaping respective national identities. as expressed by the proverb, “Pole and Hungarian cousins Meanwhile, in Poland, a successful Counter-Reformation be.” Since 2007, by decision of both countries’ parliaments, ended in the dominance of the Catholic Church. According the Polish-Hungarian Brotherhood is officially celebrated to the 2012 Eurobarometer2, 66% of Czechs do not adhere on 23 March. to any religion and 29% consider themselves Catholic – this in stark contrast to 91% Poles, 69% Slovaks, and 58% Hun- The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1867-1918) greatly garians who declare themselves to be of Catholic faith. It influenced various regions of Central Europe. The Czech is often argued that the Czech Republic is one of the most Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary were ruled by the Habs- secular countries in the world – partly as a result of the burg dynasty for several centuries, and part of today’s Po- historical backlash to Catholicism imposed by the Habs- land was part of the empire between 1772 and 1918. The burg Empire, mainly due to its mass secularization upon centralization policies of the Vienna Imperial Court were re-gaining independence in 1918, as well as anti-religious directed against all of the other non-German nationalities. sentiments in communist Czechoslovakia. On the other The Habsburg myth stated that the Habsburg legacy had hand, some suggest that this is balanced out by the belief come to represent all that was true, good, beautiful, and, in magic.3 above all, European.

The process of nation formation in the 19th century in- volved defining nations against their closest neighbors, POLITICAL CULTURE emphasizing cultural and historical differences instead of similarities. For Poles, it was the Russians, Germans or In the interwar period, Czechoslovakia was the only state Prussians, while for the Hungarians it was the Germans, in the region in which Western-style democracy prevailed, Austrians, and Turks. The Czechs were exposed to ad- while Poland and Hungary gravitated toward authoritari- vanced processes of Germanization, and Slovak identity anism. After 1945, different models of state socialist re- was to a great extent constructed as distinct from the Czech gimes were imposed. In Poland the authoritarian regime and Hungarian. "The thousand years of marriage to the operated with elements of limited neocorporative plural- Magyars failed. We must part," commented Slovak politi- ism; in Hungary it was a theory of liberal paternalism; in cian Andrej Hlinka upon establishing Czechoslovakia after Czechoslovakia it took a pure, authoritarian form. World War I. During the socialist period, strong national identities prevailed, and the sovereignty of Slovaks was rec- Revolutions and reformatory movements sprung up in ognized in 1993 after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. Hungary in 1956, in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and in Poland from 1980 to 81. In 1968 the invasion of the Warsaw Pact The Czech Republic has been most urbanized and industri- troops from Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, and Poland alized part of Central Europe. The bourgeoisie and working prohibited Czechoslovakian leaders from liberalizing com- class played a bigger role in shaping the country’s identity munist rule, ushering in a period of repression. than in rural Poland or Slovakia. In Hungary, the strong labor movement was a natural breeding ground for the left. Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary share experiences of the post-communist transition after 1989, Europeanization and globalization processes are chang- and the subsequent shared path to NATO (CZ, PL, HU ing the idea of individual and collective identity; we are joined in 1999, SK in 2004) and membership in the Eu- becoming ever more inclined to define ourselves at once ropean Union (2004). A decade after joining the EU, Cen- at the local, regional, national, and supra-national levels. tral European countries have become independent actors, At the same time, nationalist tendencies are resurging in shaping up their positions in EU-28 and securing national Europe, including the V4. interests.

Attitudes toward EU integration are generally positive in the Visegrad Group, with Poles expressing particularly great enthusiasm for the European Project (72% respond- ents in favor of the EU).1

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CE disrupted Where do disagreements in V4 come from? SOCIAL CHANGES Women’s suffrage was granted in 1918 in Poland, in 1919 in Hungary, and in 1920 in Czechoslovakia. Today, Ewa MINORITIES AND MIGRANTS Kopacz is the second woman to serve as prime minister of Poland after 1989. However, the percentage of women V4 countries share a common history of change from mul- MPs in national parliaments is hugely disproportionate. As ticultural societies with significant German and Jewish of 2015, Poland ranks 51st (24%) in the global classifica- populations to ethnically cleansed states through World tion of women in national parliaments, the Czech Republic War II atrocities and subsequent policies of communist 74th (19%), Slovakia 75th (18.9%), with Hungary lagging governments. Today, the Roma minority, the biggest mi- far behind in 114th place (10%).8 Legislated candidate quo- nority in all the EU, is present across the four countries, tas on electoral lists to the lower house were introduced with its members often experiencing high levels of social in Poland in 2011.9 The proportion of women who have exclusion.4 completed their tertiary education is higher than that of men all across European Union10, yet Central European Thanks to open borders and globalization processes, Cen- societies face higher differences between female and male tral European societies are adapting to flows of new mi- employment rates than the EU average. The gender pay grants. The Vietnamese community is prominent in Poland gap is particularly high in the Czech Republic, compared (3rd most numerous after German and Ukrainian) and the to other member states.11 Czech Republic (3rd most numerous after Slovaks and Roma, with the Vietnamese surname Nguyen the 9th most The socio-legal situation of LGBT people varies across common surname in the country5). The Chinese minority CE: the Czech Republic and Hungary are considered more is growing in Hungary and is currently estimated at 18,000 liberal in this respect than Poland and Slovakia. Budapest people.6 Pride, the largest annual LGBT cultural event in Hungary, was held for the first time in 2007 and was a pioneer in the V4 countries are becoming transit and permanent migra- region. According to Pew Global Attitudes survey 201312, tion destinations due to their comparatively favorable eco- 80% of respondents from the Czech Republic declared that nomic conditions and turmoil in Ukraine and the Middle society should accept homosexuality, while in Poland only East. While Germany and Sweden habitually welcome the 42% shared this conviction. Same-sex partnerships were highest numbers of asylum seekers in the EU-28, there legally recognized in the Czech Republic in 2006 and in was a growing number of asylum applications to Hungary Hungary in 2009; however, same-sex marriage has been from Kosovars (with a record 21,455 in 2014) and to Po- constitutionally banned in Hungary (since 2012) and Slo- land from Russians (4,000) and Ukrainians (2,275). At the vakia (since 2014). same time, the Czech Republic and Slovakia received a very small number of asylum applications, 1,145 and 330 in to- tal, respectively. In comparison, Germany was flooded with 202,645 and Sweden with 81,180.7 Collected by Jędrzej Burszta and Anna Wójcik

REFERENCES 1. A Fragile Rebound for EU Image on Eve of European Parliament Elections, Pew Research Center Report, 12th May 2014 http://www.pewglobal.org/ files/2014/05/2014-05-12_Pew-Global-Attitudes-European-Union.pdf 2. Special Eurobarometer 393. Discrimination in the EU in 2012. Report, answers to the question of religious adherence, p. T98. 3. Dana Hamplová, Are Czechs the least religious of all?, The Guardian, 24 June 2010, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/ jun/24/czech-republic-religious-atheism. 4. European Agency for Fundamental Rights 2011Roma Survey http://fra.europa.eu/en/theme/roma. 5. Chris Johnstone: Vietnamese surname ninth most common in Czech Republic, 10.6.2011 http://ceskapozice.lidovky.cz/vietnamese-surname-ninth- most-common-in-czech-republic-pg9-/tema.aspx?c=A110610_110103_pozice_17446 (retrieved 6.05.2015). 6. Kevin Latham, Bin Wu, Chinese Imigration into the EU: New Trends, Dynamics, and Implications. Europe and China Research and Advice Network, 2013, p. 33. 7. Eurostat Asylum Statistics. Five main citizenships of (non-EU) asylum applicants, 2014 (number, rounded figures) YB15 II. http://ec.europa.eu/euro- stat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_statistics. 8. Women in national parliaments, February 2015, http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm. 9. Quotas Project. Global Database of Quotas for Women, May 2015, http://www.quotaproject.org. 10. European Comission Europe 2020: Being young in Europe Today. Education, March 2015, http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index. php/Being_young_in_Europe_today_-_education. 11. European Comission Europe 2020: Labour Market Participation of Women, http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/pdf/themes/31_labour_market_par- ticipation_of_women.pdf. 12. The Global Divide on Homosexuality, Pew Global Attitudes Homosexuality Report, Pew Research Center, June 4 2013, updated May 27, 2014. http:// www.pewglobal.org/files/2014/05/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Homosexuality-Report-REVISED-MAY-27-2014.pdf.

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Following the January 29 Slavkov summit of the prime ministers of Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, one may well question how this new regional format relates to Visegrad cooperation. Some pundits rushed to declare Visegrad dead, noting wittily that while France was absent from Austerlitz, it was Russia that won a group of friends…

Was Visegrad defeated in Slavkov?

Jiří Schneider

ne may certainly wor- ated high expectations, promising more EU. I have to admit that I was wrong. ry about the future of than it could deliver. The V4 has periodi- Nevertheless, these disagreements did Visegrad cooperation cally undergone political cycles of enthu- not prevent or inhibit our cooperation in but it would be prema- siasm and a lack thereof. Having achieved other areas, as recent analysis by OSW2 ture to bury it. Slavkov EU and NATO membership, Visegrad rightly points out: “Difference of opinion does not present an stopped aiming high. It is based on com- on Russia within the V4 has not halted alternative to Viseg- mon interests and serves less spectacular cooperation on the implementation of rad cooperation. Its multilayer regional cooperation among important Visegrad projects such as agenda is either identical or compatible various branches of government, often at a those in the area of energy security or Owith that of V4 (nor could it eventually be working level among universities, NGOs, preparations for the establishment of the incorporated into the V4+ format). etc. In Brussels, V4 governments miss no Visegrad Battle Group in 2016.” From the Czech perspective, it just opportunity to seek their peers’ endorse- What is to be expected from the serves the purpose of creating a coop- ment in various agendas, thus amplifying Slavkov format? First of all, it serves the erative framework with our southern their voice. Sometimes it works. political and electoral purposes of social neighbor. An attempt by the Czech gov- Let’s face it: the interests of the democratic prime ministers Faymann, ernment to mend fences with Austria is Czech, Hungarian, Slovak, and Polish Fico, and Sobotka. It has been formed as a rather commendable, although it should governments do not always coincide. regional caucus of the Party of European have been done bilaterally in order In 2007, an ECFR paper1 labeled differ- Socialists. The venue was not chosen by to avoid sending the wrong signals to ences among V4 states’ attitudes towards accident: Slavkov is not only midway be- Warsaw and Budapest Russia: Poland got “New Cold-Warrior,” tween Prague, Vienna, and Bratislava, but I am convinced that Visegrad coop- Hungary and Slovakia were designat- more importantly it is the Czech prime eration is here to stay. Taking into account ed “friendly pragmatists," the Czech minister's home town and the base of his the multiple layers of Visegrad coopera- Republic a "frosty pragmatist." Today's local constituency. tion in government, in private and NGO labels may vary but differences persist. The Slavkov Declaration does not sectors, and its dense web of connections Following accession to the EU, I assumed reveal much about this “new framework between stakeholders, the Slavkov format that the policy towards our Eastern for enhanced cooperation in neighbor- should not pose a real challenge. In more neighbors (including Russia) would have hood and European affairs,” but states than two decades, the V4 has developed become one of the crystallization points rather vaguely that it should contribute to a solid foundation and has become a of potential convergence of interests “increased public awareness about com- brand and point of reference for Central among V4 countries, and even of possible mon interests, trust in regional coopera- European cooperation. It has at times cre- convergence of interests within the whole tion, and European integration.”

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In this respect, more attention should be given to the recently amend- ed Czech Security Strategy4 than to the Slavkov Declaration, as it explicitly states that “cooperation with the Visegrad Group countries has a specific role to play in regional … cooperation projects (that) lead to more efficient maintenance and strengthening of capabilities devel- photo: Vaclav Salek/PAP/CTK photo: Vaclav opment, and enhance military interop- erability as well as political solidarity.” In light of the repeated commitment “that the Czech Republic’s defense budget is being gradually increased to reach 1.4% of GDP by 2020 … the Czech Republic will seek to move toward the 2% of GDP defense spending guideline,” this strategy provides some hope that the upcoming Czech and Polish V4 presidencies may boost the defense dimension of Visegrad cooperation. Was Visegrad defeated in Slavkov? We should not take Visegrad co- operation for granted, but it has already been established as a format of consulta- tion within the EU. We should avoid un- realistic expectations and steadily invest in mutual trust and partnership between f Federal Chancellor of Austria Werner Faymann (left), Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka of the Czech Republik, and Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico in Slavkov, January 29th 2015. bigger and smaller states so that it brings more valuable results. Strategic guidance should be underpinned by practical steps. The working plan agreed upon in rail connection through Slovakia (Košice) The North-South connection in Slavkov mentions an agenda for growth to Vienna.3 In general, the projects in- energy and transport infrastructure and employment with a special focus on cluded in the working plan seem either across Central Europe would be impos- youth employment (sharing best prac- useful or benign. Top Czech officials keep sible without Visegrad. By the same to- tices in dual training and education), and offering reassurances that Slavkov will ken, Visegrad plays an important role a final point regarding the social dimen- not divert attention or resources from in geographically connecting frontline sion of European integration reveals the Visegrad cooperation. There is no rea- states from Estonia to Bulgaria. The political motivation of three prime min- son to worry that the prime ministers of North-South vector is becoming stra- isters: long-term common interests in the the Czech Republic and Slovakia would tegically important for Central Europe social dimension of EU policies. Other “face the dilemma of whether coopera- to strengthen its competitiveness and points of the agenda include rather obvi- tion with Austria is more important than resilience vis-à-vis external shocks. We ous topics related to transport and energy the Visegrad Group.” Their trilateral con- should not forget about societal and in- infrastructure. These are substantial ar- sultations before the European Council stitutional infrastructure, which is as im- eas for neighborly cooperation, but they could be easily part of PES coordination portant as roads and grids. Europe needs overlap or coincide with projects already in the same way that Prime Minister Visegrad. Let’s not bury it! under way within the V4 (e.g., gas mar- Orban attends EPP coordination. If there ket integration). It remains to be seen is the will of V4 prime ministers to meet, whether common interest in railroad there would be no scheduling conflict. The author is a Senior Fellow at the Prague Secu- connections between Austria, the Czech Visegrad coordination in Brussels is far rity Studies Institute. Republic, and Slovakia will shrink to a more valuable than falling victim to po- controversial project of a broad-gauge litical cleavages between EPP and PES.

REFERENCES 1. Leonard, Mark; Popescu, Nicu (2007): A Power Audit of EU-Russia Relations. European Council on Foreign Relations, accessed at: http://ecfr.3cdn. net/1ef82b3f011e075853_0fm6bphgw.pdf. 2. Groszkowski, Jakub (2015) The Slavkov Declaration. A new format of regional cooperation, 4 Feb 2015, http://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/ analyses/2015-02-04/slavkov-declaration-a-new-format-regional-cooperation 3. See Memorandum on Cooperation and Integration of Russian and Slovak Railways signed in October 2011 in St. Petersburg. 4. http://www.mzv.cz/jnp/en/issues_and_press/x2015_02_05_update_of_security_strategy.htmlt

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in the world

Henry Foy

anuary brought the found- doubtedly a product of its success. And Any conversation of late with a ing of the Slavkov Triangle, engaging with their development may Visegrad Group diplomat almost invari- between Austria, the Czech prove more rewarding than opposing it. ably turns to stuttering co-operation and Republic, and Slovakia. Po- stark policy differences. Such moans are land, which has in recent years Visegrad discord often laced with catty anecdotes about appointed itself somewhat Twenty-five years old next year, Visegrad representatives from the other countries. haughtily the keeper of the is no longer a plucky upstart. The current favored topic among Visegrad flame, howled. Formed to drive its members the southern members is Poland’s per- Then, in April we saw the an- westward, it was a remarkable suc- ceived lack of enthusiasm for the format. Jnouncement about the Craiova Group cess. Ensuring their NATO accession in Officials note a perceptible shift in of Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia. The 1999—and repeating the feat with the Warsaw’s engagement since the depar- southeastern copy of Visegrad goes some European Union in 2004—were fantastic ture of former prime minister Donald way toward formalizing a bloc within the achievements, and should be remem- Tusk and his highly-rated sherpa Piotr “V4+”, an expanded format that has be- bered as such. Serafin last autumn, and say come increasingly popular as a means for But its early twenties have been Tusk’s successor Ewa Kopacz sees Visegrad to inflate its clout. marked by a sense of lethargy and lassi- far less use in the format. Either side of its 24th birthday, tude. A post-success fatigue, if you will, “Kopacz really does not care,” said and with its effectiveness and influence with no goals or targets of significant one senior Visegrad Group official. “At already on the wane, Visegrad went magnitude – or desire to draw them up the V4 meetings she just goes through the from being the de facto representative – to drive co-operation further. motions, reads the prepared statements, of Central European views to becom- Further, Russia’s invasion of Crimea gets up and leaves.” ing just one of three groups straining to and its support for rebels in eastern It is through this prism of discord be heard in the cacophony of European Ukraine has violently exposed the di- that the formation of the Slavkov trian- diplomacy. vergent foreign policy interests of the gle, ostensibly to increase energy and in- But while they appear to have weak- Group, making it look less like a uni- frastructure between its three members, ened its position as the region’s foremost fied bloc and more like a cumbersome, should be seen. lobby bloc, Visegrad has reasons to be polycephalic monster. This dissonance is Despite protestations that it is not proud of its impersonators. Arguably a of no help to anyone, not least exasper- intended as an alternative to Visegrad, sign of its relative decline, they are un- ated western EU allies. Warsaw naturally felt marginalized.

80 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 CE disrupted Visegrad Abroad It is getting of eastern European strategic partnerships

Imitation, we are told, is the sincerest form of flattery. Visegrad Group acolytes would do well to remember this as they bemoan the rival geopolitical groupings springing up across their neighborhood.

Having become rather comfortable with it has been mooted as a future member of How Poland must wish to see some its self-appointed role of regional leader, both Slavkov and Craiova. of Romania’s attitudes in its Visegrad Four the overt pivot of Prague and Bratislava That leaves Poland as the most obvi- partners, who routinely drag their feet towards Vienna, historically a dominant ous loser of their founding, and it in par- over sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s player in the region, came as something ticular risks losing regional influence if Russia. Engaging with Craiova would al- of an affront. the V4 sets itself in opposition to Slavkov. low Warsaw to add a little of the “+” to In contrast, Romanian Prime Warsaw would be smart to remem- V4, while overlooking some of the “4”. Minister Victor Ponta did not even try ber that its Weimar co-operation with How the regional power play shakes to hide his inspiration for the Craiova Germany and France, and its close rela- out will be strongly influenced by the ap- Group, telling reporters that aping tionship with the Baltic States, are not proach taken by the Czechs, who preside Visegrad was the aim. vastly different from these new initia- over the Visegrad Group from June 2015. Undoubtedly, both groups appear to tives, if less formalized. How Prague juggles its role within both have far more strategic aims in common Engagement with the new regional Slavkov and the V4 will likely set the tone than Visegrad in 2015. pretenders would be fruitful. The V4’s for the two groups’ relations. Warsaw and On ties with Russia, energy strat- meetings before European Council ses- Budapest should urge a friendly embrace egy and opposition to further sanctions sions are now as institutionalized as they of Craoiva too, early in its existence. against Moscow, the Slavkov grouping are beneficial to all members. Bringing Visegrad may not be the force it is in harmony. And among Craiova’s Austria into this fold, rather than forcing once was. But in its middle age it can look members, all have prioritized Serbia’s EU the Czechs and Slovaks to choose be- back proudly on achieving what it set out membership and regional energy market tween either format, has obvious benefits. to do. Such victories will naturally inspire cooperation. And warm relations with Craiova copycats – and it should feel flattered by should be mutually beneficial for all. its imitators. New friends On a bilateral level, Poland is keen Continuing to foster their growth Turning its back on these new bodies to cultivate stronger ties with Romania, will ensure its relevance. would be counter-productive for the which at present represents a natural Visegrad Group. partner, given the two countries’ shared The author is the Central Europe Correspondent of Despite the arms-length approach focus on defense spending, a mutual the Financial Times. that some neighbors are taking to hawkishness toward Russia and a united Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban, stance on the Ukrainian crisis.

81 Visegrad Abroad CE disrupted

The group and The press

Eric Maurice

he return to Europe” was to be accomplished by Contrary to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which are abandoning the Westphalian balance-of-pow- mostly referred to as “the Baltic states,” although this overshad- ers approach to relations between states, and ows their differences and individualities, Poland, the Czech adopting the new Western European methods Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia are only seldom known as of sharing resources, entertaining dialogue, and the V4 or Visegrad countries. In a way, they are simultaneously making compromises. This, as shown by the de- too big to be seen together and too small to be considered a velopment of the European Community, would meaningful association. ensure mutual enrichment, regional stability, Of the four Visegrad countries, the Czech Republic and and projection of power. In part inspired by Benelux, the re- Slovakia are perhaps the most representative of the bloc’s evo- Tgional cooperation between Belgium, the Netherlands, and lution. In 1991, Czechoslovakia benefited from the prestige Luxembourg that preceded the creation of the EC, the Viseg- of its “philosopher-king” Václav Havel and was, together with rad Group was as much a vehicle for regional development as Hungary, the most advanced economy of the Soviet Bloc. It testimony of the three countries’ desire to be considered part could also rely on its inter-war democratic tradition to play a of the (Western) European family. leading role in the V4 transition. Twenty-four years later, this “triangle,” which became a The partition of the country in 1993 diverted the Czech quadrangle after the Czech-Slovak separation in 1993, is part Republic and Slovakia from this path. Under Eurosceptic Václav of the European Union and NATO, Slovakia is a member of Klaus, who led the country for fifteen years altogether as prime the Eurozone, and the president of the European Council is a minister and president, the Czech Republic took a backseat in Pole. But as an entity, the Visegrad Group is still in search of the EU. The erratic current president, Miloš Zeman, “would its place and lacks recognition from EU member states and probably make a good figure in Belarus,” writes the Frankfurter institutions. Domestic developments in Poland, Hungary, the Allgemeine Zeitung; “the government looks wobbly” and is fac- Czech Republic, and Slovakia, and more recently the crisis ing “public resentment against mainstream politics and a general with Russia, have constricted what could be defined as com- suspicion of sleaze associated with formerly dominant main- mon interests. This undermines the group’s reputation in stream parties,” adds the Financial Times. As a consequence, Europe. As The Economist bluntly puts it, “the ‘Visegrad’ club the country is no longer considered a valuable player in the EU. is hopelessly split on Russia but united on the need for more Slovakia, for its part, “has been a good student for the cash from Brussels.” last ten years, after a difficult and isolationist start,” asserts For Western Europeans, the fall of the Berlin Wall and Libération, reminding readers that the country “lent money to the Soviet Bloc was a political, economic, and security chal- the Greeks.” “But structurally, the European integration remains lenge, but also a cultural one. From the Budapest uprising to fragile,” with political parties unrepresentative of the popula- the Prague Spring and Solidarność movement, they knew the tion and tarnished by corruption. The Paris daily notes that recent history of the newly liberated countries, but ignored President Andrej Kiska and Bratislava mayor Ivo Nesrovnal the historical background and deeper cultural dynamics of are newcomers with no party affiliation and asks: “Could exotic the so-called “Eastern bloc.” The Visegrad reference was lost Slovakia be a laboratory for the new European democracy, as on them. essential to watch as Syriza’s Greece and Podemos’ Spain?”

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For The Economist, however, twenty-five years after the months been sidelined by Germany and France to keep Russia Velvet Revolution, Czechs and Slovaks have one sorry thing in at the table. common: “Liberals and anti-corruption crusaders still know The war in Ukraine and relations with Russia are defining how to protest. But they do not seem to be able to win a ma- moments for the continent’s security and political landscape. jority of the votes.” As the EU rules out any military involvement in Ukraine, it Hungary is an even more worrisome country. “Under can only count on its unity in containing Russian influence and Viktor Orbán’s leadership, Hungary begins to drift away from sanctioning Putin’s regime. “The four Visegrad countries have the democratic path,” the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung condemned Russia’s action, which reminds them of Soviet in- writes. “Orbán, a great admirer of Vladimir Putin, betrays his terventions from the past,” wrote the Frankfurter Allgemeine deep contempt for the constituent values of the EU: attach- Zeitung at the time of the Crimea takeover in 2014. One year ment to the rule of law, to the strict separation of powers, and on, Czech, Slovak, and Hungarian ambiguities make the three to scrupulous respect of public liberties,” adds Le Monde. countries suspicious partners around the EU table. At a time when populist parties are gaining ground in It is difficult to know exactly where the Czech and Slovak many EU countries and casting doubt on the EU project, authorities stand. In Prague, the Financial Times points out, Viktor Orbán proves that such parties can win, govern, and there are “fears that the president has gone rogue. Mr. Zeman be re-elected. This would explain why he gets more media has condemned sanctions against Russia, dismissed the coverage in Western Europe than any previous Hungarian Ukrainian conflict as a ‘civil war,’ and counts an ex-KGB of- prime ministers. The fact that he was one of the faces of the ficer blacklisted by the U.S. as a close friend and confidante.” 1989 democratic revolution makes him an even more dis- Bohuslav Sobotka’s government says it supports sanctions turbing figure when he announces, as he did in July 2014, that against Russia, but when the prime minister met with his Hungarians “are doing [their] best to find ways of parting with Austrian and Slovak counterparts in Slavkov in January, the Western European dogmas, making [themselves] independent three leaders “held their distance from the aggravation of EU from them.” sanctions,” writes the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Back in “According to one Orbán-watcher, who has known him Bratislava, President Kiska seems to contradict Robert Fico, since 1989, Hungary’s prime minister has come to believe telling the Wall Street Journal Europe that, “it’s extremely im- that the economic crash of 2008 rendered 1989 irrelevant,” portant that the EU adhere to a single opinion so that Russia notes The Independent in London. “The crisis in 2008 was the can’t exploit any divisions within the union to break our in- harbinger of the West’s destruction, in Mr. Orbán’s view. He ternal unity.” plans to keep Hungary well away from the wreckage when the Hungary’s Russian policy seems more coherent, if not Western countries go bankrupt, as he appears to hope they really acceptable to the EU. Having declared his interest in will, just as the Soviet Union did a generation ago.” Russia’s “illiberal” model, Orbán “has deepened economic “Should Hungary stay in the EU?” asks Le Monde, given relations with Russia and has expanded Hungary’s nuclear that “unless it disowns its founding principles, can the Union power with Russian aid of several billions for two Russian re- continue to tolerate the more and more pronounced undemo- actors. But Orbán is always careful not to cross the line: he cratic drift of one of its members without flinching?” avoids a break-up with the EU – after all, his country depends If one country could make the Visegrad Group count in on much-needed EU structural funds,” explains Die Welt in the EU, it would be Poland. The most populous country of Berlin. the V4 is now also the most prosperous. “Donald Tusk’s term Between a prosperous and assertive Poland, a hard work- [as prime minister] proved to be a fruitful and successful pe- ing but discreet Slovakia, a confused Czech Republic, and a riod. In the midst of the world economic crisis, Poland was Hungary slowly drifting from the EU, the members of the able to maintain high growth rates,” writes the Süddeutsche Visegrad Group seem to have much less in common. They do Zeitung, adding that, “under Tusk’s leadership, Poland became all maintain the will to gain the most they can from the EU for a reliable and predictable partner, whose prestige and weight their development. “The V4 had functioned mainly as a politi- grew steadily. This is proved not only by Tusk’s appointment as cal talking shop and cultural exchange forum before October’s president of the EU Council, but also by the country’s growing climate change negotiations, which saw the bloc demand, and influence in NATO and EU decisions.” win, large concessions on areas such as continued coal use, Poland owes this elevated status as a key European player and EU funding for power plant upgrades,” notes the Financial to the reorientation of its EU policies, as decided by Tusk and Times, adding that “the four countries also plan to propose his foreign affairs minister, Radosław Sikorski. In addition, as joint motorway, railroad, and internet connectivity projects The Economist points out, “Poland is near the heart of many in addition to energy infrastructure.” of the challenges facing the EU, from restarting growth to the The economic daily, however, notes that: “the V4 ben- Russian threat in Ukraine to the British problem. Some of this efited from a requirement to find consensus among all EU is circumstantial: Ukraine is Poland’s neighbor, Britain the top members on the climate package. The bloc may find it tough- destination for its migrant workers.” er to get its own way on decisions that only require majority But if foreign press coverage of a country is any indication support, and could find itself out-boxed by larger members of its influence, it seems that Tusk’s successor, Ewa Kopacz, is with more votes and influence.” This is especially true if the having difficulties maintaining her country’s standing. This is V4 continues to let slip away the existential spirit carried by partly due to her more low-profile approach to the Russian its founding fathers. crisis. Although her government still calls for a tough stand against Vladimir Putin and in support of Ukraine, she sounds The author, former editor in chief of Presseurope, is now covering EU af- less confrontational than her predecessor and Poland has for fairs and politics for EUObserver.

83 Visegrad Abroad CE disrupted Visegrad toward

Development Profile

Zsuzsanna Végh

I consider the previous nder the current social democratic government, the policy that so far upheld a strong commitment to democratic values and human policy wrong. I consider rights seems to be moving toward a more pragmatic, less value- it false universalism, oriented stance. Over the years, the Czech approach, bearing the legacy of Václav Havel, resulted in the country focusing on democ- announced Czech racy promotion on the international development scene. The future Deputy Foreign Minister Czech donor profile will undoubtedly change with this transforma- tion, which in turn fits into a broader trend in the region. Petr Drulák in May This shift comes as the international community is discussing the reform of the 1 2014, in the wake of globalU development agenda: the framework succeeding the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Following their adoption in 2000, the MDGs have brought about un- what seemed a divorce precedented global engagement to reduce extreme poverty and hunger, improve access from the country’s to primary education, increase gender equality, reduce child mortality, improve mater- previous approach to nal health, fight HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, and promote environmental sustainability, all while developing a global partnership for development. As 2015 is the foreign relations. final year for development targets to be met, a natural stocktaking of the results and roles of various actors is in order. In this sense, the evolution of the Visegrad countries from recipients to donors during precisely this period, especially with further changes in sight, is of particular interest. Having entered the scene of international development in the early 2000s, the V4 countries rose to the ranks of stable – albeit small and still evolving – actors of the international donor community in the last ten to fifteen years. Although they mention their commitment to the MDGs in official policy documents, the Visegrad countries actually established a donor profile of democracy promoters building on their own “transition experience” in the wake of 1989.2 While values associated with liberal democracy can indeed be taken into consideration and should underpin inter- national development activities, the approach taken by the V4 countries addressed democracy assistance – that is, sharing transition experience – and traditional, “hard” development activities separately. As the former gained priority, the attention and the funding of these new donors turned predominantly to countries undergoing similar processes of political, economic, and social transformations in the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe, instead of the least developed countries (LDCs) of Africa, Asia, or Latin America. Consequently, one may hardly claim that the V4 states significantly contributed to meeting MDG targets in the most vulnerable regions.3

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Interestingly, the democracy assis- in line with domestic preferences, how- Africa through the “GoAfrica” program, tance brand that Visegrad donors have ever, would be essential to foster a sense which could eventually increase attention built does not reflect domestic prefer- of ownership and to hold governments to the LDCs as development partners. ences. In EU member states, citizens accountable to their commitments in The Czechs turn away from the democra- generally do not mention democracy the implementation of the global de- cy and human rights agenda, however, is and human rights among the top priori- velopment agenda. Given their citizens’ admittedly due to the decision of the cur- ties on which development cooperation preferences, it would be reasonable for rent government to rethink the country’s should focus after 2015, but in the V4 V4 donors to approximate international foreign policy, and thus prospective shifts even less people consider these crucial goals. In fact, recent developments sug- in development policy will be the conse- than in the European Union on average.4 gest that this is the trend, due not to the quence of this overall change, rather than When asked about the biggest challenges profile-preference gap, but rather due to general trends in the field. In this regard, for developing countries, V4 citizens also a general increase in the countries’ global the Czech case resonates with Hungary’s mention democracy and human rights outlook or due to changing drivers of for- so-called Eastern Opening. less often than EU citizens, on average. eign policy. Nevertheless, let’s not bury Furthermore, none of the V4 countries The fact that the Czech Republic, Visegrad democracy assistance just yet. perceive living in a democracy or in a Slovakia, and Poland have already joined With increasing demand for their transi- country with a functioning justice system the most developed donors, the OECD tion experience springing from the recent among the five elements most important Development Assistance Committee changes in Ukraine, and continued inter- to leading a decent life. Living in a coun- (DAC) suggests that they increase their est in some Western Balkan countries’ try in which human rights are respected engagement in their new role as devel- EU accession negotiations, the Visegrad does still makes it into the top five, but opment donors. They are surely far from donors have every reason to carry on generally below the EU average.5 The meeting all targets, but the membership with supply, at least in the short- and main development priorities and pref- signifies interest and can in turn pro- mid-term. Institutions set up only re- erences of people in the Visegrad states vide continuous monitoring of activities, cently in Slovakia and Poland (CETIR actually fall in line with those highlighted pushing for further commitment to glob- and the Solidarity Fund PL) reinforce the in other EU countries: peace and securi- al targets. While their DAC membership assumption that the V4 intends to main- ty, health, and employment. It therefore may have an impact on the evolution of tain what has been seen so far as their seems that the niche the V4 has found is their policy, before discussion concludes added value in development assistance. neither rooted in its societies, nor has it the succeeding development agenda Therefore, while we may expect a move so far generated much public support for built on the Sustainable Development toward a more traditional development democracy assistance and human rights Goals (SDGs) this coming September, focus in individual countries for various promotion. Then again, the latter is not the V4 now has the chance to shape the reasons, it will likely not mean the com- surprising given the low domestic aware- new framework as a full-fledged member plete abandonment of democracy assis- ness about the policy. With the excep- of the donor community. Slovakia and tance among the V4. In the mid-term, we tion of Poland, where an impressive 61% Hungary took an active part in the debate can predict the rise of a mixed profile that have at least some knowledge of this is- on the post-2015 agenda: the Slovak am- will combine both the original character- sue, more than 50% of V4 citizens have bassador to the UN sat on the Committee istics of the V4 and those of more estab- no idea where their governments spend on Financing Sustainable Development, lished development donors. development aid in the world.6 while in 2014, Hungary co-chaired the Development cooperation, even af- Open Working Group, drafting a synthe- The author is a research assistant at the Center ter a decade of donor activity, seems to sis report about the SDGs. Meanwhile, for EU Enlargement Studies of the Central Euro- remain an obscure subject in the region. Poland, the biggest V4 donor, is increas- pean University. Policy awareness and setting priorities ing its business presence in Sub-Saharan

REFERENCES 1. “Gov’t minister: Havel’s human rights policy was wrong,” Prague Post, May 30, 2014, accessed February 11, 2015, http://www.praguepost.com/ world-news/39342-gov-t-minister-havel-s-human-rights-policy-was-wrong. 2. Kuziemski, Maciej. 2013. “Abracadabra of Democracy Promotion.” Visegrad Insight 2(4): 66-68. 3. For a thorough analysis, see: Kopinski, Dominik. 2012. “Visegrad Countries’ Development Aid to Africa: Beyond the Rhetoric.” Perspectives of European Politics and Society 13(1): 33-49. 4. European Commission. 2013. Special Eurobarometer 405. EU Development Aid and the Millennium Development Goals. http://ec.europa.eu/ public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_405_en.pdf. 5. European Commission. 2015. Special Eurobarometer 421. European Year for Development. http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ ebs_421_en.pdf. 6. Op.cit.

85 Culture Inciting debates

Poland Translators’ Gems in every genre

One of last year’s biggest events in Polish literature was the long awaited publication of the latest novel by acclaimed au- thor Olga Tokarczuk, entitled Księgi Jakubowe (Jacob’s Scrip- tures). With more than 900 pages, this multi-layered historical novel describes the second half of the 18th century. It is based on the life of one Jakub Franek, the leader of a Jewish sect guide that converted to Catholicism. There are many other equally to new fiction interesting themes here and the book is written in a manner that emphasizes the specificities of the era. Last year, Zygmunt Miłoszewski, an author known for his widely read crime novels, claimed yet another success by Tomasz Grabiński publishing the last part of his trilogy about prosecutor Szacki, and Margit Garajszki called Gniew (Wrath). The book sold more than 150,000 copies and the author was awarded Paszport Polityki – a prestigious cultural prize for young artists. “I wanted these three books to be a sort of commentary on Poland – three different cit- ies, three different topics,” said the author in an interview for Polish weekly Polityka. The film adaptation of the second part of Miłoszewski’s trilogy, Ziarno prawdy (A Grain of Truth),

The Czech Republic Reviving the icons Acclaimed translators picked up

premiered at the end of January. The first two volumes of the Básník. Román o Ivanu Blatném (The Poet), a 600-page long trilogy are also available in Czech and Slovak. publication by Martin Reiner, a poet and publisher, was se- It is also worth mentioning Józef Hen (born in 1923), lected the best book of the year in the Czech Republic in a probably the oldest active author in Poland today, who pub- prestigious survey by Lidové Noviny, claiming the biggest lished another volume of his journals at the end of 2014. This number of votes in the history of the prize. This biographical is even more interesting, as one encounters not only here, novel in the form of literary collage is the effect of the au- but also in previous volumes of his journals, many Czech and thor’s long-standing research on the matter of the figure and Slovak themes. This is no coincidence, as one of the classic the work of Ivan Blatny (1919-1990). This outstanding Czech Slovak films of the 1960s, The Boxer and Death by Peter Solan, poet immigrated to England in 1948 and spent most of his life was based precisely on Hen’s short story. in a mental hospital. For this book, Reiner also received the Polish non-fiction literature, especially reportage, is a Jozef Skovrocki Prize. phenomenon remarkable at least in the Visegrad Group. It By contrast, Tsunami Blues is the third novel by Markéta is hard to single out only one among the numerous authors Pilátova. Similarly to her previous books, she combines typi- whose works belong to this genre, but it is worth mentioning a cally Czech themes here with a story about Latin America. publication entitled 100/XX. Antologia polskiego reportażu XX This time the plot takes place in Cuba, where Karla, the novel’s wieku (100/XX. Anthology of Polish 20th Century Reportage). protagonist, is traveling with her Spanish teacher, a renowned This work edited by Mariusz Szczygieł contains the best 100 Czech scholar, to support local dissidents. Polish reportages published in the 20th century – two vol- Jaroslav Hašek enthusiasts, who are by no means lacking, umes, more than 1,800 pages. should in turn pay attention to Medvědí tanec (Bear Dance) by Irena Dousková. It is a story about the last months of Hašek’s life in Lipnice nad Sazavou. It brings back the atmosphere of Olga Tokarczuk, Jacob’s Scriptures provincial life and the surroundings in which Hašek was try- (Księgi Jakubowe, Wydawnictwo Literackie 2014) ing to finish his enormously famous novel about Josef Švejk. Zygmunt Miłoszewski, Wrath (Gniew, W.A.B. 2014) Józef Hen, Diary continued (Dziennika ciąg dalszy, Wydawnictwo Literackie 2014) Martin Reiner, The Poet 100/XX. Anthology of Polish 20th Century Reportage, (Básník. Román o Ivanu Blatném, Torst 2014) ed. Mariusz Szczygieł (100/XX. Antologia polskiego reportażu Markéta Pilátova, Tsunami Blues (Torst, 2014) XX wieku, Wydawnictwo Czarne 2014) Irena Dousková, Bear Dance (Medvědí tanec, Druhé město 2014)

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Hungary Slovakia Children confronted with history The star and the up comers

Máglya (The Bone Fire), the new novel by Transylvanian- Without any doubt, the most significant figure on the Slova- born György Dragomán, has been a long awaited book on kian literary scene is novelist Pavel Vilikovský. Last year was the Hungarian market. In his previous work, the partly auto- exceptionally successful for him – for his book entitled Prvá biographical Fehér király (White King), Dragomán sketched a posledná láska (First and Last Love) he received for the sec- a vision of the Romanian dictatorship of the 1980s narrated ond time the most important Slovak literary award, Anasoft by an eleven-year-old boy. In his latest book, the narrator is Litera. Moreover, he published two other works in 2014. The thirteen-year-old Emma, thanks to whom we can observe how novella Letmý sneh (Occasional Snow) raises some vital exis- those who rebelled against Communism struggle to adjust to tential questions – Magdalena, the narrator’s wife, is gradu- the conditions of life in freedom. No one is giving them orders ally losing her memory, and thereby having identity problems. now, nor telling them what to do – they have to come up with The other book by Vilikovský, Príbeh ozajského človeka (Real everything by themselves and it is not as simple as it seems. Man’s Story), is the diary of an average Slovak from the com- The novel is to be published in English next year. munist era, with his exaggerated ambitions and convictions of A child narrator, although much younger, can also be exceptionality. It is worth noting that the book was immedi- found in Péter Esterházy’s book, Egyszerű történet vessző száz ately translated into all four languages of the Visegrad Group oldal – a Márk-változat (Simple Story Comma One Hundred as the first volume of the Central European series K4. Pages – Mark’s Version), which has already been published in After years of silence, Peter Pišťánek, author of Rivers of Slovak. In the second volume of his Simple Stories, Esterházy Babylon, a classic Slovak trilogy from the beginnings of the describes the life of a family displaced from Budapest to a for- 1990s, published a new novel – Rukojemník (Hostage). He tells mer Kulak’s house in the provinces, from the perspective of a the story of a boy named Peter, who was four years old when brilliant contemporary novels you should put on your bookshelf small boy who still doesn’t speak. The motifs of searching for his parents immigrated to Vienna, leaving him behind with God, questions of faith, and existence are presented against his grandparents and the faith that his parents would come the background of the boring, humdrum everyday. The boy’s back one day. A film bearing the same title, directed by Juraj captivating story is – as usual in the case of this author – in- Nvota and starring Milan Lasica, premiered at the beginning terlarded with various quotes from the Gospel according to St. of the year. Mark, but also from Pascal, Wittgenstein, and Imre Kertész. It is also worth mentioning the latest book by Peter The latter, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, also Krištúfek, who after his several hundred-page long novel Dom published an interesting book last year. A végső kocsma (The hluchého (The House of the Deaf Man) – which has already Ultimate Pub) includes notes from his diaries and excerpts been translated into English and will be published in Poland from unpublished prose. The author is returning to the text later this year – wrote a short novella entitled Ema a smrtihlav with a novel entitled The Loner of Sodom, which he had (Emma and Death’s-head Hawk-moth). It is the story of a boy, planned to publish in the 1950s. The result is an unfinished Šimon, who was forced into hiding in the 1940s by the Slovak novel that, however, takes the form of a real book. State. In seclusion, where colorful magazines were his only Readers in Hungary may also be pleased by Pál Závada’s companions, dreams gradually merged with reality. new novel entitled Természetes fény (Natural Light). Similarly to his previous bestseller, Jadviga párnája (Yadviga’s Pillow), its plot takes place in the author’s multiethnic hometown Pavel Vilikovský, First and Last Love of Tótkomlós in the south of Hungary, where Hungarians, (Prvá a posledná láska, Slovart 2013) Slovaks, and Jews live next to each other. Through János Pavel Vilikovský, Occasional Snow (Letmý sneh, Slovart 2014) Semetka’s family’s lens, for more than 600 pages, Závada de- Pavel Vilikovský, Real Man’s Story scribes the complicated history of the 20th century, putting (Príbeh ozajského človeka, Kalligram 2014) emphasis on the events of the Second World War. Peter Pišťánek, Hostage (Rukojemník, Slovart 2014) Peter Krištúfek, Emma and Death’s-head Hawk-moth (Ema a smrtihlav, Artforum 2014) György Dragomán, The Bone Fire (Máglya, Magvető Kiadó 2014) Imre Kertész, The Ultimate Pub (A végső kocsma, Magvető Kiadó 2014) Translated by Maciej Świderski Péter Esterházy, Simple Story Comma One Hundred Pages – Mark’s Version (Egyszerű történet vessző száz oldal Tomasz Grabiński is a translator and former deputy director of the Polish – a Márk-változat, Magvető Kiadó 2014) Institute in Bratislava. Pála Závada, Natural Light (Természetes fény, Magvető Kiadó 2014) Margit Garajaszki is a playwright and translator.

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Aleksander kaczorowski Polish disputes about statehood

n the late eighteenth century, we Poles, of the first peasant masses took several decades, accelerated under the historical European nation, experienced the loss Second Republic (1918-1939), but for all intents and purposes of our own state. Conservatives deemed this event lasting until the Second World War. contrary to the traditional order. Advocates of pro- The percentage of the rural population in Polish society, gress perceived the downfall of the former republic very high even before the war (approximately 70%) just as in as the dawn of a new era. Everybody agreed that the majority of Eastern European countries, increased as a re- it was a turning point. In treading on the corpses sult of the Holocaust, post-war changes in borders, and trans- of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (and the fers of the German (across the Oder) and Polish (from the French royal couple), modern Europe en- Borderlands across the Bug) populations. As teredI an era in which all that was solid would a result of the Nazi and Stalinist extermina- dissolve into air. tion policies, the traditional intelligentsia, Seen from this point of view, peren- was literally decimated: in 1945 Poland had nial Polish disputes about who should take just 100,000 people with higher and second- the blame for the breakup – the partitioning ary education (!). The resulting mass migra- powers or ourselves – may seem misplaced. tions of the rural population to cities was a The Polish state was formed in the tenth cen- formative process of profound, long-term, tury on the peripheries of the Christian West social, cultural, and political consequences and was consolidated to the extent it was able that affect public life in Poland even today. to follow the trajectory of the cultural, politi- Descendants of peasants populated city cen- cal, and economic development of post-Ro- ters previously inhabited by Germans (in the man Western Europe. We succeeded in this so-called Recovered Territories) and Jews (in enterprise – to varying degree – until the end central Poland). They joined the ranks of the of the fifteenth century. When Christopher industrial working class which, in three de- Columbus traveled west and discovered – Jan Sowa, cades, had become the dominant element of as he thought – a way to India, and his rival Fantomowe ciało króla the social landscape not only of Silesia, but Vasco De Gama really did get there by cir- (“The King’s Phantom body,” also of Gdańsk, Łódź, Nowa Huta (the work- cumnavigating Africa, it set Western Europe Universitas, 2011) ing class district of Kraków), and many other on a course that would, in three centuries, cities across the country due to intense in- lead to its global domination. dustrialization. Their growing material and In contrast, Southern and Eastern Europe was stuck in cultural aspirations of social and cultural advancement, the no man’s land, both involved in a quasi-colonial dependency beneficiaries of which were themselves and their children, on the Atlantic powers and vulnerable to the expansionist collided with the limitations of the communist economy and policy of empires with capitals in the former New Jerusalem in the 1980s led to the emergence of a mass social movement. (Constantinople-Istanbul) and the Third Rome (Moscow). “Solidarity” was both the child of Communist Poland and its Does this mean that the First Republic was doomed? Was gravedigger. judgment passed by history itself, by the logic of capitalism For the last twenty-five years, Poles have lived in a and imperialism? Perhaps. new state, the Third Republic. The perspective afforded by Contemporary Poles can be identified (and identify a quarter of a century invites comparisons – how do the themselves) only to a limited extent with the political nation of achievements of this state compare to the background of its the First Republic. Most are descendants of peasants who, in predecessors? Does it have more in common with interwar as late as the 1860s (in the epoch of the Industrial Revolution Poland or with Communist Poland? Or perhaps even with and the birth of modern bureaucracy, laissez-faire and class the republic of the gentry – a country of wealthy, self-satis- conflicts, as well as more aggressive forms of nationalism) fied landowners, who closed their eyes to the fact that their were generally deprived of a national identity, did not have political model (a weak, inefficient government), economic any political rights, did not participate in the life of the gentry model (manorial), and their position in the international and, most importantly, were not regarded as Poles by most division of labor (similar to large estates in Latin America noblemen. The process of acquiring a national identity by the and slave plantations in the U.S.), although beneficial for

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them, threatened their own future pros- ry industrial complexes of Łódź, Zagłębie perity and led to the self-destruction of the Dąbrowskie (Coalfield of Dąbrowa), Warsaw, state, of which they regarded themselves as and Białystok also came into being thanks sole owners? Many of us believed that inte- to the policy of the tsars, which favored gration with the “West” would spare us the the industrial development of the Kingdom burden of caring for the well-being of our of Poland. But this policy went against the own state, and that the remedy for its weak- interests of native landowners, at that time ness would be reliance on European institu- still the dominant political class in the Polish tions. The crisis of the European project hit lands. us right when the Polish state existed only Equally bold claims are put forward by in theory, as a former interior minister put the Warsaw sociologist Michał Łuczewski it in private conversation, which was illegally (1979). In his book Odwieczny naród. Polak recorded and published by the media. I katolik in Żmiąca (“The Eternal Nation. Minister Sienkiewicz (great-grandson Andrzej Leder, The Pole and the Catholic in Żmiąca,” of the author of Trilogy) borrowed his bon Prześniona rewolucja (“Revolution Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Mikołaja mot from one of the four books most viv- Spent in a Slumber,” Krytyka Kopernika, 2012), the author shows how idly discussed at Polish universities in recent Polityczna, 2014) peasants acquired their Polish national years. They share the common theme of the identity in the course of several generations. condition of the Polish nation in recent de- This is accomplished using the example of a cades, and even centuries. village near Kraków, in which ethnographic The first of these, Fantomowe ciało kró- research has been regularly carried out for a la (“The King’s Phantom body,” Universitas, century; it is reportedly the longest-studied 2011), by Kraków philosopher Jan Sowa village in the world! The author calls it a (1976), is a radical critique of the gen- miracle, for in the middle of the nineteenth try tradition. According to the author, the century, during the bloody peasant revolts of Polish state did not cease to exist in the late 1846, villagers from Galicia, loyal to the em- eighteenth century, but two centuries ear- peror, burned hundreds of manors and killed lier, when the Jagiellonian dynasty ended. nearly 3,000 Polish landowners, officials, and Aristocracy and gentry, together account- priests. Subsequent efforts by the clergy and ing for no more than 10% of the population, gentry to raise the patriotic awareness of maintained the illusion of Polish statehood, peasants and incorporate them into the na- at the same time making it impossible to tional community would therefore appear as carry out any systemic reforms that would a successful defense of the status quo by the threaten their privileged economic and po- privileged classes. litical position (it is easy to find analogies Each of the four books deserve to be with the practices of contemporary financial Adam Leszczyński, published in English (some are already in oligarchs along the former borderlands of Skok w nowoczesność. Polityka translation). Knowledge of these works is the Polish Republic). wzrostu w krajach peryferyjnych fundamental; without it, ongoing Polish de- Prześniona rewolucja (“Revolution 1943-1980 (“A Leap into Modernity. bates and disputes about the balance of the Spent in a Slumber,” Krytyka Polityczna, Growth Policy in Peripheral post-1989 transition, models of moderniza- 2014), by the Warsaw philosopher Andrzej Countries 1943-1980,” Krytyka tion, the condition of the state, or geopo- Leder (1960), may be seen as a continuation Polityczna, 2013) litical choices can be understood only to a of the vision outlined by Sowa. According to limited degree. the author, the actual material and cultural advancement of the Polish people and their social and men- The author is editor-in-chief of “Aspen Review Cen- tal metamorphosis (peasant turned townsman) took place in tral Europe,” a quarterly journal published by Aspen communist times and was made possible by the mass murder Institute Prague. He is the author of a biography of of the Jews, who had fulfilled the role ascribed to the middle- Václav Havel: "Havel. The Revenge of the Powerless" class (banking, trade, crafts, professions) in Poland for centu- 2014). ries. The new Polish middle-class therefore owes a great deal to Hitler and Stalin. Skok w nowoczesność. Polityka wzrostu w krajach pery- feryjnych 1943-1980 (“A Leap into Modernity. Growth Policy in Peripheral Countries 1943-1980,” Krytyka Polityczna, 2013) by Warsaw historian Adam Leszczyński (1975), presents the post-war economic history of Eastern Europe as an unsuc- cessful attempt at overcoming the de facto colonial model of functioning in the capitalist world, established in the sixteenth century. In this light, the fact that the industrialization of Poland was decreed by Moscow is revealed not as a paradox, but as an exemplification of a pattern; the nineteenth-centu-

89 Culture Inciting debates Michal Musil Havel's biography in fragmented society

ell, it was not exactly what one ima- death, is fairly chilling. The former president, at that time a gines under the term “public de- skinny old man, makes Žantovský laugh by pronouncing his bate.” The thing is, finding a book name ironically in English, but then uttering sadly: “Michael, that sparked public debate last year I´m a wreck…” in the Czech Republic is no easy Reviewers agree that the biography’s particular value lies task. When confronted with a ques- in its psychological insights. Those parts of the book, illustrated tion about a widely discussed book, by many stories and personal memories, were picked by the edi- there is no immediate answer the tors of the Lidové noviny daily and published in several issues majority of Czech citizens would agree on. of this small but respected newspaper. This InW fact, the majority of Czech people would inevitably contributed to the book’s popular- likely need some time to come to any re- ity, as serialization of a book in Czech daily sponse at all. newspapers has become a rarity; media, and Let us set all that aside for a while. There newspapers in particular, are facing cost-cut- were some Czech books published last year ting, and the number of newspaper pages is that attracted a certain degree of attention, being reduced due to the Internet revolution. although it is perhaps symptomatic that the It is no wonder that many readers book most discussed was not originally writ- have bought the book. In December 2014, ten in Czech. Its author is a Czech native it placed second in Lidové noviny’s annual speaker but wrote the text in English for an Book of the Year competition based on the English-speaking audience and only subse- vote of a well-respected jury of experts. quently translated it into Czech (translating There were, however, other external his own text gave him trouble, as he says in factors that helped the biography attract at- the preface). tention and spark discussions. In November The book’s English title is Havel: A life. Michael Žantovský, 2014, when the book was freshly on the E-shops present the book as “the definitive Havel: A life (Grove Press, 2014) shelves, Václav Havel’s bust was unveiled in biography of Václav Havel – writer, dissi- the U.S. Capitol at a very special ceremony, dent, and Czech president – that chronicles an honor that revived discussion of the for- his journey from playwright to national leader, intimately re- mer Czechoslovak and Czech president. Havel’s foreign policy counted by his former press secretary and longtime friend.” legacy was discussed heavily, and the debate was linked to the The author is indeed highly qualified to write about confrontation between Putin’s Russia and Ukraine. Above all Havel. Michael Žantovský, the current Czech ambassador in and roughly at the same time, another book was published London, became Havel’s friend in the 1980s when he worked as on Havel. a Reuters correspondent in Prague. He worked as Havel’s aide The author of that second biography is journalist Daniel throughout the 1989 Velvet Revolution, and when Havel was Kaiser. President: Václav Havel 1990-2003 followed his first elected the first non-communist president of Czechoslovakia book, Dissident, which was published while Havel was still in forty years, Žantovský, a skilled communicator and English alive, and for which the former president had even provided speaker, was appointed his spokesman. some documents and information. Comparisons of Kaiser’s Perhaps the most interesting feature of his book – pub- biographies with Žantovský’s text has become a particular lished in the Czech Republic under the simple title of Havel topic for reviewers. – is his detailed analysis of Havel’s personality. Žantovský, The journalist does not present psychological analysis, who has a degree in psychology, meticulously describes the as he understandably lacks the personal experience and the thinking and the mind of his already deceased friend and boss. psychological insight of Havel’s former aide. However, ac- This in-depth portrait does not omit his personal life or love cording to many, Kaiser’s approach is more factual, as he gives affairs, but treats them gently, without any tabloid tenden- thorough insight into key moments of Havel’s presidency, his cies. Particularly touching is the depiction of the last years of unsuccessful effort to save the Czechoslovak federation, his Havel’s life, and Žantovský’s telling of Václav Havel’s seventy- highly successful push toward NATO enlargement, his quite fifth birthday party, which came a couple of weeks before his successful policy of reconciliation between the Czech Republic

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and Germany, and the ups and downs of his domestic policies. expressed are debatable, as Šlouf was also a Communist Party The journalist is explicit in recognizing Havel’s overall positive official in the 1980s and has ties to Putin’s Russia. historical role, but is also ready to critically analyze his policies This brings us back to the beginning. It seems that the and views. While the former spokesman is good at describing time when a single book could excite an entire society may be the first decades of Havel’s life, his presidential years narrated largely obsolete. Now, as more and more information sources by Žantovský are more about entertaining personal stories and and options are becoming available thanks to the Internet and defending his boss and himself. digital era generally, society is becoming fragmented: small The debate on Havel’s biography, or – better said – biog- groups of people focus on a particular field without knowing raphies, has been neither widespread or passionate. A handful that other groups are interested in something completely dif- of reviews have been written but the media have also focused ferent. It may be that within some parts of society, completely on other books, e.g., one by Miroslav Šlouf published under the different books have become the subject of wild discussion; title How to Conquer the Castle. Since the Castle is a metonym the only problem is that they are hidden from other people. for the Prague Castle – the seat of Czech presidents – the book offers some interesting insight into the personality of Miloš The author works for “The Reporter Magazine,” which was set up by jour- Zeman, the current president of the republic for whom Šlouf nalists who left the “MF DNES” daily newspaper after it was purchased used to work as an influential aide but has since fallen out with. by Andrej Babiš. “The Reporter Magazine” is supported by The Reporter The book is not a great work of literature and some of the views Foundation.

Juraj Kušnierik Post-communist nostalgia is not for kids

t is more than twenty-five years pad, 2011) and Pavol Rankov (“It Happened since the fall of communism, but on 1 September,” Stalo sa prvého septembra, Slovak literature – with notable 2011) are very good examples of this new his- exceptions – still treats the subject torical awareness. with lovely kindness. It is as though It was different with communism. memories with a melancholic no- While the Stalinist period of the 1950s tion of “a lost paradise” still color was the subject of many books, the last the way Slovak writers (and film- twenty years of the communist regime in makers) look at the last twenty years of com- Czechoslovakia has been practically absent Imunism in Czechoslovakia. from contemporary Slovak literature. The How much time will it take for us to period following the Prague Spring and the come to terms with our own past? The an- Soviet invasion in 1968 was referred to as swer probably varies from country to coun- “normalization” – a term coined by com- try. In Slovakia, for example, it took almost Peter Pišťanek, munist leaders to denote returning things to a century before we admitted that history, Rukojemník (“The Hostage”, “normal” after the excesses of the somewhat our history, did not start with the national Slovart 2014) more liberal 1960s. There were notable ex- awareness movement of the nineteenth cen- ceptions: Pavel Vilikovský wrote his novel tury (and mythological memories of Great Večne je zelený (“Forever Green”) in the Moravia), but also includes 1,000 years of Hungarian Monarchy. 1980s and it was published in 1989, Rudolf Sloboda wrote Krv Similarly, it took about fifty years for us – well, at least people (“The Blood”), his magnum opus, in 1991. Vilikovský returned of letters, historians, journalists, and writers – to accept the to “normalization” with his important book Vlastný životopis fact that the tragic story of our Jewish fellow citizens is part zla (“Curriculum Vitae of Evil”) in 2009. Each of these novels of our historical and cultural heritage. Interestingly, literature describe the complexity of life in a political regime that gave its played a very significant part in both of these “awakenings.” citizens a certain measure of freedom in their personal lives, Books by Péter Hunčík (“Borderline Syndrome,” Hraničný prí- on the condition that they “behave properly” in the public

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realm. When Rudolf Sloboda – who always wrote more-or- of the Týždeň weekly. “If we do this honestly, there may be less autobiographically – describes in Krv how he agreed to place for kind humor, for a sympathetic smile. If we don’t do cooperate with the secret police (and signed an official docu- it, that smile turns to an ugly grin, taking too lightly the suf- ment to that effect) and then, when it dawned on him what he fering of victims, and looking kindly upon the criminals who had done, asked the communist minister of culture (Miroslav caused it.” Válek, interestingly enough one of the best Slovak poets of the Peter Pišťanek’s book and Juraj Nvota’s film present us twentieth century) to destroy the document (which he did), with a kind version of communism. Yes, there was barbed wire nobody knew whether it had really happened, or whether it that separated families; yes, border guards occasionally killed was just artistic license (now we know that it really did hap- those who wanted to cross yes, there were spies and you had pen). Not many had such courage to write of their own fail- to keep your mouth shut; but children still played their games, ures, their own cowardice. and there were many “good guys” just “doing their jobs” among In December 2014, Peter Pišťanek, a very important the secret police and border guards. Slovak writer, known for his Tarantino-esqe mafia trilogy Yes, we were young and we had relatively happy child- Rivers of Babylon from the early 1990s, wrote a novel called hoods, we had our first loves, and sure, human goodness and Rukojemník (“The Hostage”). It is based on his own memories. solidarity arose sometimes in unexpected places, in spite of He grew up in Devínska Nová Ves, a village on the outskirts of communism. There were many good reasons for a kind smile, Bratislava and, more importantly, right on the Austrian border. but first we have to name the evil, and point a finger at it. As If he had been a much worse writer than he is, he could have Zuzana Mojžišová says, it may mean pointing at ourselves and written that “he grew up in the shadow of the Iron Curtain,” our parents, which is not an easy thing to do. Rudolf Sloboda and it would have been entirely true. Peter, the child hero of (who incidentally also lived in Devínska Nová Ves) had the the novel, lives with his grandparents because his parents emi- courage to write about his own cowardice. He does not have grated to Austria where they had relatives, expecting that their many followers. Pišťanek’s Rukojemník showed us the human son would be allowed to follow them. But that did not happen. side of communism. “Parents would sure like to see this nice Peter became a hostage of the communist government. film from their childhood. But will the children be interested The book is beautifully written, the film based on it (di- in their parents’ nostalgia?” asks film critic Miloš Ščepka in rected by Juraj Nvota) is also wonderful. What is the problem? the SME daily. According to the author as well as the film director, Let’s not be too critical. Rukojemník is a good book and Rukojemník – the book and the film – are aimed at children an even better film. It is kind, funny, and full of nostalgic mem- and their parents. It was intended to help parents describe ories of our lost childhood. Now we need another Sloboda, to their children how it felt to live under communism. “We someone who has the courage to point that finger. Or should must come to terms with the brutalities that took place in the we wait another twenty years? history of this country. It should be done directly, face to face, with finger-pointing right at the root of the problem, namely The author is culture editor at the Slovak weekly “Týždeň.” ourselves,” writes Zuzana Mojžišová, film and literature critic

Imre Bartók Hungarian novels on social injustice

he recent cultural scene in Hungary is in transi- a new approach to depicting social reality, and, therefore, writ- tion. The era of some great authors, Imre Ker- ing in general. It would, however, be very shaky to call this a tész, Péter Nádas, and Péter Esterházy, among “movement,” as the authors and books differ significantly. Yet others, seems to be reaching its end; it is not one can definitely sexnse a strong “leftist” impulse in today’s that they no longer write (Esterházy’s most re- literature – a sensibility towards social injustice. cent novel from 2014 is hailed by many as his Let me name a few: Tibor Noé Kiss dealt with transgen- best in fifteen years) or that their impact is not der issues in his first novel, and with “living-on-the-edge,” visible, but events and books increasingly signal nearly sociological themes in his second book (Incognito and T92 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Inciting debates Culture

You Should Be Asleep, respectively). László way neutral. The narrator, a young boy, cites Szilasi, a renowned teacher at the University prime numbers on a couple of occasions, and of Szeged, has recently written about the it gradually becomes clear that even in being homeless of the city in The Third Bridge. completely thrown out of history, the family Ferenc Barnás’ The Ninth was republished still bears some historical stigma. There are last year – an autobiography of the very harsh two main issues here, one is the Holocaust conditions of his own childhood (the title re- of the Hungarian Jews, and the other is the fers to himself as the ninth kid in the family). current condition of the Hungarian Roma Among all these titles, The Dispossessed population. Borbély also dealt with these by Szilárd Borbély was the most critically ac- topics in his play Olaszliszka. The title ref- claimed. Borbély, like previously mentioned eres to the town where a teacher was lynched Szilasi, was an important teacher for many. by a mob in 2006. The same town, which is The tragedy of the author’s suicide a year ago, a less known fact today, used to be a place of in fact, just underlined the tragedy of the book Szilárd Borbély, flourishing Jewish culture before the Second itself, which (like Barnás’) is a semi-autobio- The Dispossessed („Nincstelenek”, World War. graphical account of growing up in the utmost Kalligram, 2013) Critics have hailed Borbély’s novel poverty in a remote Hungarian village. as a perfect example of social empathy. The novel, however, doesn’t deal with Nevertheless, there was little talk was about poverty as a material circumstance only. how his approach was justified aesthetically, Rather, it attempts to examine how people or how it dealt with the dilemmas charac- struggle to live in a state of complete hope- terized by the aforementioned quote from lessness, under the impossibility of breaking Péter Esterházy. To be fair, Borbély was one out, and the impact this predicament has on of Hungary’s most important post-1989 po- their almost animal-like, brutal behavior. ets, but this book, at least for me, is not sat- These books, and “the representation of isfying in all ways. After all, it is the author’s the social in literature” in general, raises the task, but also one of the critics’, and the read- question of whether the authors can find the ers’ not only to address social issues either in appropriate language for their undertaking. general, as tales about harshness of human This is, of course, the primordial question condition, or in particular, as a story under of any literature, but in this case it takes on given historical and geographical circum- another aspect as well. There is a famous say- stances. They need to go further and ask how ing about Sándor Tar’s work; Péter Esterházy the literature can have a direct impact on the said that this kind of socially engaged litera- course of events. It is clearly impossible to ture attempts “to give word to those who are give a straightforward answer to this ques- destined to live in silence.” It’s easy to see that tion, yet one must not forget asking it when this formulation is in itself very paradoxical, László Szilasi, he Third Bridge thinking about the above books. since “these words” won’t be the words of („A harmadik híd”, Mag­ve­tő ­­ An another question follows, that of the those who are supposed to speak. These are Ki­adó 2014) responsibility of intellectuals. still the words of the author. How can litera- Fact 1: there are large masses in ture deal with this paradox? Is it even possi- Hungary who live far below the minimum ble to fairly “represent” inhuman conditions wage. Fact 2: books like the one by Borbély in which a reasonable part of the population might draw more public attention to the lives? Or is “representation” futile? previous fact. Let us put aside the question There is a precedent for these questions, of whether “drawing someone’s attention” namely the case of Holocaust literature. The actually amounts to doing something. Imre central question and inherent impossibility Kertész’s novel did in fact help to change of any literature (and all “artwork”) about the some things and reshaped the discourse on Holocaust is the problem of depicting some- the Holocaust. Will The Dispossessed have a thing “that cannot be depicted.” There are similar impact? Do most critically acclaimed many strategies to deal with this issue – one new Hungarian novels allow the “living in important example is Imre Kertész, who in- silence” to speak, or just let them wander deed wrote a sensational book (Fatelessness). as the ghosts of our escapist imagination? The artistic, deliberately fragmented, and The answer is not, at least not yet, within somehow exaggeratedly naive language of this reach. Those novels will succeed and prove novel also set an example for today’s writers. themselves beyond the aesthetic value, only Szilárd Borbély’s language in The when they manage to bring us closer to the Dispossessed is also artistic, but in a very dif- Tibor Noé Kiss, Incognito answers. ferent manner. It uses a simple and neutral (Inkognitó, Alexandra 2010) form of expression – if language is a body, The author is a literary critic and novelist. He has re- then this is clearly an amputated one. There cently published The Year of the Rat (A patkány éve, are hints, however, that this language is in no 2013).

93 Culture Inciting debates Poland’s controversial Oscar

Filip Mazurczak

While Paweł Pawlikowski’s film Ida won the Best Foreign Language Oscar, not all Poles are happy with its success. Some fear it will resurrect anti-Polish stereotypes; others accuse it of anti-Semitism. Is this subtle, 80-minute minimalist film really frothing with ethnic hatred?

94 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Inciting debates Culture

Western viewers unfamiliar with Polish Attacks from the history would watch Ida and learn only Ida and the about Poles who killed Jews for property left and right reasons, an incomplete image of Polish- historical record Jewish relations. Ida has generated a wave of controver- Meanwhile, the Polish Anti- In September 1939, Poland was invaded sy in Poland and has been attacked by Defamation League has been circulat- by both Nazi Germany and Soviet Rus- both conservatives and leftists for differ- ing an online petition signed by 50,000 sia. No other European country endured ent reasons. The film tells the story of a people in which it asks the producers of such a brutal occupation. Six million Pol- young orphaned nun, Anna, raised in a Ida to begin the film with a disclaimer ish citizens (half Jews, half ethnic Poles, convent in early 1960s, post-Stalinist Po- informing the reader that Poland was oc- as well as other minorities) were killed. land. Just before taking her final vows, she cupied by Nazi Germany; its German oc- After its inhabitants, Gentile and Jew learns from her superiors that she was cupiers exterminated Polish Jews; Poles alike, heroically rose up against the Na- born Jewish and her real name is Ida. Her who hid Jews risked the death penalty, zis, Warsaw was razed to the ground, suf- only living relative is Wanda Gruz, a Sta- often applied collectively, yet many Poles fering more damage than any other city linist judge who sentenced Polish heroes hid Jews nonetheless; thousands of Poles during the Second World War, including to the gallows. The two women are given were executed for helping Jews; the Polish Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the German a few days to reconnect. Wanda and Ida Underground State punished Poles who occupation zone, Germans were allotted investigate Ida/Anna’s parents’ death, and harmed Jews; and more Poles have re- 2,613 calories of food a day (well over the learn that the Polish farmer who shel- ceived the Righteous Among the Nations 2,000 needed to be healthy), while Poles tered her parents ultimately killed them. Medal (an honor bestowed by Israel’s Yad and Jews were allowed only 669 and 184, Ida/Anna is torn between her Jewish and Vashem Institute for Gentiles who helped respectively, both at starvation levels. Catholic identities; the worlds of monas- Jews for humanitarian reasons) than any While Jews were the largest group killed tic austerity and handsome boys and jazz other nation. Right-wing Polish publica- at Auschwitz, non-Jewish Poles came in clubs. She must choose which life to live. second place, and until 1942 the main victims of the concentration camps in occupied Poland were Polish political opponents of Nazi Germany. Most non-Jewish Poles were them- selves struggling to survive an unprec- edentedly cruel occupation marked by concentration camp deportations, hunger, disease, and constant terror. Furthermore, the death penalty was ap- plied (often collectively) to Poles who aided Jews. This punishment was often public hanging, designed to scare the Polish population and deter it from aid- ing Jews. Moreover, posters reminding Poles of this punishment were all over oc- cupied Poland. Emanuel Ringelblum, the chronicler of the Warsaw Ghetto who hid The day after Ida won the Oscar, tions and politicians have supported this in a bunker dug by Polish socialist gar- the Catholic-oriented Fronda.pl, one petition. dener Mieczysław Wolski to hide Jews, of Poland’s biggest right-wing web- While Poland’s right accuses Ida of claimed that the Nazis used a perverse sites, had the headline “An Oscar for anti-Polonism, its left accuses it of anti- stick-and-carrot method with regard to the Controversial and Anti-Polish Ida.” Semitism. Helena Datner of Warsaw’s Polish aid to Jews: those who helped Jews Indeed, in recent months, many right- Jewish Historical Institute said that, faced the death penalty, while those who wingers have criticized the film for “Ida presents a protagonist according denounced them were rewarded with being anti-Polish. Conservative mem- to a simple principle: what Poles want money, alcohol, or sugar. ber of European Parliament Janusz to think of a Jewess building real social- Nonetheless, several hundred thou- Wojciechowski said: “This is the first ism. That she’s a whore and an alcoholic.” sand Poles hid Jews. Żegota, an organiza- movie of such dimensions and with such Indeed, the Wanda Gruz character is tion devoted to aiding Jews, the only of class in which there is the Holocaust, but sexually promiscuous and no teetotaler. its kind in occupied Europe, was formed there are no Germans! Jews are not killed Meanwhile, feminist Agnieszka Graff of and, thanks to money from the Polish by the SS, or some knightly Wehrmacht, the leftist Krytyka Polityczna has said that government-in-exile in London, it helped but by a wicked, cruel, primitive, filthy Ida is a simplistic story of revenge about a finance the survival of 50,000 Jews in hid- Polish peasant lusting after property.” Jewish woman sentencing Poles to death ing. Meanwhile, after the 1943 Warsaw Similarly, Polish political scientist and as a vendetta for the death of her rela- Ghetto Uprising (which was praised in journalist Michał Szułdrzyński ex- tives. Graff implies that such a narrative most Polish underground publications), credit: Opus Film pressed concerns on TOK FM radio that feeds into anti-Semitic stereotypes. General Władysław Sikorski, Poland’s

95 Culture Inciting debates

credit: Opus Film exiled prime minister, appealed to Poles fugitive Jews. The homes left behind by Ida’s right-wing critics seem to miss is that to aid fugitive Jews and praised the Jewish Jews herded into ghettoes were often tak- nuns saved the titular heroine. Indeed, of insurgents’ heroism. During the citywide en over by poor Poles. After the Second about 1,600 Polish Catholic convents dur- Warsaw Uprising of 1944, the Zośka World War, hundreds of Jews who re- ing the Second World War, many – almost Battalion of the Polish Home Army liber- turned from the death camps to their 1,000 – sheltered Jewish children. In other ated the Gęsiówka concentration camp, homes in Poland were met with hostility words, Ida shows both noble and ignoble freeing more than 300 prisoners, mostly and not infrequently murder. Polish behavior. Jewish. While these Jews were not even However, some stereotypical views If Ida is not anti-Polish, is it an- Polish (most were Greek or Hungarian), of the Holocaust have blown these num- ti-Jewish? About 300,000 Polish Jews many volunteered to fight the Nazis bers out of proportion. Yitzhak Shamir, survived the war. About 40,000-60,000 alongside their liberators. a right-wing Israeli prime minister, said survived thanks to altruistic Poles. Meanwhile, another minority of in the 1980s: “Poles suck anti-Semitism Most, however, survived the war by es- Poles denounced or killed Jews. Across with their mothers’ milk,” thus undoubt- caping to the USSR and repatriating to Poland, gangs of young men called sz- edly offending the Poles who risked their Poland. Many were ideologically brain- malcownicy made a living threatening lives for their Jewish neighbors, as well as washed by the Soviets. Furthermore, to denounce fugitive Jews if they failed the many more who – while not doing so many high-ranking officials in the new to pay them. The Polish Blue Police fre- – felt solidarity with the Jews. communist Poland were of Jewish ori- quently raided Polish houses to seek out Among the majority of Poles some gin. Among them was Helena Wolińska- Jews in hiding. In the summer of 1941, expressed sympathy and sorrow for the Brus, the real-life basis for Wanda Gruz. the Nazis incited Poles to murder Jews Jews, others Schadenfreude, and some Wolińska-Brus was a Stalinist judge who in 23 towns in the Łomża region (while even said things in the vein of: “Hitler sentenced many Polish heroes who were individual murders of Jews by Poles oc- may be a bastard, but at least he solved both anti-Nazi and anti-communist to curred across occupied Poland, that re- our Jewish problem.” However, there were death in show trials. However, it must gion was the only one where pogroms cases such as that of the Polish farmer who be said that while Jews were dispropor- happened on a large scale). The victims in killed the Jews he was supposed to shelter, tionately represented in Poland’s political each town ranged from several to several so making a film about such incidents is elite, they were poorly represented in the hundred. Throughout Poland, Polish par- not anti-Polish. Never is it suggested in the Communist Party at the local level. Before tisans sometimes refused to admit Jews film that the farmer’s behavior was repre- the Second World War, the majority of into their ranks and occasionally killed sentative of Polish society. One thing that Polish Jews voted for the Bund (a social-

96 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Inciting debates Culture

ist – though anti-communist – party en- thing hated by all communists starting has emphasized in interviews, it is a met- couraging Jewish assimilation), followed with Marx. Furthermore, Wanda Gruz aphysical story with universal themes of by the Polish Socialist Party and Zionist commits suicide in the film. It is im- identity, guilt and choice, as well as a nos- parties. Communists received few Jewish plied she does so out of feelings of guilt. talgic trip back to early 1960s Poland and votes. In the 1980s, many Poles of Jewish In other words, the film’s alleged Jewish its music and fashion styles. origin – such as Marek Edelman, a hero caricature in reality shows moral nuance. However, Ida is a textbook example of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; Adam Both the stereotypes of the Polish of what in the United States is known as Michnik; and Bronisław Geremek – were anti-Semite and of Żydokomuna are an “art-house film.” The masses will not high-ranking Solidarity members and hurtful. Helena Wolińska-Brus is not flock to it; instead, they will prefer to feast advisors to Lech Wałęsa. Meanwhile, in representative of Polish Jewry, and the on popcorn to Hollywood fodder with lit- 1968 Poland’s Communist Party engaged Łomża area pogroms were not the norm tle intellectual and aesthetic worth. Ida is in an anti-Semitic campaign, purging the for Polish-Jewish wartime relations. a film that will appeal mostly to educated Polish Army and civil service of people However, it is odd to say that because Ida viewers most of whom already know that of Jewish origin and forcing a significant features one Polish character who killed Poland was occupied by Germany and proportion of the nation’s Jewish popula- Jews and one Jewish one who was a com- that the latter was the prime culprit in tion to emigrate. munist criminal (not to mention that the the extermination of Europe’s Jews. If Because Poles of Jewish origin character is based on a real person) it is such a viewer’s interest in Polish history were widely represented in Poland’s anti-Polish or anti-Jewish. is piqued, he will seek out books about ruling elites, the harmful stereotype of Ida is an innocuous film. The Polish Polish history. Inevitably, he will find Żydokomuna (“Judeo-communism”) de- Anti-Defamation League and Michał both dark and bright spots in Polish his- veloped in Poland, which sparked a wave Szułdrzyński are correct to a certain de- tory, and will learn both about the heroic of anti-Semitic violence in the late 1940s. gree: Ida does not show a full picture of exploits of Żegota or Polish-Jewish anti- While Ida shows a Jewish character Polish-Jewish relations. However, it must Communists like Edelman, but will also who is a communist, its titular protago- be said that it is not a historical film. Its learn about people like Helena Wolińska- nist is a Jew who rejects communism, purpose is not to educate its viewers Brus and the anti-Jewish violence in the instead choosing the religious life, some- about the past, but rather, as Pawlikowski Łomża region.

The author studied history and Latin American literature at Creighton University and inter- national relations at The George Washington some University. stereotypical viewsof the Holocaust have blown these numbers out of proportion. credit: Opus Film

97 Culture 98

Inciting debates VIsegrad insght 1 (7) | 2015

illustration: Ola Niepsuj Inciting debates Culture

Central and Eastern Europeans in Pirate Libraries Pirate e-book libraries enable historically unprecedented access to the best scholarly knowledge, which CEE countries are definitely taking advantage of. Who is using these libraries and for what reasons? Unique data on pirate library use helps answer these questions.

Bodó Balázs

he Russian part of the Internet conceals many of was brought in line with international standards, copyright the biggest pirated text collections ever created enforcement remains weak and selective. Although these by humanity (Bodó, 2015). A few closely inter- factors certainly explain why pirate libraries currently enjoy connected websites commit copyright infringe- relative safety in Russia, they say little about the environment ment but free and unlimited access to millions of that fostered their creation and enabled their development. books, literary works, and scholarly publications To understand this we must take into account the histori- in DRM-free pdf or epub formats. They were as- cal and social factors that created the ideal environment for sembled by devoted scholars and other individu- pirate librarianship. als who have been digitizing and sharing their private book The first of these factors is the communist approach to Tcollections ever since the appearance of PCs and the Internet access to knowledge. The importance of providing access to in the 1990s. Digital collections that accumulated on private knowledge with as few limitations as possible was already en- hard drives and departmental and institutional servers were shrined in the first Soviet authors’ right law (Elst, 2005). The collected and compiled by pirate librarians in the late 2000s, high moral claim was, of course, quickly tainted by the prac- and, as a result, these illegal text collections that operate in the tice of harsh political censorship (Dewhirst & Farrell, 1973; shadows have become the largest and most accessible digital Stelmakh, 2001) and the continuous economic hardships text collections mankind has ever produced. (Friedberg, Watanabe & Nakamoto, 1984) that restrained ac- cess to works even when they were not censored. However, From Russia, with love these two limitations taught people living in these societies It is by no means an accident that most of these pirate li- how to bypass and overcome the political and economic hur- braries are on Russian servers, and that many of the leading dles that limited their access to books. Both participation in pirate librarians seem to be of Russian origin. It would be a informal samizdat distribution networks and the exchange of mistake to attribute this to the fact that copyright protec- books on grey/black markets belonged to the everyday experi- tion was slow to develop in post-Soviet Russia; even after it ence of the Eastern European intelligentsia.

99 Culture Inciting debates

Language

Computer science

Religion

Natural Sciences and Mathematics IRAQ EGYPT

MOROCCO CAMEROON IRAN Literature JAPAN

JORDAN ITALY INDIA SAUDI ARABIA ALGERIA SYRIA

DENMARK SLOVAKIA USA AUSTRALIA UAE Philosophy and psychology SLOVENIA GHANA VIET NAM Technology PHILIPPINES INDONESIA SPAIN NETHERLANDS BELGIUM NEPAL GERMANY FRANCE POLAND CROATIA SWITZERLAND NORWAY NEW ZEALAND CANADA

S. KOREA BULGARIA HUNGARY UK AUSTRIA LEBANON SWEDEN LITHUANIA CZECH REPUBLIC AZERBAIJAN MACEDONIA THAILAND ISRAEL ROMANIA FINLAND

ESTONIA GREECE MOLDOVA GEORGIA BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA BELARUS TURKEY HONG KONG ARMENIA UKRAINE Social sciences IRELAND SERBIA LATVIA ALBANIA PORTUGAL

Unclassified MALAYSIA

UZBEKISTAN KAZAKHSTAN

RUSSIA

History and geography

Arts and recreation

The world’s knowledge diet The knowledge of how to organize the dissemination of knowledge with severely limited resources under hostile Top-level Dewey classification system categories conditions came in handy after the transition, when hidden practices and suppressed energy could finally develop in full CEE countries force. The enthusiasm of catching up with the rest of the world countries (dl/capita>0.00005) and mending the wounds of censorship found form in private, bottom-up librarianship, in the creation of widely and freely Node size is proportional to per capita usage (for countries) and the share of the pirate catalogue (for Dewey categories) accessible text repositories. These efforts were quick to find Edge weight (thus node distance) is defined by the share of each their ideal medium in the computers and the Internet that Dewey category in the download volume of each country appeared around the same time in Russia and other Central and Eastern European countries. The late 1990s saw the pro- liferation of initially offline, and then later online, private text collections, which contained the digitized versions of every possible text that was hard to come by in the Soviet era: sci- ence fiction, western literature, banned books, and scholarly works both Russian and Western (Bodó, 2015).

100 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Inciting debates Culture

The same enthusiasm that prompted countless indi- institutions, scholars, teachers and students in the CEE coun- viduals to digitize and share texts also affected Russian au- tries can use the same books and textbooks as their more for- thors and rights holders, whose tacit or explicit approval was tunate colleagues. Pirate libraries are a crucial resource in the also required for the bottom-up library culture to flourish. modernization of CEE countries. For most of the 2000s, online libraries were not considered a threat to the publishing business or the well-being of au- Thirst for knowledge thors (Мoshkov, 1999). This rightsholder approval created a Countries differ in more than just intensity of use; there are legal and normative environment very different from those also significant differences in which sections of the library they of Western-Europe and North America, where the aggressive favor. In the graph on the next page, a country (marked by protection of copyright and a highly litigious legal environ- green and blue) is closer to a discipline (marked by red) if that ment quickly put an end to the unauthorized digital libraries discipline is more pronounced in the overall download volume that sprung up around the same time. of the country. The post-Soviet republics cluster around the unclassi- Underground rivers of knowledge fied category, to which mostly Russian language books (with- Today’s pirate libraries were born to address political, eco- out ISBN numbers) belong. The Russian origin of the pirate nomic, and social issues specific to Soviet and post-Soviet libraries is apparent in both the high number of unclassifi- times, but they quickly became vital beyond their original able documents and the countries that use those sections the context. The lack of access to knowledge in the developing most. Post-Soviet countries still rely heavily on the knowledge world has been an increasingly important topic in academic amassed in Russian, by Russian individuals and institutions. discussions as well as in international trade agreement negoti- Multiple countries are clustered around the natural sci- ations (Kirkorian, 2010). The claim that the West uses its con- ences, mathematics, technology, and computer science nodes. trol over intellectual property to deliberately maintain global Among these we find more than one Middle Eastern country, inequality may not have been proven beyond a doubt, but it is with relatively autonomous cultural and scholarly discourses nevertheless a fact that developing countries often lack access from those published by major Western publishers in the pi- to copyrighted works of science and literature due to prices rate catalogues. What at first may look like a cultural divi- that do not match local income levels (Karaganis, 2011). In- sion may reflect a difference in the focus of higher education frastructure also plays a role here: public and research librar- systems in these countries. OECD country-level data on the ies are also struggling to keep up with demand mostly due to number of university graduates suggests that in at least some inadequate funding. Official and legal efforts to provide better of these countries, the share of social science graduates is only access, such as the open access movement (Suber, 2013), Crea- a fraction of social science graduates in European countries, tive Commons, and the like are respectable but slow-moving while the share of natural science graduates is nearly identical. initiatives, and their practical effectiveness is currently rather In this Middle Eastern group, science and engineering seem limited. Pirate libraries, on the other hand, take a radical ap- to be favored over the social sciences, both in the educational proach, and are not afraid to take illegal shortcuts to reach system and as a preferred career path for students. their goal of making classic, scholarly, and literary works uni- Other countries – and this is where many of the CEE versally accessible. countries belong – display a more balanced knowledge diet, The biggest beneficiaries of this radical open access and are therefore closer to the middle. There are, however, no- movement certainly are developing countries, and they are table differences among them. CEE countries, although they among the biggest users of pirate libraries (see Table 1). In are high per capita downloaders, seem to be less interested terms of volume, populous, relatively poor, but quickly devel- in the natural sciences and technology disciplines than many oping countries are the most frequent visitors to pirate librar- Western European counties. Their focus is on the social sci- ies, but they are not the biggest per capita users. We find most ences and humanities. At this point one can only guess at the of the Central and Eastern European countries at the top of exact reason for this bias, and it has yet to be explained wheth- that list (see Table 2). er this bias has to do with the structure of the educational These countries reconnected with the West after 1990 system, the underfunding of these disciplines, or with a more and subsequently joined the European Union. They became general societal interest in sociology, economics, political sci- part of the single European market, including the job mar- ence, and other related disciplines. In any case, the relatively ket. Post-communist CEE countries had to modernize their low share of disciplines that serve as a foundation for the new, economies, their research, and their higher education systems, technology-based innovation economy is telling. but often still lack adequate financial and infrastructural re- sources to significantly close the gap with highly developed Western European countries. The Bologna process (Reinalda & Kulesza-Mietkowski, 2005) created structural compatibil- ity between Eastern and Western European systems of higher education, but without the radical modernization of library stacks and curricula, educational institutions are unable to offer competitive degrees for European – and global – job markets. For these countries, pirated libraries offer an interim solution that they are apparently eager to use. As pirate librar- ies offer the most recent academic mainstream, produced and used in the most affluent Western universities, educational

101 Culture Inciting debates

The highest pirate library users The highest pirate library users in terms of overall download volume from a single in terms of per capita download from a single piratical text collection between March–May 2012 piratical text collection between March–May 2012

Country  Share of total downloads Country Downloads between March-May 2012 per 1000 persons RUSSIA 12.8% LITHUANIA 2.9295 INDONESIA 110.3% ESTONIA 2.2703 UNITED STATES  10.2% SWEDEN 1.9292 INDIA  6.6% GREECE 1.5744 IRAN  5.1% BARBADOS 1.5330 EGYPT  4.2% LATVIA 1.4921 CHINA  4.2% SLOVENIA 1.4789 GERMANY  4.1% ICELAND 1.3448 UNITED KINGDOM  3.1% LUXEMBOURG 1.2829 UKRAINE  2.5% CROATIA 1.1931 TURKEY  2.4% RUSSIAN FEDERATION 1.1812 FRANCE  2.4% MACEDONIA, FYR  1.1113 POLAND  2.1% HUNGARY 1.0101 ITALY  2.0% BULGARIA 0.9889 CANADA  1.6%

Anyone have a better idea? individuals and take the non-commercial sharing ethos seri- Although legal access conditions have improved to a consider- ously. The catalogues of these libraries are already huge, and able extent in recent years, the overwhelming majority (68%) they are growing at an impressive speed. Their illegality, how- of the pirate library catalogue is still inaccessible in e-book ever, puts scholars, researchers, students, and interested read- format. The costs of institutional subscriptions to publisher- ers in a difficult position. To pirate or not to pirate may be a provided electronic book repositories are often prohibitive, straightforward decision if the work in question is Lady Gaga’s even for the most affluent universities. Print books are -in latest hit, and the legal alternative to piracy is YouTube. The creasingly priced and sold to libraries rather than individuals. dilemma becomes much more difficult if one needs access to These constraints sharply separate the haves from the have- the latest advances in cancer research and there is no physical nots, and most CEE countries are still among the have-nots or electronic copy in sight. when it comes to access to the most recent and relevant schol- arly publications. Pirate libraries fill the current gap between The author, PhD, is an assistant professor at the University of Amster- supply and demand. They are based on the contributions of dam, Institute for Information Law.

REFERENCES 1. Bodó, B. (2015). Online shadow libraries: a historical analysis. In J. Karaganis (Ed.), Shadow Libraries. New York. 2. Dewhirst, M. & Farrell, R. (Eds.). (1973). The Soviet Censorship. Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press. 3. Elst, M. (2005). Copyright, freedom of speech, and cultural policy in the Russian Federation. Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff. 4. Friedberg, M., Watanabe, M. & Nakamoto, N. (1984). The Soviet Book Market: Supply and Demand. Acta Slavica Iaponica, 2, 177–192. Retrieved from http://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2115/7941/1/KJ00000034083.pdf 5. Karaganis, J. (Ed.). (2011). Media Piracy in Emerging Economies (p. vi, 424 p.). New York, NY: Social Science Research Council. 6. Kirkorian. (2010). Access to knowledge in the age of intellectual property. (G. Krikorian & A. Kapczynski, Eds.). Zone Books. Retrieved from http:// mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/189095196Xchap2.pdf 7. Reinalda, B. & Kulesza-Mietkowski, E. (2005). The Bologna process: Harmonizing Europe’s higher education. Barbara Budrich Farmington Hills, MI. 8. Stelmakh, V. D. (2001). Reading in the Context of Censorship in the Soviet Union. Libraries & Culture, 36 (1), 143–151. doi:10.2307/25548897 9. Suber, P. (2013). Open Access (Vol. 1). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. doi:10.1109/ACCESS.2012.2226094 10. Moshkov, M. (1999). Chto vy vse o kopirajte. Luchshe by knizhku pochitali (Biblioteke kopirajt ne vrag). Komp’juterry, (300).

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Recommended by Visegrad Insight editors and New Europe 100 team members

CZ PL PL

Capturio MyLingo Brainly.com from Czech Republic from the U.S./Poland from Poland Take a snap in front of Hradčany Castle 17-year old Polish-American Harvard It’s more fun to do homework together. in Prague and send it as a traditional postcard dropout Olenka Polak created an app to go This social service learning allows students in an envelope. to the movies with her non-English speaking to learn math, chemistry, and physics based relatives. The app synchronizes subtitles on mutual cooperation with their peers. in the film screened in the cinema, so that anyone can enjoy the entertainment despite their language ability. SK HU HU

Staffino Nutshell SmartVineyard from Slovakia from Hungary from Hungary Useful for both restaurant owners and Tell your story in a nutshell with an Precision viticulture technology for grape guests, this application is a simple tool to rate application that turns photos into disease monitoring. A must-have for all the quality of service when you are waiting a cinematic narrative. Brought to you vineyard owners and wine afficionados. for your pierogi. by Prezi founder Peter Arvai.

Created in Central Europe and useful everywhere you carry your smartphone. Give these applications a try.

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What happens when Let’s talk, you put a Czech, a Pole, a Slovak, and a Hungarian in one neighbor- room to talk? It sounds like the beginning of a joke, right? From hood! February 2015, the new web series We Four+ Neighbourhood Talk, hosted by Nikolaus Hutter, will attempt to find out.

Štefánia Košková

spent most of my twenties and early thirties studying and working abroad and have ex- perienced this very scenario with degrees of variation many times. Although I now count people of Latin or Scandina- vian descent among my close friends, for me there is a “gravitational Ipull” toward Eastern Europeans in any international context. These encounters are marked by the relief that you do not have to explain the basics, and you do not need to reduce yourself to a recognizable label. There is an implicit, shared under- standing that makes it feel as though you are picking up where you left off, rather than starting a new conversation with a complete stranger. It is this interesting quality, the mix of strangeness and familiarity, that we are going to explore in the new web series We Four+ Neighbourhood Talk, produced by four organizations from the neighborhood: Polish Res Publica, Hungarian Terra Recognita, Czech Vetrne Mlyny, and led by the Central European Foundation from Slovakia. Part nation-branding, part ethnography and oral history, and part group therapy, the series hopes to connect the region and make it more understandable for the world outside its borders.

104 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Inciting debates Culture

Consider another expat life phe- a space in which they can interact infor- nomenon: if you find yourself in a group mally. This informal space is a safe place of people as the only (insert nationality/ where contrasting, divergent, or oppos- country of origin), you naturally feel like ing views on things that matter to all of an ambassador of sorts, like it is your job us can be effectively dealt with and rec- to explain, to clarify, and defend positions, onciled. For example: what choices do we policies, to present, to quantify. How have in life, what is home and where do many people live there? What’s the big- we belong, what does cross-border coop- gest industry? What about human rights? eration mean in practice, what is it like to Do you speak Russian over there? Many run a business in the region? These in- people do this job often and the impres- clude topics from the first episodes, and sion they make may forever shape what there is more in the pipeline. others think of that nationality or country. The conversation will start with four This effect may very well be stronger than people sitting in a room with a host, and anything our governments do or say. will be distributed as a video podcast, but We would, therefore, like to support we hope it will spill over into blogs, social these citizen ambassadors in their uneasy media discussions, and, indeed, dinner or task, equip them, and give them talking water cooler conversation among the in- points and reference materials. We want creasingly internationally mobile crowd to do that by facilitating, collecting, and across the region. curating conversations based on personal stories and individual experiences, which will help people discover the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and under- stand the region from a human perspec- tive, an improvement over what more commonly available statistics, fancy in- fographics, and glossy presentations and reports are able to do. Let’s be honest: how much do we actually know and how much don’t we know about the world beyond our bor- ders? How much do they know? Are they like us? Do they care? And how much don’t we know about our own countries? It is tempting to think that none of these questions really matter anymore because everyone can google anything and we’ve all traveled abroad. We believe that regional conversa- tions among people who otherwise would not find themselves at one table, about is- sues big and small, may help answer such questions. For some answers we need slow conversations; ideas need time to perco- late and brew instead of quick-fix recipes or witty one-liners, although there may be a bit of both in the series. Neighbourhood Talk is not about If you are from abroad and currently what you hear in official statements -ex living in one of the V4 countries or have changed at high-level political meetings, professional or personal ties to the re- expert conferences, and roundtables, or gion; if you are a V4 expat anywhere in in the mainstream media. It is about what the world – we have a message for you. people say over coffee, at dinner tables, or We invite you to watch, listen in, and at happy hour. take part in the conversation by letting Such conversations shed light on us know what you think. And if there are what ordinary people are thinking and questions you are struggling to find an- doing in their everyday lives. This does swers to, let us know and we might tackle not mean that intellectuals, scientists, them in a future episode! politicians, and artists will not be in- vited to We Four+. On the contrary, it is The author is Executive Producer of We Four+

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106 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Inciting debates Culture

World through V4 lenses

The phenomenon of Opava Institute of Creative Photography

Rafał Milach (1978) – One of the most accom- plished Polish photographers. Co-founder of the international collective Sputnik Photos. Received awards at prestigious competitions including World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year Interna- tional, Photography Book Now, and New York Photo Festival Awards. His publications The Win- ners and 7 Rooms were celebrated at the Photo photo: Rafał Milach, from 2008 “7 Rooms”, Book Awards during Paris Photo.

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In the photographers’ community, the name of the Czech town Opava refers to one institution: the much-admired Institute of Creative Photography, which is celebrating twenty-five years this year.

Katarzyna Sagatowska

he Institute of Creative Photography at the Silesian University in Opava stands out among art schools for several reasons. Most importantly, classes in Horní Bečva – near the Polish, Czech, and Slovak borders – allow students from the region to mix, which naturally enables the exchange of knowledge and expertise in the international community. Secondly, there is a plenty to exchange, as both the members of faculty and students themselves are outstanding and accomplished celebrities in the world of photography. Among the professors: Institute director Vladimír Birgus, photographer, curator, and author; Jindřich Štreit, icon of Czech documentary photography; and the younger but already renowned Dita Pepe, Tomáš

T photo: “Petrzalka” Lucia Nimcová, from “Instant 2003 Women”, Pospěch, Štěpánka Stein, and Rafał Milach. Located in the Czech province, the Insti- tute maintains extensive contact with the global artistic scene. Students are constantly updated about openings in New York, Paris, and Tokyo, and their works are published and exhibited at Photokina Fair in Köln and Vienna Photography Month. The combination of all these elements results in a truly unique environment, em- bedded in the Visegrad countries, but radiating globally. Opava’s alumni are recog- nized in various competitions, including World Press Photo (Tomasz Wiech, Tomasz Lazar), the Leica Oscar Barnack Award (Lucia Nimcová), and Hasselblad Masters (Bára Prášilová). They also work as curators, critics, and organizers of noted events such as Photomonth Kraków, TIFF in Wrocław, and Bratislava Photography Month. Moreover, the Institute promotes interest in photography collection in Central Europe. Rafał Milach’s photo from the acclaimed cycle 7 rooms sold for 4,400 euros in October 2014. Finally, an informal atmosphere and openness help establish professional and private networks. International and intergenerational encounters as well as endless discussions are the source of the Institute's influence.

Translated by Anna Wójcik

The author is a photographer and curator, and currently a PhD student at The Institute of Creative Photography at the Silesian University in Opava.

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Lucia Nimcová (1977) – Slovak documentary filmmaker, photographer, and author of books and conceptual installation projects based on archives. Recipient of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2008 for Unofficial, a presentation of life in post-communist Slovakia. Depicted the lives of women in Ženy and Instant Women. Exhibited during photography festivals in Arles, Krakow, Bratislava, and Dublin.

109 Culture Inciting debates photo: Bára Prášilová 2014 , from “Evolve”,

Bára Prášilová (1979) – Czech fashion, art, and commercial photographer with a distinc- tive style inspired by memories and phantasy. Received the Hasselblad Masters 2014 award in the “fashion & beauty” category and Photog- rapher of the Year 2009 and 2011 at the Czech Grand Design. Exhibited in the Czech Republic, Poland, France, Germany, Denmark, Hong- Kong, and Great Britain.

110 VIsegrad insight 1 (7) | 2015 Inciting debates Culture photo: Grzegorz Dąbrowski, Urszula Dąbrowska, from “albom.pl“, 2014

Grzegorz Dąbrowski (1970) – one of the first Polish students at the ICP in Opava. Photogra- pher, curator, journalist at „Gazeta Wyborcza”. Has worked on the archives of photographers Bolesław Augustis, Antoni Zdrodowski, and Jan Siwicki. Documented the Polish-Belarusian bor- der in the project albom.pl. in 2013 with Urszula Dąbrowska.

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