Redrawing the imagined map of Europe: the rise and fall of the “center”

This article explores the assumptions and practices, especially the role of naming, involved in the geopolitical rhetoric promoting a spatial reordering of the European continent using the idea of Central Europe and its German counterpart, Mitteleuropa, during the 1980s and 1990s. Central to this discussion is the role of ideas, such as East and West or the ‘return to Europe,’ in forming an imagined geopolitical map of Europe’s regions. During this period of transition and realignment, the geopolitics of naming played an important role in discussions surrounding military strategies, national identity, political economy, and diplomacy in Europe. Although often framed as a means to overcome Europe’s East–West dichotomy, the idea of a central space in Europe has served primarily to facilitate movement from one region and identity, the East, to another, the West, by challenging the established imagined regional geography of Cold War Europe. In this respect, the idea of Central Europe has proven to be a powerful rhetorical devise in ultimately helping Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians redefine themselves as Western, and ultimately European, and therefore the leading candidates for membership in Western institutions.