Gennadii Korolov

The project deals with an entangled history of the federalist ideas in East Central Europe and shows its evolution from nationalism via imperializing nations to ideological utopias. It introduces a new understanding of the two kinds of federalism in East Central Europe. Chronologically it covers the period from the Polish January Uprising in 1861 till the beginning of World War II. In the first place, it was an idea of “the United States” – the creation of nation-states, following the US political model, and would be based on states. The second type is so-called “national federalism” which was based on a geographical approach and an admission that forming of the national state was possible on historical or ethnic lands. The core argument of the project is that most of the federalist projects in East Central Europe emerged as a reaction to the situation of lying “between Germany and Russia”.