Ondrej Slacalek

The project focuses on the key aspects of contemporary Western nationalism. While many considered the wars of the 1990s in the Balkans and the Caucasus to be the swan song of nationalism, the rise of nationalist politics in the 2010s and its continuing attractiveness makes it necessary to revise the theoretical tools we use to understand nationalism. The project is based on theoretical abstraction used to identify the basic traits of the new nationalisms in the contemporary West. As its point of departure it takes four key terms used to analyze nationalism, depicted in pairs: empire (and colony), decline (and revival), culture wars (and moral panics) and belonging (between individualism and civilizationalism). The analysis will consider how their meaning has changed in ways relevant to the theoretical analysis of nationalism.  

The research project focuses on Czech identity in the light of debates on the key. Others in Czech society after 1989—Communists, Germans, Roma and Muslims—and also on the pre-1989 dissident debates regarding national identity.