Description
This paper contributes to the growing scholarship on memory, ontological security and foreign policy. Specifically, it studies the different policy responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Serbia. While the Czech response has been categorically pro-Ukrainian, both Hungary and Serbia have taken at times pro-Russian stances. How can we explain these divergent patterns of response among countries that are all declaratively pro-European and that share some post-communist legacies? Combining media and historical analysis with interview research conducted in 2022, the paper argues that it is the combination of how direct, structural and historical victimhood is mobilized for both instrumental and ontological-security purposes, which provides answers to the divergent policy response. Widely shared and propagated historical victimization by Russia explains the borderline Russophobe Czech response. In Hungary, a combination of historical victimhood and currently perceived structural victimhood in international politics explains its ambivalent approach to Russia, skilfully leveraged and manipulated by the right-wing regime. Direct, historical and structural victimhood perceived and widely disseminated by the government in Serbia explains the majority pro-Russian position in the country where victimhood has become the dominant identity position that is also direct against the West.
