Transiting From the East to the ‘Core’ West of Europe: Slovakia’s Ontological Liminality After the Outbreak of 2022 Russia’s War on Ukraine

Abstract

This article examines the effects of the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022 on the reconstruction of the notion of ‘Eastern Europe’ in Slovak political discourse and the subsequent re-definition of Slovakia’s political subjectivity vis-à-vis the contested notion of the ‘East’. It aims to advance the application of ontological liminality concept in international relations integrating it with post-structuralist and post-colonial insights on identity formation. I seek to shed light on how Slovakia negotiates its liminal position of being ‘the East of the Western Europe’ under the new geopolitical and discursive realities. Drawing on the concept of ontological liminality and post-colonial notion of master, my principal argument suggests that Slovakia aspired to demonstrate its capability to define the normative meaning of EUrope as one of its ‘core’ members positioning itself as a superior European state, a ‘master’ in relation to Ukraine. Although, on Slovakia’s mental map, the notion of ‘East’ assumes a far-away position it escaped long time ago, at the same time ‘East’ with the tinge of orientalism has been constructed as an indispensable subject position that the future newcomers to EUrope carry when they are pursuing their transition to the West. Based on hierarchically underpinned discursive self-positioning of Slovakia, ‘East’ is thus made a pre-liminal attribute which post-communist countries let go when beginning their transition to/through the Central Europe that ultimately emerges as an intermediary post-colonial spatial and discursive setting where liminals undergo the ritual of becoming genuinely EUropean.