Shaking hands with the past – Tomas Helléns thesis

The thesis of Tomas Hellén is available on this page, further down as a pdf download.

Tomas Hellén disputerade vid Åbo Akademi 1996 med avhandlingen “Shaking hands with the past: origins of the political right in Central Europe”. Avhandlingen gavs ut av Finska Vetenskaps-Societeten (https://scientiarum.fi) i serien Commentationes Scientiarum Socialium. Med stöd av medel från Konstsamfundet (detta projekt) och med Finska Vetenskaps-Societetens godkännande, har avhandlingen gjorts tillgänglig digitalt i Åbo Akademis publikationsarkiv.

Title: Shaking hands with the past

Abstract: Since 1989, the countries in Central Europe have been trying to build democracies and market economies on the foundation of weak traditions of pluralism and tolerance. 

This book investigates political culture in Poland, Hungary, the Czech republic and Slovakia in the 20th century–from the inter-war experiment through the communist era to the post-transition societies. It identifies an augmented or ‘grand’ sociopolitical continuity in the region, and in particular charts how the communist rulers exploited and adopted many of the pet themes of pre-1945 authoritarianism, étatism and nationalism. Yet at the same time, the success of Real Existing Socialism in modernising society has undermined the authoritarian and nationalist tradition. 

Keywords: Eastern and Central Europe, Political Culture, Political Transition, Radicalism, Communism, Nationalism, Authoritarianism, Anti-Semitism