The Habsburg Myth and Political Processes in Europe in the 20th and at the Beginning of the 21st cc.: The Pan-European Idea and Regional Identities

Abstract

This article examines the impact of the Habsburg myth on the development of political processes in regions and states that emerged on the territory of the former Habsburg Empire in the second half of the twentieth and at the beginning of the twenty-first centuries. The spread of authoritarianism (totalitarianism) in the region and the World War II contributed to the rehabilitation of the Habsburg Empire in the historical memory of the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe and neighbouring regions and to their awareness of the common historical, political and cultural development. Belonging to the Habsburg space is the most important political code that defines the Europeanness of Central and Eastern Europe, its difference from Russia. The material also shows the influence of the intellectual heritage of the Habsburg Empire and the Habsburg myth on the formation of the pan-European idea and the integration processes in Europe after the World War II.