The Faculty of Social Sciences, Rīga Stradiņš University, will hold a guest lecture themed 'Geopolitical Imagination and Security at Europe's Margins Before and After 2022: The Visegrád Four Revisited' and a subsequent discussion with Aliaksei Kazharski, researcher and lecturer at the Charles University in Prague, Czechia.

The discussion will focus on domestic and regional developments in the Visegrád Four Group (V4) and its implications for European security. The evolution of the Visegrád Group (V4) – Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia has been characterized by major shifts in ways that the four countries positioned themselves vis-à-vis the EU and the West. Bound by a common “Central European” goal of “returning to Europe” after 1989 the grouping has since then also developed more ambiguous stances and identities. The 2015-2016 European migration crisis famously exposed certain normative differences between Western and East-Central Europe, which were also exacerbated by a record of democratic backsliding and the development of the ideology of “illiberalism” which often included strong anti-Western components. These developments raised new questions about the relative centrality/peripherality of the region in the Western-led European order.   The 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia converted political and normative differences into major security concerns as some V4 countries now professed an “anti-mainstream” stance, effectively obstructing joint European efforts to back Ukraine in its war for freedom.  A new Russia-lenient pseudo-pacifism had visibly taken root in the region. Significant differences also emerged inside the V4 itself, paralyzing the work of a group that could previously speak with one voice. The seminar will assess the developments in the V4 and the role they play in the context of European security at large.

The discussion will be based on A. Kazharski’s book “Central Europe Thirty Years after the Fall of Communism. A Return to the Margin?” published in 2022. The book won the 2022/2023 prestigious Book Award of the Global International Relations Section (GIRS) of the International Studies Association.

In a 45-minute presentation, the author will discuss his latest book and share his observations on trends in the Visegrád countries after Russia's full- scale invasion of Ukraine. This will be followed by a question-and-answer session. The event will be moderated by RSU researcher and doctoral student Evija Djatkoviča.