Czech Geopolitical Identity and Its Impacts on Today's Chechia

Description

Although the geographical position of Czechia is in the very centre of Europe, its geopolitical identity has been contested many times in its history. The internal and external influences in political struggles over the country’s political and geographical “soul” have resulted in a unique character of thinking about Czechia itself and its relationship to the rest of Europe and the world – the “Czech archive” of geopolitical imaginations. Such an archive of geopolitical knowledge plays a vital role in the state’s current foreign politics, especially towards its neighbours, the EU, and the world. The lecture shows a still changing and complex nature of thinking about the Czech geopolitical identity and its impacts on today’s Chechia.

Tomáš Drobík, Ph.D., holds a PhD in political science with a specialization in Political geography. He works at the Department of Human Geography and Regional Development as an assistant professor and at the Faculty of Science holds the position of vice-Dean for Internal and External Relations. He focuses primarily on political geography theories and geopolitics with territorial specialization in Central Europe and the Middle East. In the area of critical geopolitics, he predominantly focuses on the popular geopolitics of Czechia.