The Russian invasion of Ukraine places Central and Eastern Europe once again at the
centre of international policy attention. The region is experiencing a sharp crisis:
economies are slowing dramatically as Russian gas and energy supplies are being scaled
down or cut altogether, while inflation is rising. Yet, most societies in the region
are standing firm to confront aggression and its economic consequences, and all societies
are rallying to welcome and support refugees from Ukraine – a sharp contrast to their
rejection of refugees from the Middle East just a few years ago. We clearly need more
research to understand what drives these societies. The region’s perplexing response
to the COVID pandemic – an initial good performance that later reversed dramatically
– provides some answers. Part of it is the tragic footprint left upon the region by
the 20th century, particularly by World War 2 – a series of historical events which
prompted historian Timothy Snyder to call the region the “Bloodlands”. Here, the fabric
of society was torn asunder by, in turn, communist terror, the Holodomor, Nazi mass
murder, and the Holocaust. After the war, systemic efforts to destroy what remained
of civil society behind the Iron Curtain atomised societies and deepened distrust
in government and between individuals. Social forces rooted in history played a pivotal
role in COVID-19 responses. However, the lessons identified from these responses are
not only relevant for this specific epidemic. We need to better understand the root
causes of the region’s “trust deficit” and develop strategies to reduce it. This book
is the result of a joint workshop that we organised in March 2022 for researchers
from Corvinus University, Budapest, and the London School of Economics and Political
Science (LSE). This volume contains many of the papers presented and discussed at
that workshop. I hope and trust that the work presented here will not only help improve
the region’s pandemic preparedness, but will also further discussions on how to start
dealing with the region’s notorious trust deficit.
