ABSTRACT
Following the collapse of multi-ethnic empires after World War I, geographic research in Central and Eastern Europe focused almost exclusively on consolidating knowledge of new national spaces, thus mirroring the political objective of consolidating newly acquired ‘stateness’. After World War II and under State Socialism, research focusing on the Carpathian Basin was highly restricted for political reasons, referred to only occasionally in geology, hydrology, and natural geography. From 1988 a new conceptualisation emerged: with irredentist interpretations intentionally excluded, research on the Carpathian Basin as a space of co-existence and cooperation progressively gained dominance in Hungary. Despite forceful statements asserting the Carpathian Basin to be a ‘Hungarian internal economic area’, neither the Hungarian nation as a whole nor the present Hungarian governments are capable of unilaterally creating a new cooperation space. In order to be successful, a renewed geopolitical focus on the Carpathian Basin would need to encompass a wider sense of neighbourhood, not limited by ethnic or linguistic considerations. Together, the EU, strategies of Danube regional cooperation, new neighbourhood relationships, cross-border networks and cooperation between Hungarian settlement areas could provide a realistic possibility for the future.
