Eastern Europe in the Making of American National Identity

This dissertation explores the idea of eastern Europe in the American imagination, between 1896 and 2007. It analyses U.S. cultural productions, such as National Geographic, cold war film, the New York Times, and travel writings to show how they participate in the larger cultural discussion about who Americans are and who eastern Europeans can be. I argue that U.S. representations of eastern Europe inform a discourse that reflects and reproduces an ‘imagined geography’ that maps eastern Europe in relationship to the real or imagined U.S. homeland. Analysing contemporary representations of eastern Europe and their role in American identity formation against the backdrop of larger historical and political developments, I demonstrate how the present ambiguous image of the region has formed in a complex interplay of myths, images, and narratives about the territory. It is my contention that the ‘construction’ of eastern Europe and representations of it have served as a projection site for domestic transformations in the United States and, as such, greatly influenced American attitudes toward the region.
This dissertation assumes an interdisciplinary approach. In order to unfold the eastern Europe imaginary, I employ cultural history and film studies, anthropology and visual culture, postcolonial theory and tourism studies, as well as sociology, political science, and cultural geography. My analysis of American foreign policy, film, journalistic writings, and tourist activity demonstrates how different discourses on eastern Europe cross freely between public and private realms and produce American notions of selfhood, cultural difference, and national identity. The extent to which the narratives of eastern Europe have been utilised to create, rehearse, and reinforce the narratives of Americanness is the primary focus of this dissertation.