The concept of the Carpathian Basin: its evolution, counternarratives, and geopolitical implications

Abstract

The Carpathian Basin has been the most significant Hungarian geographical notion. Despite its relatively short history, the concept has antecedents related to the long historical process of Hungary's (self-) recognition and (self-) definition in a mostly landlocked environment. Through a critical geopolitical lens, this article investigates how and why the Carpathian Basin emerged as a geographical concept and with what effects. Before even being fully explored, the Carpathians served as a solid reference point to demarcate Hungary at a time when it was not a sovereign state. From the 1910s till the 1940s, the gradually emerging notion of the Carpathian Basin was employed to preserve, and later claim, the territory it was designated to cover. Yet the environmentally determinist ideas of Hungarian geographers – partly based on a selective reading of foreign sources – were harshly countered by their colleagues elsewhere, whose arguments were similarly tendentious but drew less on geographical determinism. The Hungarian interwar establishment's staunch longing for the unity of the Carpathian Basin, though supported by many, also implied the mobilisation of the whole society towards this goal, pointing to links between foreign and domestic policy.