Challenges of Pandemic-Related Border Closures for Everyday Lives of Poles and Czechs in the Divided Town of Cieszyn/Český Těšín: Integrated Functional Space or Reemergence of Animosities?

Abstract

The article asks whether the divided town Cieszyn-Český Těšín can be considered a joint "living space"in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. It evaluates the impact of the pandemic on various aspects of the daily lives of the inhabitants and institutions of both parts of this divided town. Three main dimensions of crossborder integration were studied: cross-border flows, cross-border structures/institutions, and the feeling of togetherness, which represents an ideational dimension of cross-border integration. The research was based on studying narratives covering border closures in the divided town, the analysis of cross-borderness of existing Facebook groups acting in both parts of the divided town, and the results of an extensive questionnaire-based survey among its inhabitants. The border closures restricted cross-border flows, which hit cross-border commuters and damaged the quality of this divided town as a living place because it introduced uncertainty. However, the health crisis also showed the high level of mutual interconnections between the local inhabitants and a functional cross-border civic society. The local people and politicians tend to perceive the divided town as a joint living space. The level of cross-border integration highly exceeds the one usual in the "new EU."