National, and International, Struggles

About this episode

Dalibor Roháč discusses European politics, nationalism, and the Ukrainian struggle in a conversation with Jay Nordlinger.

Dalibor Roháč began life in Slovakia, or Czechoslovakia. He is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, in Washington. His Ph.D. is in political economy. He says that his role is to explain Europe to Americans and, increasingly, America to Europeans. In our Q&A , we talk about the “old days”: Czechoslovakia, Havel, the “velvet divorce,” “lustration,” and so on. We also talk about the “new days,” or current days: Robert Fico, the prime minister in Slovakia; Viktor Orbán, the prime minister in Hungary; Andrej Babiš, the president in the Czech Republic. Which of these men likes Putin most? The Ukrainian struggle is, among other things, the great nationalist cause of this century. Ukrainians are fighting and dying to hang on to their country: its freedom, its independence. They are fighting to defend their very right to exist. Yet many people in the Free World who style themselves “nationalists” are sympathetic to Putin and hostile to Ukraine. How can this be? One can imagine an organization: “Nationalists for the Russian Empire” (or “Soviet Empire”). In any event, Mr. Roháč and I touch on this question. And at the end, I ask him to say a few words about the…

People in this episode

Host: Jay Nordlinger

Guest: Dalibor Roháč

Topics covered

• European politics
• nationalism
• Ukrainian struggle
• Slovakia
• Czechoslovakia history
• Putin's influence

Keywords

• Dalibor Roháč
• European politics
• nationalism
• Ukraine
• Putin
• Slovakia
• Czechoslovakia
• Havel
• Orbán
• Babiš

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: American Enterprise Institute

Books & works: Dalibor

Places: Slovakia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Ukraine

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