Identity metamorphosis: lost in translation

Review of the book «Us and them. Identity metamorphosis in Eastern and Western Europe»

Abstract

The book, a collective monograph by researchers from Russia and France, Belarus and Austria, is devoted to the identity crisis. The key problems are considered to be the widespread substitution of the civil content of national identity with its cultural component, the different approach to identity research in Western and Eastern Europe, and the dynamic and unpredictable relationships among different kinds of identity. Research shows that today the main cause of the identity crisis is the construction of national, regional, and ethnic identities by all actors (politicians, journalists, researchers, society). The origin of the problem is in the cognitive dissonance resulting from the different meanings of the same words used to describe identity transformation in Western and Eastern Europe. Such difficulties are mostly external by nature and are based on the historical background and “lost in translation” conflicts. The task of the scientific community is to overcome stereotypes and to establish a dialogue with a view to finding new tools to analyze and develop new epistemologies, while that of the book’s contributors is to take a step towards overcoming such misunderstandings.