What else comes with a geographical concept beyond geography? The renaissance of the term ‘Carpathian Basin’ in the Hungarian Parliament

Abstract

A key tenet from research on geographical concepts is that these are never neutral but filled with different ideas and agendas. The ‘Carpathian Basin’ is one of the most significant concepts in Hungarian geographical thought, but its recently reemerging use in political discourse has not yet been studied through quantitative text analysis.

In this paper, we describe how a structural topic model was used to analyze the 1,525 speeches containing the term delivered in the Hungarian Parliament between 1998 and 2020.

Our results indicate a renaissance in the use of the term, both in terms of its more frequent use and its discursive meaning as a sign of a turn in national policy. At the same time, ‘Carpathian Basin’ discourse serves as a symbolic battleground for different political ideologies to indicate both neutral geographical references and nationalist sentiments. Left-liberals tend to use it politically neutrally, referring to an ethno-culturally heterogeneous area, and using a less personal voice, referring to institutions and interests. In contrast, right-wing narratives often demarcate the Carpathian Basin as a single geographical entity. Some of these speeches exhibit virtual nationalism, while others subtly question territorial legitimacy. The latter MPs speak in terms of representing their own community, referring to values, emotions, and culture, offering a collective identity to which people attach values and emotions.