By Harold JAMES
Conventional wisdom holds that an autocratic ethnonationalist backlash against global capitalism and liberal democracy is driving 21st-century politics. Recent developments, however, have shown that political insurgency is more nuanced. In an era of rapid technological and economic change, people always turn to the past. But nostalgia can inspire both ethnonationalists and those seeking to resist autocracy.
This perspective may help us understand why Donald Trump has twice been elected to power in the United States on the promise of restoring national greatness. While many people grapple with the paradox of an anti-globalist president who constantly pursues “deals” around the world, Central and Eastern Europe may hold the key to reshaping this issue. Between 1989 and 1991, this Region produced the most consequential political earthquake of the late 20th century. People mobilized behind a vision of liberalism and democracy mixed with nationalism to reject the communist internationalism of the Soviet era.
Today, the Region is the epicenter of a new affirmation of nationalism against autocracy, but also against foreign encroachment. The two most prominent signs of this new political reorientation are Viktor Orbán’s crushing defeat by Péter Magyar in Hungary’s April elections and Albania’s resistance to the Trump family’s plans to turn the island of Sazan into a glitzy tourist destination.
While there is no single explanation for Magyar’s victory, his emphasis on national identity, corruption, and foreign interference in Hungarian politics cannot be ignored. Trump, US Vice President JD Vance, Tucker Carlson, and other right-wing American populists clearly wanted to use Hungary to internationalize the MAGA movement, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interference in Hungarian affairs was no secret. In the run-up to the election, Hungarian demonstrators revived a chant associated with the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising: Ruszkik haza! (Russians, go home!).
In Albania, the public is mobilizing against Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s plan to build a luxury beach resort in Sazan, as well as to develop beaches in what is now a coastal wilderness reserve in Pishë Poro-Nartë.
Ivanka’s hope to serve the global elite immediately recalls her father’s treacherous and immoral proposal to turn Gaza into a luxury seaside resort. Albanians have taken notice and have launched a populist campaign to preserve both their pristine beaches and their values. They see tourism developments for the billionaire class as a curse, not a blessing. New development and investment should promote the well-being of Albanians, rather than benefit an exploitative mono-industry.
These recent uprisings against corrupt foreign intervention may point to a new model for political mobilization. What we are witnessing is not an expression of the same aggressive ethno-nationalism that many in MAGA proclaim, but something different.
Consider another historical parallel. In the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, where many worry they could be the Kremlin’s next target, an exhibition next month will feature newly discovered 16th-century burial crowns from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a state that once stretched from the Baltic deep into present-day Ukraine. Three striking figures are at the center of the exhibit: Alexander Jagiellon, King of Poland and Duke-General of Lithuania; his mother, Elizabeth of Austria, who eventually bore him four sons who became kings; and Barbara Radziwiłł, the second wife of Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland and Duke-General of Lithuania. All three crowns thus date back to the golden age of a dynasty that linked much of Central Europe.
The discoveries have their own fascinating history. Although the bodies of the Polish-Lithuanian kings were found by chance in 1931, in the then-independent state of Lithuania, they were hidden at the beginning of World War II and rediscovered only in 2024. Now, these regalia stand not only as national symbols, but also as reminders of a shared past. When in use, the crowns represented the legitimate authority exercised in what modern scholars call composite monarchies – the complex matrimonial networks that linked together Castile, Aragon and Catalonia, or England, Wales and Scotland.
For Magyar, the 11th-century crown of St. Stephen is also a central landmark. After a photo of him praying in front of the crown’s display in the Dome Hall of the Hungarian parliament went viral, he seized the moment to insist that all new members of parliament take the oath of office on the sacred artifact.
The Crown of St. Stephen, too, is a symbol of the composite monarchy and of Hungary’s resilience in the face of past defeats and upheavals. It was worn by the last Jagiellonian king of Hungary, Louis II, when he died in a ditch at the Battle of Mohács in 1526. After his aides found the crown in the mud of the Csele stream, it would be worn by almost every Habsburg ruler until the end of the monarchy (only Joseph II, who was aggressively secular, rejected the tradition). The crown was then smuggled out of Hungary at the end of World War II and kept at Fort Knox, Kentucky, along with America’s gold reserves, until its return in 1978.
In each case, smaller European states are raising the idea that legitimate authority can flow from a shared history. They have found a powerful tool with which to oppose a foreign ethnonationalist project that is actually driven by commercial, political, and military interests. When pitted against authentic medieval crowns that still hold political meaning in an age of cynicism, Trump’s pompous, gold-plated offerings may stand little chance.
(Harold James is a professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton University)