Harold James sees promise in Eastern and Central Europeans' resistance to foreign encroachments in their national politics

Conventional wisdom has it that an autocratic ethnonationalist backlash against global capitalism and liberal democracy is driving 21st-century politics. Yet recent developments have shown the political revolt to be more nuanced. In an era of rapid technological and economic change, people invariably look 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 come to power twice in the United States on the promise of restoring national greatness. As 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 reframing the 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 Soviet-era communist internationalism.

Today, the region forms the epicenter of a new assertion of nationalism against autocracy, but also against foreign encroachments. The two most striking signs of this new political realignment are Viktor Orbán’s crushing defeat to Péter Magyar in Hungary’s April election and Albania’s resistance to the Trump family’s plans to turn the island of Sazan into a gaudy tourist destination.

While there is no single explanation for Magyar’s victory, one cannot ignore his emphasis on national identity, corruption, and foreign interventions in Hungarian politics. Trump, US Vice President JD Vance, Tucker Carlson, and other American right-wing populists clearly wanted to use Hungary to internationalize the MAGA movement, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meddling in Hungarian affairs was no secret. On the eve of the election, Hungarian demonstrators revived a chant associated with the 1956 anti-Soviet revolt: 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 on Sazan, as well as to develop beaches on what is now a coastal wildlife preserve in Pishë Poro-Narta. Ivanka’s hope of catering to the global elite immediately recalls her father’s senseless, immoral proposal to turn Gaza into a high-end beach resort. Albanians have taken notice and launched a populist campaign to preserve both their pristine beaches and their values. They see tourist developments for the billionaire class as a curse, not a blessing. New development and investment should promote Albanians’ well-being, rather than benefiting an exploitative mono-industry.

These recent revolts against corrupt, foreign encroachments may point to a new model for political mobilization. What we are witnessing is not an expression of the same aggressive ethnonationalism that many in MAGA profess, but something different.

Consider another historical parallel. In the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, where many worry that they may be the Kremlin’s next target, an exhibition next month will feature recently rediscovered burial crowns from the 16th-century Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a state that once extended from the Baltic deep into modern Ukraine. Three striking figures are at the center of this display: Alexander Jagiellon, the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania; his mother, Elizabeth of Austria, who ultimately bore four sons who became kings; and Barbara Radziwiłł, the second wife of Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. All three crowns thus come from 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 royals were found, by accident, in 1931, in the then-independent state of Lithuania, they were hidden at the outbreak of World War II and rediscovered only in 2024. Now, the regalia stand not only as national symbols, but also as reminders of a shared past. When they were in use, the crowns represented the legitimate authority held in what modern scholars call composite monarchies—the complex networks of marriage that bound together Castile, Aragon, and Catalonia, or England, Wales, and Scotland.

For Magyar, the 11th-century crown of Saint Stephen is also a central reference point. After a photo of him praying in front of the crown’s display in the Dome Hall of the Hungarian parliament went viral, he used that moment to insist that all new members of parliament swear their oaths of office on the sacred artifact.

Saint Stephen’s crown, too, is a symbol of composite monarchy, and of Hungary’s resilience in the face of past defeats and reversals. 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 attendants found the crown in the mud of the Csele stream, it would go on to be worn by almost every Habsburg ruler until the end of the monarchy (only the aggressively secular Joseph II spurned the tradition). The crown was then smuggled out of Hungary at the end of WWII, and kept in Fort Knox, Kentucky, with America’s gold stockpile, until its return in 1978.

In each case, smaller European states are elevating the idea that legitimate authority can be derived from a shared history. They have found a powerful tool with which to counter a foreign ethnonationalist project that is really driven by commercial, political, and military interests. When set against authentic medieval crowns that still hold political meaning in an age of cynicism, Trump’s gaudy, gilded offerings may stand little chance.

Harold James, Professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton University, is the author, most recently, of Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalisation (Yale University Press, 2023). Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2025, and published here with permission.