EN
Central Europeans have very rich language for describing their own countries in unflattering manner and very, very long tradition of doing so. In this article author proposes a hypothesis for unusually low collective self-esteem. It is deeply rooted in the region’s peripheral relation with the West. It is a by-product of a yawning gap between rich, powerful, industrialized West and stagnant Central Europe. Müller’s “Global East” is, from this perspective, one of the (many) attempts to overcome region’s peripheral status.