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Abstract: Letters from Russia. The Truth about Despotic RussiaSøren Riishøj reviews Letters from Russia. The Truth about Despotic Russia, a translation into Danish of the French 19th-century artistocrat, Marquis de Custine's published collection of letters with impressions from Russia.

National identity was already the object of scholarly studies by the 1950s and 1960s, e.g. by analysts such as Karl Deutsch and Ernest Hass, to a great extent inspired by the start of European integration and German and French reconciliation. One of the crucial questions has been (and still is) to what extent national identity constitutes a barrier to Europeanization and integration, and to what extent overlapping multiple identities can co-exist.

The first section of this article briefly highlights the concepts of "national identity" and "europeanisation". Although seeming to have the same "core-meaning", these concepts have been explained differently. Broadly speaking, "europeanisation" has been studied by using either rationalist "objective" or "subjective" social-constructivist type argumentation. Moving to more ordinary politics, attitudes to the EU seem to be more linked to national interests and to a smaller extent based on identities. Furthermore, like national identity "euro-scepticism" has been examined discursively underlining the impact of mutually overlapping (multiple) identities and European identity versus national identity. Euro-scepticism may be cleavage based, i.e. connected to particular cultural, geographic and socio-economic factors like land-town, work-capital, church and society or be connected to concrete issues and the negotiations with the EU. In addition, some studies of Euro-scepticism have been party based. In those cases a distinction between "soft" and "hard" euro-scepticism may be useful. The last section will concentrate on Poland and the Czech Republic. Also other CEECs will be mentioned. In the case of Poland, euro-scepticism mostly can be found in the conservative-traditionalist camp, in the eastern part of the country and geographically in the small towns and in the land districts, sometimes in a catholic-fundamentalist and agrarian shape. In the case of the Czech Republic, the main focus will be on the difference in the attitudes of former president Václav Havel and the current president Václav Klaus, the policy of the social democrats (ČSSD) and soft and hard scepticism expressed by the liberal Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and the communists (KSČM). ; The first section of this article briefly highlights the concepts of "national identity" and "europeanisation". Although seeming to have the same "core-meaning", these concepts have been explained differently. Broadly speaking, "europeanisation" has been studied by ...