THE CENTRAL EUROPEAN - A DYING SPECIES?

In the 21st century, the problem of Central Europe returns like a boomerang and takes on new forms. It is worth noting that Central European identity has a long tradition that precedes the period of its greatest splendor, i.e., the 1970s and 1980s. The book The Central European - a dying species? Identity Narratives in Selected Examples of Czech and Polish Prose of the 20th and 21st Centuries tells about the beginnings of the idea of Central Europe, its evolution, disappearances and returns, comparing prose works by Czech and Polish writers - so close and yet culturally and historically distant.

• First publication covering nearly eighty years of the development of the concept of Central Europe.
• Analysis of novels and essays by Czesław Miłosz, Milan Kundera, Krzysztof Czyżewski, and others.
• The dialogue of writers highlights the problems of Central Europeans: imperial domination, fluid borders, the problem of borderlands.
• Post-transformation challenges and the incomplete identity of imitators.
• Problems in defining common goals and undertaking cooperation.
• The heritage of Central Europe goes beyond particular national interests.

It is the first publication to cover nearly eighty years of the development of the concept of Central Europe - from 1945 to the present day. The focus is on novels and essays by Czesław Miłosz, Milan Kundera, Krzysztof Czyżewski, Václav Havel, Jáchym Topol, Andrzej Stasiuk, Radka Denemarková and Olga Tokarczuk. These writers dialogue with each other and highlight important problems that Central Europeans also face today: the imperial domination of large neighbors, the fluidity of state borders, the problem of borderlands and national minorities, post-transformation challenges, the still incomplete identity of imitators, problems in defining common goals and undertaking cooperation. One of the aims of this publication is to show that Poles and Czechs can refer to the heritage of Central Europe, which goes beyond particular interests and national contexts.

The Central European by Magdalena Brodacka-Dwojak comes on time, is finally not late, is not yesterday's and does not have his head in the clouds, does not pretend to be someone else, does not confuse self-irony with self-negation, does not lose his identity by multiplying it, does not stand in the way of the European, admits that he has many faces and that he sometimes falls, starts an important conversation with the world and tries to look his neighbors straight in the eye, having in his eyes - next to hereditary fear - a glimmer of hope. It could not be there, but - contrary to the numerous and seemingly sober skeptics - the long duration of the idea of Central Europe seems real, which the author perfectly manages to capture. Read in the time of the war in Ukraine, Magda Brodacka-Dwojak's book brings us back to Central Europe, no longer only with an open wound of the past, but also - or perhaps above all - aware that the horizon of the future opens up a family identity identical with solidarity with others.

Magdalena Brodacka-Dwojak - literary scholar, Polish and Bohemian scholar, associated with the Faculty of Polish Studies at the Jagiellonian University. Scholarship holder of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague and laureate of the competition for a residency in the name of Maria and Kazimierz Brandys at the International Dialogue Center in Krasnogruda. She has published in "Konteksty Kultury", "Bohemistyka" and "Twórczości", among others. Her interests include comparative cultural studies, Central European literature, especially 20th-century Polish and Czech prose.