ABSTRACT
The Iron Curtain, which fell after 1945 between Szczecin and Trieste, divided Europe into West and East. In this new bipolar system, there was once again no room for Central Europe, which was erased from the map of the Continent for several decades. For Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Hungarians the answer to the seemingly trivial question “East or West?” is a fundamental matter of identity which determines the political reality not only of the central part of Europe, but of the entire continent. This is also the root of the concept of Central Europe, which is above all a historical and cultural notion rather than a geographical one. Belonging to the East or to the West is a question not of geography or borders, but first of all of aesthetic sensitivity ? it is membership of a cultural circle, an economic zone, and a political system, a question of worldview and community of experience. Central Europe is the lesson of communism; it is criticism of the idea of progress; it is the ubiquitous presence of history, complex geography and geopolitics, cultural diversity and the power of nationalisms; it is the inferiority complex of the peripheries and the creativity of the borderlands. The example of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia makes it easier to understand the essence of the European civilisation.
