ABSTRACT
In the past, epidemics and pandemics did not avoid the territories which today are occupied by countries such as Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, i.e. Central Europe. In the presented chapter, the author subjects to a multifaceted analysis the role that epidemics and pandemics of infectious diseases have played in the life of the territories that today comprise the Central European states. This role is examined through the analysis of the most representative, in the author’s opinion, cases of states which historically covered the territory of contemporary Central Europe. In the following subsections, the author asks auxiliary research questions: What epidemics of infectious diseases, and when, did the states of Central Europe experience from a historical perspective? How did these experiences place Central Europe and its constituent states in comparison with the world and, above all, with the rest of the Old Continent? Where did the inhabitants of Central Europe see the causes of infectious diseases? What were they for them? How did individual citizens, families, smaller and larger communities, whole societies, as well as state and local authorities, secular and clerical elites, behave in the face of epidemics and pandemics? How did they react from the perspective of the individual, the group, cities, states?
