ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is more concerned with travellers who went the opposite direction with those who went to the heart of the world, rather than its western edge but is equally interested in the ways in which travel writers construct their worldviews. Inspired by the struggle of Hussite Bohemia to achieve recognition in the rest of Europe, the fin-de-sicle nationalist writer Alois Jirsek used the travelogues to write a historical novel about this mission, called From Bohemia to the End of the World. The act of travel not only gives travel writers their authority, but also alters how they construct space, transforming it from static to dynamic. The process of travelling from Bohemia to the end of the world allowed these Czech authors, first and foremost, to see and to represent Bohemia as its heart.
