CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2012
| Author | Sadecki, Andrzej Tadeusz |
|---|---|
| Title | Discourses About Central Europe in Hungarian and Polish Essayism After 1989 |
| Summary | The thesis traces the developments in the discourse about Central Europe following the peak of its popularity in the 1980s. First, it overviews the origins and various definitions of the concept. Then, it discusses the 1980s’ discourse which lays ground for the further analysis. Finally, it examines a selection of essays representative for the post-1989 discourse written by Krzysztof Czyżewski, Péter Esterházy, Aleksander Fiut, Lajos Grendel, Csaba Gy. Kiss, Robert Makłowicz, Andrzej Stasiuk, and László Végel. The analysis is organized around three research questions: how do the authors employ the term of Central Europe, what features they attribute to the region and who do they perceive as significant others of Central Europe. The post-1989 essayism about Central Europe demonstrated several continuities and ruptures in comparison with the discourse of the 1980s. On the one hand, contemporary authors define Central Europe in a similar way and find analogous features of the region. On the other hand, the discourse became depoliticized, no longer focused on the political divisions of the continent, and it avoided the exclusivism of the concept. Finally, in spite of the change of circumstances after 1989, the discourse proved its rootedness both in Polish and Hungarian contexts. Yet, it underwent a sort of “privatization,” meaning that the uses of the term of Central Europe became more individualized and varied. |
| Supervisor | Trencsényi, Balázs |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2012/sadecki_andrzej.pdf |
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