The Tragedy of Central Europe, Forty Years On
Rezumat
Abstract: Forty years ago, Milan Kundera published “The Tragedy of Central Europe” in the New York Review of Books. My paper considers the role that this seminal essay has played in defining Central Europe as a cultural, political, and aesthetic project in the four decades since its publication. After examining this legacy, the paper concludes by analyzing the dual announcement of the 2018 and 2019 Nobel Prizes for Literature (awarded to Olga Tokarczuk and Peter Handke) as a kind of referendum on the literature – and idea – of Central Europe.
Keywords: Central Europe, Milan Kundera, Olga Tokarczuk, Peter Handke, Western civilization
Bibliografie
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