CENTRAL EUROPEAN WRITERS
AS A SOCIAL FORCE
655
Croatian, Czech, Hungarian, Itali an , Polish , Romanian, and Serbian
works. University presses have not only responded but have also been ac–
tively soliciting scholarship in the area, and Northwestern University
Press, under the leadership ofJonathan Brent, has reprinted many Central
European literary classics in translation. Lastly, commercial publishers have
- until recently at least - done their share admirably. Special recognition
must go to Penguin and Philip Roth for their series, Writers from Other
Europe, which did a great deal to make a wide range of Central
European literature available in paperback.
Lately, however, there are signs of trouble. Is the literary boom of
the eighties going to end w ith the end of the economic boom of the
eighties? I would hate to think that the commitment to making some of
the finest contemporary writers and thinkers available to the English–
speaking public resulted primarily from the financial cushion that gave
publishers the leeway to take a risk . I would hate to think that as
Central Europe loses its enemy status with the end of the Cold War, as
it sinks into the economic limbo of a struggling, semifree market society,
it will lose its allure for the West. I wou ld like to think that the
American intellectual public has grown more sophisticated in the past ten
years, has grown to need the stimulation these writers have provided.
The new situation I sense may to some extent be a factor of a new
attitude on the part of Central European intellectuals. The concept of
Central Europe was attractive as long it provided an antidote to Eastern
Europe. In fact, I first heard intellectuals there talk in terms of Central
Europe (or "Danubian Federation") during 1968 in Prague. I then heard
it transferred to the street when, just after the Soviet invasion, I was
standing in line for bread and listened to a woman old enough to have
remembered the Dual Monarchy complain that good old Franz Josef
would never have allowed the Russians in. What she failed to remember
was that Franz Josef
ill vi
ted
the Russians in to put down the Hungarians
in 1849.
In
any case, the ent husiasm among Central European
intellectuals for the concept of Central Europe has dwindled considerably
since 1989. The enthusiasm is now for a Europe without epithets, Europe
tout
COllyt.
Integration into the European Community certainly makes sense
economically . But Central Europe enjoys a cultural specificity that has
nothing to do with backwardness. One has only to remember the names
adduced by Kundera. I recall the late and much lamented, irreplaceable
and quintessentially Central European writer Danilo Kis, who at a con–
ference analogous to this one several years ago defined Central Europe -
only half facetiously - as that part of the world where you can spend all
day in a coffeehouse with one cup of coffee and any number of newspa-
