Monography profile

The present volume brings together a broad range of analyses focused on the process of identity-making in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Identity is defined primarily in sociocultural and literary terms, but a number of articles also emphasise the political implications of the changing definitions of East-European identity in the current globalised world. The work follows in the footsteps of the project sponsored by the ICLA, entitled History of The Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Benjamins 2004–2010). This partial continuity is an advantage for the discussion undertaken in this volume, which can build on earlier analyses, taking them in new directions. The authors make a successful effort to build and justify theoretically and practically a cross-cultural regional history. Their essays place cultural phenomena in a broad sociocultural and political context, analysing issues of identity, politics of ethnicity, and cross-cultural interaction. The book fills an important gap in the treatment of East-Central literature and comparative study.