Editorial
Editorial

Summary/Abstract: Since 2011, the Faculty of Arts at Palacký University in Olomouc has been holding the annual international interdisciplinary symposium Art and Cultures of Central Europe. At these symposia, scholars have focused on selected themes via which they have attempted to locate cultural, social or artistic specifics of the Central European region, or conversely to overturn preconceptions concerning some kind of essence of ‘Central Europe’, reflected upon the possible boundaries of the Central European space, and debated the purpose (or lack thereof) of seeking out and delineating such boundaries. The individual themes thus formed the prisms through which the scholars viewed certain distinctions of ‘Central Europeanness’ in relation to the West, East or Balkans (e.g. the role of the intellectual at watershed moments in history, censorship, the consequences of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire for Central European literature and so on). Some prisms accentuated or intensified certain distinctions, while others by contrast obscured them or showed them to be of little relevance for a contemplation of the specificity of the given region. At times the choice of themes led to disputes among the co-organisers, while at others they were accepted smoothly and unanimously. Some of the themes proved themselves to be inspiring for academic debate, others less so.

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