A Kidnapped West: The Tragedy of Central Europe
by Milan Kundera
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"A short collection of brilliant early essays that offers a fascinating context for the Milan Kundera's subsequent career and holds a mirror to much recent European history. It is also remarkably prescient with regard to Russia's current aggression in Ukraine and its threat to the rest of Europe."--Amazon.Tags
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If you don’t know much about Poland, Hungary, or Czechia, that’s probably not your fault. It’s likely due to Europe’s abandonment of these countries during their occupation by the Soviets after World War II. That’s what Czech novelist Milan Kundera argues in the stirring essays collected in this volume. Called by the nebulous name of “Central Europe,” the area that fell into Russian clutches in the Communist era was by no means some bridge to the East, but rather the last outpost of the West, linked to Germany, France, and the rest by a shared Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman heritage, and allegiance to Enlightenment rationality. “Western Europe” can’t recognize that link, Kundera says, because it, too, has lost its show more connection to that past. show less
Essays from 1967 and 1983.
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49+ Works 61,257 Members
One of the foremost contemporary Czech writers, Kundera is a novelist, poet, and playwright. His play The Keeper of the Keys, produced in Czechoslovakia in 1962, has long been performed in a dozen countries. His first novel, The Joke (1967), is a biting satire on the political atmosphere in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. It tells the story of a show more young Communist whose life is ruined because of a minor indiscretion: writing a postcard to his girlfriend in which he mocks her political fervor.The Joke has been translated into a dozen languages and was made into a film, which Kundera wrote and directed. His novel Life Is Elsewhere won the 1973 Prix de Medicis for the best foreign novel. Kundera has been living in France since 1975. His books, for a long time suppressed in his native country, are once again published.The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), won him international fame and was a successful English-language film. In this work Kundera moves toward more universal and philosophically tinged themes, thus transforming himself from a political dissident into a writer of international significance. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Een gekidnapt Westen
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, General Nonfiction, Literature Studies and Criticism
- DDC/MDS
- 943 — History & geography History of Europe Central Europe: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Czech, Poland, Hungary
- LCC
- DAW1024 .K8616 — History of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania Central Europe History of Central Europe General
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 93
- Popularity
- 344,480
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (4.00)
- Languages
- 10 — Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 15
- ASINs
- 4
