engleski

The Enlightenment in Eastern Europe: Between Regional Typology and Particular Micro-history

In the topography of the Enlightenment the region of eastern Europe is usually neglected on the grounds of its economic and political backwardness. Moreover, the contribution of East Europeans is mostly regarded as irrelevant for the general picture of the Enlightenment as an intellectual movement under the pretext that their ideas are mostly derivative and exhibit no originality in comparison with their Western counterparts. In contrast to such one-sided models, which treat the region as a whole in structural terms without taking into account its political, social and cultural differences, the author psoposes alternative approaches to East European case studies. She takes the Enlightenment as a form of sociocultural history and a product of contemporary urban culture, thus avoiding the regional typification and contextualising local particularities by means of micro-historical methods. The five contexts of the Prague Enlightenment are examined, which offer an 'insider's' look at the activities of local patriots and their 'quest for improvement.'

Enlightenment; eastern Europe; Prague

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