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Central Europe
Luka Ivan Jukic disentangles the enigma of Central Europe through its birth, death and rebirth. Today, Poland, Croatia and even Ukraine proudly align themselves with it, and so with Western civilization. But the term originally described an unrecognizably different world--one formed in the eighteenth century by the unique inheritance of the Habsburg dynasty across Germany and a sprawling Danubian realm; by the rise of standard High German; and by its intermediate position between an 'advanced West' and 'backwards East'.
Two devastating world wars shattered this extraordinary civilization, reducing it to a Cold War frontier. Its unexpected reincarnation in the 1980s, as an ideological antidote to the Soviet East, spawned myths and polemics, but little clarity. Yet 'Central Europe' seems to feature in every contemporary crisis, from Russian aggression to European disunity. Why is it still such a powerful political idea?
