L'atzar de la lluita. El concepte d'Europa central al segle XX

2005, 272 pp.

Among the contents found throughout the 20th century, the term “Central Europe” appears. Along with it, there is a German imperial idea that was concluded in the Third Reich, and also a nostalgic view of an early 1914 Austria that emerged in the hardest times of the postwar period to expel the horror of the Second World War from the memory and to avoid historical responsibilities. During the Cold War period, this term ended up acquiring a nuance of a lost world in the past, as it was only allowed to think of Europe as a territory divided in only the East and the West. That is why it comes as no surprise that “Central Europe” became a motto that contributed in an essential way to the necessary processes which erased the Iron Curtain in 1989. Little by little, the invisible barrier in the middle of Europe disappeared, so the usage of the term “Central Europe” nowadays is free from controversy.  This book wants to help to erase the vestiges of the division of the continent in two opposite, antagonistic sides. It also has the intention to break the moulds that we are used to use to look at the recent past of Europe, based on a multidisciplinary reflection that includes the fields of history, the philosophy of history and literature.