selected articles
NEW EUROPE
To the ‘New Europe’, to use a term coined by Thomas Masaryk, the emergence of state structures brought hitherto unknown opportunities of building modern identities in the states in the region. Modernisation involved both a creation of the foundations of independent political existence and economic reforms and cultural transformations. The expected progress of civilisation was not only to confirm the right of the new states to exist but also to occupy a prominent position in Europe. Any dialogue with Western countries was of considerable importance and, instead of mindlessly copying the patterns of modernity from them, there were endeavours to elaborate original concepts for reforms, based on both democratic nationalism and an attempt to reconcile modernity with the traditional values, which the different national cultures regarded as worth preserving.