Kundera article (cont.)

[colkitto@rogers.com]

One can go even further west.  In Wales many people point out that Wales
was the only part of the Roman Empire not to be overrun by barbarians, and
they view the Saxons to the East as examples of the said "barbarians."


Slavoj Zizek once noted that almost every country in Europe has
traditionally perceived itself as the outpost of the civilized "West"
bordering with oriental barbarians on the East. Indeed, to extend Zizek's
examples, in their own self-conception Great Britain is, of course, more
civilized than continental Europe, France has to defend European values
against barbarian oriental Germany, Slovenia is an outpost of the West
against the oriental orthodox Serbia, Germans, of course, regard countries
like Slovenia or Poland as essentially Eastern, Poland sees itself as the
desperate defender of civilization against the barbarian pressure of the
oriental Russian Empire, Ukraine is, as we know, part of Europe, unlike its
oriental neighbor on the East, and Russia more often than not perceived
itself as the essentially Western country protecting Europe from the attacks
of Mongolian hordes and exporting European civilization to Central Asia et
al. So, I believe Kundera's article is just another instance of the same
speculative way of thinking, made more urgent by the struggle of the new
members of the EU not to be regarded second-rate compared with the EU's
older members.

Andrey Shcherbenok
Columbia University

-----Original Message-----
From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
[mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU] On Behalf Of Peitlova Katarina
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 6:31 AM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Kundera article (cont.)

  Such people might start with Russian
> (as a language), and proceed to other Slavic languages, including Czech
> -- which would be made much more accessible by prior studies within
> the same language family (Slavic).

It's rather curious : if I want to study Japanese language  I should at 
first study Chines? I don't think that everybody should at first learn 
Russian language if he wants to know Czech,Slovak,Polish,Serb,Croat - and so

long - other Slavic languages.  There's really abyss between Russian and 
Czech. First and not least the alphabet / cyrillic against latin.  We should

finally recognize that nowadays  doesn't exist old  geopolitical "division" 
of  part of Europe to so called "EAST " and "WEST"  .I can't hear anymore 
how Italian TV news program continues  to call "paesi dell'est"  non 
distinguishing the existence of present  political changes  after 1989.
Division "EAST" and "WEST" was purely political  - it came in usage  after 
second WW 1945. Nobody called  Czechoslovakia  ,established in 1918, 
"EAST". It was and still is geografically the Central part of Europe . So 
STOP with this EAST! And I think that  even Kundera  is trying to  call 
attention  to this problem : that  Czechs   with their culture,literature 
and story don't make part of "oriental" Russia.

PhDr.Katarina Peitlova -Tocci
Italia 

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