Anti-modernism

The last volume of the series presents 46 texts under the heading of “anti-modernism”. Formed in a dynamic relationship with modernism, from the 1880s to the 1940s, and especially during the interwar period, the anti-modernist ideological constructions of national identification had a considerable impact on the political culture of our region.

These texts rejected the linear vision of modernization as well as the liberal democratic institutional frameworks and searched instead for alternative models of politics. The Second World War and the communist takeover in most of these countries seemingly erased these ideological subcultures, who were often engaged in war-time pro-Nazi collaboration. However, their intellectual heritage proved more resilient and influenced the formation of “national communist” narratives in the 1960–70s, while after 1989 many of these references became actualized in the context of the post-communist search for ideological predecessors.