동유럽, 발칸문학의 조류

East European and Balkan Litery trend

My purpose in this article is to survey some aspects of' East European literature'(with exception of the Soviet Union) since 1956. Even if it is debatable whether there has ever been such a thing as 'East European literature'. Whatever uses the·term 'East European' may have, it has been used only after the Second World War when Czechoslovakia, Hunary, Poland and Yugoslavia suddenly found themselves firmly implanted in Eastern Europe. It reffers to all this countries except the southern parts of Yugoslavia, which belong to the Balkan cultural area with Romania and Bulgaria. Northern parts of Yugoslavia belong to the Central Eropean cultural area along with Czechoslovakia, Hungary and poland. Their literature of the period shows strong tendency of western tradition, from which their old literature originated. Even under the influence of Soviet idealogy and in spite of their linguistic and other differences, there is one thing all East European literatures have in common: the strong wish to return into the mainstream of Modern European culture. After the political changes of these countries in 1989 they want to rehabilitate their literary tradition in western context: internationalism is the most important common denominator of contemporaty Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Polish, Serbian. Croatian, Romanian and Bulgarian writers.