The Labyrinth of Central Europe and the World Paradise in Milan Kundera's Ignorance

Milan Kundera laid out his concept of Central Europe in "The Tragedy of Central Europe" (1984) with unprecedented force and conviction. His defense of the region's political identity and cultural uniqueness as well as its West European connectedness sparked heated polemics among leading intellectuals of the day. Kundera stood solidly at its very center, both as an intellectual and fictional writer. Retrospectively, this prominent role turned out to be short-lived. Central Europe, as a cultural and geographical concept, has all but disappeared from his work and, contrary to expectation, not because of the post-1989 realities but rather because of his artistic goals and ambitions, which have expanded well beyond the borders of Europe. Kundera's novel L'Ignorance (2000) attests to this re-evaluation. It offers a new perspective on the region, no longer privileging its central location but redefining its state of in-betweenness as that of geographic, cultural, and linguistic fluidity. To trace Kundera's development of his concept of Central Europe is to reimagine the once enclosed territory but also to reinvent the adventure that lies ahead of the European novel.