Post-colonial gaze and self-colonialization: “Europe in miniature”

Abstract Attempts to define the cultural identity of the Central and Eastern European region have from time to time experimented with the vocabulary and arguments of the discourse of postcolonialism. As an example of this, the paper comments on some passages of Moritz Csáky’s book Das Gedächtnis Zentraleuropas. It then turns to the concept of “self-colonisation” that might cover a recurrent component of the self-descriptions of Central and Eastern European cultures. Finally, it gives a brief discussion of two short stories by Christoph Ransmayr and raises the question of “Europe” as a colonial metaphor in the regional literary discourse of the past few decades.