In Eastern Europe it is unusual to write a new theory – the exceptions are indeed exceptional. Considering the alternative versions of modernities, Romanticisms or Reformations, it seems that we can at last set aside the compulsory model of the West-East transfer of knowledge, in order to reveal particular aspects of the Central-East European cultures or different ways the local

Abstract

In Eastern Europe it is unusual to write a new theory – the exceptions are indeed exceptional. Considering the alternative versions of modernities, Romanticisms or Reformations, it seems that we can at last set aside the compulsory model of the West-East transfer of knowledge, in order to reveal particular aspects of the Central-East European cultures or different ways the local contexts transform adapted key concepts and theorems. Instead of their simple assimilation into the Western canonic patterns, there are two more directions which complement this tendency: on the one hand, we can investigate the local import of historical criticism dismantling the hegemony of theory, and on the other hand we can study the local embeddedness of circulating theoretical trends from before the new historical turn. However, this is again, as usually, the application of a recent – albeit elsewhere more advanced – Western methodology, this time that of comparative literary and cultural studies. Facing this situation, I will try to dislocate the theory of the contextualist approach through questioning its conception of time as canonized in fundamental terms like histor(icit)y.