Introduction: Rediscovering Early Phenomenology in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The main purpose of the contributions collected in the present volume is to explore the legacy of Edmund Husserl’s (1859–1938) idea of phenomenology, its redefinitions, developments, applications, and reevaluations in Central and Eastern Europe in the first decades of the twentieth century. As such, the volume examines and rediscovers the heritage of the phenomenological movement outside Germany, presenting the main figures, ideas, and problems connected to the reception of Husserl’s philosophy in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Yugoslavia before World War II. Thus, as far as history is concerned, this volume can be regarded as an attempt at retrieving early phenomenology in Central and Eastern Europe. This broad formulation of the purpose of the volume, however, requires a twofold clarification: How should we understand ‘early phenomenology’ here? And: Why is the heritage of the phenomenological movement in Central and Eastern Europe worth special attention?