Abstract
Central Europe sounds full of promise. The term suggests cultural diversity and political unity.
In fact, it is just the opposite. The political concepts of Central Europe that have been developed since the 19th century were supposed to serve all national ends.
This was never realised even in times of crisis. By contrast, the idea that Central Europe formed a single culture separate from that of Eastern Europe developed into a dangerously explosive force for the Soviet system in the 1980s.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, the Visegrad group has suffered from a lack of cohesion, for regional cooperation cannot be convincingly placed in the trajectory of tradition in any of the four states, leaving regional cooperation lacking historical legitimacy.