Abstract
This paper builds on the rich body of literature dealing with the imagology of East and West within the European cultural and historical context. The idea of a "West vs. East" cultural and civilizational dichotomy substituted the previous "South vs. North" polarity during the period of Enlightenment and later took on a much more concrete political significance after World War Two. After 1989, it was widely presumed that the East (or at least its Western fringe) would follow the example of the West and would try to "catch up". The Cold War ideas of East and West, while still being very much embedded in peoples' minds and in public discourse, started to be redrawn. Central and Eastern Europe of the 1990s offers the perfect social context to explore this process of re-imagining.
The dismantling of the Iron Curtain opened up opportunities for travel and exchange of ideas to an extent which had not been possible for the previous 40 years. Based upon oral history interviews, this paper examines the images of East and West as expressed by Western expatriates who came to the Czech lands in 1990s to teach their native languages. It confronts their preconceptions with their actual post-arrival experience of what they had thought of as "the East". It also takes into consideration the ideas of "the West" held by the Czech society and the social role of the expatriates who were perceived as "bearers of the Western light". Finally, it compares these images and experiences with the tropes which have been repeatedly emerging in images of East and West over the last two centuries and reflects upon the extent to which they correspond or differ.