East Central European Perceptions of Early America [antikvár]

PREFACE This small volume is one of Brooklyn College's contributions to the celebration of our nation's bicentennial. It deals with the question of how America has been understood by Austrians, Czechs, Hungarians, Poles - peoples of East Central Europe - and their rulers. We hope that it will help to explain why, of the 27 million European immigrants who entered the United States between 1880 and 1930, most came from that area. The findings of the authors indicate that the image of America has been extremely attractive to many statesmen, intellectuals, and ordinary people of East Central Europe. Not unexpectedly, many were fascinated by the American way of life and impressed by the potential or actual riches of the land. However, what struck them the most, was the way in which the ideals of the freedom, dignity, and equality of men were integrated into American life. In a very real sense, we are also saying something about why the residents of the Greater New York area, our borough included, now reside here, since so many of their forebears who arrived on these shores came from East Central Europe and were drawn by the visions which are described here. The contributors approach their subjects from several academic points of view: history, political science, and comparative literature. They are George Barany, Denver; Paula S. Fichtner and Béla K. Király, Brooklyn; Eugene Kusielewicz, St. John's ; Alfred A. Reisch, Library of Congress; Joseph Rothschild, Columbia; Irene M. Sokol, Fairleigh Dickinson; and Frantisek Svejkovsky, formerly of the University of Prague, now of the University of Chicago. Part of the book contains the proceedings of a panel discussion co-sponsored by the Mid-Atlantic Slavic Conference, an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, and the East European Section of the Center for European Studies at the Graduate School and University Center, CUNY. Other portions developed within the framework of advanced classroom research and discussions at Brooklyn College. Thus the volume is closely tied to academic activities at our college and university. As in the case of previous volumes in this series, it is a pleasure to express our appreciation to the Graduate School and University Cen-