Okouzleni neznámem - Cesty a cestování středovýchodní Evropou v proměnách času – Kouba Miroslav (2023)

The discovery of new places or returns to already known regions has long been one of the primary motivations for traveling and also for travel writing, although the definition of such literary forms can be quite variable. Many researchers regularly return to these questions to consider, from specific perspectives, the ways in which impressions from travels have been recorded and transmitted over time. The collective monograph with the poetic title 'Enchanted by the Unknown' addresses the indicated issues in the context of Central and Eastern Europe, whose vividness is determined, among other things, by the enduring aspects of symbolic geography. The individual chapters thus attempt to capture the breadth of motivations with which people from various social strata ventured on journeys in this defined space. However, the authors of the present publication also pay attention not only to who traveled and where from the Middle Ages to the present day. They also explore metaphorical ways of perceiving the cultural landscape, which can help in understanding the geoculturally and historically conditioned peculiarities of this part of Europe.