EARLY PHENOMENOLOGY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE. MAIN FIGURES, IDEAS, AND PROBLEMS

The collective volume Early Phenomenology in Central and Eastern Europe: Main Figures, Ideas, and Problems, edited by Witold Płotka and Patrick Eldridge, enriches the ongoing and highly topical re- search of the history of phenomenology with the thematization of a specific period and localization of phenomenology. The authors of eleven chapters explore the emergence of phenomenology in local traditions outside the Germanophone area, its appropriation and development, describing the unique forms it acquired in individual environments. The book clarifies the characteristics of the early wave of phenomenology and provides a list of Central and Eastern European phenomenologists who par- ticipated in it. On the one hand, the volume is a contribution to historiography, enriching the study of the history of phenomenology thematically and thus contributing to the development of phenom- enology itself; on the other hand, it introduces its own set of philosophical problems. These concern methodology and the issue of the Central and Eastern European identity, which is examined through the prism of the development of local traditions of phenomenology. When exploring the latter it is useful to introduce the concept of the marginocentric. This concept, which originated in comparative literature, facilitates an understanding of the unique cultural configuration of a concrete tradition in its communication with internal and external environments.