The study dealt with the problem of the other European identity as reflected in the English travel writing of the seventeenth century. The crucial question was if any coherent whole, in cultural terms, was distinguished on the mental map of the 17th century English traveller in the area of “Trans-Rhenic Europe”. The mental map was understood here as a sort of image which is not related to sensory experience. It is considered as Creative construction of unknown based on what was read, what was heard, and on past experience. The viewpoints defining units and drawing borders were of cultural character. Firstly, it was interested in traveller’s division of known and unknown Europe. Secondly, it was looking for the borders of learned part of Europe drawn on the traveller’s mental map. Thirdly, it was focused on characteristics of people given by travellers. Finally, the borders of “civilization” and “barbarism” on the mental map of a 17th century traveller were questioned.
In the past couple of decades the social sciences have paid much
attention to the topic of boundaries and boundary regions. The present article analyses the changes in the discursive assessment of the Czech-Saxon boundary after 1989. It focuses on the transformation of the national and transnational culture and politics of history related to boundaries, cross-border regions and
cross-border interactions. The interplay of the socio-political transition with its discursive implications and the application of new methods and concepts in social sciences (boundary and identity studies, spatial turn etc.) created conditions for a significant
modification of the approach to boundaries and boundary regions. Concentrating on the public and academic discourse, the article assesses the conceptualization and representation of the
Czech-Saxon boundary in political and public rhetoric, historiography and museology. and Článek zahrnuje poznámkový aparát pod čarou