In 1968, Czechoslovakia underwent a few months of relative freedom and rebellious cultural flowering, known as the Prague Spring. This hopeful period was brought to an end by a Soviet invasion.

Between Rome and Byzantium

A 40-year-old Milan Kundera essay holds the key to understanding the war in Ukraine

By Paul Berman

HarperCollins has had the inspired idea just now of reprinting in book form a 40-year-old essay by Milan Kundera, which turns out to be the golden key to unlocking the meaning of the Russo-Ukrainian War of our own moment, or so it seems to me.

Kundera, who had by that point in his life abandoned his home in Communist Czechoslovakia for a better existence in France, called his essay “The Tragedy of Central Europe,” and published it in the distinguished Paris journal, now lamentably defunct, Le Débat.