A COMMENT ON TEODORA SHEK BRNARDIĆ'S ARTICLE

This comment expresses sympathy with the concern underlying Dr Shek Brnardić's paper, namely that East Central European history is in danger of homogenizing distortion in academic discourse emanating from the currently hegemonie West. It argues, however, that the remedy to this is not to be found in some ofthe postmodernist critiques deployed by Brnardić, which are themselves the product of that hegemony and help promote a homogenizing view of what Western scholars have actually said. The view that Western models played a part in the shaping of Enlightenment in Central and Eastem Europe is perfectly compatible with, indeed invites, the study of the wide variety of ways in which those influences were received and mediated, interacting with social, religious and historico- political legacies to produce the distinctive formations that Brnardić rightly stresses.