The question of the place of the Central European region, its borders and historically determined characteristics has been widely discussed in recent decades both in the scientific literature and in journalism in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland other countries. Since the late 1980s, these discussions have been inseparable from understanding their own historical heritage and searching for a new identity in countries that, following the results of World War II, were assigned to the Soviet sphere of influence and passed through a strip of socialist experiments. Historians of Russia, Austria and Hungary, offering the reader a collection of articles focused on key points in the Central European history of modern and modern times, are trying to contribute to the study of the specifics of the region.