ABSTRACT
The concept of liberalism has been always a strange, although dominant, ideology in Central Europe. Looking at the history of political ideas in the Czech lands, Hungary, Poland, or Slovakia, one can trace back elements of liberal thinking even before the period of Revolution 1848/1849, and when taking into account thinkers in exile as well, one can say that liberalism has not disappeared ever since. On the other hand, the general reflection of the concept by the political mainstream has always been based on a combination of interest and reservations, or perhaps even suspicion. Liberalism was always more widespread among the intellectuals than by politicians, and it achieved more as a concept of society than as a clear political ideology. To put it in another way, liberal rhetoric was not always followed by liberal politics and vice versa (Cabada, Hloušek and Jurek 2014: 19). There are many achievements of liberalism rooted deep in Central European societies, but as a political ideology, liberalism always depended on alliances with other approaches (nationalism till the First World War and conservatism in the period of democratic transition of the early 1990s) as their minor political partner. This statement applies even more when one looks at relative weakness and instability of liberal political parties. This will be demonstrated on the Czech example.
