Art Education in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

In political terms, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine belong to Eastern Europe, according to the classification of the United Nations. Cultural and historical connections in the region, however, necessitate the inclusion of centrally located Austria, a historic superpower and cultural organizer of the area in any educational analysis. The concept of Eastern Europe, or rather Central and Eastern Europe, originates from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy (or, in many English-language sources, the Austro-Hungarian empire), geographically the second largest country in Europe after the Russian empire, which existed from 1867 to 1918, when it was dissolved into the Hungarian Kingdom, the Austrian Republic, the Czechoslovak Republic, the Republic of Poland, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Art education, as we understand the concept today, was initiated in Central and Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth century, mainly under the influence of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations at the Crystal Palace in London in 1851, when arts and crafts were first presented as major national achievements equal to science and technology. A central curriculum for drawing (German Zeichenunterricht),