Abstract
<jats:p>The title “figures of change” are images that appear widely in literature and culture of Modernism in its broad sense and are closely related to the experience of Central and Eastern Europe. They are also a kind of insight into the space and structure of the cultural imaginarium developing dynamically under the influence of changes brought by modernity. The authors direct their attention particularly on literary ideas characterized by clarity and some durability that are strongly connected to the space of Central and Eastern Europe during the period of modernization changes in 1864–1939. It is an attempt to reconstruct the repertoire of common and important ideas for this area (about characters, narratives, events, etc., fictional and factual) and the meanings associated with these manifestations.</jats:p>