Kundera's conceptualisation of lítost is an addendum to a long tradition of defining Czech identity through culture and language. Since the early nineteenth century, but with roots that go far further back, Czech nationhood has been conceived as a Kulturnation. Because it conceptually separates the nation and the state, this ethnocultural model allowed the Czech nation to exist as a cultural entity even before statehood was gained.¹ In the upheaval of the twentieth century, the model continued to be useful — Kundera could emphasise the strength of Czech cultural identity, as opposed to its flimsier political one, at any point from August 1968. And indeed he did: in the "Czech Destiny" polemic, the lítost of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and "The Tragedy of Central Europe" essay, amongst others. In the latter, for instance, he tells us that the nations of Central Europe "have used up their strength in the struggle to survive and to preserve their languages".² Above all else, language is the key to national survival.