There is a discussion since more than 200 years about the relation between society and state, the main cathegory of modern social and political systems, in terms of civil society. In socialist countries as well as in East European after 1989 emerged independent concepts in the dissident movements.
The monography illustrates using the Czech, Slovak and Polish examples the intellectual encounters with the concepts of citizen, state citizenship, human rights, civil society, community, work for the nation, non-political politics or common good.