The article analyses several of Hesse's essays, with an emphasis on the 1920 essay On Reading Books, from the perspective of modern literary studies, psychology, and neuroscience. In the essay, Hesse made his classification of literary readers and anticipated the emergence of the "reader who no longer reads" as a kind of the enlightened reader, a human being who, thanks to his/her deep and dedicated understanding of emotions in literature, has the meaning of his/her life at his/her fingertips, who understands what he/she thinks and especially what he/she feels. Thus, it is the reader who really understands his/her emotions. However, nowadays, in the age of digital media, a new version of the "reader who does not read" is emerging. Such a reader is an arrogant and superficial modern reader who believes he/she knows everything only because he/she can easily reach information he/she does not even really try to understand, and who hardly thinks about emotions in literature. Therefore, the second part of the article relies on two more of Hesse's essays on reading literature, one of which anticipates the influence of multimedia on reading, and tries to explain the emergence of the modern "reader who does not read". More specifically, the article here considers the ways how literature can foster emotions and experience in the age of digital multimedia. Namely, if we want to feel and experience while reading literature, we need to develop both the cognitive and the emotional apparatus willing and able to understand what is read, but the modern media seem to stand in the way. It is good to point out the problem, but it is even better to offer the possibility of problem-solving; thus, the third part of the article addresses new/old knowledge about the effects of reading aloud on the development of our emotional and cognitive abilities. Of course, the methods of reading aloud in the multimedia context already exist, and they are successful, so the article also presents a study on stimulating emotions and empathy by the method of reading aloud.

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Croatian national identity and the European Union The permanent anthropological determinant of men which provides them with a feeling of social security is the feeling of belonging to a larger group of people. Various forms of such affiliations existed in the past. They represent older types of collective relationships, such as tribes, the Greek poleis, medieval kingdoms and the like. All of them exhibit the fundamental features of the “structure” of identity. Nowadays, Croatia being at the doorstep of the Euro­pean Union, the issue of national identity becomes a matter of its internal structure that re­sists integration, yet seeking to become a part of the “European identity structure”. Croatia’s scepticism towards the EU stems from the questions of whether the European identity exists and which possibilities for preserving all the structural elements of Croatian national identity, including language as the main aspect, exist within the European Union. The territory, lan­guage and customs acquire defensive features that are becoming increasingly disintegrating and decreasingly integrating in the multi-ethnic Europe. Chorwacka tożsamość narodowa i Unia Europejska Trwałą determinantą antropologiczną człowieka, dającą mu poczucie bezpieczeństwa spo­łecznego, jest świadomość przynależności do większej grupy. Niegdyś istniały różne formy takiej przynależności, a mianowicie starsze typy związków społecznych, jak plemiona, greckie polis, średniowieczne królestwa itd. Współcześnie te formy przynależności zbiorowej są związane ze strukturą narodową, z państwem-narodem lub też ze strukturą ponadnarodową, jaką jest Unia Europejska. W każdej z nich można znaleźć podstawowe cechy strukturalne w postaci tożsamości narodowej lub ponadnarodowej. Obecnie, kiedy Chorwacja oczekuje na przyjęcie do Unii Euro­pejskiej, kwestia tożsamości narodowej staje się sprawą jej wewnętrznej struktury, która stawia opór integracji, ale jednocześnie chce być częścią ponadnarodowej „tożsamości europejskiej”. Sceptycyzm Chorwacji wobec UE wynika ze stawianych pytań: czy istnieje tożsamość europej­ska i jakie są możliwości zachowania wszystkich elementów chorwackiej konstrukcji tożsamości narodowej z językiem jako jej głównym komponentem w obrębie Unii Europejskiej? Terytorium, język i zwyczaje zyskują bowiem cechy defensywne, stając się w wieloetnicznej Europie czynni­kiem coraz bardziej dezintegrującym, a nie służącym integracji.