The below study refers to a topic which belongs to the history of ideas. The image of Europe is recomposed from a perspective of personal and collective experiences, recently opposed with the manner in which mythology and the literary texts, be they publicistical or ideological, had described this part of the world. The study operates a whole inventory of clichés and stereotypes which refer to “ an Europe of the spirit” formed by the reading of the great classics of the Western civilization, which after the breakdown of the Soviet Union were taken a totally false, especially at the first contact with the “true Europe”. The Eastern Europe appears as well charged with its specificality of prejudices, resentments, frustrations and traumatisms. The paper attempts to analyze these differences left over in the minds of the Europeans by the Iron Curtain.