Why a volume on the states of emergency in the Visegrad Four countries from the vantage point of fundamental rights? The introductory chapter identifies the gap in existing scholarship on emergencies pertaining to Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, which are significant for the study of emergencies for a combination of historical and contextual factors. Moreover, it shows how the COVID-19 pandemic represented a critical juncture for the previously neglected study of emergencies in the region. The invasion of Ukraine by Putin's Russia further underscores the need to study emergencies and rights protection in these countries, most of which border Ukraine. The chapter presents the scope and design of the research project on which the volume is based and discusses the methodological choices made and their implications, with emphasis on comparability across the V4 countries. It then presents the three-part structure of the volume, with separate studies on Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. The introductory chapter concludes with an overview of the 13 subsequent chapters and with identifying the principal challenges and setting the direction for further research on emergencies, the law, and politics of the Visegrad countries, and fundamental rights protection