Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region".[1] A related United Nations paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct".[2]

One definition describes Eastern Europe as a cultural (and econo-cultural) entity: the region lying between Central Europe and Western Asia, with main characteristics consisting in Byzantine, Orthodox and minor and limited Ottoman influences.[2][3] Some of the Western advocates of this view are the OECD, the World Bank, and US Vice President Joe Biden.[4][5]

Another definition, considered outdated by an increasing number of authors,[6][7][8][9][10] was created during the Cold War and used more or less synonymously with the term Eastern Bloc. A similar definition names the formerly communist European states outside the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe.[3] These are also described as the constituents of Central and Eastern Europe.

Eastern Europe, home of the bulk of world Jewry until the 1940's,[11] is the birthplace of Hasidic Judaism, Litvak Judaism and several Orthodox churches.

Contents

Definitions

Several definitions of Eastern Europe exist today, but they often lack precision or are extremely general. These definitions vary both across cultures and among experts, even political scientists, recently becoming more and more imprecise.[12]

UN

  1. Eastern Europe, Northern and Central Asia Division[16]: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Russian Federation, and Ukraine
  2. East Central and South-East Europe Division[16]:Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine
  3. Romano-Hellenic Division[16]: Fourteen countries[17] including Belgium, Cyprus, France, Greece, Holy See, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Romania and Moldova
  4. Baltic Division[16]: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania

European Union

The Multilingual Thesaurus of the European Union[22] defines the following countries geographically located in:

CIA

The CIA World Factbook[23] describes the following countries as geographically located in:

Geographical

The Ural Mountains are the geographical border on the eastern edge of Europe. In the west, however, the cultural and religious boundaries are subject to considerable overlap and, most importantly, have undergone historical fluctuations, which make a precise definition of the western boundaries of Eastern Europe somewhat difficult.

Political and cultural

One view of the present boundaries of Eastern Europe came into being during the final stages of World War II. The area eventually came to encompass all the European countries which were under Soviet influence. These countries had communist governments, and neutral countries were classified by the nature of their political regimes. The Cold War increased the number of reasons for the division of Europe into two parts along the borders of NATO and Warsaw Pact states. (See: The Cold War section)

A competing view excludes from the definition of Eastern Europe states that are historically and culturally different, constituting part of the so-called Western world. This usually refers to Central Europe and the Baltic states which have significantly different political, religious, cultural, and economic histories from their eastern neighbors. (See: Classical antiquity and medieval origins section)

Contemporary developments

The fall of the Iron Curtain brought the end of the East-West division in Europe,[25] but this geopolitical concept is sometimes still used for quick reference by the media.[26]

The Baltic states

Main article: Baltic states

The Baltic states were occupied by the Soviet Union and are currently EU members. They can be included in definitions of Eastern Europe in the former political sense, due to their Soviet past (which lasted only about half a century) and Northern Europe due to geographic, cultural, historical reasons.[27][28]

Transcaucasia

To the degree that the countries of the Caucasus region are considered European, they would all be Eastern European in the physical geographic, political and cultural sense. These countries participate in European Union's Eastern Partnership Program. These countries are members of Council of Europe.

Other former Soviet states

Several other former Soviet republics are considered to be part of Eastern Europe in both a political and a cultural sense.

Central Europe

Main article: Central Europe

Most Central European states had communist governments implemented during the Cold War but are currently EU members. In the post-Iron Curtain era, the label Eastern European is regarded as derogatory in a Central European context, especially since the enlightened concept of Central Europe survived the "Great Russian Chauvinism," and ethnocentric, political oppression that lasted since the end of World War II. In the words of historian Timothy Garton Ash, "Central Europe had triumphed" in 1989, and continues to solidify its presence on the geopolitical map of the world, as evidenced by the Visegrad 4 Group (V4). "Capitalism against Communism can no longer be used to clarify difference; instead vague and imprecise definitions exist. These too, are slowly being eroded as Eastern and Western Europe merge into a single 'Europe'".[30] The following countries are still being labeled Eastern European by some commentators (in the former geopolitical sense, due to their Communist past) and as Central European by others (in the sense of occupying a niche between Western and Eastern Europe in terms of economy, history, religion, and culture).[27][28][31]

Southeastern Europe

Main articles: Southeast Europe, Balkans, and Southern Europe

Most South-eastern European states did not belong to the Eastern Bloc (save Bulgaria, Romania, and for a short time, Albania) although some of them were represented in the Cominform. Only some of them can be included in the classical former political definition of Eastern Europe. Due to cultural diversity of the region, affiliation of individual countries may be difficult. All of these states except Bulgaria, Romania and usually Slovenia can be considered as being in Southern Europe.[13] However, most can be characterized as belonging to South-eastern Europe, but some of them may also be included in Central Europe or Eastern Europe.[33]

History

Classical antiquity and medieval origins

The earliest known distinctions between east and west in Europe originate in the history of the Roman Republic. As the Roman domain expanded, a cultural and linguistic division appeared between the mainly Greek-speaking eastern provinces which had formed the highly urbanized Hellenistic civilization. In contrast the western territories largely adopted the Latin language. This cultural and linguistic division was eventually reinforced by the later political east-west division of the Roman Empire.

The division between these two spheres was enhanced during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages by a number of events. The Western Roman Empire collapsed starting the Early Middle Ages. By contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire, mostly known as the Byzantine Empire, managed to survive and even to thrive for another 1,000 years. The rise of the Frankish Empire in the west, and in particular the Great Schism that formally divided Eastern and Western Christianity, enhanced the cultural and religious distinctiveness between Eastern and Western Europe. Much of the Eastern Europe was invaded and occupied by the Mongols.

The conquest of the Byzantine Empire, center of the Eastern Orthodox Church, by the Muslim Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, and the gradual fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire (which had replaced the Frankish empire) led to a change of the importance of Roman Catholic/Protestant vs. Eastern Orthodox concept in Europe, although even modern authors sometimes state that Eastern Europe is, strictly speaking, that part of Europe where the Greek and/or the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet is used (Greece, Cyprus, Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia).

The Cold war divides Europe into the Eastern and Western bloc

During the final stages of WWII the future of Europe was decided between the Allies at the 1945 Yalta Conference, between the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill, the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin.

Post-war Europe would be mostly polarized between two major spheres: the mainly capitalist Western Bloc, and the mainly communist Eastern Bloc. With the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain.

This term had been used during World War II by German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and later Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk in the last days of the war; however, its use was hugely popularised by Winston Churchill, who used it in his famous "Sinews of Peace" address March 5, 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri:

“ From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia. ”

As the Cold War continued the use of the term Central Europe declined. Although some countries were officially neutral, they were classified according to the nature of their political and economical systems. This division largely defined the popular perception and understanding of Eastern Europe and its borders with Western Europe till this day, along with the increasing polarization of the West-East relationship.

Eastern Bloc

Eastern Europe was mainly composed of all the European countries liberated and then occupied by the Soviet army. It included the German Democratic Republic (also known as East Germany), formed by the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. All the countries in Eastern Europe adopted communist modes of government. These countries were officially independent from the Soviet Union, but the practical extent of this independence - except in Yugoslavia, Albania, and to some extent Romania - was quite limited.

Under pressure from Stalin these nations rejected to receive funds from the Marshall plan. Instead they participated in the Molotov Plan which later evolved into the Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance). As NATO was created, most countries of Eastern Europe, became members of the opposing Warsaw Pact, forming a geopolitical concept that became known as Eastern Bloc.

Since 1989

With the Fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 the political landscape of the Eastern Bloc, and indeed of the world, changed. In the German reunification, the Federal Republic of Germany peacefully absorbed the German Democratic Republic in 1990. COMECON and the Warsaw Pact were dissolved, and in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

Many European nations which had been part of the Soviet Union regained their independence (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus).

Czechoslovakia peacefully separated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) fell apart, creating new nations in 1992: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and Macedonia (see Breakup of Yugoslavia). FRY was later renamed to Serbia and Montenegro and, in 2006, it broke up into these two countries.

Many countries of this region joined the European Union, namely Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Three other states, Croatia, Macedonia and Montenegro are currently negotiating membership in the EU.

See also

Geography portal
Europe portal

Notes

  1. ^ "The Balkans", Global Perspectives: A Remote Sensing and World Issues Site. Wheeling Jesuit University/Center for Educational Technologies, 1999-2002.
  2. ^ a b A Subdivision of Europe into Larger Regions by Cultural Criteria prepared by Peter Jordan, the framework of the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names (StAGN), Vienna, Austria, 2006
  3. ^ a b Ramet, Sabrina P. (1998), Eastern Europe: politics, culture, and society since 1939, Indiana University Press, p. 15, http://books.google.com/books?id=eWmDAd6vr5sC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=eastern+europe+definition&source=bl&ots=tYi5LhsIpz&sig=rHczwXEiCcPkVGNMUokIYc-sMVE&hl=en&ei=q5CPSt_0C4GN_AaSlK2vAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#v=onepage&q=eastern%20europe%20definition&f=false, retrieved 2011-10-05 
  4. ^ Biden, Joe (2009-10-22). ""The time for Central Europe has come"". Remarks by Vice President Biden on America, Central Europe, and a Partnership for the 21st Century. http://www.pims.org/news/2009/10/28/the-time-for-central-europe-has-come. Retrieved 2011-10-07. "In Eastern Europe, countries still struggle to fulfill the promise of a strong democracy, or a vibrant market economy. Who to look to better than you? Who to look to better than Central European countries that 20 years ago acted with such courage and resolve, and over the last 20 years, have made such sustainable progress?" 
  5. ^ "Intergovernmental agencies like the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) or the World Bank therefore distinguish in practice between 'Central Europe'—Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia—and 'Eastern Europe'. There seems to be a historical constant here: these Central European states are behind the West but still ahead of the East and of the Southeast." Lonnie Johnson: Central Europe: Enemies, neighbors, friends, Oxford University Press US, 1996; pp.11-12. http://books.google.com/books?id=e_m13Hk3AFEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false
  6. ^ "The geopolitical conditions (...) are now a thing of the past, and some specialists today think that Eastern Europe has outlived its usefulness as a phrase." Regions, Regionalism, Eastern Europe by Steven Cassedy, New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2005, http://science.jrank.org/pages/11016/Regions-Regionalism-Eastern-Europe-Future-Eastern-Europe.html, retrieved 2010-01-31 
  7. ^ The Economist: Eastern Europe a bogus term - South Eastern Europe - The Sofia Echo
  8. ^ "One very common, but now outdated, definition of Eastern Europe was the Soviet-dominated communist countries of Europe."http://www.cotf.edu/earthinfo/balkans/BKdef.html
  9. ^ "Too much writing on the region has - consciously or unconsciously - clung to an outdated image of 'Eastern Europe', desperately trying to patch together political and social developments from Budapest to Bukhara or Tallinn to Tashkent without acknowledging that this Cold War frame of reference is coming apart at the seams. Central Europe Review: Re-Viewing Central Europe By Sean Hanley, Kazi Stastna and Andrew Stroehlein, 1999
  10. ^ Berglund, Sten; Ekman, Joakim; Aarebrot, Frank H. (2004), The handbook of political change in Eastern Europe, Edward Elgar Publishing [via Google Books], p. 2, http://books.google.com/books?id=HeRzzwzdfPkC&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=Eastern+Europe+term+outdated&source=bl&ots=LSLHG97Qxj&sig=6WDECgIXGRj7hrP6RNTBMqCvMHE&hl=en&ei=63n9StCdDNjD_gbp0vSMCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBgQ6AEwBDgU#v=onepage&q=Eastern%20Europe%20term%20outdated&f=false, retrieved 2011-10-05, "The term 'Eastern Europe' is ambiguous and in many ways outdated." 
  11. ^ Area Handbook of the US Library of Congress: History of Israel http://motherearthtravel.com/history/israel/history-2.htm
  12. ^ Drake, Miriam A. (2005) Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, CRC Press
  13. ^ a b United Nations Statistics Division- Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications (M49)
  14. ^ World Population Prospects Population Database
  15. ^ United Nations Statistics Division- Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications (M49)
  16. ^ a b c d United Nations Statistics Division - Geographical Names and Information Systems
  17. ^ including Canada
  18. ^ Other regions
  19. ^ http://www.unhcr.org/country/all.html
  20. ^ Europe and Central Asia
  21. ^ UNICEF - Information by country - CEE/CIS and Baltic States
  22. ^ EuroVoc
  23. ^ The CIA World Factbook
  24. ^ In the geography section Estonia is described as located in Eastern Europe, but in the economy section as Central European
  25. ^ V. Martynov, The End of East-West Division But Not the End of History, UN Chronicle, 2000 (available online
  26. ^ BBC NEWS | UK | Migrant workers: What we know
  27. ^ a b Wallace, W. The Transformation of Western Europe London, Pinter, 1990
  28. ^ a b Huntington, Samuel The Clash of Civilizations" Simon & Shuster 1996
  29. ^ "Kazakhstan", Climate Investment Funds
  30. ^ Central Europe Review - Europe: What are East and West?
  31. ^ Johnson, Lonnie Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbours, Friends Oxford University Press, USA, 2001
  32. ^ The European Travel Commission, association of National Tourism Organisations, Central Europe
  33. ^ Bideleux and Jeffries (1998) A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change
  34. ^ Greek Ministry of Tourism Travel Guide, General Information
  35. ^ Energy Statistics for the U.S. Government
  36. ^ NATO 2004 information on the invited countries

Further reading

External links

Culture
Demographics
Economy
Geography
History
Politics
European Union
Other
Portal
Regions of the World
Related Continents of the world · List of seas · Physical Earth