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Eastern Europe
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Eastern Europe is a term that applies to the geopolitical region encompassing the easternmost part of the European continent. Throughout history and to a lesser extent today, parts of Eastern Europe has been distinguishable from Western Europe and other regions due to cultural, religious, economic, and historical reasons, even though there is huge disparity in this assertion. Although the term Eastern Europe was largely defined during the Cold War, it still remains much in use.
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Eastern Europe is a term that applies to the geopolitical region encompassing the easternmost part of the European continent. Throughout history and to a lesser extent today, parts of Eastern Europe has been distinguishable from Western Europe and other regions due to cultural, religious, economic, and historical reasons, even though there is huge disparity in this assertion. Although the term Eastern Europe was largely defined during the Cold War, it still remains much in use. The term is commonly used in the media and in "eastern" and other regions of Europe. However the term is becoming increasingly outdated. Many of the countries it refers to such as Poland and Hungary have been and are culturally very much central European, with the blip of the Cold War creating a division.
Definitions
Several definitions of Eastern Europe exist today, but they often lack precision or are extremely general. Definitions vary both across cultures and among experts and political scientists, recently becoming more and more imprecise . Usually, the term is understood as a region lying between Central Europe and the Ural mountains, or as European countries of the former "Eastern Bloc" - western borders of Western Europe depend on the approach.
UN
The United Nations Statistics Division considers Eastern Europe to consist of the following ten countries: Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine. The assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories by the United Nations. Rather than being geographically correct, United Nations' definition encompasses all the states which were once under the Soviet Union's realm of influence and were part of the Warsaw Pact.
The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) was set up to consider the technical problems of domestic standardization of geographical names. The Group is composed of experts from various linguistic/geographical divisions that have been established at the UN Conferences on the Standardization of Geographical Names.
- Eastern Europe, Northern and Central Asia Division: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Russian Federation, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Uzbekistan.
- East Central and South-East Europe Division:Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine.
- Romano-Hellenic Division: Fourteen countries including Belgium, Cyprus, France, Greece, Holy See, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Romania, Moldova and Turkey.
- Baltic Division: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
Other agencies of the United Nations (like UNAIDS, UNHCR, ILO or UNICEF) divide Europe into different regions and variously assign various states to those regions.
CIA
The CIA World Factbook describes the following countries as located in:
- Central Europe: Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia
- Eastern Europe: Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine
- Southeastern Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey
- Russia is defined as a transcontinental country.
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 or control. These countries had communist regimes imposed upon them, 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. 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. Even if this geopolitical concept is still in use, reference to European geographic and cultural regions is becoming acknowledged.
The Baltic states
The Baltic states were Soviet republics and currently EU members. They can be included in definitions of both Eastern Europe (in the former political sense, due to their communist past) and Northern Europe (due to cultural reasons).
Other former Soviet states
Four other former Soviet republics are considered to be part of Eastern Europe in both political and cultural sense.
Central Europe
Some Central European states were communist during the Cold War and are currently EU members. They can be included in definitions of both Eastern Europe (in the former political sense, due to their communist past) and Central Europe (due to economic, historical, religious, and cultural reasons).
(reunified, now Germany)
Southeastern Europe
Most Southeastern 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. However, most can be characterized as belonging to Southeastern Europe, but some of them may also be included in Central Europe or Eastern Europe.
belongs to Southeastern Europe.
belongs to Southeastern Europe.
can be included in Eastern Europe in the Cold War context, but is commonly known to belong to Southeastern Europe.
may be included in Southeastern Europe and Central Europe.
- may be included into Southeastern Europe, Southern Europe, or Western Asia.
may be included in Southeastern and Southern Europe, but the country does not form part of Eastern Europe in the geopolitical sense nor in the colloquial sense.
belongs to Southeastern Europe.
belongs to Southeastern Europe.
belongs to Southeastern Europe.
can be included in Eastern Europe in the Cold War context, but is commonly referred to as belonging to Southeastern Europeor Central Europe.
may be included in Southeastern Europe and Central Europe.
is commonly referred to as Central European, but may less commonly be referred to as Southeastern European because of its status within the former Yugoslavia.
- may be included into Southeastern Europe, Southern Europe, or Western Asia.
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.
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 Cyrillic alphabet is used (Greece, Cyprus, Serbia, 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:
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, widely 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. In some matters they were little more than client-states of the Soviet Union.
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 Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (short: Comecon). 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.
- First and foremost was the Soviet Union (which by itself included Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, etc). Other countries dominated by the Soviet Union were the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia (which later separated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia), Hungary, and Bulgaria.
- The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (formed after WWII and before its later dismemberment) was not a member of the Warsaw Pact. It was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement, an organization created in an attempt to avoid being assigned to any of the two blocs. The movement was demonstratively independent from both the Soviet Union and the Western bloc for most of the Cold War period, allowing Yugoslavia and its other members to act as a business and political mediator between the blocs.
- Albania broke with the Soviet Union in the early 1960s as a result of the Sino-Soviet split, aligning itself instead with China. Albania formally left the Warsaw pact in September 1968, after the suppression of the Prague spring. When China established diplomatic relations with the United States in 1978, Albania also broke with China. Albania and especially Yugoslavia were not unanimously appended to the Eastern Bloc, as they were neutral for a large part of the Cold War period.
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: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY)
and the Republic of Macedonia (see Breakup of Yugoslavia). FRY was later renamed to Serbia and Montenegro and, in 2006, it broke up into these two countries. Kosovo separated from Serbia in 2008.
Many countries of this region joined the European Union, namely the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania. Three other states, Croatia, Macedonia, and Turkey are all currently negotiating membership in the EU. As of January 2009 the Czech Republic holds the EU presidency.
See also
External links
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