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[citation needed]. 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[citation needed], 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.[1] 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 However the term is becoming increasingly outdated.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.

Contents

[edit] Definitions

Eastern Europe as defined by the United Nations' Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use (marked red):      Northern Europe      Western Europe      Eastern Europe      Southern Europe
According to the members of The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names[2]:      Eastern Europe, Northern and Central Asia Division      East Central and South-East Europe Division
CIA World Factbook classification:      Eastern Europe      Southeastern Europe      Transcontinental
Pre-1989 division between the "West" (grey) and "Eastern Bloc" (orange) superimposed on current borders: Russia (dark orange), other countries formerly part of the USSR (medium orange),members of the Warsaw pact (light orange), and other former Communist regimes not aligned with Moscow (lightest orange).

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 [3]. 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.

[edit] UN

The United Nations Statistics Division considers Eastern Europe to consist of the following ten countries[4][5]: 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[6]. 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[7]. 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.

Other agencies of the United Nations (like UNAIDS[10], UNHCR[11], ILO[12] or UNICEF[13]) divide Europe into different regions and variously assign various states to those regions.

[edit] CIA

The CIA World Factbook[14] describes the following countries as located in:

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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)

[edit] Contemporary developments

The fall of the Iron Curtain brought the end of the East-West division in Europe.[16] Even if this geopolitical concept is still in use,[17] reference to European geographic and cultural regions is becoming acknowledged.[18]

[edit] The Baltic states

Main article: 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).[19][20]

[edit] Other former Soviet states

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

[edit] Central Europe

Main article: 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).[19][20][21]

[edit] Southeastern Europe

Main articles: Balkans and Southern 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.[22] However, most can be characterized as belonging to Southeastern Europe, but some of them may also be included in Central Europe or Eastern Europe[23].

  •  Albania belongs to Southeastern Europe.
  •  Bosnia and Herzegovina belongs to Southeastern Europe.
  •  Bulgaria can be included in Eastern Europe in the Cold War context, but is commonly known to belong to Southeastern Europe.
  •  Croatia may be included in Southeastern Europe and Central Europe.
  •  Greece may be included in Southeastern[24] and Southern Europe, but the country does not form part of Eastern Europe in the geopolitical sense nor in the colloquial sense.
  •  Republic of Macedonia belongs to Southeastern Europe.
  •  Kosovo belongs to Southeastern Europe.
  •  Montenegro belongs to Southeastern Europe.
  •  Romania can be included in Eastern Europe in the Cold War context, but is commonly referred to as belonging to Southeastern Europe[25][26]or Central Europe[27].
  •  Serbia may be included in Southeastern Europe and Central Europe.
  •  Slovenia is commonly referred to as Central European[28], but may less commonly be referred to as Southeastern European because of its status within the former Yugoslavia.
  •  Turkey may be included into Southeastern Europe, Southern Europe, or Western Asia.

[edit] Classical antiquity and medieval origins

Europe divided by religion.

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).

[edit] The Cold War divides Europe into the Eastern and Western bloc

     Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language      Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language      Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language
The political borders of Eastern Europe were largely defined by the Cold War. The Iron Curtain separated the members of the Warsaw Pact (in red) from the European members of NATO (in blue). Dark gray indicates members of the Non-Aligned Movement and light gray indicates other neutral countries.
Following disappearance of the Iron Curtain, the political situation has changed and some of the former members of the Warsaw Pact joined NATO.
     Current members     Acceding members     Promised invitation      Intensified Dialogue     Membership not goal     Undeclared intent

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; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow. ”

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.

[edit] 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.

  • 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References and notes

  1. ^ Q&A: US missile defence BBC
  2. ^ United Nations Statistics Division - Geographical Names and Information Systems
  3. ^ Drake, Miriam A. (2005) Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, CRC Press
  4. ^ United Nations Statistics Division- Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications (M49)
  5. ^ World Population Prospects Population Database
  6. ^ United Nations Statistics Division- Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications (M49)
  7. ^ United Nations Statistics Division - Geographical Names and Information Systems
  8. ^ a b c d United Nations Statistics Division - Geographical Names and Information Systems
  9. ^ including Canada
  10. ^ http://www.unaids.org/en/CountryResponses/Regions/NAmerica_WCEurope.asp
  11. ^ http://www.unhcr.org/country/all.html
  12. ^ http://www.ilo.org/global/Regions/Europe/lang--en/index.htm
  13. ^ http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/ceecis.html
  14. ^ The CIA World Factbook
  15. ^ In the geography section Estonia is described as located in Eastern Europe, but in the economy section as Central European
  16. ^ V. Martynov, The End of East-West Division But Not the End of History, UN Chronicle, 2000 (available online
  17. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6957171.stm
  18. ^ The European Travel Commission - association of National Tourism Organisations, Regions of Europe
  19. ^ a b Wallace, W. The Transformation of Western Europe London, Pinter, 1990
  20. ^ a b Huntington, Samuel The Clash of Civilizations" Simon & Shuster 1996
  21. ^ Johnson, Lonnie Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbours, Friends Oxford University Press, USA, 2001
  22. ^ http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm#europe
  23. ^ Bideleux and Jeffries (1998) A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change
  24. ^ Greek Ministry of Tourism Travel Guide, General Information
  25. ^ CIA World Factbook
  26. ^ Energy Statistics for the U.S. Government
  27. ^ NATO 2004 information on the invited countries
  28. ^ The European Travel Commission, association of National Tourism Organisations, Central Europe
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